Page 78 of The Dryad Storm

I look to III’s canopy, to the sky above.Please, I implore the heavens, sending my words out to any deity that will hear me.Please bring Yvan back to me...

A burst of shimmering green light blasts from III, and I flinch back, along with the others, III’s aura of elemental might and green mist suddenly whirling around me, blazing from the Great Tree’s core, my kindred flock of ravens cawing.

III’s bark bulges outward and morphs rapidly into the shape of a man before the bark gives way and Yvan is crouched before me, my palms pressed to III’s bark just above his shoulders, his chest heaving with ragged breaths, his wings extending.

He raises his head, and his shocking newly violet-fire eyes don’t so much meet as collide with mine, his gaze burning through the space between us.

A strangled cry escapes my throat as I hurl myself at him at the same time he surges toward me, my rise of emotion so strong I fear I’ll blaze apart. Yvan grabstight hold of me, toppling us both to the ground, the two of us hurtling into a kiss.

Violet-tinted fire blasts through me, and I arch against Yvan as he sears our Wyvernbond back into being with potent force, III’s enveloping aura flowing through the connection.

The love in his kiss sends a volcanic line of emotion through me, his fervid mouth feeding the whole, heightened force of his fire into mine as I send my Dryadfire into him, hot tears giving way.

Yvan breaks the kiss and draws back, his eyes glowing such an incandescentvioletit steals my breath. Our bond pulses hotter than ever before, in an unbreakable pillar of intermingling violet and green flame.

“Elloren...” Yvan says, my name torn from the base of his throat. He lifts his hand to show me his palm.

My heart stutters.

There, marked on his palm, just as it is on mine and on the palm of every Dryad in this circle, is an imprint of III.

“Thiscannot be,” Oaklyyn rages as Yvan and I both rise. Her elemental aura lashes at us with such vehemence that I startle, her wolverine bristling as her hand lashes out toward Yvan. “He has no kindred and never can have one!”

Yvan meets Oaklyyn’s blistering stare without flinching as III’s embracing green mist twines around us both. “I have been linked to a kindred,” he tells her in fluent Dryadin. He stops, his eyes widening as shock ripples not only through his fire, but through everyone’s elemental power in response to his sudden fluency in the Forest’kin language.

Yvan closes his III-marked palm into a fist, then unfurls it once more, revealing a compact, deep-purple pinecone.

Sylvan, Yulan, and Hazel step forward to scrutinize it, an astonished expression overcoming Sylvan’s raptor-sharp, pine green features as he lifts his gaze to Yvan’s. “III has given you a kindred Forest in the East.”

Yulan’s shocked expression is a mirror of Sylvan’s. “This is rare,” she marvels, her heron’s wings fluttering, “to be kin-bonded to anentire Forest...”

“Which he’llpromptly burn to the ground!” Oaklyyn snarls, her stance a tight coil of fury. “Sylvan, don’t let this happen! He’ll be thedeathof it!”

“How can this be?” Yulan presses Yvan, her lovely features tensed with concern.

Yvan silently, almost ceremoniously, steps back from us all, lowers himself to the ground and pushes the cone’s lower half into the mossy soil. Then he raises his hand,palm down, just above the cone. The violet flame in Yvan’s eyes takes on a hotter glow, his fire aura suddenly burning with such potency it sends a current of heat through my rootlines. I shiver against the sensation as Yvan’s III-imprinted hand begins to glow violet.

He splays his fingers with emphatic force, and a stream of purple fire blasts down from his palm. I flinch as the fire meets the cone and it bursts into flame, its coating of shiny violet resin beginning to melt. I wait anxiously, confused by his actions, the entire surrounding Forest seeming to hold its breath alongside me.

But then, the unexpected happens.

Yvan’s flame dies down, and the cone unfurls and sprouts thin, violet pine needles and soil piercing roots. The needles rapidly fan out and multiply, new branches forking and needling until a small purple pine seedling stands below us.

Surprise echoes through the Northern Forest’s aura as the Dryads trade astonished looks.

All except one.

“I know this tree of the East,” the huge, branch-horned Dryad—Larch—rumbles, his enormous black bear kindred lumbering behind him as he approaches. He points a thick, green-glimmering index finger at the seedling. “This is a Nightwood Pine. From the Eastern Realm’s Zhilaan Forest. It needs fire to germinate. Fireregeneratesthis Forest.”

Oaklyyn is blinking at the pine seedling, a look of internal war ravaging her face. Hazel smirks at her, his expression one of triumph as snakes twine around his black-clad form.

Yvan meets my eyes in a blaze of heat that sends a shiver of warmth down my spine. “III bonded me to the Zhilaan’s Nightwood Forest,” he explains as powerful energy wraps around both our bond and his core of fire, tugging him toward the northeast and channeling our bond’s violet-green flame toward this Forest that loves fire. “Bonding to the Zhilaan was like being welcomedhome,” he enthuses, his voice hitching around the Dryadin word forhomebefore his words break off, his fire charged with emotion. His gaze swings to the Dryads. “I never wanted to be a force of destruction,” he tells them. “Thisweaponof the Prophecy. It always went against my Lasair pull toheal.”

“I believe this of you, Lasair’kin,” Yulan assures him as she affectionately strokes the head of her heron kindred.

“But when III showed me the Zhilaan Forest,” Yvan says to her, “I learned thatmy fire is able to spark new life and protect it.” He gives me an emotion-saturated look. “I felt like, for the first time in my life, I was being shown a place where I truly belong.”

“I imagine we have much in common, Winged One,” Hazel quietly interjects. “Both of us widely reviled, you as Icaral and I as Deathkin. Our ‘vast evil’ condemned by the pious while they mutter prayers of protection against us both.” Hazel’s expression darkens, bitterness in the depths of his midnight eyes as he casts a chilling look at Oaklyyn. “But the Forest cares not for the boundaries of humankind. The Forest is creating itsowncircle of Dryad’khin, andno onecan keep you out once the Forest has welcomed you home.”

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