Page 42 of The Dryad Storm

A roar of alliance rises, women’s voices vehemently echoing Freyja’s Goddess blessing all around her. A knot of emotion tightens Freyja’s heart as she turns and scans the countless tattooed faces turned to her, young girls and adults alike, their fists raised to the heavens, expressions of alliance on every face, including little Pyrgomanche, the adopted Icaral daughter of the warrior Alcippe Feyir, the young, winged child held in the arms of Alcippe’s longtime love, Skyleia.

Fierce tears stinging at Freyja’s eyes, she nods stiffly in response to her people’s show of support, determination to be worthy of them, no matter the odds, burning in her core.

Even if it means giving up Clive forever.

“My queen.”

Freyja turns at the sound of Alcippe’s rough voice, the imposing warrior striding toward her through the throngs of Amaz, her newly Varg-rune-marked axe sheathed across her broad back. Alcippe is flanked by two Amaz soldiers—the silver-eyed, gray-hued Elfhollen-Amaz archer Teel and the sky blue–hued Sorcha Xanthippe, former lover of Andras Volya.

Freyja’s shoulders stiffen as she takes in the simmering hostility in Alcippe’s rose-hued gaze and Sorcha Xanthippe’s penetrating golden eyes. Freyja is quite clear that she’s the absolutelastwoman Alcippe and Sorcha would have chosen to replace their beloved queen, Freyja’s hidden relationship with Clive Soren an ill-kept secret—one that Freyja knows dredges up Sorcha’s own suppressed conflict over giving up both Andras and the male child they created together. Freyja also knows both Alcippe and Sorcha are guardedly willing to countenance her, but only because Queen Alkaia named Freyja monarch.

Confusion knots Freyja’s brow as she stares Alcippe down. “Where is Alder Xanthos?” she asks. “I have assured the Vu Trin that we will bring her to them for questioning.”

“She’s disappeared without a trace,” comes Alcippe’s harsh reply. “And so has a surviving flock of giant Issani eagles.”

Freyja’s jaw tightens, this development potentially alarming. The Noi have temporarily backed down on a multitude of demands as Freyja tensely negotiates with them for a new Amaz homeland in the East, but this is one demand she knows there will be no negotiating over—the possible past and present allies ofthe Black Witch are being hunted down.

Freyja is well aware that Alder and the former head of the Queen’s Guard, Valasca Xanthrir, bonded with Elloren Gardner when they all worked together to rescue the Selkies. Now, all of Elloren Gardner’s allies—including Alder—have up and disappeared. And through Freyja’s own negligence in not thinking to post a guard around Alder, the Black Witch’s allies potentially have access to flight.

Freyja catches the accusatory glint in Alcippe’s eyes, the unspoken thunderously loud between them.You’re already failing at being our queen.

Freyja closes her eyes and prays to the Goddess for clarity and strength. She curses herself for ever entertaining the idea that the last Black Witch’s granddaughter, Elloren Gardner Grey, should be allowed to live when Elloren journeyed to Amazakaraan, all because Elloren seemed powerless and was heroically bent on freeing Selkies, the Goddess’s own Sacred Wand-Stylus having inexplicably chosen her as its Bearer. In reality, the Mage was hiding her vast power the whole time and holding the Wand-Stylus hostage to eventually wield it as the Great Prophecy’s Black Witch.

Remorse strikes through Freyja as she wonders how much more she can fail her people before they see her for what she is—too young and morally compromised to succeed at being queen.

Tension taut in the air, she meets the gaze of Alcippe and then the soldiers bracketing her, unable to battle back her sinking feeling in response to the wavering faith in their eyes.

How much worse can the chaos get?

“Freyja!”

Her heart seizes at the sound of the deep and familiar masculine voice.

Her pulse kicking into a hard rhythm, she looks south toward the voice’s source and sees a tall, brown-haired Kelt striding briskly toward her, a line of Vu Trin behind him. He’s dressed in a crimson Keltish military tunic and black pants, a Varg-marked axe and assorted blades affixed to his body. His dark-brown gaze meets hers, and it’s like a firebolt of emotion straight through Freyja’s heart, a wave of incandescent love barreling through her.

“Clive,” she breathes in a harsh whisper as the line of Amaz soldiers before her draw their weapons as one.

“You will address our queen with respect, roikuul,” Teel snarls, aiming her nocked runic-arrow straight at Clive’s chest.

Freyja tenses over the aimed weapon and the slur Teel has just hurled at Clive, aswell as the scowl she catches Alcippe leveling at her. She knows Clive is well aware that the Amaz slurroikuulis a direct reference to his male member, a part of his body Freyja is well acquainted with. Which would be acceptable if she only wanted daughters from him and hadn’t been seeking him out again and again because of true love and genuine desire.

Clive ignores the slur, his blazing eyes locked with Freyja’s, his whole body coiled as if he wants to leap through the line of soldiers and sweep her into his arms.

You’re alive. You’re alive, pounds out with every thundering beat of Freyja’s heart, the desire to leap towardhimalmost impossible to suppress. But she forcibly restrains herself, even as her heart catapults over itself. Because she has the full weight of the queendom on her shoulders. Which comes beforeeverything.

“Halt where you are,” she orders him, tone firm, struggling to harden her traitorous heart. “What is it you seek, Clive Soren?”

Clive straightens. “As leader of the Western Realm Resistance, I come to petition you on behalf of the Keltish and Vu Trin forces,” he informs her, even as the edges of his eyes blaze with barely contained feeling. “We seek to broker an alliance.”

Angry gasps erupt all around, and Freyja inwardly curses. Clive must have been pressured to relay this controversial message himself by someone who understood the blow having her secret lover convey it would level. Straight at her.

She pulls in a slow breath, willing glassy calm. She’s already met once with Vang Troi—the high commander of the Vu Trin—to broach the possibility of a military alliance with Noilaan’s mostly female forces. But theKelts, with their male-only forces and their male-dominated culture and religion...

Great care must be taken here if she’s going to move her people forward in this new land, unified, instead of coming apart at the seams. All this division playingcompletelyinto Vogel’s hands.

“Stand aside, Blessed Daughters,” Freyja orders her guards.

The women swiftly step to the side of her, but keep their weapons aimed at the “evil” man in their midst as Freyja strides through the gap toward Clive and the Vu Trin.

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