Page 135 of The Dryad Storm

Shock races through our fire.

Bleddyn lifts the malachite, tears sheening her eyes. “You were right, Elloren. This fight, it’s bigger and different than we all thought.” She peers in the direction of the broad mountain ledge. “Vang Troi has emerged from the Forest, as well.”

My pulse kicks up. Yvan and I exchange a stark look before we rise and follow Bleddyn back to the ledge, along with Errlith and the rest of my flock, my power burgeoning with every step, shot through with fall’s power-amplifying explosion of color.

In the morning light, I take in the Shadow wasteland beyond our Dyoi Forest shielding, my grip tightening around Yvan’s. The sight is a fresh punch to the gut. To our east lies a fragile Forest caught up in early autumn’s glorious, chromatic show of light power. To our west lies a color-stripped, poisoned wasteland, stretching as far as the eye can see.

My lightlines contract just from looking at the Shadowed land, and I recoil from the sensation and exchange a quick look with Errilith beside me, my raven’s loops of power tugging my sight back toward the color-rich Forest. I follow the pull of my kindred’s magic, turn toward the trees, the tension in my lines slackening as they’re flooded with another shimmering surge of chromatic power.

“I see,” I whisper to Errlith with a quick caress of his wing, Errilith’s returning embrace of Deathkin stillness bolstering me.

A large bonfire still crackles in the huge ledge’s center, spitting sparks and cutting through the morning air’s chill, most of my allies grouped around it, Freyja Zyrr and the soldier Hee Muur still on our side of the shield-divided ledge. Yvanand I stride hand in hand toward our allies, Bleddyn, Errilith, and the rest of my ravens fanning out around us.

Most of our adversaries are gathered just beyond the translucent shield-wall separating the ledge in half, the rush of Soleiya’s aura like a flaming dagger thrown straight at me.

Dryad Witch, Raz’zor growls into my mind, alliance blazing in his crimson-fire eyes. Naga nods to Yvan and me in greeting and we’re swept up in an embracingwhooshof our horde’s fiery support that I return with a blast of power that has Naga, Ariel, Raz’zor, and the others looking at me with widened eyes before giving me fanged smiles.

Those who also hold Dryad lineage seem as caught up in autumn’s surge of light power as I am. Mavrik’s and Gwynn’s golden eyes are ringed a more intense band of glowing color, their twinned magic’s looping golden aura shot through with streaks of rainbowed light, a thread of connection to that power tingling through my lines via our common Forest linkage. Even Gwynn and Mavrik’s kindred Flame Hawks seeming invigorated, their orange feathers aglow with a prismatic sheen.

Sylvan and Yulan appear renewed as well, their forest green coloration fully restored and shot through with a heightened, branching Dyoi purple, the elemental power running through their rootlines blazing with foliage light. Sylvan’s branch horns have shed their gray—they’re now a rich brown, his pine hair thick with deep-purple needles. I glance around, wondering who his hidden kindred might be, but find no clue.

Yulan’s grayed Noi heron hugs her side, some of the graceful bird’s feathers having regained their blue, white and lavender coloration. Ariel and Alder are stationed protectively beside them, Yulan’s long vine tresses holding a heartening explosion of delicate multihued flowers.

Hazel and Oaklyyn are conspicuously absent, as are Trystan, Vothe, Ra’Ven, and Rivyr’el, but Vang Troi stands near the ledge’s shielding on our side of it, her violet eyes fixed on Yvan and me.

Worry tightens my throat as I take in Vang Troi’s stiff stance and her lack of any obvious show of Dryad’khin transformation or kindred creature.

“Did the Forest show itself to you?” I ask, my concern mounting.

“It did,” she confirms, determination hardening her sharp features and flashing through her sapphire power. “I held back my assent when it asked for an alliance.”

My heartbeat quickens at this news, my fire spiking against Yvan’s equally unsettled flame.

Vang Troi unfurls her unmarked palm. “After the Forest revealed the wider fight for the Natural World to me, I wanted to forge an alliance with it. But both the Forest and I are holding back for the moment so that I could stand before my forces asproofthat what the Forest offers is a true invitation to alliance—freely given and freely accepted or rejected with no compulsion. But what the Forest has shown me—” she gives us a dire look “—it’s compelling to the extreme.” She turns to our adversaries just beyond the translucent shield-wall, a penumbra of blue power shivering to life around her as she describes visions stressing Dryad’khin unity against the Shadow that the Forest sent to her. “I urge all of you to enter into the Forest as I have done,” Vang Troi charges. “To simply listen to what it has to say. And decide, for yourselves, if you will align with it as Forest’khin, as I have decided to.”

My heart gives a leap as a troubled murmur goes up amongst our adversaries, Iris, Soleiya, and Alcippe all wearing expressions of outrage. Soleiya’s invisible fire aura whips ragefully against me, and Yvan and I both stiffen, but then, the unexpected happens.

“I’ll hear the Forest out,” the young Vu Trin soldier Hee Muur announces to Vang Troi, her severe expression turning flintier still as she slashes out an emphatic hand toward the tree line. “But that’sit.”

As if galvanized by Hee Muur’s shocking declaration, Bleddyn strides away from Yvan and me and straight up to the ledge-dividing shield-wall, her geomancy aura of emerald light gaining intensity. Iris’s invisible flame aura burgeons into an out-of-control firestorm as Bleddyn halts a few paces before her, only the shield separating them, Iris’s perennially hostile expression turning flat-out belligerent.

Unmoved by Iris’s show of ire, Bleddyn holds her III-marked palm up. “Iris Morgaine,” she states with impassioned formality, her aura crackling with emotion. “I implore you, as myfriend. Just hear the Forest out.”

Iris doesn’t budge, fire spitting through the eyes she has furiously pinned on Bleddyn, her power blazing with enough conflict to level a mountain to charred ash. I know the two of them have a fractured friendship. Divided by cultural lines, like so much of the East.

But something in Iris softens, the angry sear of her fire dampening as she holds Bleddyn’s unflinching, forthright stare. And remarkably, Iris’s closed-off stance slackens, her defensive look collapsing into one of pained emotion.

“All right, Bleddyn,” she snaps, her voice tight and raw, her fire now a discordant flare. “I’ll hear your Forest out, as well. But I won’t join with it.”

A gasp shudders through my throat, Yvan’s hand tightening around mine as our bond flares with surprise over Iris ceding even one trace of ground.

Alder crafts an opening in our shield for Iris to step through so that Bleddyn, Iris, Vang Troi, and Hee Muur can approach the tree line together, Sylvan and Yulan joining them.

I’ve a sense of our collective breath, trapped, as Vang Troi, Hee Muur, and Iris all place their palms to the bark of the same Noi Oak...

... and are abruptly pulled into the tree.

A tense murmur ripples through everyone assembled, just as the Alfsigr Elf Rivyr’el Talonir emerges from a Noi Oak a few paces away in a flash of prismatic color.

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