Page 1 of The Dryad Storm

Prologue

Forest Prophecy

Alder Xanthos

City of Cyme, Amazakaraan

Two days before Xishlon

A primal scream tears from Alder Xanthos’s throat. Explosions sound on all sides, hammering her ears as Mages soar down into Amazakaraan on their broken, shrieking dragons, laying waste to the city of Cyme.

Alder raises the living branch in her hand, her heartbeat thundering against her ribs, readying herself for battle inside the translucent green dome-shield she and her soldier friend, Vestylle Oona’rin, cast around the Queenhall to protect the fleeing Amaz.

A closer explosion sends a burst of pain through Alder’s head as the Mages throw down bolt after bolt of Shadowfire, leveling the remaining buildings surrounding the Queenhall. Monstrous gray Shadow trees rise from each explosion, high as the clouds, the grotesque forest rapidly overtaking Cyme’s valley under its nightmare canopy-prison.

Azion!Alder screams through her mind-link to her eagle kindred as she curses herself for sending Azion out to survey the incoming attack. Desperation rakes her throat. At any moment, Azionhasto soar out of the Shadow chaos and through the verdant, wavering dome. She can sense his frantic heartbeats and desperation to reach her growing closer by the moment.

A powerful explosion booms from Cyme’s forested periphery. Alder’s lungs contract, the ground beneath her feet shuddering. The screams of trees rip through her mind, and pain streaks through her Dryad rootlines, nearly whiting out her vision. Blinking hard, she’s just able to make out the wall of steely flame bursting up from the tree line edging the great valley’s northern edge.

Alder watches, frozen in shock and pain, as the wall of gray flame roars north, a gigantic swath of the Caledonian Forest igniting with Shadowfire, the death of so many trees gouging a growing portion of her Forest-melded power from her lines. As she realizes, with soul-shredding horror, that the Mages on their shrieking, broken dragons aren’t just bent on destroying her beloved Cyme.

They’re going to raze her entire kindredForest.

A stronger sense of Azion blasts through Alder, her heart-bonded bird’s rasping cry of terror lashing through the back of her mind along with the screams of her dying Forest.

“Azion!”Alder bellows, launching herself toward the shield, ready to hurl herself clear through it.

A strong hand clamps around her shoulder, and she skids to a stop.

Alder whips her head around to find Vestylle holding her with a viselike grip, fierceness marking the young Smaragdalfar sorceress’s emerald-patterned face, a rune stylus glowing green in Vestylle’s hand.

“Let me go!” Alder growls, yanking herself away from Vestylle. She moves to launch herself at the shield, her mind pounding with combined terror for Azion and her Forest as her kindred eagle draws closer.

“No!”Vestylle snaps as she takes hold of Alder once more. “They’llkill youlike they killed our queen! We’ve got to get Eastnow!”

Wild desperation overtaking her, Alder struggles against Vestylle’s grip.“Azion!”she screams, kicking and flailing as Vestylle drags her toward the Queenhall’s Subland entrance.

Alder’s anguish turns feral. Because she knows what Vestylle is doing, pulling her through an arching doorway, down spiraling stairs cut into the valley’s pale stone, then through a crimson-torchlit cavern. She’s being dragged toward the emergency portals in the Sublands below the Queenhall—portals through which almost all the surviving Amaz have already escaped to the East, save for the portal guards, Alder, and Vestylle, their small group the last of the rearguard soldiers reinforcing the failing shield with their combined Dryad and Smaragdalfar magic.

The only types of magic able to tenuously hold their power against the Magedom’s incoming Shadow.

Azion’s and the Forest’s terror burgeons, blazing through Alder’s weakening rootlines, as she’s hit with the growing awareness that her kindred bird is just outside the shield. With a snarl, she breaks free of Vestylle’s grip and launches into a run back toward the stairs.

“Alder!”Vestylle cries.

Alder barely registers the panic in her friend’s voice as she sprints up the stairs, multiple explosions rattling the very earth.

Rattling herForest.

“Don’t be afool!” Vestylle bellows, thumping up the stairs behind her. “Our shield is about to fall!”

Ignoring her, Alder sprints toward the top of the stairs, agony piercing her chest as Azion’s frantic call blasts through their bond along with the horrified screams of her tree kindreds.

Azion! My Forest! I’m coming!

Her eagle kindred’s squawking cries tear through Alder’s mind with slingshot force as she reaches the top of the newly deserted stairs and races toward the door, her whole being distilled into the desire to save her kindred bird and Forest. Her beautiful feathered one... hertrees...

“Alder!”Vestylle yells again.

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