Page 33 of The Dryad Storm

Her brother’s face ignites with a look of unmitigated anger.

“We all know of your unnatural love for a Mage,”he signs, letting out a low snarl.“A Mage!”He sniffs at Marina, nostrils flaring with obvious revulsion.“I cansmellhim on you. I can scent that you actuallymatedwith this land filth. Where is he? I will run a spear through him with myown hands!”

ASNAPof electricity discharges, startling them all, the dome-shield Gareth and the Storm Whales cast over Southern Noilaan flashing bright white. Explosive sprays burst from the nearby water as the entire pod of lightning-coated whales breaches the waves.

The lead whale swims straight toward them, Gareth on its back, lightning pulsing over his mangrove-leaf-armored form.

Storm Tide and the Selkie and Vu Trin soldiers all gape at Gareth and the Storm Whales. A resolute expression hardens Gareth’s features before he leaps off the back of one of the Ocean Goddess’s own prophesied whales and swims to the ship. He’s momentarily cut from Marina’s sight, and her heart thuds as she hears him climbing the ship’s rope ladder before reappearing to land deftly on his feet before them. He takes hold of the mangrove root clenched in his teeth, his intense eyes meeting Marina’s, his gaze blazing with bright lightning.

“My tide,” Marina manages, an ache of love for him welling in her chest, strong as the Ocean.

Storm Tide and Marina’s other Selkie’kin survey Gareth’s green-glimmering, gilled, and point-eared form with expressions of vast confusion. She catches their nostrils flaring as they breathe in his Selkie scent, watches their astonishment intensify as their gazes rake over Gareth’s Selkie-silver- and mangrove-purple-streaked hair. Even her famously unyielding brother seems utterly thrown.

Gareth holds out his hand to Marina, and she takes it, her heart soaring as she thrills to the electricity sizzling over his skin.

“This,” Marina says and signs to her brother, to them all, “is Gareth Keeler, my chosen mate.” She gestures to the lightning-flashing whales now encircling the ship. “He has been called to be a Storm Whale Warrior for Erthia’s Waters. And both of us are being called to bind both land and sea peoples to the mangrove trees—to link the power of both our dominions.”

“It cannot be,”Storm Tide signs with a look of confusion as he gapes at the huge whale pod, then at Gareth, before his gaze swings back to Marina.“He is not full Selkie, and we are Ocean’kin. We do not bond with trees...”

“All the myths are converging,” Gareth signs and says to Storm Tide. “So that all the Peoples of Erthia can come together and fightthat.” Gareth points his root at the distant Shadow sea pressing up against the southern side of his lightning dome, an echoing lightning crackling over his own skin, defiance in his gaze.

“Forge a new myth,” Marina implores the Selkies and Vu Trin both. “Erthia needs all of us to set down our differences and come to the Forest. Asone.” Marina lets go of Gareth’s hand, and they both raise their palms, displaying the image of the Great Ironwood Tree, III.

But even with mythical whales surrounding them, no one budges.

Storm Tide’s gaze turns explosive as it bores into Marina’s.“Have you lost your mind? You are asking us to trustlandlings? You are an apprenticed Selkiebard. Youknowour songs. When in theentirety of historyhas it been a good idea to ‘set down our differences’ withthem?”

Marina meets her brother’s gaze without flinching. “When in the entirety of history have we seen a threat that could undo theentire Natural World?” She points, once more, at the black mass of Shadow. “Something that will killeverything.”

“We stand together as one, or we fall together with all of Erthia,” Gareth signs and states. “And every last person and thing we love, above sea and below, will bedestroyed.”

“Please, my brother,” Marina says and signs, her tones fracturing. “Stop fighting.And come with us to our Forest. To build a bridge between Land and Water to save Erthia.”

Silence. Weapons still raised.

The whales grow agitated, circling the ship before forming a rigid line, all of them turned toward the north.

Gareth inclines his head toward the pod, lightning pulsing over his skin with the same staccato urgency as the light power forking over the whales’ huge bodies.

“What are they sensing?” Zephyr presses Gareth.

Gareth’s gaze swings to his Vu Trin commander, his expression stark. Before he can get a word out, a huge dark wave ripples up from the Shadow sea and flows over the lightning dome like a malignant tide.

Feeling like a trapped animal, Marina glances around as the world darkens toblackish-gray, the gray moon muting to a Void. Only the lightning coursing over the Storm Whales’ bodies and striking over Gareth’s skin and through his eyes illuminates the ship’s deck and surrounding Ocean with pulsing white light.

Gareth meets Marina’s eyes, and Marina swears she can feel a jolt of the whales’ power in his gaze. “Vogel has trapped us here,” Gareth states and signs. “Which means he’s trapped the bulk of those on Erthia who possess strong water magic—the Ocean Peoples of Erthia and the Sylphan Vu Trin—”

“There are others,” Commander Quillen cuts in.

Gareth turns his gray-green eyes on her. “Yes. The Asrai Vu Trin. Who are sure to deploy south once they hear of this attack on Noilaan’s southern Waters. But this Shadow sea we’ve walled off from the Vo isn’t the main line of attack on Erthia’s Waters. That’s what my whale kindreds are sensing.”

“Lies!”Storm Tide militantly signs out.

“What line of attack do they sense?” Zephyr challenges Gareth, ignoring Storm Tide’s outburst and the spear still pointed at her throat.

A dire look overtakes Gareth’s expression, and Marina’s gills tighten. “The northern Vo River Cypress trees are sending my whales a vision,” he says and signs. “There’s a monstrous Shadow force coming for the Waters of the East. But it’s massing in the far north.” Gareth swallows, a terrifying look of foreboding crossing his features as he glances toward the mangroves then sets his gaze back on Zephyr, Storm Tide, and then Marina, a chill coursing over her skin.

“Vogel is attacking the Vo River at its northern origin,” Gareth says and signs, his lightning-flashing eyes like two warning beacons in the darkness, “to entrench and flow Shadow pollution through the East via the river’s waters, to bring down Noilaan’s entire Natural World with Shadow power.” Gareth’s gaze swings back to Storm Tide, a martial steadiness in it. “And that Shadow power will be flowingright toward us.”

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