Page 254 of The Dryad Storm

“It’s a dangerous balance at the moment,” Wynter admits, her brow knotting. “IV’s power is growing as more and more people join with the Forest and come together as Dryad’khin to heal Erthia. But discord still exists. And the corruption that’s taken over so much of the continent... the Shadow Wand is still able to siphon magic from it, so the Wand remains a threat.”

“Especially since it’s actively searching for someone to take hold of it so that it can rise again,” Sparrow chimes in.

“So, we’ll encase it leagues-deep in stone,” Or’myr vehemently offers.

“We need to read it before we do, cousin,” Elloren says, “to gauge its every weakness.”

Or’myr gives Elloren a wary look. “Read it?”

She nods, a battle-hardened light entering her gaze. “It’s likely that you and I will be able to get the clearest of readings from it, since we’re both wood empaths. Wynter can read intent, but we’ll likely be able to read the very quality of the Shadow Wand’s wood, possibly getting more concrete information about how to contain it. Remember when we touched wood together in your Vonor? We could see its source all the more clearly workingtogether.”

Or’myr looks toward the Wor, eyeing it like the monster that it is. Drawing in a harsh breath, he turns back to Elloren. “All right, cousin. We read it together.”

A thick tension descends as a graceful Dryad Fae with glowing Ironflower tresses steps toward him and introduces herself as Yulan, a Tricolor Heron nervously hugging her side. Yulan proceeds to conjure wreaths of protective Ironflowers around Or’myr and Elloren, Or’myr’s violet Strafeling aura suffusing the flowers’ blue glow.

He eyes the Shadow Wand with extreme caution as Wynter hands it to Elloren and Elloren carefully draws back its cloth wrapping, exposing the Wor’s gray upper half. Then, exchanging one quick, determined look at each other, they take direct hold of the Wor.

The surrounding world snaps out of sight, Or’myr’s pulse quickening, as he andElloren are hurled into a Shadowed wasteland—gray sky, gray earth, tendrils of Shadow mist rising from the charred ground.

And there, in the center of it all, stands a leafless tree as big as IV. The Great Void Tree is made entirely of wavering gray Shadow, a palpable sea of malice swirling around it.

A branch drops from the Void tree and lands on the ground before their feet, and Or’myr immediately intuits what this is.

The Shadow Wor.

A dreamy thrall, soft as velvet, begins to wind around Or’myr. Lulled, his shoulders slacken as a gentle pull tugs on his wand hand, the Wor’s slither of power, reaching out to seductively caress his lines.Readinghim.

A vision snakes into Or’myr’s mind—the Wor in his hand, his amplified-lightning turned to glorious gray. As he uses it to subdue every last person in the East who ever spat at him or hurled a slur at him for being the grandson of the Black Witch.

The Wor shivers a new scene into being around him—he’s inside his Vonor, the unglamoured refuge now taking up the entire Voloi Mountain Range, the city below under his complete control. He turns to find Tierney there, bound to his Vonor’s wall with Shadow vines, as if the Wor is offering her up to him, her power leached to gray, her eyes aglow with the dead color, their magic no longer at odds, the Wor’s spiraling form on a shelf just behind her, both Tierney and the Wor ripe for the taking...

Outrage explodes through Or’myr, a whole purple galaxy of it. With a brutal snarl, he thrusts his palm forward and throws out as much of his Strafeling lightning at the Shadow Wor as he can, his power suffused and strengthened by his fierce love for Tierney.

A terrifying scream strafes through Or’myr’s mind as the Wor erupts into purple fire, its scream of rage knifing through every line. He stiffens his shoulders against the brutal pain as the scene is wrenched from sight and he’s thrust back into the Void Forest, as if the Wor, realizing its mistake, is suddenly desperate to cleanse his mind of thoughts of Tierney.

A stunned certainty hits as Or’myr realizes that the Wor is reacting not only to his lightning... but to his powerful love for Tierney.

He whips his gaze toward Elloren, finding her gone rigid and doubled over on the Shadow-misted ground. Her teeth are gritted, her breathing labored, her eyeswide and pinned to the Wor now suspended in the air before them, beckoningly within reach. Elloren is gripping her wand hand’s wrist, as if battling the urge to reach for the evil thing.

“Take my hand!” Or’myr insists, leaping toward her and grabbing her wrist. Elloren’s eyes snap to his, primal terror in them. “It fearslove!” Or’myr cries out.

Elloren grabs him as Or’myr sweeps out his wand and draws up a crackling, invisible shield of violet lightning around them, blazing his full love for Tierney into it, as well as his love for Elloren, his mother, and the rest of his family and friends—for everyone and everything truly worth fighting for—as he realizes that the stone he and the other geomancers are about to conjure around this Shadow beast isn’t the greatest weapon they all possess against it.

Ultimately, it’s the love they all have for one another.

The Wor’s shriek reaches world-trembling levels and its form morphs to that of its V’yexwraith manifestation, multiple mouths full of teeth wide open as it screams, leaning close, ready to consume them both. Or’myr and Elloren shudder against the force of the Wor’s scream, its battering assault on their shield and their lines kicking up their trembling to the point Or’myr fears their very lines will be ripped apart, but he holds on to the shield and to his love.

The scene abruptly snaps out of sight with such whiplashing force, gravity gives way.

Dizzy and disoriented, Or’myr finds himself crumpled onto the Voloi ground with Elloren, both of them struggling to regain breath and gripping each other’s hands, Yvan’s arms wrapped around his cousin, keeping her upright, Or’myr’s mother’s arms encircling him, both Yvan and his mother’s faces filled with looks of blazing relief.

The Wor once more cloth-wrapped and gripped in Wynter’s hands, unharmed.

“It tried to draw you in as well, didn’t it?” Sparrow urgently questions.

Or’myr and Elloren both nod and shoot each other looks of warm alliance while they catch their breath, clear they possess the power to create a strong bulwark against the Wor, more powerful than all the geomancy around them combined.

By building connection and community.

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