Page 20 of The Dryad Storm

“Why?” Gwynn asks, the forest green of Mavrik’s penetrating gaze playing havoc with her lightlines. Verdant sparks crackle across her vision, a shimmer of the rich color racing over her wand hand as her power strains toward his with unsettling force.

“I need to link our fasting spells,” he clarifies, jaw ticking, body tense, as if he’s steeling himself against their disquieting magical draw, as well.

“But... I’m not fasted to you,” Gwynn sputters through their magical thrall. How can he possibly link their fasting spells?

Rapid-fire, her mind scours over every page of every grimoire she’s ever laid eyes on, searching for a spell that can connect unrelated fastlines, her trapped light magery giving her a picture-perfect memory.

Mavrik rolls his eyes and gives her a look of exasperation as he holds up a hand, his fastmarks a markedly different design than hers. “I’m quite clear we’re not fasted,” he says. He turns his hand, palm up, thrusting it toward her. “Gwynn, we’rereallyshort of time. Give me your hand.”

His tone is brusque, and Gwynn’s chest tightens with apprehension. His intense, domineering energy is nothing like Geoffrey’s mild-mannered congeniality...

A pang of turmoil twists her heart.

That’s how Geoffreyusedto be. Before he stopped caring if children are tortured.

Seeming cognizant of her flare of anguish, Mavrik tenses his brow. He unsheathes one of his wands and holds it up for her perusal, and Gwynn takes in the charged sapphire Noi runes marked on the wand’s slim, dark surface, stunned by his display of blatant—and thoroughly forbidden—magical mixing.

“I’m going to connect a combined Noi-and-Mage tracking spell and a Mage vine spell to our fastlines,” he explains, “and weave Noi barrier-breaking and linking spells around it. That way, if we get separated, I can track your location and reel you in.”

Gwynn’s mind whirls as she mentally connects the elemental building blocks of the spells he’s proposing, the puzzle pieces falling into their slots. “Oh,” she breathes. “That’s clever.”

Mavrik smirks, mischief dancing in his green eyes. “Wandmaster. Remember?”

Gwynn’s light power gives another sparkling surge toward him, and she catches his slight shiver and the sudden tightening around his eyes, magical tension thick in the air.

“Our magic...” she manages, fighting its pull to move toward him. “There’s some type of thrall between us.”

“I know,” he stiffly agrees. “But there’s no time to parse it out. We have to think past it.”

Struggling to focus through the captivating thrall, Gwynn places her wand hand in his.

Her trapped light power spangles through her lines toward their linked hands in a heady, multicolored rush as she’s overcome by the sensation of his power sizzling toward her in turn. His eyes widen as he takes in her suddenly green-glowing hand, heat sizzling across her face.

“What’s triggering the green?” Mavrik asks, swallowing thickly.

She bites her lip. “Your eyes,” she admits.

“I was told you’re a Level One Light Mage,” he presses, a skeptical edge to his tone.

“I am,” she insists, a tremble kicking up in the hand she has in his. “I can’t access any of the magic in my lines.”

Mavrik’s grip firms around her, as if to help her quell her tremors. He peers closely at her. Her cheeks heat further in response to their sustained, forbiddenhand-holding, the women of her sectneverallowed to touch the skin of a man who is not their fastmate.

Mavrik gently pivots her palm up, and another rush of multihued sparks flash through her lines and vision. Her breathing suspends. He presses his wand’s tip to the center of her palm and murmurs a stream of spells, low in his throat, his eyes narrowing in concentration.

He has fastlines around his wrists, Gwynn notes.He’s fully Sealed like me...

A sting lights along Gwynn’s fastlines, and she flinches as thin blue and green lines crackle out of the wand tip. The magic forks around their hands like threads of lighting, encasing them in a fizzing net. Gwynn pulls in a surprised breath as the lightning net draws into their fastlines, their dark, looping fastmarks briefly pulsing blue and green before their normal black hue returns and the sting recedes.

Mavrik releases her hand and resheathes his wand, his magic-sparking eyes meeting hers. “Did you mark the runes around the armory and place the anchoring rune like we directed?”

“I did,” she affirms, lowering herself to pull up a floor tile, revealing a circular disc of black lumenstone she stole from the armory, the disc marked with a glowing forest green Mage anchoring rune.

Mavrik lowers himself beside her, and draws a thicker black wand emblazoned with emerald Varg runes. He points the wand’s tip at the rune stone and meets Gwynn’s gaze with lightning-rod intensity. “Are you ready?”

Her throat unbearably tight, she nods.

Murmuring a spell, Mavrik touches the wand’s tip to the anchoring rune.

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