Page 109 of The Dryad Storm

Confusion overtakes Damion’s expression. “Then why not strike against the Dryad Witch and her allies now, before autumn grips hold?”

“Because,” Vogel slyly answers, “autumn in the Eastern Realm is swift. And when the foliage color withers and winter descends, the Tree Fae go into a state of semidormancy until spring. Their powerplummets.”

“Excellency,” tall, bald Priest Alfex ventures, “is it wise to allow the witch’s power to increase even for a short span of time?”

“We shall not be idle,” Vogel answers. “While the witch and her allies are trapped under the shield of their own making, we will kill off every stretch of wilds we have access to. And we will absorb all that elemental power into our Shadow might as we wait for winter’s descent.”

A cold breeze gusts in from the northeast, drawing everyone’s attention. Vogel looks at the sky, thrilling to the feel of the cold chilling his firelines as Commander Fallon Bane soars in from the Issani front lines on dragonback, a portion of her forces trailing her. Fallon’s frigid green gaze meets Vogel’s as she lands, dismounts, and strides toward him, briefly tossing a contemptuous gaze toward the impaled Dryad. She sets her gaze back on Vogel, and he suppresses a shiver, sensing an ice storm of rage crackling through her lines.

“You summoned me, Excellency?” Fallon says, her tone a demand as Vogel’s fire aura surges toward her, sparked into wildfire by the satisfying lack of mercy in her compelling gaze.

He stiffens his lines, forcing his killing Level Five powers and boundless flame into a contained ball as the Erthia-shifting realization ignites—it was righteous Fallon Bane all this time.

Sheis the Magedom’s true Black Witch.

Destined to slay the Great Icaral Demon, Yvan Guryev.

His fire turning white-hot, Vogel curses himself for being blinded by Elloren Gardner Grey’s lineage, her Black Witchface, when before him all along was the Ancient One’s True, Anointed Witch. A ripple of want sears through Vogel’s power, a new target for his fire forming.

“We have annexed Issaan for the Holy Magedom,” Fallon announces. “And we have reissued the Magedom’s warning to Ishkartaan. But the heathens there are defying us. They have sent word that they refuse to cede their lands to the Holy Magedom.”

Vogel nods, having expected this. “Refresh your forces at our Caledonianencampment then deploy south for Northern Ishkartaan,” he charges. “Await my order to strike. I will soon join you there.”

Fallon nods, her internal ice storm whipping into a violent frenzy. Vogel’s power surges toward hers once more, and he fights the draw as she turns and strides back to her multi-eyed dragon, mounts it, and growls out an order. The beast throws out its wings and takes to the skies along with the soldiers who accompanied her, all of them soaring back through the gray toward the Caledonian base.

“There’s your winter,” Damion carefully suggests.

Vogel smiles at Damion’s boldness as they watch Fallon wing away, part of her dragon-borne forces rising and closing in around her.The Ancient One’s winter, indeed, Vogel considers, a hot hunger licking though his power.

“Have faith, Mages,” Vogel commands everyone surrounding him, a zealous warmth overtaking his lines as the Shadow Wand gives a harder pull toward III’s smoking stump. Vogel points its tip at it, his gaze narrowing in on the swirling Shadow abyss in the stump’s center. “This heathen tree was the central source of Fae power,” Vogel says. “Its rootline network is linked to all the continent’s wilds. And now, we will siphon that power and transform it into sanctified Shadow might using the Wand’s own manifestation—a V’yexwraith weapon.”

Vogel points the Wand at the very center of the swirling abyss while sending out a mental order through his branching Shadow tether to his glamoured pyrr-demons. The four demons step forward and surround III’s corpse, one at every directional point—north, south, west, and east. They turn as one and set their sulfuric gazes on Vogel, their Shadow horns twining up from their Mage-black hair, horns only Vogel and his Shadow-tethered soldiers can see.

Vogel considers how well they’ve served him, these foul demons of flame that the Wand drew to him. But it is time to summon a stronger creature to the Ancient One’s cause.

“Your Excellency...” Priest Alfex ventures, and Vogel turns to him. There’s an uncharacteristic glint of concern in the priest’s gray-rimmed eyes as they flick toward the Wand in Vogel’s hand, then to the four pyrr-demons. “Are you sure of this path?” Priest Alfex cautions. “The V’yexwraith... it’s the primordial demon, not a weapon, spoken about in texts from the Ancient Elfin Wars. This creature the Shadow Wand can manifest—it has a history of snapping its leash.”

Vogel’s internal fire surges, straining to burn the doubting priest, but he keeps careful control of it. “The Ancient One on High holds every leash,” Vogel states ashis gaze sears into Alfex. “Would you deprive the Magedom ofanyweapon?”

The four pyrr-demons and every last soldier in sight turn their attention to Priest Alfex, censure in their gazes. Vogel notes, with a fresh sear of satisfaction, how Priest Alfex’s Level Five earth-magic aura instantly withers, deferring to Vogel’s dominance.

“I would never deprive the Holy Magedom of anything,” Priest Alfex demurs with a chastened dip of his head. “You have my complete and undying allegiance, Excellency.”

Vogel’s nostrils flare as he empathically roots through the priest’s power, sensing the wariness still shivering there.

“Let the Dryad Witch have her moment,” Vogel says, his gaze fixing once more on the stump’s swirling Void. “And let the Icaral bitch, Wynter Eirllyn, have her shielded Sublands and weakening Heathen Wand.” Vogel sharpens his Wand’s aim once more toward the abyss and murmurs a series of primordial spells—Shadow spells purified and cleansed by the Ancient One’s own hand.

He thrusts the Wand forward.

The swirling center of the abyss darkens, and Vogel smiles, sensing monumental power rising.

Without warning, a huge gray figure claws its way out of the abyss and slowly rises, unfolding itself, its form cathedral tall and ferally slender, like a living Wand.

The primordial demon angles its eyeless head down toward Vogel. Huge steely horns spike up like gray lightning from the Wand-beast’s temples, its claw-tipped fingers long and spindly. Its horrifying face is eggshell smooth, except for a dark slash of a mouth. Gray spikes angle back from the sides of its head and body like windswept shards, frozen in time.

Gasps rise all around, Priest Alfex taking a stumbling step back. Even normally unshockable Damion Bane’s power is shot through with surprise as Vogel drinks in the swirling, siphoning power of the Shadow Wand’s V’yexwraith manifestation.

The V’yexwraith sways before Vogel like a tree in an invisible wind. It lets out a low hiss that quickly morphs into a multitoned, bone-shuddering shriek as it gives a violent yank against the Shadow Wand’s tether and sends pain knifing through Vogel’s wand arm.

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