Page 131 of The Dryad Storm

She draws him into a close embrace once more and can feel the loosening of his breath against her neck as she’s filled with the sense of natural Death thrumming through the earth, through her River above, the Magedom’s Void Death driven off by it. The River’s Balance tenuously restored.

But she can also feel Viger’s pain and unguarded fear over being nature’s Great Balancer and what that might mean for his immediate future.

“Those pictures you drew as a teen,” Tierney whispers. “You were drawing your fear of a Reckoning, weren’t you?”

Viger nods against the side of her face.

“The Shadow is throwing off the Balance,” she continues, losing herself to their joint upsweep of emotion. And their joint upsweep offear. “It’s notyouthrowing it off. I know you fear for my River as much as I do.”

He nods again and draws back a fraction, a grim Darkness passing through his gaze. “There’s only one way to stave off a full Reckoning,” he says in a rough whisper, “if Nature’s Balance is destroyed.”

Tierney waits, heart in her throat.

“To dissolve myself completely into the Natural Matrix.”

Tierney’s pulse stutters. “Would it kill you?”

“Only if the Shadow Death wins.”

A terrible silence descends.

“And if it doesn’t win?” Tierney asks, voice tight as she takes in the stark glint in Viger’s eyes.

“I’d reemerge,” he says, his voice weighted with a chilling finality. “In a hundred years or more.”

Her breath catches. “Are you immortal?”

His gaze on her intensifies. “Yes, Asrai. As are you.”

Tierney startles at this, shaking her head in solid refute. “Viger, I’m Asrai.”

“You have a much stronger Deathkin line than I realized. I knew there was a sliver of primordial lineage in you, or you would not have bonded to Deathkin kelpies. But it’s much more than a sliver. When we kissed on Xishlon, I thought I would be able to stave off a permanent binding between us. But your Deathkin line... it overtook the Balance between us when you pulled on your full power battling the V’yexwraith, and I wasn’t able to hold back from a full Deathkin mating bond.”

Tierney’s heart thuds against her chest as she senses, through his line of fear, the truth of his words. That he never meant to create such an intense bond between them.

“You told me that Deathkin don’t pair with other Deathkin,” she counters, confused.

His eyes ink over, a spark igniting in them. “Not when the Balance is veering toward chaos. The draw becomes too...wild. If we were to give in to this bond, it could pull us both into Nature’s Reckoning.”

Longing ripples through their bond, and Tierney senses Viger swiping it back, emotional pain rushing in behind it. And fear. Incredible fear. Tierney follows his line of fear, stunned by what she finds at its base. Three words, buried deep. All his fears swirling around them.

A tear streaks down her cheek, and she can sense it’s as inky black as his own. “I think I understand,” she says, lifting her palm to his tear-slicked cheek.

Viger lets out a shuddering exhale, his mouth trembling before he nods and draws her close, pressing his tear-damp lips to her neck in an impassioned, tongue-flickering kiss that sets Tierney’s heart racing.

And then he stills against her and tugs gently on their dream tether.

The faint, silvery light cuts out, the two of them dissolving into entwined mist before they fall into a deep, Deathkin sleep, both of them soon caught up in nightmares filled with clouds of gray with multiple eyes ready to consume Erthia whole.

Chapter Four

Ice Witch

Marcus Vogel

The newly annexed Gardnerian province of Issaan

The Holy Magedom’s central continent

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