Page 87 of The Dryad Storm

“Let them know,”he challenged. “Gwynn, this is yourlife. Bebold.”

Gwynn sharply inhaled as his words lit her up, striking deep.

Strikingtrue.

Thrilling to the memory, her focus swings to the present. She pauses for a moment, turning to study the dark river snaking through the black-opal cave surrounding them, everything in her suddenly galvanized by the desire to test her light power’s unbridled flow, love-fueled rebellion rising.

She gently draws away from Mavrik, and a questioning energy flashes through his power as she levels the Verdyllion at the river and murmurs a spell.

Their twinned power courses through her and into the river, and the entire body of water bursts into glowing, marbled color, gasps rising from their surrounding companions. Delighted surprise lights up Mavrik’s lines, the shimmering water filled with undulating, glowing ripples of every hue that throw chromatic light over the entire cave.

Gwynn’s eyes widen, her lines filling with explosive joy over what she’s wrought, feeling herself suddenly unleashed.

Empowered.

Her heart thundering in her chest, she catches Mavrik’s enamored grin as she sweeps the Verdyllion in an arc and murmurs a light spell, the cave’s every expanse of dark opal bursting into a mosaic of iridescent rainbow hues.

Pulling in an ecstatic breath, Gwynn catches Wynter’s satisfied smile before she shoots Yyzz’ra a narrow look of triumph before turning back to Mavrik, feeling drunk on color.

“There,” she says, breathless, “now we matcheverything.” Then she reaches up, slides her hand through Mavrik’s hair, and draws him into a deep, light-magic-detonating kiss.

She can feel Mavrik’s smile against her mouth, feel the jubilant color leaping through their joined power as he eagerly responds with his own surge of forceful passion through their twinned lines.

They break the kiss, the two of them filled with more color than ever before, every single blasphemous shade of it, a wicked smirk on Mavrik’s color-infused lips.

My freely chosen fastmate, Gwynn thinks, her heart beating out a strong new rhythm.

The pang of guilt still cuts deep, along with the deeply ingrained fear that she’s forever cursed and cast out.

But her defiance and power burn brighter.

Fully ready, Gwynn turns to the runic wall and levels the Verdyllion Wand at the Dryad and Varg warded barrier. Mavrik’s hands slide around her from behind once more, and together, they sound out the series of unlocking spells.

A bolt of multicolored light blasts from the Verdyllion and collides with the Varg rune before them, piercing a small gap in the rune’s design and spearing into the Dryad ward behind it, both runes overtaken by multihued light.

Both the Varg and Dryad wards split in two, the halves sliding apart and forming a small archway limned with sparking color.

Opening a narrow route into the Northern Forest.

Valasca lets out awhoopas Mavrik pulls Gwynn into an enthusiastic hug, the Verdyllion in her hand suddenly tingling with a magnetic pull.

Toward Wynter.

Gwynn turns to Wynter and holds out the Verdyllion. “Here, Wynter’lyn,” she offers, grinning from inside Mavrik’s embrace, her magic sparking brighter than ever before. “Lead the way.”

“Oo’na’s Roots...”Mynx’lia’luur gasps.

Mynx’s stunned gasp resonates through Gwynn, and her heart trips into a pounding rhythm. They all step from the narrow series of tunnels they’ve been journeying through for hours and spill into an impossibly huge crystalline cavern with an arching ceiling, the huge, jutting crystals filled with an explosion of forbidden color, Gwynn and Mavrik’s runic net-shield hugging its ceiling.

Unsteady on her legs from the onslaught of so much concentrated light power, Gwynn cranes her neck, gaping in wonder at the gigantic roots waterfalling from the cavern’s ceiling. Thick as a barn, the roots undulate over the cavern’s floor, wallsand ceiling, their python-size root-hairs entangling with the network of smaller roots flowing in from every direction—a network of thousands upon thousands of interconnected tree roots snaking over the Subland’s ceiling that Gwynn has taken note of throughout their entire journey here.

One vast web of Forest.

And now here she and her companions are, in the place all the roots were leading to—the living, breathing heart of Erthia’s Natural Matrix, spoken about in all of Erthia’s religions and myths.

Erthia’s Source Tree.

“Holy Goddess on High,” Valasca gasps as the Tree’s bone-deep frequency of power shivers through Gwynn and Mavrik’s twinned magic, Mavrik’s grip on Gwynn’s hand tightening.

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