Page 205 of The Demon Tide

More rustling sounds from behind me, and I turn just as a hard blow connects with my head. A shower of stars lights my vision before the world goes dark.

PART SEVEN

The Forest

TheDryad Prophecy

(Read directly from images and

emotion sent out by the trees)

An Icaral rises!

Fire! Smoke! Burning!

And the Black Witch returns!

FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!

A Shadow Branch of Ruination

Gray power seeping into the Forest

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CHAPTER ONE

DRYADIN

Elloren Vogel

The Forest

The first thing I become aware of is the rhythmic swinging motion of my netted body. Hard twine digs into the entire length of me. My hands are tightly bound behind my back, my legs lashed together, my broken ankle throbbing.

And Shadow ripples through me, steady as a tide.

It’s so much stronger now, its slithering grayness invading every line to the point that I can’t connect with a single wispy remnant of ungrayed power. My vision aglow with silver gray, I sink deeper and deeper into my corrupted state. I’ve the inescapable sense of Vogel lurking in my mind, his thoughts filled with images of his Shadow host winging toward me...

Black Witch.

The words knife into me from the Forest, and I open my eyes, roused from my stupor. I wince, my head throbbing where the blow that knocked me out connected.

My gaze darts around the nighttime scene, frantically searching for Ariel, my glowing vision allowing some gray sight into the dark. The shadowy forest passes by through the gaps in my net, the nearest trees illuminated by flickering light as I’m carried through the wilderness like a captured animal.

Carried by a group of green-glimmering Fae.

Soldiers, garbed in armor formed from leaves and bark, their verdant hue able to cut right through my Shadow-tinted vision.

Dryads.

The stunning revelation grips hold as I remember the pictures in Aislinn’s books at university—pen and ink depictions of the Forest Fae. Supposedly wiped out during the Realm War...

My heartbeat kicks up into a harder rhythm as I look at the huge young man carrying the front of my net, his armor formed from dark plates of bark. Branch antlers grow from his head, his long green hair tied up, his ears rising in sharp points. A green-glowing staff is strapped to his back and a massive black bear lumbers beside him.

A petite young woman walks on his other side, a flowering plant covering this soldier’s head where hair would usually be, blossoming vines encircling her slender arms. Her movements are graceful as a dancer and she holds a branch aloft, a puff of emerald light floating above it. A branch bow and a quiver are strapped to her back, and even in my wretched state, when she turns to glance at me with a look of wary concern, her fantastical beauty momentarily captivates me.

My demonic gaze is forced back to her branch bow, Vogel’s cruel attention tightening on it and my wand hand flexes of its own accord beneath my bindings.

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