Page 164 of The Dryad Storm

“You purposefully drove me away,” she murmurs, barely able to get the words out.

His dark eyes remain fixed toward the West. “It is not our time, Asrai.”

A torrent of emotion churns into being, what Tierney feels for Or’myr warring with what she was starting to feel for Viger too. “Are you saying there will be a time?” she asks, confused.

“Someday, if the Natural World survives,” he answers, his power encircling them both. “Soon, I will dissolve myself into Nature to hold off a Reckoning. The dissolution of my power of Natural Death into the living Forest will buy you time and form a bulwark against the Shadow’s Void.”

Tierney’s thoughts whirl, alarm surging. “Viger,no...”

He sets his full-black gaze on her, the whole world contracting around them as he bares his teeth. “It is the only way to ward off our Unleashing.” Pain flickers through his eyes. “There is no Balance between you and me at the moment, Asrai.You know this. We both felt it when we dream-paired. You hold too much Deathkin lineage. And there is too much Death coming for the Natural World. We can’t risk amplifying it.”

Tierney’s lips tremble as she holds his full-Dark gaze, remembering how he told her, on Xishlon, that two Death Fae never pair because there is no Balance in it. A fuller comprehension stirs. “You used my fears to drive me away, didn’t you,” she rasps, tears burning her eyes. “You read my fear of someone trying to own me and used it to drive me away.”

“I did,” he says, still as a Dark star.

She shakes her head and looks back out over the nightmare landscape. The nightmare coming for her Waters. The nightmare Viger is willing to sacrifice himself to fight.

“I just want you to know,” she says, voice shredding, “that I could love you too. I love Or’myr. A great deal. And even Fyordin as a good friend. But, in another place, another time... I could love you intensely.” She forcibly keeps her eyes on him, holding steady against his hypnotic thrall.

“I know,” he says. “I’ve read your fear of that too.”

And I’ve readyourfears, she thinks to herself, her heart twisting.I’ve read your greatest fear in those three words you keep buried so deep inside you.

“It’s as I told you,” he says, turning his Dark gaze back toward the poisoned landscape, his two snakes suddenly there, twined around his shoulders, “when we kissed on Xishlon and in the Northern Forest, I thought I could hold back a full mating bond. I didn’t expect to unearth such a strong Deathkin lineage in you.”

“Viger...”

“We can’t be together with so much Death power running between us,” he states. “Even dream-pairing, we almost drew each other toward the Reckoning that could bring Nature’s full fury down on the Living World. If we were to take each other as mates, your Asrai nature would fall away. At a time when your River needs you as Asrai’lir.”

Tierney fights back the surge of emotion, those three words that Viger fears most shivering through the bond connecting them. “Can you feel me inside your fears?” she whispers as a tear breaks loose to streak down her cheek.

No answer. They sit there for a long moment, eyes locked, enveloped in his stillness. And then he lifts a hand to caress her cheek, her breath hitching at the warm contact, his voice a bone-deep thrum when it comes. “You never know someone aswell as you do when you knowexactlywhat they fear,” he croons. “And your fears, Asrai’vhia’lir... your fears arebeautiful.”

Tierney gives up trying to contain the tears and lets herself melt into his touch, goodbye shivering in it. “How long will you be absorbed into Nature?” she asks, hoping against hope that the Natural World will survive what’s coming.

He tilts his head, as if considering. “A hundred years. Perhaps two hundred. Our power works in those cycles.”

“I’ll never see you again,” she protests, the tears flowing.

Viger’s dark mouth slides into a faint smile. “We may yet meet again. It’s as I’ve told you, Asrai. You are immortal because of your Deathkin lineage. Unless pierced through with iron. But the Asrai part of you, after the course of a normal Fae lifespan, it will drop away. You will become, increasingly, one of us.”

Tierney stills, shock lancing through her before it settles, so many things about her falling into place. A wavering smile forms on her lips as she holds Viger’s hypnotic stare. “The idea should scare me, but it doesn’t.”

“Until then,” he says, low and resonant, his thumb tracing the edge of her mouth, “follow the Waters’ Balance.”

She can sense Viger’s undercurrent of meaning, knows he senses the overwhelming Balance that flowed out of her dream with Or’myr.

A fresh wave of tears pools in Tierney’s eyes, and she shakes her head. “I can’t be with Or’myr in that way. His kiss, his touch—there’s too much fire in it.”

Viger’s hand slides down to her shoulder, a pained, ardent Darkness in his eyes. “You’ll find a way.”

“If we do,” Tierney shakily offers, “I want your blessing.”

Some amusement shines through Viger’s pain. “You seek the blessing of a Death Fae?”

She nods.

“His fears are beautiful too,” Viger states, his voice shot through with feeling. He takes her hand, their fingers interlacing, ribbons of his Darkness twining around their wrists. “They’re noble, like yours.” He gives her a wry look. “As are the bulk of Fyordin’s.”

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