Page 229 of The Dryad Storm

I flinch as my horde’s entire Wyvernfire stormwall morphs to gray mist and falls to the ground before surging forward to snake around my ankles.

The entirety of Vogel’s cataclysmically superior Shadow power zeroed in onme.

Chapter Four

Prophecy War

Elloren Guryev

Shadow wasteland

“The Magedom is stronger than a thousand hordes,” Vogel hisses.

He advances toward me over the Void wasteland, the Shadow Wand raised. I can feel Yvan’s rage and desperate fight to regain hold of his power from the giant Shadow spiders imprisoning both him and my horde mates.

Shadow mist is now thick on the ground, obscuring my feet, the body of the colossal queen spider poised over Yvan increasingly lit up with pulsing gray lightning as she consumes his vast power.

Slumped on the ground, Shadow fog swirling around him, Yvan blazes a line of fire to me, only to have it siphoned into the giant spider before I can latch hold of even a cinder of it.

“Elloren,”Yvan calls in a strangled voice as he raises his quivering, III-marked palm, giving me an urgent look before thrusting his hand down through the mist, the motion quickly followed by the rest of my horde.

My heartbeat quickens as I realize what they’re doing—pushing their III marks under the Shadowed soil in an attempt to manifest trees to empower me.

Desperate, I drop to the Shadow-fogged ground, transfer my sapling branch to my non-marked hand and thrust my III-marked palm into the soil as well, hoping against hope that we’ll be able to manifest a small grove of saplings through the thickened Shadow to restore my power.

But...nothing.

Only a slight tingle along my III mark as thick Shadow slithers over it, Vogel’s power too strong for Life to break through.

Vogel stops before my lowered form, a smile on his lips as he stares contemptuously at the branch gripped in my left hand.

I transfer my branch back to my III-marked hand, immediately filled with a sense of the distant Zhilaan Forest desperately hurling elemental power into my rootlines via our linkage, only to have that power consumed by the Shadow.

Vogel glances around pointedly, as if daring me to take in his triumph. To take in the Magedom’s domination of the entire world.

“You’re anIcaral,” I grit out, rage rising. “How can you think the way you do?”

Vogel’s silvery eyes ignite with hatred. “I’mnotan Icaral,” he seethes, baring unnaturally sharp teeth. “I’m the Ancient One’s conduit. Soon to be purified once the Fae corruption of Erthia is swept away.”

My mind frantically casts about for a way to defeat him as I tighten my grip around my sapling’s branch, a speck of life still thrumming in it, but enough for only a single weak spell—perhaps enough to light a candle or send out a single vine, but no more.

Black Witch, the distant Zhilaan Forest booms through our bond from leagues away.

Too far away.

Vogel’s cruel smile returns as he gestures toward my branch. “You can’t best me with your speck of Fae energy. I’m a power empath, just like you. I sense that you’restripped bare.” His smile turns leering. “I will instantly incinerate any attack you conjure. YourfilthyFae power never had a chance against the Holy Magedom.”

Something inside me breaks, and I rise, hand clenched tight around my branch.

I level it at him and Vogel gives me a bemused look, clearly savoring this moment as he draws his wings in tight.

“Let your army through your storm band,” I challenge, taking a confrontational step toward him, nothing in the world left to lose. “I know you have the power to create a path through it. Let them see yourwings, Marcus. And see if any of them want to follow an Icaral.”

A look of malignant hate distorts Vogel’s features. “Our war endshere, Dryad Witch,” he hisses with terrible finality, raising the Shadow Wand.

I sense him drawing up a world-ending level of power, siphoning Yvan’s and my horde’s corrupted Wyvernfire from his tethered storm spiders straight into the Shadow Wand. “When my Wand’s power hits you,” he snarls, “it won’t just killyou. It will flow its full storm right through your bond to the Zhilaan Forest. And explode it toash.”

A shock of cold terror slashes down my spine, freezing my branch hand, the world seeming to tilt on its axis as Vogel furiously draws up more power.

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