Page 17 of The Dryad Storm

“Thierren!”she screams again, and Tilor spits out a jeering laugh. He turns and slides his glowing gray-eyed gaze over her bound form, his strength seeming enhanced as he pulls her forward.

Sparrow looks frantically around the torchlit tunnel, her pulse jumping in her throat as she’s hauled into an impossibly gigantic alabaster cavern. Its pale reaches seem to stretch up forever, and horrifying masses of multi-eyed, gigantic wraith bats hang from its walls.

Tilor drags her into another tunnel cut into the cavern’s white stone, its walls lined with rows of nightmarish multi-eyed scorpios as big as men. The mantis-scorpion creatures’ gray bodies are stretched out and distorted, smoking runes marked on their thoraxes, their lethal-looking stingers quivering at the ends of raised segmented tails. With pulse-quickening uniformity, the scorpios’ grotesque masses of eyes snap toward Sparrow, their chilling gazes full of predatory interest,and her panicked mind turns over why the stone of this mountainous interior is the alabaster hue of Spine stone...

Her lungs seize as certainty slams through her.

They’re in the Western Realm. That arch of Shadow runes Tilor dragged her through that made her feel as if her body was about to be pulled apart into a million particles of static...

... it was a runic portal.

A strangled cry bursts from Sparrow’s throat as she realizes that Thierren is leagues upon leagues away in the Eastern Realm, if he’s even alive. As she’s being forced through the interior of one of theWesternRealm’s Spines. The Northern Spine or the Southern Spine, she doesn’t know which.

Fearing she’ll retch, she takes in the full nightmare as they emerge into another mammoth cavern.

A gigantic hive lines the walls, like a magnified hornet’s nest. Men are emerging from the hive cells, the Mage soldiers amongst them moving freely, their irises ringed with Shadow, their fastlines emitting tendrils of Shadow corruption. Keltish, Alfsigr, and Urisk men seem to be contained in one area, the non-Mages tethered to their hive cells via chains made of Shadow runes attached to the runic collars encircling their necks, their expressions deadened, their eyes fully gray.Slaves to the Magedom, Sparrow intuits, her alarm mounting.Slaves to Vogel’s Shadow power.

Sparrow’s last image of Thierren invades her mind—Thierren in his Vu Trin uniform, surrounded by dead dragons and slain Mage soldiers, screaming her name as Tilor flew her away on dragonback.

Desperation storming through her thoughts, Sparrow’s mind careens about.

Is Thierren even still alive? And Effrey... did the child get to safety? Or is the entire East now in Vogel’s grip? Even Elloren Gardner with her Black Witch power was easily bested by Vogel’s Shadow, her mind consumed by it. And the portal Sparrow was dragged through... was there a time lag like most portals have? How many days have passed since Xishlon?

Sparrow’s thoughts shut off as she’s yanked sideways, a cry of protest erupting from her throat as she’s towed into yet another curving tunnel then dumped in front of a small, Shadow-barred cavern, two Mage soldiers with gray-rimmed eyes bracketing the entrance.

“I’m housing herhere,” Tilor tells the soldiers, motioning toward the cavern, his tone shot through with arrogance. The soldiers stare at Sparrow’s bound formwith leers so chilling, her skin crawls.

“She’smine,” Tilor snarls. “Vogel gave her tome.”

The guards’ hungry looks turn to ones of resignation, and Tilor’s aggression recedes, his expression morphing to smugness. “I’d like some privacy,” he gloats, glancing pointedly at Sparrow, his teeth bared in an excited smile.

Sparrow clenches her fists, desperate for the dagger Tilor confiscated from her with a chiding laugh.

The soldiers dip their heads deferentially, casting quick looks of envy toward Sparrow before they stride away from the cell.

“One more thing,” Tilor calls after them, and they pause and turn, the tunnel’s silvery torchlight flickering over them all. “If you hear her scream, ignore it.” The words slide from Tilor’s tongue like he’s tasting them.

Sparrow grows light-headed as another wave of fear sweeps through her. Smiling, Tilor lifts his wand and murmurs a spell, and the cell’s Shadow bars turn to mist.

Sparrow breaks into futile revolt, kicking and struggling against her vine bindings. Tilor strikes with frightening speed, his booted foot slamming into her side with brutal force, the wind propelled from her lungs as she contracts with agony.

Vicious anger streaks across Tilor’s face as he drags her into the cell and dumps her in a corner. He lifts his wand, and gray vines spring from its tip and tether her to the floor.

Sparrow begins to sob.Thierren, is all she can think, screaming his name in her mind.Thierren!

Murmuring a spell, Tilor points his wand at Sparrow’s torso, and her bindings dissolve.

He steps back, expression excited, and a harder slash of terror knifes through her as she realizes hewantsher to try to flee.Wantsher to fight him.

Shivering with both rage and fear, she rises on unsteady legs and readies herself to do just that, balling her fists, clear she’s about to be horrifically abused but determined to inflict at least some small measure of pain in return.

With a growling cry, she launches herself at Tilor, going straight for his eyes. He anticipates her and counters in a blur, a gasp tearing from her throat when she’s grabbed and effortlessly hurled at the wall behind her. Her back collides with stone, and she plummets to the floor in an aching heap.

“You little. Urisk.Whore,” Tilor growls as he paces in front of her, then raises his wand and murmurs a spell that sends an uncomfortable tingle over Sparrow’s skin.“You don’t deserve to be covered in Mage-sanctified Shadow,” he sneers.

Sparrow glances down to find tendrils of smoke rising from every speck of her exposed skin, her Shadow-gray coloration morphing back to its natural lavender. Trembling, she readies herself once more to claw his face.

He stares her down, his gaze flicking lasciviously over her from head to toe. “I wanted to be the first to fully possess you,” he drawls, a ripple of outrage crossing his features before his green lips inch up into a lewd smile. “But I imagine Thierren Stone has already broken you in.”

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