Page 260 of The Dryad Storm

Tierney’s words burst free in a tangled rush. “I’m scared we won’t be able to do it, Viger. Feeling the immensity of what’s been destroyed... I’m scared the Waters will fall. I’m scared that it’s all too late. Viger, I’mscared.”

Her lips tremble, tears pooling in her eyes. Tierney turns toward him once more to find Viger’s Dark eyes still fixed on her, an uncharacteristic smile on his black lips, such vast love in it her heart tightens with a deep, stunned ache.

“Your fears are beautiful, Tierney Calix,” he murmurs, pain tightening his gaze. “They always have been.”

“What now, Viger?” she asks, voice tremulous as a tear streaks down her face. She gestures toward the Shadow world ahead. “How can we prevail againstthat?”

Viger’s thrall embraces her, the dreamscape pulsing with his Natural Dark.

Follow your fears, he croons, his voice seeming to come from everywhere at once.Follow them, Asrai, and face them fully. Then work to heal the world.

A dart of panic lights as she senses he’s about to dissolve into the Natural Matrix more fully to stave off the Reckoning.

Buying Erthia time.

She slips into his fears and tunnels down the line of them, through his own fear for the Natural World toward the three words still reverberating at the base of all his fears. Her eyes widen. Because those words... there’s less terror wrapped around them than there was before. And something new. Something unexpected.

A silvery thread ofhope.

An answering hope ripples through Tierney’s magic as the dream fades, and she sends those words back to him, to Or’myr, to her River, and to the entire Natural World, as Viger lets himself be fully absorbed into Nature’s Darkness.

I love you.

Part Five

Xishlon Rising

Chapter One

Xishlon Renaissance

Andras Volya

Voloi, Noilaan

Xishlon night, close to a year later

Andras glances out over the violet-washed Vo River then up past Noilaan’s translucent dome. His gaze narrows in on the purple Xishlon moon hanging above it all like a lantern, his entire chest tight with painful longing.

He hugs his three-year-old son, Konnor, close, knowing he should have nothing but joy in his heart. Because they’ve survived. His son is safe in his arms, and Andras’s mother, Astrid, stands beside them on the rebuilt dock of Voloi, all of them watching the purple fireworks sent up by Dryad’khin sorceresses and geomancers, the bursts of light shimmering in the sky over the Vo.

Yes, he’s grateful for so many things. For the survival of the East. For the fragile hope for his son’s future, and for the future ofallErthia’s children.

Now that almost the entire population has united as Dryad’khin.

And Andras has rewarding work here as one of the East’s most knowledgeable animal healers, working not only with Ariel Haven to heal animals, but also with his entire Lupine pack to aid in the reintroduction of species into land that’s slowly being reclaimed from the Shadow, a whole herd of wild purple Noi horses amongst his kindreds.

“Papa,look,” Konnor breathes as he points toward the sky.

Andras’s aching heart lifts a fraction as he takes in the dazzled wonder in his son’s crimson Lupine eyes. His child’s spiky blue-and-purple-streaked black hair picks up flashes of the fireworks’ light as they form incandescent designs reflected in the Vo River... great, shimmering irises; deep violet roses that gorgeously sizzle to sparks; a constellation of stars; then a giant purple dragon—Vo’s purple manifestation of love.

Tears sheen Andras’s eyes, the tight longing in his chest intensifying even as he smiles warmly at his son. He’s grateful, truly he is, to see his small family and other Dryad’khin taking a moment to celebrate love in this magical moment, after so much devastating loss followed by strenuous work to regain some of Nature’s Balance. But the pull of the East’s lavender moon and the torment of its thrall grow ever more acute as the moon’s purple light deepens.

Because he’s still in love with her.

Sorcha.

Andras’s heart twists. His undimmed longing for Sorcha... it’s worse, so much worse, under this moon.

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