Page 113 of The Dryad Storm

Please, I beg the Forest, the Ancient One, and any deity or tree that will listen as Thierren and Sage growl and struggle.Please free them.

A ripple of the Dyoi Forest’s awareness shimmers through my rootlines, a fearful, questioning energy in it that settles into courageous understanding. And then, the Forest’s elemental aura swoops around Thierren and Sage...

... and draws their forms straight into the trees.

Immense relief shudders through me as shocked sounds erupt from Ra’Ven and throughout the ranks of Vang Troi’s forces.

Ra’Ven rounds on me and Yvan, an alarmed expression on his emerald-patterned face. “Where has she gone?”

“What have you done to them, Black Witch?” Vang Troi demands.

“The Forest has embraced them,” Alder insists. “It will free them from Vogel’s hold.”

“Just like it freedme,” I stress.

My adversaries’ weapons power up once more, the Forest itself seeming to sense their aggressive intent. A palpable call from the trees reverberates throughout the entire Dyoi Forest.

Birds and animals are suddenly flooding out of the tree line and streaming toward me, many of them color-stripped to gray, some grievously burned by Vogel’s Shadowfire, all suffused with urgency and terror. My throat tightens as they gather around me in a stunning show of alliance, a brilliantly purple fox with a singed, grayed ear slinking in against my calf, a moon-white Barred Owl with burned feathers landing heavily on my shoulder, the bird’s predatory courage feeding into my own. An almost fully grayed Noi Deer moves in to lean against my other side, both grief and fierce affection for these kindreds firing through me.

The huge congregation of animals seems to stun those set against me,disorientation shivering through their power. Even Iris looks thrown.

I’m about to plead my case once more when there’s a sudden, vicious tug on both my rootlines and the roots of the entire Forest. A gasp tears from my throat, and my balance gives way as a cry bursts from Alder and Hazel lets out an otherworldly shriek, his teeth chattering in obvious agony as he falls to his knees.

Yvan catches me, his fiery aura lashing around mine, the owl on my shoulder taking flight and the other animals fleeing back into the Forest’s shelter, my ravens letting out loudcaws. Every semiconscious Dryad’kin, including Mavrik and Gwynn, cries out even in their stupor.

“Elloren, what is it?” Yvan presses, urgency burning through our bond, but I can barely focus on him.

An image overtakes my mind—the Void tree’s energy latching on to the smoking stump of III, a gray trunk and branches emerging from the stump’s central abyss, growing and burgeoning into a huge tree of Shadow. My rootlines fill with the slithering sensation of Shadow power settling there, the Void stump consuming the elemental power of the destroyed Northern Forest with parasitic fervor while it sends feelers out toward the Eastern Realm.

“III,” I roughly force out to Yvan as my rootlines shiver with the Forest’s terror. “Vogel and his Shadow Wand have invaded III’s rootline connections. And once they gain enough power, they’re going to use them as a route to attack the East.”

Part Two

Prismatic Fall

Chapter One

Shadow Wand Demon

Tierney Calix

Northern Vo River

Tierney swirls through Viger’s Darkness, wrapped in his misty embrace as they tunnel North through the Vo River’s waters. She clings to Viger’s long form, the two of them whirled into a blur, an echo of his Death Fae kiss brushing her lips. A kiss she can sense him holding himself back from repeating, his mouth firmly pressed to the nape of her neck.

She’s stunned by the potent edge ofwantin Viger, shuddering through the tether his Xishlon kiss set down between them, emanating from deep in his center. Their proximity makes it difficult to think around her own bond-fueled desire to merge with Viger’s Dark thrall, to fall into another of his tongue-twining, otherworldly kisses, even though she’s distantly aware of Or’myr and Fyordin also tethered around the two of them, the collective spiral of their partially dissolved forms accelerating through the Vo River with breathtaking speed.

Viger’s Darkness abruptly lifts, his powerful momentum halting.

Vertigo accosts Tierney in an Erthia-tilting swoop, her body jostling to a stop against Viger. She blinks, her eyes stinging from the abrupt switch from Viger’s otherworldly Dark to the underwater Northern Vo River’s shimmering gray light, she and Viger back in corporeal form, lying on the River’s soft bed, Or’myr and Fyordin beside them.

Dizziness swirling through her, Tierney takes in the three males clustered around her at the Vo’s base. Viger’s lips are still pressed to her neck, his sharp teeth lightly touching down, the flick of his tongue against her skin enticing in the extreme. Or’myr hugs her side, his strong hand grasping her upper arm with covetous force,a shock of purple electricity sizzling through the point of contact in an unnervingly exciting rush that only adds to the bond-fueled thrall of Viger’s kiss. And Fyordin... he’s holding on to her other arm, his kindred water power whooshing through her with emphatic, territorial might, as if seeking to drive Viger and Or’myr clear away from her.

Her own water power churns into turmoil in response to her bond-amplified attraction to all three of them. Tierney huffs out a hard, bubbling breath, struggling to regain her wits. She pushes at Viger, and his enticing closeness immediately breaks away as all three males pull back from her.

Viger’s Dark eyes meet hers, his arresting, pale features wavy under the water, and Tierney fights the urge to grab him and pull him back into a world-Darkening kiss.

It’s the Deathkin bond you’re feeling, Tierney cautions herself.Force it back! You need to think past it!

---