Page 119 of The Dryad Storm

“Press this branch to his chest!” I cry out to my uncle Wrenfir, tossing my branch to him.

Wrenfir deftly catches it, then rips open the collar of Hazel’s leafy black tunic.

Hazel snaps his too-long teeth at my spider-tattooed uncle.“Mage abomination!”he hisses, the sound coming from everywhere at once, sending ice down my spine.“I will turn your lines to Shadow and indenture you as my SLAVE!”

Teeth gritted, Wrenfir forces my living branch to Hazel’s chest.

A purple-branching pattern races over Hazel’s grayed skin, and he stops thrashing. His insectile legs vanish into him, and the whites of his eyes snap back into existence as his irises contract to a more human size. His eyes lock with Wrenfir’s, midnight black overtaking the gray, a look of astonishment on Hazel’s visage.

Wrenfir stiffens, my uncle’s fire and earth power suddenly contracting toward Hazel’s Deathkin power with a force that seems to stun them both as Yvan and Rafe rise and cautiously step back.

The ropy tendrils of Hazel’s aura darken, morphing from gray to black as they whip around him before flowing outward to encircle both him and Wrenfir, as if moving of their own accord.

“Vogel’s gone,” Hazel rasps to Wrenfir, their eyes still locked, Wrenfir’s palms and the living branch beneath them pressed to Hazel’s heaving, naked chest, Hazel’s skin starting to take on his natural lime coloration.

Wrenfir gives Hazel a terse nod before he rises, and takes hold of the wand sheathed at his hip as my ravens draw their ropes of power back into themselves. Wrenfir angles his wand at Hazel and growls out a spell that bursts my vine bindings to purple mist. Then he hands Hazel the living branch and steps back, my uncle’s rattled expression shifting to his usual angry intensity.

Hazel’s knife-sharp features return to their otherworldly severity as he and Wrenfir tear their gazes away from each other. But my power empathy can sense the way their invisible magical auras continue to circle each other with stunned, questioning fervor.

“Do you finally see why we need to align?” Rafe is suddenly calling out to Vang Troi as he steps toward the translucent runic shield-wall separating our two factions, his amber gaze boring into the Vu Trin commander. My eldest brother levels his finger at Hazel. “Vogel isn’t going to stop finding ways to come at us, even under this dome-shield. Wehaveto share every shred of our combined knowledge and every last weapon at our disposal tofight the Magedom.”

“We will not align with you to be consumed bytrees,” Vang Troi fires back.

“Sage and Thierren will emerge,” I insist, catching Ra’Ven’s look of worry.

Vang Troi narrows her violet gaze on me, a tense standoff descending just as Mavrik and Gwynn begin to stir.

Blinking dazedly, the twinned Dryad’kin open their eyes, push themselves up to a sitting position and turn toward each other, their golden auras of power springing to life.

“Gwynnifer,” Mavrik rasps out as they embrace and trigger an invisible shock of raying, prismatic light. The colors burst against my eyes and spangle through my power-empath senses, the intensity of the feelings flashing through their magic so potent it takes my breath away.

The two Agolith Flame Hawk kindreds standing sentinel beside them take on a brighter golden glow, and a sudden vision of the Verdyllion Wand shimmers into my mind as my lightlines give an unexpected, emphatic tug toward theirs.

“Mavrik Glass,” Vang Troi huffs out, sounding astonished as she takes in her former double agent’s pointed ears, golden eyes, and prism-streaked hair as well as the deepened forest green hue of his skin.

“Nor Vang Troi,” Mavrik responds, his voice rough with feeling as he and Gwynn rise, hand in hand, their hawk kindreds flying up to light on their shoulders. “I’ve much to tell you,” he rasps out before filling everyone in on everything that happened in the Sublands and how Wynter Eirllyn and her brother, Cael, and Cael’s Second, Rhys, are trapped there along with the Verdyllion Wand, Valasca, Sparrow, and three Smaragdalfar soldiers.

“I can sense the Verdyllion Wand’s underground location,” Gwynn reveals, golden eyes wide as she swallows, glancing southwest as if her gaze is drawn there by an invisible pull.

“As can I,” Mavrik agrees, sharing a fraught glance with Gwynn. “Ever since we were transported to the Sunlands by III.”

“Valasca is alive?” Ni Vin exclaims, voice breaking.

We all turn toward her, and my heart twists as I take in how obviously worked up Ni Vin is. She’s always been such a grim, silent figure, forever marked by the tragedy of the last Black Witch’s reign of fire, Ni Vin’s burn-scarred head, melted ear, and singed stump of a hand sustained when she was but a child, permanent marks of my grandmother’s atrocities.

But Ni Vin’s grim reserve has been blasted clear away, her slim military-uniformed figure and blazing dark eyes conveying the sense that she’d jump right into the middle of Vogel’s forces if it meant getting to Valasca.

“I assume you’re Ni Vin,” Mavrik ventures.

Ni Vin nods once, her throat bobbing, as if she’s struggling not to choke on the rise of emotion. Tears escape her eyes and streak down her cheeks, a tremble kicking up in her shoulders, her sister, Kam Vin, placing a bolstering hand on Ni Vin’s shoulder.

“She spoke of you often,” Mavrik tells Ni Vin. “She spoke of her ‘Great Love, Ni Vin.’?”

Ni Vin lets out a strangled sound, silently weeping.

Mavrik turns, exchanging a grave look with Jules Kristian, and I recall whenJules mentioned, long ago in Verpacia, that Mavrik and he were in league with each other in the now-shattered Western Realm Resistance. “Jules,” Mavrik ventures, concern writ on his face, “where’s Lucretia?”

Jules shakes his head, barely able to get the words out. “We were attacked by Marfoir on dragonback and forced to the ground. They ambushed us, and one of them knocked me unconscious. When I awakened...” Jules grimaces, his lips quavering.

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