Page 203 of The Dryad Storm

“I’m Alaric Fynnes,” the Mage with them announces as he holds up his palm, marked with III’s image. “I’m a former priest-apprentice to Marcus Vogel. We’ve been led here, by the power in the center of all Erthia’s faiths, to bring you knowledge that can help you fight the Shadow Wand.”

Chapter Eight

The Center

Elloren Guryev

Zhilaan Forest military base

Gareth and Marina, then Alaric and the Selkie Nerissa tell us their extraordinary tales.

How, through Gareth’s joining with the mangrove forests of the Southeast and their power-joining as Selkie mates, they drove off an invasion of Vogel’s Shadow sea and cast warded protection over the northern Salish Ocean and southernmost Vo River, then convinced an invading army of Selkies and other Ocean’kin to align as allies against Vogel’s forces.

“We’ve held our protection over the Vo and the Salish,” Gareth tells us all, “even as Vogel kept hold of his Shadow net imprisoning us under our own protective dome.” The lightning torchlight’s illumination flickers over Gareth’s face and hair, night closing in on the military base’s mountaintop terrace. “And trapped there,” Gareth continues, “in the Shadow’s darkness, we pled with everyone, Noi’khin and Ocean’kin alike, to align with each other and join with the mangrove forests of the South. At the time of our leaving, many had.”

A prickle sweeps over my skin, Yvan’s echoing rise of emotion sending a juddering flare of heat through our bond. Because it feels like we’re riding right up to the edge of sweeping, transformational change throughout Erthia, with the growing Shadow power increasingly able to blot it all out before it can truly take root.

“Birds of light beckoned us here... in dreams,” Marina haltingly conveys, gills flaring, her ocean eyes holding an emphatic light. “You know them as Watchers and Ahxhils, and by other names. We Selkies know them as the Blessed Winged of Light, kindreds of our Ocean Goddess. Gareth’s Storm Whale kindreds managed topunch a small hole in Vogel’s Shadow net that allowed us quick passage through our Southern Voloi shielding, along with Zephyr Quillen...”

Fain Quillen and his sister, Lucretia, bolt to their feet. “You were with Zephyr?” Fain calls out, both Fain’s power and Lucretia’s cast into tempestuous whorls at the mention of their adopted daughter.

Marina nods, gills ruffling. “It was Zephyr and an Asrai Fae named Fyordin Lir who helped us requisition a Vu Trin portal to travel here while they stayed behind to help hold Southern Voloi’s shielding. And now, before you we stand. To join our knowledge and power to yours.”

“We were almost apprehended by Vu Trin,” Gareth interjects. “There was no convincing them of the Ocean Peoples’ newfound desire for an alliance with the East, since the Ocean People initially came here as an invading force.”

“But are now starting to realize there is only one true enemy of us all,” Alaric firmly states. “The Shadow.”

Alaric launches into his story—how as a Mage priest-apprentice, several years past, he was there when Vogel first found the Shadow Wand after a treacherous, kraken-infested sea journey to the Lost Continent of the West.

“A Death Fae who had lived through a Reckoning there tried to warn us what the Shadow power had done to the Lost Continent,” Alaric conveys, a haunted look in his green eyes. “After the Shadow consumed everything, there was nothing left alive save that single Death Fae, who did not need food and water to survive.”

Alaric describes how Vogel sensed his trepidation over Vogel’s possession of the Shadow Wand and promptly hurled Alaric overboard to die. Instead, Alaric was rescued by the Selkie here with him now, her translated name, Nerissa, meaning “of the Sea.”

“Nerissa brought me to a small island,” Alaric reveals, casting her a poignant look. “She helped me forage for food along the coast and brought me fish. We communicated via the sign language known to ocean dwellers and mariners alike and told each other the story of our lives.” His invisible aura of light magery intensifies, its sunset hues swirling around Nerissa’s deep-blue, silver-haired form and answered by her own water aura and, surprisingly, a slim line of light power flashing from Nerissa to embrace Alaric’s form.

“We were... drawn to each other... from the start,” Nerissa states, her gills flaring as she speaks, the column of her neck tensing, the effort needed to make air speech clearly formidable. “We could not fight... the pull,” she admits, her bluehand sliding over Alaric’s green one, their fingers interlacing as his light aura shimmers more intensely around her, a sympathetic heat crackling through my bond with Yvan. “Even though my people rejected Alaric as a ‘land devil,’?” Nerissa says, “and I knew his people considered my Selkie’kin dangerous animals to be abused or disposed of, we felt an instantaneous kinship.”

“I told Nerissa of my upbringing in Valgard,” Alaric says. “How sheltered I was. Kept from every other group on Erthia save my family’s strict Styvian sect. How I’d been taught to hate everyone who wasn’t Styvian. And Nerissa told me of her rich, happy upbringing on the Western Ocean’s floor.”

Nerissa continues their story, conveying how one night, under a rose-blush sunset, their lips first met. And then on another night, not long after, how more than their lips touched under the ocean’s warm current. In the way of Selkie’kin, their powersmerged, shocking them both, Alaric gaining gills and the ability to breathe underwater and Nerissa gaining a connection to Alaric’s Level Five light magery, which granted her numerous new ocean abilities, such as the ability to color-shift like octopi and draw on the electric power of moray eels.

“We decided to approach my people to seek acceptance as both mates and Selkie’khin,” Nerissa continues. “And to warn them of the Shadow Wand. We traveled together to my city on the ocean’s floor, only to be met with revulsion and damnation from our Naiad priestesses.” A look of pain tenses Nerissa’s features. “I was cast out and shunned.” She glances at Alaric. “And all the while, there was always this terrible knowledge hanging over us that Vogel and the Mages would use the Shadow Wand to do to the Waters what they did to the Lost Continent, its coastline Shadow-poisoned beyond repair.”

“We journeyed back to the Lost Continent,” Alaric says. “And tracked down the slain Death Fae’s journals to read the entire story of what happened there. And now, we come to you with the weapon of that Death Fae’s knowledge.” He glances around at us all, his green eyes weighted with urgency. “The Shadow Wand is adept at unearthing fracture points in societies so it can parasiticallyfeedon that division.” A sly light enters his gaze. “But it has its weaknesses and can be fought.”

“How?” Vang Troi presses. “Its magic is primordial. Predating all our grimoires.”

Alaric’s shrewd gaze slides to her. “You have primordial texts at your fingertips, as well. Your religions.”

Discord erupts, and I feel Yvan stiffen beside me. I’m suddenly on edge, too, remembering our heated debates about religious faiths.

“Religion is an agent offracture,” Yvan levels.

“I agree,” Wrenfir scathingly chimes in. “Vogel tracked down the Shadow Wand to use against every other group on Erthia because ofreligion.” My uncle slices his hand emphatically across the air. “All these competing faiths are the greatest scourge Erthia has ever known.”

“They can be,” Alaric agrees, nodding. “When their flawed edges are worshipped instead of the true things at their center. But, if you look to that center, you’ll find power there, and tools to help you defeat the Shadow Wand. But you must bring all your faithstogether.”

Wrenfir spits out an incredulous laugh. “Erthia hasneverbeen able to do that.”

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