Page 233 of The Dryad Storm

Heightened horror slashes through us both as it hits me that the Void iron in these moons has the power to take out not only part-Lasair-Fae Yvan, but our part-Lasair unborn child. Along with every one of our incoming Fae allies, save the Mage-Dryad’kin–our Keltish heritage conferring iron-resistance. But the rest of us will be destroyed by the moons’ explosive power, which feels strong enough to destroy even the strongest foliage-amplified weapons and shielding, our stormwall of Deathkin-warded Wyvernfire beginning to gray.

Vogel’s army is about to descend on us along with the Shadow Wand demon before the moons fall.

As if sensing my thoughts, the V’yexwraith lets out an explosive shriek and lunges toward me.

In a blur, Yvan takes to the air, soaring toward the demon at the same moment that Naga, Raz’zor, Ariel, and the rest of my horde launch themselves toward the V’yexwraith.

“No!”I cry out, fear streaking through me, clear that, sapped of their power, Yvan and my horde mates are no match for this Shadow creature.

The V’yexwraith opens its great maws and lets out a reverberating battle cry, powerful enough to shake the heavens. It thrusts the Shadow Wand forward, and multiple Shadow trees burst from it, their spear-like canopies knifing toward Yvan and me and my attacking horde mates.

Yvan dodges impalement via sheer speed as he arcs through the air and punches away the tree hurtling toward me. Shadow trees collide with my horde mates, and my heart constricts as they’re slammed to the ground, their wings and limbs impaled, the insect-like trees pinning them to Shadowed earth while the V’yexwraith continues to siphon our power into the Void moons above.

Naga, Raz’zor, and the others let out furious snarls, as Ariel falls to a heap to my right, screaming with rage, the edges of her wings pinioned. The V’yexwraith deploys another tree toward Yvan that he shifts away from, but the tree’s glancing blow to his side hurls him a great distance sideways.

Outrage bolts through me, and I lift my branch, teeth gritted, tensing every line to the breaking point to wrest back my power, the moons’ pull on my magic too cursedly strong for me to send even a trace of magic through my branch.

Seeming to sense my frustrated will to fight, the V’yexwraith’s huge head swivels toward me. I stumble backward, hugging my abdomen, as the demon stalks toward me, teeth bared, and raises the Shadow Wand.

“Elloren!”Yvan snarls desperately as he soars toward me from too far away, and panic tears through me, our child and I about to meet our ends.

Ariel suddenly rips herself away from the impaling branches in a spray of blood. Letting out an unearthly growl, she launches herself toward the V’yexwraith, and her formexplodes.

Astonishment lances through me as Ariel’s body enlarges, her wings expanding as she morphs into ahuge, black dragon.

The V’yexwraith rears back and Ariel blasts into the sky, slamming into the demon’s chest with such force that the V’yexwraith drops the Shadow Wand and falls thunderously to the ground.

Seizing my chance, I dash toward the Wand, but Yvan is there in an instant, grabbing hold of it first.

The V’yexwraith lets out a bloodcurdling scream that’s quickly taken up by the army beyond our shielding as Ariel slashes claws at the demon’s chest in a viciousblur, the V’yexwraith’s long arms straining toward the Shadow Wand as if a limb has been torn from its body and flown away.

Yvan soars toward me, Shadow Wand in hand, his flight pattern suddenly chaotic, his prismatic eyes flashing a glowing gray. He hurls the Shadow Wand to the ground, as if ridding himself of something that was burning through his hands, and careens to the earth.

The Wand falls to the gray-misted land at my feet just before Yvan lands.

“Don’t touch it!” Yvan cries as I move to take the evil Wand in hand and the V’yexwraith growls and thrusts Ariel’s dragon form away.

The demon leaps up and barrels toward the Wand with a shriek that seems to split the heavens from every direction. Yvan takes flight once more just as Ariel bolts back into the sky and soars toward the incoming demon, the two of them battling it back with brute force.

Desperate to keep hold of the Shadow Wand, I tear off the leafy hem of my tunic, and drop to one knee before the evil tool. I throw the ripped hem over it and take it into my non-III-marked hand at the same moment I’m hit by an incoming wall of elemental power so strong that it rattles my teeth, all of it blasting toward me from high in the eastern sky.

I whip my gaze east just as a Vu Trin portal splits the sky and our Dryad’khin army soars out of it on wings and eagle- and Wyvernback, flying in like an incoming tide under the ceiling of iron Void moons.

Void moons about to rain down Shadow-iron explosives on us all.

Chapter Six

Prismatic Power

Elloren Guryev

Shadow wasteland

“Portal out of here!” I shout, striving to wave off our incoming forces to no avail, my screams swallowed by the mounting roar of Vogel’s forces battling to get through to us. Gray-fire explosions flash against our runic fire-shield with ever-increasing intensity, Yvan and Ariel fighting against the V’yexwraith with brute force.

While the leafy-cloth-wrapped Shadow Wand grows heavier in my hand as it continues to feed power into the ripening Void moons above.

The full nightmare of the situation hits like a fist to the gut as I’m flooded by the empathic sense of all my loved ones’ incoming magic—Trystan’s and Vothe’s, Sage’s and Soleiya’s, Sylvan’s, Yulan’s, Wrenfir’s, and everyone else’s as they soar through the sky portal, a multitude of winged kindreds flying in with them.

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