Page 10 of The Dryad Storm

Shock eddies through Gareth. “What do you mean?”

“The Mages,” Marina continues, “they’re infecting the Western oceans with a mass of Shadow power that rolls over the waters like a tide and siphons up the oceans’ elemental power. I’ve warned your Commander Quillen of this. It’s only a matter of time before the Mages send their corrupted Shadow sea east. They’re going to consume the whole Natural Matrix of Erthia’s Waters with it. Weneedyou, Gareth. Your Selkie’kin need you.”

“Come,” Gareth says, motioning toward the mangroves. “Tell me everything.”

Gareth spares one more glance toward the crowd on the shore. Commander Quillen is now surrounded by a small contingent of Vu Trin, the knot of dark-clad soldiers standing out in sharp relief amidst the purple-garbed revelers.

He and Marina duck underwater and swim to the grove, gliding around arcingroots into the heart of the grove’s embrace before emerging inside a private, sheltered space above the water’s calm surface, the salt water inside the grove a gentle, lapping tide. They climb onto a partially submerged root and face each other. Jewel-toned dragonflies flit around them, the water skimming Marina’s full blue breasts, and Gareth ignores the rush of desire that sparks to life at the sight.

“Tell me what Vogel’s done,” Gareth prods, taking hold of her smooth hand.

Marina’s face twists with anguish. “His Shadow sea is corrupting the Waters. Blotting out color and creating unnatural tides. It’s killing our kindreds. The seals. The octopuses and fish. All underwater life. He’s turning more and more of them into twisted multi-eyed creatures. Creating Shadow kraken. Gareth, he’s creating a weapon out of our ocean.”

Ourocean. Gareth’s heart tightens over her phrasing. As if he’s Selkie’kin. It guts him, her futile insistence on his inclusion.

Gareth motions north. “We received word that the Vo River has been marked by Death Fae runes filled with Asrai magic to ward off Shadow incursion. Could the same be done to the ocean waters?”

Marina shakes her head. “Shadow power can break through most runic wards.”

Alarm ripples through Gareth. “But... that could bring down the entire East.”

“That’s why your Selkie’kin need you. We need your power. Sheer might is needed.”

“Marina, whatever water power I have is trapped inside me.”

Her ocean-hued eyes narrow with blistering intensity. “Have you ever used a wand underwater?”

“I have. But nothing came of it.”

“Did you ever try water wood, instead of a wand?” Marina waves a graceful blue hand toward the mangroves surrounding them. “Wood that thrives in salt water.” Her gaze warms with affection. “Like you, my Selkie’kin.”

Gareth looks to the mangroves. Trees he can sense reaching out to him. Trees he never encountered until coming to the East... trees that stir the magic trapped inside him.

“I tried to access my power using a mangrove branch once,” he admits, his lines burgeoning with bound-up water magic, achingly tight. “I thought... because I feel such a strong rise in my magic around these trees... I thought they could enable me to send my power through a branch instead of a wand’s layered wood, even though that’s something only the most powerful Mages can do.” He shakes hishead, the shard of longing cutting deep. “But my magic remained trapped.”

Marina is undaunted. “Did you try an underwater root? And did you use the words of Selkie’kin?”

Gareth’s heart quickens, the two of them exchanging a look of momentous import. “No,” he admits.

“Give me the words to one of your Mage spells,” Marina commands, tension mounting in the air.

Gareth sounds out a water spell in the Ancient Tongue. “It means ‘funnel up the waters,’?” he tells her, pulse thrumming.

Marina breaks off a dark purple mangrove root from under the water, then sinks below the waves. Gareth dives with her, swimming down amongst the arcing roots to the ocean’s sandy floor. Pausing there, Marina sounds out a few flutelike words, then gives him a prodding look.

Gareth tries to mimic her intonation, struggling to draw the tones from low in his throat, the words almost impossible to form. Marina frowns but seems resigned that this is the best he can manage. She hands him the root with a look of encouragement.

Gareth sounds out the spell in the Selkie language.

Energy sizzles through his lines, and his lungs tighten with shock as a sliver of his water magic breaks free and flows through his lines and arm into the root. A slender, swirling funnel of water bursts from the root’s tip and twirls up through the purple water.

Gareth gasps, drawing in too much salt water.

Choking, he makes for the surface, grasping hold of a large root to propel himself faster. He breaks through, coughing and sputtering as Marina bursts up beside him. Stunned, he looks at the mangrove root in his grip, his wand hand thrumming with elemental energy, the conjured funnel’s expanding ripples spreading out around them in concentric circles.

Gareth’s astonished gaze locks with Marina’s as he clings to one of the mangrove’s massive roots, his magic alight and streaming through his lines, his skin tingling at every point of contact with the tree. “I thought...” he gasps, his heart in his throat. “I thought I was forever powerless. How could you possibly know this?”

“There’s a Mage,” Marina begins, lips trembling. “A Light Mage. His name is Alaric Fynnes. He and his shunned Selkie mate, Nerissa, sought me out to tell me their story, which sparked ideas concerning your magic. Alaric was cast overboardseveral years ago, when Vogel obtained the Shadow Wand...”

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