Page 21 of The Dryad Storm

The rune shifts to a brighter green. A magical tang bursts to life, and a light-headed sense of diving off a cliff sweeps through Gwynn as the anchoring rune sends its charge out to every complementary rune she marked around the armory.

“Let’s go,” Mavrik urges.

They spring up and stride to the kitchen’s back window... and catch sight of a Mage soldier just beyond it.

Gwynn’s heart flies into her throat as they both draw sharply back, past the window’s sides, then peer out through the slim gaps at the curtains’ edges.

The Mage is just outside the window, down on one knee, silver Level Five stripes marking his uniform and cloak. He’s unsheathed his wand and is pressing its tip to the rune now visible on the cobbled ground, the overturned flowerpot it was hidden under pushed aside, four more Level Five soldiers closing in around him.

“The cobbler stumbled into the pot and found the rune,” the soldier explains to the others.

Gwynn’s pulse explodes as she turns back to the flashing anchor rune at their feet, glowingbrighter and brighter...

A lethal resolve entering his gaze, Mavrik grabs hold of her wrist, their magics spearing toward each other as he pulls her toward the front door.

Gwynn plants her feet,hard, resisting his pull.

Mavrik’s eyes snap to hers, a demand in them. “Gwynnifer,” he hisses, his eyes flicking toward the anchor rune. “We are literallyout of time.”

“The armory guards,” Gwynn cautions in a vehement whisper as the anchor rune gains potency. “We can’t just stride out this door.”

Mavrik grins dangerously at her. “Watchme.”

He kicks the door open and pulls her onto the landing beside him, the two Level Five guards bracketing the adjacent armory’s entrance immediately turning toward them.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Mavrik taunts.

Gwynn’s alarm skyrockets as the guards’ eyes widen. Their expressions turn murderous, and they unsheathe their wands at the same time that Mavrik levels his Varg-rune-marked wand at them, viper swift, while murmuring a spell.

Two thin bolts of emerald flame flash from Mavrik’s wand toward the wands of the guards and explode the weapons in verdant flame. Releasing Gwynn’s wrist, Mavrik sweeps his wand in a wide arc over the entire thoroughfare before them, intoning Smaragdalfar spells with single-minded fluency.

Gwynn flinches back against the doorframe as a multitude of thick black columns of vine explode up through the cobbled street before them, one column blasting from beneath the guards’ feet and hurling them into the air. People scream as carts and carriages are upended and the columns rise, branching out into dense tree shapes.

Gwynn gapes at the scene, frozen in place by the potency of Mavrik’s earth magery, as the armory’s guards right themselves, draw fresh wands, and launch themselves toward them.

With focused calm, Mavrik levels his wand at them once more, his finger sliding over one of its runes.

Wind bursts from his wand and slams into the guards, punching them backward, their wands blown from their hands. Mavrik’s conjured vine trees enlarge further aspeople flee. Mavrik thrusts his wand forward and blasts wind around his conjured vine forest, lifting street debris into his turbulent storm.

Earth and wind, Gwynn considers as her hair whips against her face.Mavrik has Level Five earth and wind.

“C’mon,” Mavrik urges, stepping toward the street, but Gwynn remains frozen in place.

Wind buffeting them both, he rounds on her, taking in her frozen stance with a look of sheer incredulity. “Do you need an engraved invitation?” he asks, his tone glass-sharp as he thrusts his hand toward her.

Gwynn grabs his hand, and they sprint into the fleeing crowds and whipping winds and are quickly enveloped in the chaos of the destroyed street as they skirt rubble and the huge vine tree forms.

Green light flashes over the world as they reach the thoroughfare’s other side.

They both turn and see a huge Mage rune sizzling to life on the armory, covering two of its stories.

Runic firebomb, Gwynn notes, before the huge explosion she enabled detonates in an earsplittingBOOM.

A cry tears from her throat as the armory, her family’s home, and the Mage Council building on her home’s other side burst into green flames, the explosion ringing in her ears, her legs almost buckling beneath her.

Traitor to the Magedom. Staen’en blasphemer.

The names for what she has just become strike through her with devastating force, her course irrevocably set.

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