Page 192 of The Dryad Storm

Elloren Guryev

Eastern Realm

I’m half-conscious and lost in darkness. My rootlines seize, grasping for a Forest connection, my bond to the Dyoi Forest obliterated.

Yvan’s mouth comes down on mine, sweeping me into a kiss, the heat of it blazing a spiral of Wyvern-strong fire through my body. I arch into him and grab desperate hold of one of his horns to pull his mouth harder against mine, my bonded connection to his fire drawing me into a stronger link to his kindred Zhilaan Forest.

His warrior fire Forest.

A Forest I can sense fighting against the Natural Matrix’s complete undoing with a ferocity I did not imagine could come from trees, its violet fire aura radiating out toward the newly untethered root systems of Erthia with single-minded grit.

Consciousness floods back in a rush, deep violet light bursting through my vision as a line of the Zhilaan Forest’s fire power sears through my withered rootlines.

Dryad Witch, the Forest rumbles, like a roll of thunder.

My vision returns, the purple blaze fading, and I break our kiss, breathing hard as I meet Yvan’s violet-hot gaze.

“Elloren,” he breathes, his expression wild with concern, his fire lashing through our bond. Soleiya is crouched beside Yvan, her gold-blazing eyes fixed on me.

I glance frantically around, desperate to locate my friends and loved ones amidst the tight crowd of allies.

We’re in a large cavern. Its purple-veined black stone is lit sapphire by a suspended Noi rune. Outside the narrow mouth of our cavern, the skies are churning gray, wind blasting so violently that visibility is reduced to an arm’s length. VangTroi stands sentry beside the opening, along with Diana and Freyja Zyrr.

“Where are we?” I ask Yvan and Soleiya.

“Near the top of the Voloi Mountain Range,” Yvan answers, cradling me.

“Is anything left of our shielding over the East?” I press, forcing myself into a sitting position, Yvan’s embrace helping me upright.

He shakes his head, frustration burning in his eyes. “The Vu Trin storm band absorbed it. The East is unshielded.”

“Ancient One,” I gasp. “Vogel can invade at any moment.”

A deeper fright grips hold. I look to my Dryad’kin, many of them slumped down, like Gwynn and Mavrik, their backs against the cavern’s walls, their Forest-fueled power dangerously depleted, so many kindreds murdered once again. A half-conscious Lucretia is cradled in Jules’s arms, his silver falcon perched on his shoulder, wings worriedly flapping. Sylvan is doubled over, bracing himself against the dark stone, his skin grayed, his pine branch hair dropping needles. Iris is holding on to him, a desperate golden fire flickering in her eyes.

Yulan is weeping uncontrollably, her flower tresses morphed to dead, shriveled vines, the deep green of her skin rapidly fading to ash gray. Her unconscious heron kindred lies crumpled at her side. Ariel is on her knees beside the bird, expression dire, her hands pressed to the heron’s breast.

Oaklyyn appears to be in shock. She’s on her knees, her green eyes wide as she stares into nothing, murmuring, “My kindred ones, my kindred ones,” over and over. Raz’zor is crouched in human form beside her, his fire aura blazing around and through her withering rootlines with desperate, impassioned heat. A slumped, semiconscious Thierren rasps “Sparrow” over and over through grayed lips, and Alder is weeping next to the motionless form of one of her giant eagles, the rest of her battered flock gathered around her green, purple-branch-marked form, her bonded Vo Forest clearly still hanging on. But for how long?

I turn, and another jolt of fear spears through me as I spot Vothe cradling Trystan’s limp form. Aislinn, Diana, Andras, Jarod, and Vothe’s great-aunt Sithendrile are grouped around them, Trystan’s half-lidded eyes blearily meeting mine.

“He’s all right,” Vothe calls to me, clearly reading the desperation flaring through my fireline, the Zonor blue stripped from the tips of his hair and his power. “Our bond is keeping his rootlines from completely withering,” Vothe gravely states, and when I look further on, a limp Fain seems to be similarly anchored by Sholin.

I turn back to Yvan and Soleiya, my tenuous connection to the Zhilaan throughYvan holding my rootlines together, its faint purple branching patterns emblazoned on my grayed skin. “Did we lose anyone to the storms?” I frantically ask them.

“No,” Yvan assures me. “Mavrik and Gwynn used the last of their power to pull everyone through the Void storms by creating a loose tether to the shield-linkage runes Oaklyyn marked on us. But the tethers they created... their twinned binding power is so strong, if any of us tries to leave the group, we’ll be yanked back. We’re trapped here together until the binding fades.”

I gape at him, the ramifications staggering.

“The storms outside,” Soleiya adds, her tone laced with dread as she glances toward the whipping maelstrom just past our cavern’s mouth, “they’re stronger than the strongest of cyclones.”

The three of us exchange a blazingly dire look, the unspoken raging between us—what’s just swept in outside is merely the opening salvo of a nightmare of environmental undoing, the Magedom’s Shadow about to infiltrate the chaos and poisoneverything.

“We’ve got to get to the Sublands!” Sage is raging to Ra’Ven near the cavern’s mouth, her violet hair whipped about by the wind. Ra’Ven is keeping tight hold of her, as if he’s preventing her from hurling herself straight into the storms outside, her purple eyes full of a wild urgency. The Wyvernfire blazing through Sage’s fireline, gained when she was pregnant with their Icaral child, is keeping her somewhat magically moored, even as her shriveling rootlines flail about for purchase.

“We have to get to Fyn’ir and Fern and my sisters,” she snarls at Ra’Ven as she struggles to pull her arms from his grip.

“They’re in the Sublands,” Ra’Ven adamantly reassures her. “With Fyon and Mora. Likely a damned sight safer there than here—”

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