Page 138 of The Dryad Storm

Raz’zor flashes me a toothy smile.

“Get my horde to the Sublands,” Naga hisses, her stance full of coiled power, “and we will liberate both the Verdyllion and the Unbroken Alfsigr Icaral who wields it, along with her Subland forces and the surviving Dryads.”

Ariel’s fiery aura crackles with urgency at the mention of Wynter, the flame in her eyes burning hotter as she looks at Mavrik and Gwynn, our path to the Verdyllion.

“You forget,” Mavrik cautions us all, “we don’t just lack the power to break out of Vogel’s dome-net. He’s cast a barrier over our Subland shielding, as well.”

“Shielding Vogel will soon break through,” Alder cautions. “If we can’t best him before winter descends.”

“Which will place another Wand of Power in his hands,” Vang Troi notes.

“Power Vogel could use to speed his control over every Mage’s fastlines and every Alfsigr Elf’s Zalyn’or bindings,” Mavrik adds. “And keep in mind, he already possesses the ability to glamour and portal.”

The whole world shivers into darkness, and we collectively startle as Hazel, in human form, bursts from the woods at a rapid clip, his compact form like a dark star hurtling toward us, the legs of three dead ravens clenched in his fist, the lifeless birds hanging upside down. I inwardly recoil. Swarms of eyes cover the raven’s heads, Shadow runes emblazoned on their sides.

Sylvan, Vang Troi, and my uncle Wrenfir bolt to their feet.

“It seems as if Vogel has been with us all the time,” Hazel snarls. “I caught four of these abominations.”

“You’re only holding three,” Vang Troi points out. “Where is the fourth?”

Hazel narrows his pitch-black eyes at her. “Iateit.”

Shock ripples through me as Hazel bares his teeth and I take in the disturbing gray glow sparking to life around his irises. “I’m linking to the energy in Vogel’s branching Shadow.”

“Take care, Hazel,” I caution. “Vogel could consume you through that link.”

Hazel shoots me a scornful look, his aura pulsing through the world around us once more. “The blood of the Forest balances the Death in me,” he hisses. “As long as my link to the Natural Matrix holds, my power is stronger than Shadow.”

“What do you mean, ‘blood of the Forest’?” Wrenfir presses, his bobcat bristling.

Hazel tilts his head toward my young uncle, the movement disturbingly quick. “Have you not guessed my kindreds? The source of my shifter self?”

I remember Hazel’s huge, eight-legged insectile form, terrifyingly bloodthirsty with slashing teeth. Spiderlike but not completely that, some other, terrible force of Nature within him.

Hazel’s thrall loops around Wrenfir. “You cannot guess it, can you, Mageling?” he snarls. Challenge knifes through Hazel’s words and power, and oddly, what feels like an attempt to intimidate my uncle as Wrenfir’s bobcat begins to growl.

Wrenfir’s magic gives a defiant flare, his blackened lips ticking up as he motions to his bobcat for calm and shoots Hazel a narrow-eyed grin. “Why don’t you show me, Deathling,” he challenges in turn.

Hazel bares his teeth, a foggy rush of his Darkness suddenly flashing straight through Wrenfir.

I flinch, but Wrenfir simply holds Hazel’s stare, shooting him a wider, canine-bearing grin.

A twitch of surprise shudders through Hazel’s magic before his expression turns to one of viciousness so feral it sends a chill through my lines. Hazel closes his eyes, arches his head back and opens his mouth. It stretches grotesquely wide, tendrils of Darkness emanating from it. A rushing sound erupts from the Forest, and all of us who remained sitting bolt to our feet as an insectile carpet of black flows toward Hazel and Wrenfir.

They’reticks, I realize as the stream passes close. So many bloodsucking ticks they could fell us all in a heartbeat. Before we can protest, the ticks flow up Hazel’s and Wrenfir’s bodies, all the way up to my uncle’s raven-tattooed neck, his kindred letting out a distressed snarl.

“Hazel, stop!” I cry out, but am silenced by my uncle’s halting, tick-covered palm.

Wrenfir, unflinching, hold’s Hazel’s full-dark gaze, ticks streaming all over him.

And then he smiles.

Hazel tenses, confusion overtaking his sharp features.

Wrenfir flinches as if from the sting of sudden bites, his smile vanishing.“Enough,”he levels at Hazel. “I’m yourally, Primordial.”

Hazel’s power shivers, a pained look slicing through his eyes before he murmurs a bone-shivering sound that seems to shudder through the very stone beneath us.

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