Page 222 of The Dryad Storm

Vogel grabs hold of my bindings and yanks me up as I struggle violently against them to no avail, a vicious smile on his lips as the multi-eyed raven lands on his shoulder.

“Elloren!” Yvan snarls, speeding toward me and lifting a violet-glowing hand as Vogel hurls me at the portal.

“Vogel’s the Icaral of Prophecy and I’m the Black Witch!” I struggle to scream out against my gag, my words muffled into incoherence as Yvan and my horde release their fire, the portal’s Shadow power closes in around me and I’m swallowed up by Vogel’s silvery Void.

Part Four

The Battle for Erthia

Chapter One

The Black Witch

Elloren

Shadow wasteland

I’m the Black Witch of Prophecy.

The will to fight pounds through me as Vogel drags my vine-bound and gagged form out of the rippling Void darkness of his Shadow portal. We emerge into a deserted steel gray cavern. Shadowfire torches are set into its walls, flickering pewter light.

One of his arms slung around my torso, Vogel drags me into a narrow stone tunnel with effortless Icaral strength.

I glance around with the caginess of a prey animal, searching for weapons, my feet futilely scudding against stone for purchase. Vogel’s grotesque multi-eyed raven follows us, its wings beating the air as it flies from one stony outcropping to another, my heart ratcheting into a thunderous beat.

I’m the Black Witch.

AndVogelis the Icaral of Prophecy.

Yvan’s fire burns with volcanic heat through our bond, rife with wild, snarling energy.

My gut clenches, viselike.

Because I can sense that Vogel’s silvery Shadowfire is stronger than Yvan’s. And stronger, now, than mine, a whole burning abyss of Void fire churning inside him, ready to finish consumingeverything.

We round a corner, and an arching entrance comes into view, an iron door set into it, heavily studded.

Two burly, blank-faced Level Five Mage soldiers bracket the door, their gray eyes glowing, and I can sense their completed tether to Vogel’s Shadow, invisibleVoid power curling out from the Shadow Wand toward the grayed fastlines marking the soldiers’ hands and wrists. I trace how the malignant power winds through their every Mageline and wraps demonic fog through their minds, their auras of Level Five earth magery being siphoned into the Shadow Wand.

I zero in on the gray-smoking wands sheathed at their sides, every nerve in my body coming alive.

Wood.

I clench my branch hand, my heart a battle axe against my ribs even as I remember that these deadwood wands are no longer any use to me. I have to get hold oflivingwood. I focus inward, a distant sense of the Zhilaan Forest struggling to send fire to me over the great expanse between us sizzling against my rootlines, tenuously anchoring my foliage-amplified magic.

“Unlock the door,” Vogel commands.

One of the soldiers grabs the ring of keys attached to his belt and sets about unlocking the door’s three locks. I take note of the Shadow locking rune emblazoned in the door’s center as the soldier steps back.

My feet skid against stone as Vogel drags me forward with a vicious yank then presses the Shadow Wand’s tip into the center of the locking rune, which erupts into tendrils of undulating smoke.

Seeming satisfied, Vogel shoves the door open and drags me into a cell.

As he slams the iron door shut behind us, I take in two black canvas military cots before me and surprise bolts through me.

Fallon Bane is lying on one of them.

She’s bound by Shadow vines, her eyes glowing a churning gray, as if Vogel trapped two thunderheads in her irises. Shadow fastlines identical to Vogel’s mark her hands and wrists.

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