Page 16 of The Dryad Storm

“Leave it,” a harsh, masculine voice orders from behind her.

Startled, Gwynn drops the bag and whirls around, heart thundering as she meets the piercing green eyes of the young Mage poised at the top of the stairs, his skin glimmering a brooding forest green in the tower’s dim light.

“Mage Glass?” Gwynn can barely breathe out the Resistance wandmaster’s name.

His eyes narrow in appraisal. “Call me Mavrik,” he drawls.

As he saunters toward her, her trapped light magery breaks into a fitful shimmer, and Gwynn wonders if she’s made a terrible mistake. Moving with controlled ferocity, Mavrik Glass gives her a cool smirk that doesn’t reach his assessing eyes—eyes that are taking in every last inch of her as if evaluating the fitness of a horse for a long, rigorous journey through hell and back. He tosses the edge of his dark cloak over one shoulder in a fluid motion, revealing multiple wands sheathed at his side.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he croons, eyes glinting with battle-hardened mischief. He leans in, as if confiding a delicious secret, her magic sparking unsettlingly toward him. “?‘He’sso muchbetter looking than his picture on the Wanted posters.’?” He draws back, scrutinizing her. “That’s because the Magedom can’t seemto help itself.” He gestures toward his face. “Making me look so pointy-featured and evil on the posters.” He cocks a brow. “Iamevil. Make no mistake about it. But a conundrum for the Magedom, as they like to picture their villains as vile looking.”

Gwynn gapes at him, a knot caught in her throat. Thrown by his blithe banter at a time like this.

Mavrik Glass glances at the paper Watchers hanging from her ceiling. The Blessing Stars suspended on slim threads. “Interesting base of military-level operations you have here.” He cocks an amused brow as his gaze swings back to hers. “Ready to become a renegade, Princess?”

It takes Gwynn a moment to summon the courage to answer, her entire world about to be torn apart. “There are two servant girls,” she reminds him, emphatic. “They’re coming with us.”

“It’s sorted,” he states. That intimidating glint returns to his eyes, and Gwynn is filled with the impression that Mavrik Glass does things his own way, no questions asked. She moves to pick up her dropped bag, and he halts her with a raised palm. “Leave it. We need to travel fast.”

“But...” She glances around, suddenly unable to bear the course she’s set herself on, her breath coming in forced shudders as defiance rears and she moves to pick up the bag once more.

Mavrik’s hand closes around her upper arm, his expression shot through with intensity, and her trapped magic gives a confusingly strong surge toward him. “Gwynn, I saidleaveit.”

She startles at his use of her familiar name. “You don’t understand.” She yanks her arm out of his grip, trembling. “I’m leaving my fastmate. My family.Everything.”

Mavrik’s eyes flash. “Idounderstand.” He holds up a hand, fastmarks looped around it and his wrist too. And Gwynn can tell, from the sudden streak of pain blazing in his eyes, that at some point, he left everything behind, as well.

“I loved him,” she admits, voice splintering. “I loved my fastmate.”

“He’s lost to you,” Mavrik says, harsh as an axe through her heart. She winces, tears pooling in her eyes, then shuts them tight, struggling not to shatter over what she’s about to do.

“Gwynnifer,” Mavrik says, his hand coming around her arm once more, both his voice and touch gentler now, her magic sizzling toward him as if it wants to stream straight into his hand. She opens her tear-soaked eyes to find his gaze locked on her with a look of vast compassion. “Have your moment of grief,” he says, lowand measured. “Onemoment. I did, as well. Your path just became impossibly hard and harsh. Like mine has been. But it’sjust.”

Gwynn thinks of Bloom’ilya and Ee’vee huddled in the alley—ofeveryonewho is being brutally abused by the Magedom.

“Ibelieved. I believedallof it,” she blurts out, voice breaking. “I waswrong.”

His lips give a bitter twist. “Welcome to the circle of Mage unbelievers.” His eyes take on a conspiratorial glint as he leans in. “Trust me—once you get used to us, we’re a lot more fun. That’s the upside.” Stepping back, he holds his hand out to her, serious once more, his eyes flicking toward her bag. “Your old life is dead to you, Gwynnifer. Let it go. We need to leave.”

There’s a strong note of alliance in his tone. Gwynn pulls in a deep breath and rallies her courage. Leaving her bag on the floor, she takes Mavrik Glass’s hand.

Prismatic sparks flash through her vision, and her lines seize. She gasps, every last shred of her trapped magic contracting toward his hand while she’s blasted by a sense ofhismagic straining towardher—a hot stream of fire, a tempestuous whoosh of air, a black dart of vining earth and a roiling rush of water.

Mavrik flinches, his breathing going as uneven as hers. He gives her an intense look as their invisible combined power swirls together with grasping potency. But there’s no time to wonder at any of it as he pulls her into motion, and she descends with him into the shadows of the night.

Chapter Three

Shadow Hive

Sparrow Trillium

Unknown location

Unknown time after Xishlon

“Thierren!”Sparrow screams as she’s dragged away in a net of vines by her tormentor from the Fae Islands—the vile Mage Tilor—into a wall of silvery mist surrounded by an arch of Shadow runes.

As the silver closes in around her, she cries out, overtaken by the sensation of her Shadow-grayed body being sped through the mist so fast she might come apart, before she just as abruptly slows and Tilor yanks her into an alabaster cave. Her gut clenches in terror, and her back scrapes against the cave’s rough stone as she clings to a sliver of hope that Thierren, her Level Five Mage love, survived Vogel’s destruction of Noilaan and will come after her.

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