Page 19 of The Dryad Storm

An icy wind blasts into the cavern, hurling both Sparrow and Valasca off their feet and slamming their bodies into the wall beside them, groans forced from both their throats. Icy cages slam down around them, the cold stinging Sparrow’s skin as their wrists are pinned to the wall with frigid ice shackles.

Fallon Bane sweeps into the cavern, her black cloak flowing behind her, and Sparrow’s lungs seize. There’s a thick commander’s stripe marking Fallon’s Level Five tunic, and she has a black dragon talon pushed through her long tied-back tresses.

Fallon’s green eyes glare hate at Valasca before she casts Sparrow an incredulous glare, recognition lighting her features. “Youagain?” She spits out a disgusted sound before turning back to Valasca. She jabs her wand into Valasca’s throat, forcing herchin up. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you, Amaz,” Fallon hisses. “Did you really think I’d let such a valuable runic sorceress escape?” She leans closer, baring her teeth. “Especially one who killed mybrother?”

Valasca’s mouth tilts into a chiding grin. “Truth told, Sylus proved to be a bit of a lightweight.”

Painfully cold hoarfrost forms all over the cave as Fallon jabs her wand harder. “Well, I’mnot,” she snarls. “Don’t underestimate me,Amaz.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,Crow,” Valasca bites back before swiftly murmuring a spell under her breath.

Glowing emerald runes flash to life on Valasca’s forehead and the center of her neck, and Fallon’s eyes widen. An explosion of raying, green power detonates from the runes, and Fallon is punched from the cave cell by an invisible pulse of magic, her wand blasting from her hand, all the ice in the room instantly shattering, including Sparrow’s and Valasca’s frigid shackles. Sparrow teeters and almost loses her footing while Valasca unsheathes her Ash’rion blade in a blur and slides her fingers over its rune-marked hilt.

A thin bolt of green spears toward Fallon’s wand, and it explodes in a flash of verdant fire just as bootheels sound and a wand is tossed to Fallon from the hallway’s side. Fallon deftly catches it before casting Valasca a look that’s so malicious, Sparrow’s skin breaks into gooseflesh.

Mages run into view, wands raised, as Fallon growls out a spell along with them and Valasca points her blade toward them, rapidly conjuring a translucent emerald shield-wall into existence before herself and Sparrow.

Multiple blasts of gray Mage power slam against the shield, and Sparrow flinches, Fallon’s wintry blast punching a frosty concavity into Valasca’s barrier that Sparrow fears will break clear through it. But the barrier holds, icy fractures spiderwebbing over the shield’s expanse.

Growling out a curse, Valasca points her blade downward. A bolt of green light blasts from it and smashes a sizable hole straight through the stone floor in a spray of rocks that Sparrow has to shield her face from.

“C’mon!” Valasca cries as she grabs Sparrow’s arm and hurls her into the hole.

Sparrow tumbles into its darkness and lands on another stone floor in a painful heap.

Valasca drops down beside her, the small, rocky space instantly lit up by the glowing green runes on Valasca’s blade, revealing a tunnel before them. Valascaangles her blade upward and murmurs another spell. In a burst of jade light, green-crystalline stone forms across the hole above, sealing it shut.

Fallon’s muffled roar of fury sounds through the stone as Valasca lifts her blade once more and murmurs another spell. Large Varg runes spring to life on every surface of the cave, just as an explosion detonates above them, shaking the ground beneath their feet.

Sparrow frantically takes in the icy spiderwebbing cracks forming all over the barrier above them.

“Might be a good time to make a run for it,” Valasca prods.

They break into a sprint through the narrow tunnel and round a bend, where Valasca pauses to conjure another green glass barrier behind them. At the same moment, a larger ground-shaking explosion sounds from the direction they came from.

“Where are we?” Sparrow pants as they launch into another sprint.

“Welcome to the Smaragdalfar Resistance’s Sublands,” Valasca jauntily replies, the two of them racing through another curving, Varg-rune-marked tunnel and into a larger cave. “We’re just below the Northern Spine. And we need to get to the Resistance’s Subland base of operations under Valgard. We don’t have much time.”

Another explosion sounds, and Sparrow raises her hands to shield her face from a spray of rocks and stones. Spitting out a string of curses, Valasca grabs firm hold of Sparrow’s arm and yanks her sideways, veering them down a side tunnel.

Sparrow turns her head, and fear constricts her throat as Fallon Bane drops down behind them, ice blasting into being on the cave walls surrounding her and swiftly rippling in their direction. Fallon’s murderous green eyes zero in on them, and she raises her wand.

Chapter Four

Traitor to the Magedom

Gwynnifer Croft Sykes

Valgard, Gardneria

Ten days after Xishlon

“Give me your wand hand,” Mavrik Glass orders, coolly dominant.

The golden light from the small, suspended fire-orb he’s conjured flickers over his arresting features as he and Gwynn pause in the cramped kitchen of Gwynn’s family home.

Near the curtained back window they’re about to flee through.

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