Page 29 of The Dryad Storm

“Elloren Gardner Grey used to possess Wynter’s Wand of Power,” Mavrik explains. “Because of that, Wynter can sense her location through it. Right now, Elloren’s caught in a Dryad portal lag. The portal’s trajectory is set for the Northern Forest, so we’re going to portal there and use the Wand to break through the forest’s Dryad warding and get to Elloren before Vogel does.” Mavrik’s expression turns steely. “Then we’re going to strike her down.”

Gwynn gapes at him, acid-yellow alarm blazing through her lines. “You should be portaling that Wand to the Eastright now,” she protests. “You need to get it as far away from Vogel as you possibly can. There’s a reason he and his demons are after it. You can’t let them get hold of it!”

“It’s a risk we have to take,” Mavrik shoots back. “The Northern Forest’s wards have stood unbroken for generations.” He glances at Wynter. “That Wand of Power can break through locks and wards like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

Gwynn’s alarm turns incandescent as she levels her finger toward the Wand in Wynter’s hand. “If Vogel gets hold of that Wand and the Shadow Wand both...” Gwynn casts about for a way to express the vast danger that she can sense, deep in her core, as the image of the Wand pulses hard against her mind, a renewed line-tugging draw toward Wynter taking hold as the last of the children disappear through the portals’ golden depths.

Her decision to remain here set, Gwynn meets Wynter’s silver-fire gaze. The graceful Icaral lowers the Wand and strides toward her with an air of purpose, as if Wynter is swept up in the same pull toward Gwynnifer, the Wand of Myth casting the Icaral’s pale form in a penumbra of green light.

The crystalline cavern seems to contract around them both as Wynter stops before her.

“I am Wynter Eirllyn, Ealaiontora Empath of Alfsigroth,” Wynter states, her black wings drawing in behind her, threads of silvery lightning crackling through them. Her pale hand glows with the Wand’s verdant light as she lifts it. “I saw your face in my dreams, fellow Bearer of the Verdyllion.”

Gwynn pulls in a deep breath, the Wand of Myth’s true name resonating through her, a stronger draw to both the Verdyllion and to this Elfin Icaral tugging on hertrapped power—on her very soul—Bearer to Bearer.

A vision overtakes Gwynn’s mind—branches twining out from the Verdyllion Wand of Myth to form a Great Ironwood Tree wreathed in verdant mist, the Tree filling this entire geode-cavern. Watchers shiver into being, perched all over the Great Tree’s branches, one appearing on Wynter’s shoulder.

A flash of prismatic shimmer sparkles through both the Tree and Gwynn’s lines, every color flashing through her gaze as her confusing pull toward Mavrik intensifies, as well. Gwynn looks at him and knows, from his equally thrown expression and tense stance, that he’s also aware of their strange, mounting draw toward each other’s power. A pull that the Verdyllion seems to beamplifying.

Gwynn turns back to Wynter, everything impressed on her in church cast into upheaval, the Sacred Wand in the hands of a “Cursed Winged One.” But Wynter Eirllyn radiates the very opposite of evil. Her silvery eyes gleam with compassion, and all the Watchers, including the one on Wynter’s shoulder, keep their starlight eyes trained on Gwynnifer.

Waiting.

Decided, Gwynn surrenders to the Wand’s pull, hurtling recklessly toward alliance not only with Mavrik, but with this Icaral Wand Bearer.

The Tree-vision dissipates, save for the single Watcher perched on Wynter’s shoulder.

“I saw the Verdyllion in dreams,” Gwynn shakily tells Wynter. “And a vision just hit me... a vision I’ve seen again and again. A Great Tree wreathed in green mist and filled with multihued light. And...” She glances pointedly at the Watcher on Wynter’s shoulder.

Wynter gives her a knowing look, and as the Watcher shivers out of sight, Gwynn can tell that Wynter sees them, as well.

“The Verdyllion,” Gwynn says, her eyes flicking toward the Wand, “it’s still linked to me. I can feel it.”

Wynter nods in solemn agreement. “The Verdyllion is calling on all of its Bearers to unite. To fight the Shadow with light power. I’ve seen visions of us gathered around the Verdyllion.”

Gwynn’s astonished mind spins as a memory hits from when she was thirteen years old—giving Sagellyn Gaffney the Verdyllion Wand that fateful, blue-lit morning in Valgard, so that the Wand could escape to Halfix and be hidden from the Mages and glamoured pyrr-demons...

“Sagellyn...” Gwynn stammers, “she was a Bearer of the Verdyllion. Do you think she’s feeling this call, as well?”

“I do,” Wynter responds, and the Wand’s glow takes on a beckoning, chromatic pulse. “We are the Blessed Bearers spoken about in my people’sElliontorinholy book. To the Noi, we’re known as the Vhion, and to the Smaragdalfar as the Oo’nour’iel—Oo’na’s Seven Light Bearers. Our light power, amplified by the Verdyllion, is a weapon against the Shadow.”

A memory of the pyrr-demon’s words assaults Gwynn’s mind—

KILL HER! BEFORE SHE CAN JOIN WITH THE OTHER LIGHT BEARERS!

Gwynn’s brow furrows. “But... I have no access to my light power. I’m a Level One Mage—”

Running boot steps sound from a small, unshielded tunnel near their side, cutting into Gwynn’s turbulent thoughts, a woman’s urgent shouting in the Common Tongue drawing everyone’s attention.

“Incoming storm spiders!”

Wynter and Mavrik raise their wands and slide protectively in front of Gwynn as a contingent of soldiers level weapons at the tunnel.

A young woman with the tattoos of the Amaz surges out of it with a slender, lavender-hued Urisk woman tight on her heels, both of them dressed incongruously in Mage-soldier garb. The Amaz woman is gray-hued with short, spiky black hair, a barely charged Varg blade raised in her hand, a look of urgency burning in her dark eyes.

“Valasca!”both Mavrik and Wynter exclaim as one, stepping forward.

The Amaz woman—Valasca—snaps her gaze to them, her eyes widening with a look of recognition before she regains her air of ferocity. “Portal out of herenow!” she growls.

---