Page 128 of The Dryad Storm

“He wasn’t always like this,” the emaciated woman nervously counters. She’ssobbing a little as she speaks, her arms wrapped around her scarily thin frame as if she’s desperate for self-comfort. She looks to the white-haired woman, a pleading expression on her sickly face. “He’s got good in him. I know he does. When we first took him in, he was such a sweet little boy.”

“He was never asweet boy,” the man refutes with a vicious sneer. “He was off right from the start.” He jabs a thick finger at Viger. “Up all night. Asleep all day.Peeringout from corners. Like a demon from a nightmare. Eating spoiled food.” He crosses his muscular arms in front of himself, eyes set on the bespectacled man, as if only a man will see sense here. “We caught him taking things from thegarbage.” He glances at Viger, his gaze narrowed. “Frightening, is what he is and always was.”

“He’s quiet and artistic,” the woman insists, her voice choked with tears.

The man gapes at her. “He drew multiple pictures of giant gray clouds with horrible eyes devouring villages like a demonic tide, a black tide rising up from the ground to batter against it! Those aren’t normal things for a child to be drawing!”

The emaciated woman shakes her head, her mouth a trembling grimace. “He’s good. Iknowhe’s good. You don’t see him for what he is. You never did.” She looks at Viger, desperation washing over her face. “Viger, why won’t you talk to me? I want youhome.”

The man jabs his finger at the youth once more, his expression venomous. “That...thingcan never step foot inside my house again.” He rounds on the woman. “Or I will call the Mage Council, Rosalie. IswearI will.”

The dark thrall winding around motionless Viger ripples out over the floor, thickening. The bearded man lets out a low oath and steps back, but the black mist slithers over his foot.

“You see what he does?” the bearded man cries to the older couple, a slight tremor to his voice. “He’sevil, I tell you!”

“Please,” Rosalie begs the couple, “you need to believe me—he’s not what Goryl thinks he is.”

“He’sexactlywhat I think he is,” Goryl hisses at her.

“The Fae have ways that differ from ours,” the bespectacled man pipes up diplomatically. But I notice he’s regarding Viger warily. The white-haired woman, on the other hand, is fixedly eyeing Goryl, pointedly ignoring the dark mist snaking around her ankles and undulating over the entire kitchen floor.

Rosalie is sobbing harder now, her head falling into her hands. “He’s good with animals—kind to them,” she murmurs brokenly.

Goryl makes a sound of disgusted incredulity. “Are you going to tell them whattypeof animals, Rosa?”

“No, but—”

“Tell them whattype, Rosalie.”

She looks up and meets his eyes, her face a mask of misery.

“I’ll tell you what type,” Goryl snarls, turning back to the shocked-looking couple. “Bats. Ravens. Scavengers. Every vile animal you can think of.Wolves.” He swirls the air with his finger. “Sniffing round the house. We caught him with awhole pack of them. More than once. Circled round him, they did. Like he was somedark lord. It wastwisted.” He glares at Rosalie. “Should I tell them about the spiders?”

She shoots him a pained, pleading look before glancing imploringly toward the older couple, her cowed voice fading to a whisper. “He’s quiet and thoughtful. He’s smarter than most—reads everything he can get his hands on—”

“And what does he pick out from it? Hmmm?” Goryl demands. “Marks every page that has to do with death. Or disease.That’swhat he reads.” He taps the side of his temple with a finger. “He’s sick in the head. Maybe more than sick.”

Viger endures it all calmly, black eyes alarmingly feral, his form still and silent.

Like Death.

Goryl makes the Ancient One’s star sign of holy protection on his chest, murmuring a prayer.

Seeming overcome, Rosalie suddenly rushes through the mist toward Viger. She grasps his arm, but he doesn’t look at her. “I know you’ve good in you,” she cries. She looks to Goryl, pleading. “Remember when he nursed the bats?”

“No normal boy has a small sanitarium for ravens and bats!” he booms back. “No normal family has bats flying ’bout the house!”

“He’snotnormal! But he’s notbad!”

“A mother’s love is an all too forgiving thing!”

“As a father’s should be!”

Viger rises in one blindingly fast motion. The entire room seems to shudder and contract as his eyes turn solid black and he sets them on Goryl, horns rising from his head.

“YOU. ARE. NOT. MY. FATHER.”

Viger’s deep voice echoes from every corner of the room, the Dark force of it sending a vicious chill straight through Tierney, and she takes a step back, her heart quickening.

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