Page 265 of The Dryad Storm

Tierney straightens. “I simply uphold the mystery.”

He flashes her a wicked grin. “I’d rather you uphold my glorious rod of geopower.”

“Oh, you’d like that, would you?”

“Metaphorically speaking.”

“Stop teasing me and take me down to the bottom of the River and do that focused lightning thing!”

“Ah, so now youlikemy lightning.”

Tierney rolls her eyes. “You’re a big purple tease, do you know that?”

Or’myr pulls her into his arms and leans down to nuzzle her neck, sending a shiver of controlled lightning out to dance just under her skin. Tierney’s breath hitches, her body thrilling to the sensation, Or’myr’s voice a caress when it comes. “I’m going to take you this evening in a way that will flash that river portal rightinto existence and make you spark violet. Fordays.”

“Promise?” Tierney asks, growing even more breathless.

Or’myr kisses the base of her neck, toe-tingling sparks radiating from his mouth, and Tierney shivers against him.

His lips curve into a smile against her skin. “You can tell everyone we had ‘tea.’?”

Chapter Three

Xishlon Kiss

Olilly Emmylian and Kir Lyyo

Voloi, Noilaan

Xishlon night

Across one of Voloi’s many newly crafted sky bridges, Olilly and Kir Lyyo spot eachother for the first time since they were so cruelly torn away from each other in the Sublands many months ago.

They close in from opposite directions, Olilly’s steps fleet as a deer’s as the distance between them narrows on this highest bridge where Kirin’s runic-hawk missive said he’d be, the purple light from Xishlon fireworks flashing over the scene.

As the bridge gently sways, Olilly glances past its vine railings, the woven-vine pathways magicked into being by the Dryad Fae refugees that Wynter Eirllyn and the Smaragdalfar forces liberated. The Tree Fae have guided the crafting of so many of the city’s new structures, sharing their techniques for building in harmony with the Natural World, spherical gall dwellings now hugging so many Ironwood trees’ upper reaches. This isolated, river-facing bridge is placed high up in IV’s branches, above one of the larger gall dwellings and near the top of the Great Tree’s cloud-high canopy.

Allowing a breathtaking panoramic view of the Xishlon-moonlit Vo River.

Olilly’s heart trips into a faster rhythm as she takes in Kirin’s slender, black-cloaked figure. Her steps slow on the woven purple vines as throngs of Xishlon revelers stream across the large vine bridges that crisscross the air below them, more Xishlon throngs swirling through the gardens at IV’s base and over every one of the city’s forested tiers, music and drumbeats joyful on the air.

Reaching her, Kirin stills before Olilly, and the festive purple world recedes intothe background, nothing left but the two of them and the Xishlon moon overhead.

A smile tugs at Olilly’s lips as she’s overcome by a sense of the moon smiling down on them both, a memory lighting of how she and Kirin lingered on the dock last Xishlon near the river’s edge for one brief, magic moment before the Shadow War descended.

Blushing, she remembers their first tentative and thoroughly exciting kiss. Remembers how they felt like thieves, stealing all the purple gems in the world.

Before the world turned gray.

Kirin cocks his head, concern in his beautiful dark kohl-lined eyes as he seems to read Olilly’s brief flare of pain.

Her heart warms, the affection in his gaze pushing away all troubled thoughts. She looks down and notices a glowing purple lily in his hand, just like he had last Xishlon night, her flush pleasurably heating.

Kirin glances at the luminous lily in his hand, clearly noticing her noticing it, before a look of ardent purpose overtakes his angular features. He holds up his free hand, palm out, revealing the image of IV imprinted there, then tilts his head to the side, revealing a new streak of purple in his dark, spiky hair. A lavender Eastern Realm Cottontail Rabbit kindred pokes its head out of his cloak’s edge to peer up at her.

Olilly’s heart lifts so fast that all the breath whooshes from her lungs. She feels as if she’s floated straight off the ground into the moonlit air as she lifts her own palm, revealing the same Dryad’khin image emblazoned there.

Kirin’s face breaks into the most dazzling smile Olilly has ever seen on any faceever.

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