Page 225 of The Dryad Storm

Breath floods back into my lungs, and I force myself up, wheezing. Wasting no time, I whip my palms forward with a snarl and blast more fire at Fallon. She screams, writhing and burning, her Shadow-destroyed form soon stilling inside the inferno.

Her power’s hold on me fully releases, the twinned spell fading to steam and ash.

Shock grips hold, devastation riding in close on its heels.

I killed her.

My stomach heaves, a jolt of remorse lancing through me over having killed someone. But there’s no time to dwell on it. There’s no time for anything but taking down this entire Shadow world before it’s too late.

Swallowing back the urge to retch, I raise my palms to the iron door and blast Wyvernfire into it.

The door heats to a glowing purple and liquefies to the ground in a molten puddle, a hot, metallic tang on the air. Before the guards outside can respond, I snarl a battle cry and thrust my palms forward, then blast out a wall of fire and hurl myself through the door, my vision briefly overtaken by my violet firestorm.

I spin in a semicircle, whipping out fire, soldiers screaming as they burn, my flames clearing as they grow silent.

Panting, I take in six charred bodies littering the ground before I set off at a sprint down one stone tunnel then another and another, soon reaching another locked iron door.

Raising my palms, I blast out twin shots of fire and incinerate the door’s bolt, lock, and hinges, then kick it open.

It falls to the stone ground with a deafeningclang, revealing the outside world.

Two Level Five Mage soldiers wheel around to face me. Their green eyes are grayed only at the edges, their free will not yet overtaken. They’re standing on an elevated ledge, a gigantic military base spread out behind them, the view panoramic from this vantage point. Broken multi-eyed and multilimbed Shadow dragons screech through the air, Mages astride them. There’s a vast encampment of dark tents, a sea of Mage troops astride Shadow dragons aligned in neat formation to thesouth of them. A chill races down my spine. I recognize the central stone buildings from pictures in the history texts Jules Kristian gave me.

Issyl.

The capital of Issaan.

But completely stripped of color. Shadow clouds roil overhead, a poisonous tang on the air. Shadow storm bands line every horizon, leagues of charred land before them.

The Natural World decimated.

Rage sparks within me and heats into a vengeful inferno.

“State your name!” one of the soldiers demands as they both level wands at me.

“The Black Witch,” I snarl, and blast bolts of violet fire straight at their chests. The soldiers burst into flame and crumple to the ground just as alarm horns begin to sound.

Pulse skyrocketing, I look up and see a legion of Mage soldiers on dragonback wheeling around in the sky and soaring directly toward me.

I focus on drawing power to my hands, quickly realizing that the Shadowed landscape is siphoning away Yvan’s Wyvernfire as fast as he’s feeding it into me—I don’t have enough to take down an army.

Spitting out a curse, I turn and set off at a sprint up the stony hillock behind me, climbing toward its rounded pinnacle as I draw in more of Yvan’s Wyvernfire.

I leap over the hillock’s apex, and my heart plummets as I come face-to-face with the colossally long and high storm band rising a short distance from the hillock’s base. Thunder crashes through it with emphatic force, curved, dark lightning flashing through its expanse.

Acracksounds, and I flinch as the storm band expands, its front rising higher and higher into the sky.

Vogel knows, I realize.He knows I’m free, and he’s attempting to trap me here.

Rebellion fires through every nerve as I spare a glance over my shoulder to find Vogel’s forces soaring over the hillock, straight toward me.

I lurch toward the hillock’s base, my feet skidding as I slide and sprint down it, then launch into a sprint toward the storm band. Dragons shriek as they traverse the hillock, and I raise both palms and blast out as much of Yvan’s violet fire as I can summon, conjuring a flaming shield around myself before I run straight into Vogel’s wall of storm.

Chapter Three

Prophecy Rising

Elloren Guryev

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