Page 210 of The Demon Tide

And then, like the darkness surrounding me, I, too, fade to black.

CHAPTER FOUR

FORESTGUARDIAN

Elloren

Northern Forest

I awaken to a different darkness.

Filled with the sense of being cradled at the very center of the world, the very center of magic, as my heart breaks open and images of everyone I love and care about scroll through my mind. My brothers. My beloved friends and newfound family. Olilly and Nym’ellia and all of the people at risk in both Realms.

Lukas and Yvan.

The aching desire to have one more chance to be with them all and fight with them tightens my emotions. Along with the anguished yearning to work for a different future for Erthia. A future without division and oppression.

Free of the demon tide.

As if prompted by my surge of love and yearning, life is suddenly pouring back into my body. An invigorating warmth flows into my veins that has the feel of warm sap in a thawing trunk. It prompts a deep, wavering intake of air as what feel like tendrils of branches wind around my legs, my arms.

Every last part of me.

Knitting my Shadow-ravaged self and broken ankle back together.

I gasp as the breath of the Great Tree blows through me and begins to flow magic into my affinity lines, element by element, my battered lines mending as I become startlingly aware of what these lines have been all along.

Not veins in the island of my body.

They’reroots.

I’m not an island at all. I’m connected to something much bigger than myself.

My breath gathers strength in my lungs, my mouth strange to me as I test my jaw, grind teeth that feel unfamiliar, run my tongue over sharp molar edges that have never been sharp before. My ears stretch upward as if pulled by threads and the pain of my broken ankle is soothed by the gentle brush of leaves.

Dryad.

Dryad Guardian.

III’s voice is as gentle as spring rain and as powerful as a fierce storm. And I can sense, all at once, the great span of III, how far its roots stretch out—throughout the whole Northern Realm and beyond. Throughout the whole world.

And into me.

A series of hazy visions of trees and forests begins to form in my mind, a mind once again completely my own as my affinity roots gather strength within me—

Fire, Earth, Air, Wind.

And Green Light.

The visions gain clarity, images that follow the Western Realm’s network of forests down through leagues of ocean plant life and onto the shore of a realm that lies across a great sea. The vision swoops up from the ground into the sky, the landmass now viewed from high above, as if seen through the minds of birds, this unknown continent seeming bigger than both the Eastern and Western Realms put together.

Tree-memories light.

Cities and towns teeming with Kelts and surrounded by verdant forest and abundant life. The visions shift, and a knotty Sea Pine beside a seashore unfurls in my mind, the unfamiliar tree’s needles gleaming gold instead of Western Realm green. The golden tree looks over a deserted seashore, its sand a burnished brass in the prestorm light, a foamy, steel tide rushing in.

A chill wind blows as a gray, spiraling wand washes up onto the shore and a young man strides into view. The lanky, brown-haired Kelt spots the wand, lowers himself, and grasps it, lifting it from the pulsing surf. A helix of dark smoke curls from its tip.

Revulsion rips through me as a sense of foreboding builds, the young man’s eyes riveted to the Wand. I want to leap from the golden tree, run to him, and wrest the Wand from his hand. To warn him that he’s not picking up some harmless branch.

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