Page 248 of The Dryad Storm

I smile at their tear-blurred forms, their gazes lit up, love burning bright in them.

Twilight descends, and I pause with Yvan, Wynter, and Ariel in the center of Voling Plaza, where a black opalescent statue used to stand. The larger-than-life Icaral slaying the Black Witch has been reduced to rubble, but I catch a glimpse of a disembodied face strikingly similar to my own lying next to the remnants of a broken Icaral wing.

“It’s time for something new there,” I say to Yvan as we survey the wreckage.

“It’s time for something new practicallyeverywhere,” Yvan agrees, the love blazing through our bond in full defiance of statues like the one that once stood here.

The Verdyllion tingles against my side, and I turn to Wynter, my heart kicking up into a fast, anticipatory rhythm as a vision of the Verdyllion’s intent once more suffuses me. Breathless, I reach out and offer the Verdyllion to Wynter.

Wynter smiles as she takes it, her Wyvernfire aura rising, silver flame igniting in her eyes as her III-green aura brightens. “Come, then,” Wynter says. “We need to gather the seven Bearers of the Verdyllion.”

Peak foliage arrives that night, and my light power surges as Yvan and I gather before the rubble of the Icaral and Black Witch statue with my fellow Bearers and other allies with powerful light and amplification magic. Prismatic orbs that Mavrik and Gwynnifer suspended in the air cast a rainbow of light over the gathered crowd of my family and fellow Dryad’khin.

Tension mounts in the air as Mavrik and Gwynn’s twinned power rises in a golden wave before they point their living branches toward the destroyed statue, murmuring a spell in unison.

Bolts of prismatic light blast from their branches and collide with the rubble in an ear-splicingboomthat rivals the Shadow storms above, blasting clear through to the living soil beneath, the Deathkin energy pulsing through it staving off the Natural World’s Reckoning.

Yvan and I, along with the rest of my fellow Wand Bearers, step toward the soil.

Gripped in Wynter’s pale green hand, the Verdyllion pulses with every hue. “Are you ready, Dryad’khin?” Wynter asks, Ariel standing protectively beside her.

We nod, peak foliage suffusing us all. Oaklyyn’s, Sylvan’s, Yulan’s, and Alder’sfoliage-amplified auras are all so strong the magic tingles over my skin. Sage is practically glowing with violet power, and Mavrik and Gwynn’s gilded lines of magic have become visible, embracing us all with their twinned might. And Marina... her single lightline is surging, a portion of it channeling into the color-pulsing octopus wrapped around her shoulders, her ocean kindred bathed in a swirling, magicked ball of salt water. Just below her octopus, her silver sealskin is tied around her neck, and Gareth is caressing her fur-draped shoulder with a gentle hand.

I raise my own gentle hand to my abdomen, my Icaral-Dryad baby’s light power blazing through my color-drenched rootlines with fiery Zhilaan might.

Yvan kisses the mating mark on my shoulder as he slides his arms around me from behind while Gwynn and Mavrik, Sage, Rivyr’el, Marina, and I link our fingers around the Verdyllion in Wynter’s hand.

A shudder passes through me as our combined light magic floods my rootlines in a spangling rush at the same moment the surrounding Dryad Fae cast a power-amplifying spell. A line of prismatic energy appears in the air, connecting our III marks, and our joint power surges.

Following the vision the Verdyllion is sending to us all, we lower ourselves to the soil as one and thrust the Verdyllion’s spiraling hilt straight into it.

Sun-strong prismatic rays blast from the Verdyllion. We release it and step back, retreating farther and farther as the Verdyllion’s green form darkens to black and slim roots surrounded by verdant mist suddenly flow out from its lower half and weave into the soil.

A frisson of awe shudders through Yvan’s and my joined fire as both the Verdyllion and its roots rapidly enlarge and morph into an Ironwood sapling. The tree keeps enlarging, its branches rising as additional roots fan out through the plaza’s battered stone. I can sense the Verdyllion’s roots burrowing under all of Voloi, then lower still, flowing out to support the Sublands beneath us as they link to Erthia’s surviving web of roots, a portion of the root network leading all the way to the Zhilaan Forest.

A heightened awe shimmers through my bond to Yvan as the Verdyllion expands into a III-size Ironwood Tree surrounded by verdant mist, its canopy stretching all the way up to the shield’s cloud-high edge. Its leaves, colored in every hue of the rainbow, rustle in the breeze, its canopy expanding to shelter a large portion of Voloi, its benevolent power joining with all of our magic.

As IV roots itself to both us and the world.

A green pulse of IV’s energy blasts through the shielding above us and punches away a portion of the Shadow storms just above the Great Tree. Stars become visible overhead, and it feels like a miracle, my breath catching tight as the circle of stars begins to slowly expand, the sky opening up north and south along the shielding, and I realize IV’s power will eventually reach Tierney and Or’myr and Fyordin Lir.

Wynter steps toward the Great Tree as if she’s answering a summons. Reaching it, she places her palms to its trunk and inclines her head down, her wings pulling in tight. The flow of her magic turns troubled, then chaotically alarmed, and Ariel rushes toward it.

“What is it, Wynter?” Ariel demands, her invisible Wyvernfire crackling protectively hot around Wynter.

Wynter shivers and turns to Ariel as unnatural thunder cracks and the Shadow storms roll back over our shielding from the West, blotting out the stars.

I stare at the churning, darkening sky, overcome, once again, by the sense of Level Five magery drawing Shadow power to the East, the Shadow storms suddenly gaining might almost as fast as our Great Tree–amplified magic.

“It’s as Elloren sensed,” Wynter says. “There’s a remaining threat rising. A Mage here in the East... actively pulling in Shadow might from the West. The Shadow Wand is still linked to his fastlines. And it’s channeling all of its remaining power into him.”

Fear shudders through Wynter’s power, as I focus on the storms.

I stiffen as it all clicks into place—where I’ve sensed this power before.

“Damion Bane survived,” I call out, meeting Wynter’s widened gaze, then Aislinn’s, a horrified look tensing my Lupine sister’s face. I turn back to Wynter. “Can you track him through IV?”

Wynter nods, the silver fire in her eyes intensifying. “I can. I knowexactlywhere he is.”

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