Page 130 of The Dryad Storm

Tentatively she takes hold of the cool, metal doorknob and turns it, pulling the door open.

Tierney draws in a quick breath as she finds Viger sprawled out on a bed,facedown, cradling his horned head tightly in his arms as he sobs, chest heaving. A multitude of serpents are slithering over his prone form, more slinking in from the slightly ajar window, as if seeking to offer him solace, but he doesn’t acknowledge them, so great is his misery. Tierney’s chest tightens with kindred sorrow, a fierce compassion for him cinching her gut. Sympathetic tears fill her eyes as she remembers being ripped away from her Fae parents when she was so small. Remembers how her mother screamed her name as Tierney’s painfully glamoured three-year-old self was dragged away.

Forcing back the nightmarish memory, Tierney snaps herself away from the dream tether, the world blurring as she’s thrust back under the Vo, breathing in gulp after gulp of water as she opens her eyes, her river-slicked gaze burning with emotion. She sits up, the Vo’s cool water streaming around her body as she’s filled with the desperate urge to find Viger.

She closes her eyes and concentrates, more easily locating their tether this time and latching hold of it. She burrows deep until she can sense a small, subtle pull toward Viger through the woods. Decided, she swims toward the bank, emerges, and releases her restless kelpies from her necklace’s vial into a small, sheltered pool beside the Vo, then whisks the water from her form and follows his dream’s pull.

Tierney finds Viger deep in the woods, facedown on the ground, covered in serpents and sobbing in his sleep. Her hand flies to her mouth in anguished surprise. Falling to her knees beside him, she touches his shoulder, his snakes slithering agitatedly over her hand. “Viger...”

He swings around and grabs her wrist, instantly awake and hissing along with his serpents, his horns arcing up, his claws digging painfully into her skin, his eyes full Dark and teeth snapping, his face slick with black tears.

A shocked recognition flashes through his eyes and he instantly loosens his grip and retracts his claws and horns, his eyes regaining their whites, his breathing labored.

Tierney gapes at him. She’s never seen him look so young and vulnerable. “You healed her, didn’t you?” she manages, sliding her wrist out of his grip to take hold of his hand.

He moves to pull away but she tightens her grip, and he allows it, pain slashing through his eyes. “I did,” he admits, voice rough and resonant.

“How did you do it, Viger?” she prods, her heart going out to him.

He grimaces and gives her a harsh look before his mouth lifts in a horrible rictus grin. For a moment, Tierney’s mind is filled with visions of maggots. Of decaying flesh. A spider piercing its prey with venom. Her own body decaying in the center of Erthia...

“Stop it,”she firmly grits out, keeping tight hold of him. “Stop trying to push me away. How did you save her, Viger?Tellme.”

A subtle flinch before his gaze takes on a morbid tension. “Life was killing her,” he finally says, his lips quivering into a fierce scowl. “Lifeunchecked... growing and eating and consuming and blossoming into itshideous fullness.” A furious glint fills his eyes as his gaze knifes into her. “Ikilledit.”

Tierney pulls in a long, harsh breath. “And saved her.”

Viger gives a subtle nod. “Yes, Asrai.”

“What... happened?” Tierney asks. “Did you ever see her again?”

Viger’s face twists. “I tried to go back. But her wretched husband convinced her that it was my leaving that cured her. The removal of the demonic so the Ancient One could restore her. And then... they reported me to the Mages.”

“Oh, gods, Viger.”

They’re quiet as she regards him. No horns, claws, or fangs. No thrall.

Just Viger.

Inky tears glistening on his cheeks. Dark circles weighing down his eyes.

Another black tear courses down his pale face. “I don’t want to bring the Reckoning,” he rasps, an abyss of misery in his gaze. “I don’t want to kill you or your Waters.”

Tierney nods, her own tears brimming. “I believe you.” An idea lights, deep in Tierney’s core. “Come with me,” she offers as she cradles his hand.

He nods, seeming too choked up to say more, which both stuns and pains Tierney anew. Decided, she releases his hand, gets up, then holds her hand out to him once more.

Viger hesitates, then takes her outstretched hand and rises, his midnight eyes meeting hers, the bottomless sorrow glistening in them strengthening Tierney’s resolve. Silently, she leads him to an isolated bank of the Vo and then into it, heading toward its center.

The Vo’s night-dark waters close in around their legs, waists, and abdomens before flowing over their heads. Tierney keeps firm hold of Viger’s hand as she leads him down, down, down to the bottom of her River, all the way to the deepest point of the Vo’s silty bed.

And then Tierney pulls Viger onto the River’s floor and into a close embrace, his arms wrapping tightly around her.

He clings to her in the darkness, and Tierney can feel his powerful, pent-up emotion, leagues deep, pulsing through her and around her as she holds on, a shiver running through his long form.

A sudden vertigo sweeps through her.

The River’s bed gives way as Viger pulls her down into it, tunnelling deep into the earth before they both still, their small, cavernous space lit up a dim silver as Tierney draws back a fraction and meets Viger’s impassioned gaze, stunned to find she can still breathe so deep inside Erthia’s depths.

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