Page 191 of The Dryad Storm

The killing storm band is poised over the half-decimated Vo Mountain Range. I tighten my grip around my living branch, the chromatic power of the Dyoi Forest flooding my lines.

Errilith lets out an ear-splittingCAWas he rushes to me, a call that’s soon echoed by my other Errilor Death Ravens and joined by the rasping cry of Alder’s giant eagles as the Wyverns among us in human shape morph into dragon form.

I leap onto my kindred raven’s back, lift my living branch and murmur spells along with my fellow Dryad’khin to hold our shielding around us as we swiftly take to the air as one on raven-, Wyvern-, and eagleback, Yvan soaring beside me.

A blast detonates behind us, and my head whips around to see Vu Trin soldiers streaming from the Wyvernguard, the non-shifters amongst them taking to the air on Wyvernback, all in hot pursuit.

Clutching Errilith’s stiff black feathers, I duck down against the wind as we accelerate west over the Vo, making a beeline toward the killing storm band.

Naga roars a warning as Vu Trin on Wyverns and military skiffs soar toward us from all sides and we fly toward Noilaan’s runic border. Rapidly approaching the border wall, I join my allies in hurling out wind spells to force back the incoming Vu Trin as well as those guarding the border’s apex.

We soar over the border and the crowded refugee encampment, horror rising in my throat as the lightning spitting through the storm band takes on a cataclysmic energy, the power churning in its internal line of siphoning runes intensifying as theterrified Vo and Dyoi Forests begin to rustle spells through my mind.

I raise the branch in my hand and murmur the words to the storm-blasting spells the Forests are sending me, readying every last shred of my foliage-amplified power, the static tang of magic mounting on the air.

“Release your power!”Vang Troi bellows.

Together, we release our Dryad’khin storm.

Multiple bolts of our magic blast toward the storm band, our assault holding enough power to sweep up the storm band, reroute it into the sky and explode it to smithereens.

A split second before our power slams into the storm band, a sapphire Noi rune blinks into being, hovering in front of it, cathedral huge.

Horror punches through me.

“It’s a reflection rune!”Mavrik, Gwynn, and I scream in unison, our magic about to hit the rune and double back toward us.

“Conjure a shield!”Ra’Ven bellows.

I frantically murmur spells, all of us throwing out every ounce of shielding energy we can muster, multihued magic bolting from my outstretched branch. A prismatic, arcing shield-wall blasts into being before us, and our entire horde throws fortifying fire into it, Hazel and my Errilor Ravens sending ropes of Deathling Darkness to pulse through its expanse.

Our initial bolts of magic collide with the storm band in an explosion of raying, prismatic foliage light magic before it’s boomeranged back, our collective might now spearing toward our shield-wall in thick bolts of multihued light and storm and fire.

The storm band’s roar turns deafening as our collective might collides with our shield.

The collision slams pain through my branch hand, and I cry out, my ravens caw, Alder’s eagles shriek, and Wyverns and Lupines growl as our shield explodes out of existence and we’re hit by our own magic. A groan forced from my throat, I’m hurled off Errilith’s back and pinwheel into a free fall through the air.

Yvan’s snarl splits the air as his arms slap around me, halting my descent, while the storm band gains roaring power and releases, its apex dropping as it barrels down the western face of what remains of the Vo Mountain Range.

“Nooooooooo!”Yulan screams, her petite form gripped in Naga’s talons as gravity itself seems to tilt.

The scene before me blinks out of sight, replaced by what the Dyoi Forest is experiencing from every terrible angle at once—trees screaming as they’re ripped out of the ground; kindred animals shrieking and fleeing as they’re swept up in funneling winds or incinerated by Wyvern-crafted lightning; the Vu Trin storm band siphoning up the Forest’s elemental energy as it goes, my heart shredding with agony.

The storm band collides with the Zonor River’s shield and siphons up its power before taking hold of the Zonor itself. The river’s water power is rapidly sucked up into the churning storm, the river and its kindred creatures sending out combined wails of anguish as Trystan, Vothe, and Sithindrile scream out their agony and the Zonor is destroyed.

I flail against Yvan’s hold, pain knifing through my every rootline as millions upon millions of plants and animals—along with scattered refugees making their way East—are whipped into the Vu Trin storm band’s tornado of force.

A scream bursts from my throat as the scene around me snaps back into focus, our shielding over the East blasting out rays of chromatic light as it’s consumed by the storm band’s mounting power.

The clouds above us shift into chaos, building unnaturally, lightning bursting fitfully through them in strange shapes.

I scream as Yvan fights the killing wind, his wings battling against it, a curse erupting from his throat. Hazel’s wrenching, all-encompassing cry sounds, followed by Wrenfir’s wail of anguish, and then the defiant, distant growls of Viger Maul and Tierney’s kelpies, and my ravens’ torturedCAWs as all the Deathkin explode into black mist and vanish.

The world pulses Dark and my connection to the Dyoi Forest severs, pain screaming through my rootlines as my vision cuts out and Erthia’s Natural Matrix comes undone.

Chapter Four

The Great Unraveling

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