Page 37 of The Dryad Storm

Mynx shoots Yyzz’ra a glare before turning to Gwynn. “You did a brave thing, Gwynnifer, when you destroyed that armory and got those children out of Valgard. I, for one, am grateful for it.” She casts the Subland Elves then Gwynn a worried look, obviously reluctant to leave Gwynn alone with them, before she walks off, her gait tight with tension.

Yyzz’ra launches into furtive conversation with the Elves in Smaragdalfarin, their gazes sliding toward Gwynn with wariness every so often. Gwynn tenses each time, her mind a haze of stress as she averts her gaze, not wanting them to surmise her ability to translate in her eyes.

“We need to take Oo’na’s Eyil’lynorin Shard away from the Icaral as soon asshe breaks through the Northern Forest’s warding,” Yyzz’ra says, her tone covert, Gwynn’s every sense prickling to sharper life over mention of the Subland name for the Verdyllion.

One of the soldiers shakes his head. “The Shard won’t allow anyone to send magic through it but the Icaral.”

Yyzz’ra’s fiery glare knifes into him. “Then we use the Icaral and the Roaches to get to Oo’na’s Great Tree, where our power will be amplified and we’resureto be able to wield Oo’na’s Shard. Once there, we kill Vogel and his Black Witch and walleveryoneout of the Sublands but us, including Wynter Eirllyn, her brothers, and the Roaches.”

“Yyzz’ra,” the soldier gently refutes, “Wynter Eirllyn just liberated most of the Sublands.”

“Oo’na’s Shardliberated the Sublands,” Yyzz’ra fires back. “Not the Icaral. The Shard has brought itself right tous, its rightful owners. We can’t trust an Alfsigr Elf with it. Just as we can no longer trust Mynx’lia’luure, who is quite literallyin bedwith an Alfsigr Elf.”

“You’re too hard on Mynx,” another soldier puts in as Gwynn’s concern mounts. “She and Cael Eirllyn, they’re just friends.”

Yyzz’ra coughs out a biting laugh. “She let the Maggot into her pants! Ghuy’lon overheard them rutting. And Wynter Eirllyncannotbe trusted—at Verpax University, she wasfriendswith the Black Witch! They even shared lodging. The same Black Witch who waged war on Voloi. Have you noticed that Wynter Eirllyn has stayed silent on the point of killing Elloren Gardner Grey?” Yyzz’ra slashes the air with her hand. “You cannot trust the Maggots or the Roaches,” she growls, casting a sidelong glare at Gwynn.

Swallowing against the knot in her throat, Gwynn retreats inward, her mind whirling from all this information. She looks down at the food, her stomach tightening as the steam’s fragrant spices waft up. Everything about it is unfamiliar—some type of blue-glowing mushrooms floating along with the wormlike shapes in the murky broth.

She’s landed in another universe here in the Sublands, she realizes, swallowing back a surge of choking anguish, unable to fight back the image of both the armory and her childhood home exploding with runic fire. Unable to bear the thought of her mother’s face when she takes in what her formerly beloved daughterhas wrought. And unable to bear the thought of both her mother and father taking in the Wanted postings that will soon appear with Gwynn’s evilly rendered face on them beside Wanted postings for Mavrik Glass and Wynter Eirllyn.

That night, Gwynnifer lies in a small side cavern on a thin bedroll, a silent sob shuddering through her chest as she clutches her hair. A sudden scud of boots on stone has her swallowing back her raging emotions. Roughly wiping the tears from her eyes, she turns to find Mavrik standing in the rune-lantern-lit tunnel just outside of her cavern’s arching entryway.

“May I come in?” he asks, and Gwynn nods, unable to speak, her throat too thick with turmoil.

Mavrik enters and sits down near her. She studies him, feeling like a shell of herself, stripped raw. She distantly notes that his hand has returned to its normal Mage-green shimmer. He leans back against the crimson stone, his intense gaze fixed on the small alcove’s opposite wall, his expression unsettled.

“The first few nights are the hardest,” he states, the green lantern light just outside the shadowy space flickering over him.

Gwynn lifts her hand and stares at her black, looping fastmarks. A fasting that waseverythingto her. A fastmate who waseverythingto her. And her family...

The knot of grief in her throat tightens as she struggles to swallow the soul-shredding despair.

Her thoughts swing to Bloom’ilya and Ee’vee being held down and brutally mutilated. And the Smaragdalfar children fleeing East, Watchers perched on their shoulders. And suddenly, Gwynn is having trouble catching her breath for an entirely different reason, desperate to do penance for everything she was ignorant of for so long. Flooded by remorse she shuts her eyes so tight that they hurt.

A warm touch finds her cloth-covered wrist and she slides her hand up to grip Mavrik’s. A sparking rush of magic passes between them as her affinity lines open and weave into his, the sensation making them both shiver.

She opens her tear-soaked eyes to meet his intense green gaze, sparks of the same verdant color flashing in her eyes as she’s flooded by a sense of hispower. She glances at their outrageously entwined hands, threads of prismatic lightning shivering over both his skin and hers, both of them seeming so frozen in awe over this sensation, thislinkage, as they remain silent for a stretched-out moment.

“We need to find out exactly what’s happening to our magic,” Gwynn finally says in a hoarse whisper. She knows she should let go of him but can’t bring herself to pull away.

“We do,” he agrees, swallowing. “I’m trying to... get a handle on it.”

A breath shudders through Gwynn as she finds herself unable to control the tempest she’s set into motion.

What she’s followed the Watchers and the Verdyllion into.

“Yyzz’ra is planning to take the Wand from Wynter,” she reveals. “When we get to the Northern Forest.”

His eyes widen. “You speak Smaragdalfarin?” he asks as they hold on to each other, their power caught up in a magical embrace they both seem loath to break.

“My light magery,” she explains. “Trapped as it is, it still gives me the power to visually imprint. I have every dictionary I’ve ever flipped through in my head. Every grimoire. Every military text.” She gives him a searching look. “What did the Vu Trin tell you when you were gone?”

Mavrik hesitates, his jaw ticking. “Vogel’s story is true. Elloren Gardner Grey attacked Voloi, along with an army Vogel had hidden in the Vo Mountain Range. They destroyed the Wyvernguard and leveled Voloi. Thousands are dead. The Black Witch was struck down by the Icaral Yvan Guryev at the same time that some unknown force exploded the Vo Mountain Range housing the bulk of Vogel’s forces before they could emerge and destroy the entire East.”

Gwynn huffs out a hard breath. “And now, the Black Witch is being portaled to the Northern Forest?”

Mavrik nods. “We just got word that Lasair Fae working with the Vu Trin have detected Yvan’s fire power caught up in the lag of a Dryad portal and moving toward the Northern Forest, along with Elloren Gardner Grey’s Shadowfire. Both the Black Witch and the Great Icaral will soon be under Vogel’s control, if he gets hold of them before we do.”

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