Page 165 of The Dryad Storm

Tierney coughs out a laugh through her tears. “Your lack of jealousy... it’s both impressive and confusing.”

Viger’s expression turns ardent, everything he feels for her simmering Dark in it. “The Strafeling will have you for perhaps sixty years. Seventy. I’ll have youforever.If the Natural World survives, I’ll be back for you, Asrai’lir.”

And then Tierney is being flooded by another of his fears, almost as strong as his fear of those three words.

His fear of her being alone.

Tierney swallows against the pain rising in her throat. “Find me in the future, Viger.”

“Bring the Balance, Asrai,” he responds, the scene around them wavering. “Restore the Natural Matrix. When the world needs more Death as its Balance, instead of more Life, I’ll be back for you with my full Darkness.”

And then they’re on the Shadowed ground, three huge desert serpents rising from the ashen sand, black as tar. One of them lowers itself before Viger, and he climbs onto its back. He peers down at Tierney, giving her one last, abyss-Dark look, before the serpents coil and turn, then dive into the ground, Viger and the serpents turning into black mist as they go.

Her heart in her throat, Tierney feels a parting brush of Viger’s Darkness against her lips and swirling around her in an ardent caress, those three words at the base of Viger’s fears simmering through her very soul.

She can feel him sending them out to her through their linkage. Feels them pulsing into the center of her power. A statement and a promise, as strong as eternity.

As powerful as Death.

I love you.

Chapter Eleven

Forest’khin

Elloren

Northern Dyoi Forest

Vogel’s Void tree shivers against the edges of my mind.

My pulse quickening, I dig my sharpened Dryad nails into the canopy-piercing branch I’m clinging to, the Void tree vision blurring my nighttime view of both the Shadow wasteland just beyond our Dyoi Forest shielding and Alder, who’s on evening watch beside me.

“Vogel’s there,” I huff out to Alder, pointing west toward the Shadowed lands, my alarm intensifying as a distant sense of Vogel’s stolen and corrupted silver gray Wyvernfire prickles heat over my skin. My surrounding ravens have grown restless, their huge wings ruffling. Errilith lets out a roughcawof warning, the ravens’ distress spreading to Alder’s encircling giant eagles.

“I can sense Vogel, as well,” Alder affirms, giving me a stark look as an unnatural frosty power crackles against my lines, the ice magic weaving through the Shadow net Vogel cast over our shielding.

Black Witch strong.

“Holy Ancient One,” I gasp, “I’m picking up on Fallon Bane’s power.”

“I sense her too,” Alder confirms, her timber-calm voice low with dread. “It’s stealthy, her attack. She’s suffusing Vogel’s net with enough Shadow ice to speed winter’s descent.”

The scream of distant Forest abruptly roars in from the southwest through Erthia’s rootline network, reaching us after who knows how long. Vertigo swoops through me and my hands flex, my nails digging into bark as both Alder and I shudder, overcome by the sense of the entire Natural Balance of Erthia tiltingtoward the East. Nowheldby the East.

Flashing images of a cloud-high Shadow forest of ice trees burst into my mind, huge swaths of healthy southwestern land being blasted apart by Fallon’s power, the trees’ elemental might siphoned into the ice as they die.

“Fallon has killed the Forests of Ishkartaan,” Alder rasps, trembling.

“With a Black Witch level of power,” I grit out, narrowing my gaze on the West. “Only this time, the Black Witch isn’t coming with fire. She’s coming withice—”

My words break off as a line of glowing purple moons flash into existence above the western horizon, as if Xishlon itself has joined with us to face Vogel and Fallon down. Stunned, I read the magic at play in those moons, and shock sizzles through my rootlines.

“That’s my cousin Or’myr’s magic,” I gasp, just as my sense of Vogel’s and Fallon’s presence snaps out of existence.

“They’re gone,” Alder shakily notes.

“For now,” I rejoin, my heart slamming against my ribs as I meet Alder’s dire look once more.

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