Page 271 of The Dryad Storm

The woman finally relents and takes the bottle, a deeply conflicted look in her eyes. Wrenfir catches the child studying him with similarly wary eyes before the little one’s eyes light on the kitten, then on the cats affectionately rubbing against Wrenfir’s ankles.

“I had a cat,” the child blurts out, tears brimming in his eyes as he starts to cry and cough at the same time. “We... we had toleaveher.”

Pain strikes through Wrenfir’s heart.

He drops to one knee before the boy. “I lost my cat too,” he tells him. “Duringthe last Realm War.” And suddenly the damned Xishlon moon is causing a tear to spill down Wrenfir’s cheek as he and the child take each other in. “Would you like to visit my cats when you get better?” Wrenfir offers. “I’m a medic for them too.”

“Thank you, butno,” the woman hastily intervenes as she edges between her child and Wrenfir, gripping the medicine to her chest and tugging the boy protectively behind her long black skirt.

Keeping him safe fromme, Wrenfir bitterly notes.

“Isil needs to conserve his strength,” she tightly explains.

And Wrenfir can see it in her eyes. Her rejection of him as a Heathen Evil One. He realizes she’ll likely spend all her days here in the East with a few other militantly dormant Mages, walling herself off from non-Mages and Dryad’khin Mages. Clinging to the same madness that ripped Hazel away from him. That almost destroyedeverything.

But then he meets the boy’s eyes again and the realization hits him...

The child won’t forget this kindness.

And Wrenfir will find a way to get a cat to him. A kitten just conveniently wandering by, perhaps. Accepted by the child’s rigid mother as a gift from the Ancient One on high, instead of coming from a thoroughly Deathkin-corrupted, point-eared Dryad’khin Mage.

And so Wrenfir perseveres, spending Xishlon eve handing out medicine and tending to the sick until he can’t take the agony the moon is coaxing to life in his chest for one minute more.

He flees the refugee tent city and Voloi’s cursed purple revelry, veering north until he’s in the denser Forest bracketing this higher stretch of the Vo River, surrounded by Noi Maple and Noi Birch trees. Until he feels himself to be truly alone.

And then, he falls to his knees and weeps for Tessla, for Vale, for Edwin, and for Hazel, feeling as if his grief will scour his lungs straight out of his chest. He and Hazel had so little time together... but that smidgen was enough to show them both that they had found their great True Love in each other. The type of love that never comes again.

The purple-moonlit world pulses Dark, tendrils of black mist swirling around Wrenfir.

He startles, shock catching the sob tight in his chest as a figure made entirelyof the mist appears before him, down on one knee, his features solidifying slightly into...

“...Hazel,” Wrenfir rasps, lurching toward him only to have his hands pass right through Hazel’s misty form. Frustration burns through Wrenfir like wildfire as he meets Hazel’s night-Dark eyes.

Eyes he could get lost in.

Forever.

“I’ll come back to you,” Hazel’s voice murmurs from everywhere at once, yearning in those beloved, full-Dark eyes.

“When?” Wrenfir agonizes.“How?”

“My link to the Forest,” Hazel explains. “The full Deathkin... if the Balance is restored, they’ll reemerge after being bound for a full hundred years. But me... I’ll be bound for only a portion of that time, because I’m Dryad Fae, as well.” A slash of intense emotion sharpens his features. “Wrenfir.Wait for me.”

“I will,” Wrenfir promises, his throat closing in around the words. “I’d wait for youforever.”

Hazel’s misty form leans forward, and Wrenfir can feel the brush of a kiss against his mouth all the way down his spine, the moon’s purple light seeming to swirl around them both, straight through Hazel’s tendrils of Darkness.

As they take each other as Xishlon’virs with that one, ethereal kiss.

And then, Hazel vanishes into the pulsing Darkness, leaving Wrenfir on his knees, alone in the Forest, the tears coming fast and furious. Then lessening as a small black snake winds over his lap. Then another. And another. Before they slither into the wilderness, turning back once, tongues flickering, as if conveying a strange, loving farewell.

Deathling lets out a small meow, and Wrenfir looks to the tiny animal. He swallows his grief and strokes the kitten’s furry back, equal parts affection and trauma emanating from the small feline that takes a slide toward love as Deathling’s purr vibrates against Wrenfir’s hand. He looks up at the Xishlon moon, wondering if its magic had a hand in allowing Hazel to come to him on this Xishlon night.

So that Wrenfir could take him as his Xishlon’vir.

Deep in Wrenfir’s chest, hope blooms that, if the Natural World survives, somewhere in the near future, maybe even by the next Xishlon... Hazel will re-form and come back to him.

“All right, you damned orb,” Wrenfir spits out at the moon as he cradlesDeathling and wipes his tears brusquely away. “I accept your light.” His throat tenses with emotion. “Bring him back to me. Bring him back to me with your light.”

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