Page 40 of The Dryad Storm

Lost and beyond redemption.

“I’m homeless,” she manages hoarsely, lips quivering. “In every way.”

The energy between them shifts, Mavrik’s eyes taking on a pained, commiserating look. “You are,” he says with firm compassion. “But, Gwynn, you’re not alone. You’ll go north with us. In a way that involves absolutelyno onethrowingthemselves at you.” He gives her a pointed, contrite look before letting out a hard sigh, then lifts his wand hand and considers it. “It seems like Wynter’s Wand of Power... it bound us more intensely than we realized. I had a clearer sense of the strength of that binding... in your kiss.”

Gwynn swallows and nods, surrendering to their full honesty with each other. “I stole the Wand from the Valgard armory when I was quite young,” she confides. “I could feel itcallingto me. Looking back, I thought I was simply being dramatic, imagining myself part of some great Mage story where I rescued the Wand from demonic forces. It turns out, I wasright. I was truly in possession of the Great Wand of Myth. But in the end...” Her throat constricts, caustic remorse rising. “I betrayed my closest friend, Sage Gaffney. A fellow Bearer of the Wand. Because I believed in the Mage faith.”

Mavrik studies her, his expression turning hard and stark. “I enlisted in the military as soon as I came of age and went to war, then watched a group of Fae get cut down. By soldiers I had aided by transporting supplies and weapons to them. Because I believed in the Mage faith. During the same deployment, I witnessed Urisk being herded into wagons so they could be shipped to the Pyrran Islands. I was told they were all criminals. But I could tell they were just families. How can a child be a criminal against the Magedom? And their cries and screams...” His face constricts and he looks away, his jaw hard as stone, his whole body brimming with pent-up tension.

“How old were you?” Gwynn asks in a near whisper.

“Eighteen,” Mavrik says, grimacing.

“How old were you when you turned against the Mages?” she presses.

He swallows and fixes his eyes on her, a lethal light entering his gaze that sends a chill down Gwynn’s spine. “Eighteen.”

They’re quiet for a moment, tension tight in the air.

“How old were you when the Wand first came to you?” he finally asks.

“Twelve,” she says before pulling in a deep breath and launching into the story of her time with the Wand. Conveying the whole of it as faithfully as she can. Mavrik listens patiently as she relays the story of her time with Sage, the Light Mage. And how, in the end, she unwittingly and unforgivably betrayed her.

He’s quiet for another long moment as she grows silent, adrift in turmoil.

“You’re equal to this,” he finally states, emphatic. “You managed to keep the Wand from two of Vogel’s Shadow-bound pyrr-demons. They’re incredibly powerful,Gwynn. But you managed to elude them and send the Wand to safety in Halfix with Sagellyn Za’Nor when you were just a girl of thirteen. You saved a Wand of Power from falling into Vogel’s hands. The same Wand that just freed the bulk of the Western Sublands. The Wand Vogel very much wants to get his hands on. And you helped us take down the Gardnerians’ largest wand armory and military library, even though you knew it would result in the destruction of your family’s home. Even though you knew you’d become a hunted outcast. Believe me, you’re equal to this.”

Gwynn holds his stare as a strangled sob lodges in her throat. “I don’t know what my family will do. What they’ll think of me.”

“They’ll Banish you,” he states, his expression blade hard.

Protest rears up in Gwynn, quashing her tears. “They wouldnever—”

“They’ll Banish you, Gwynn,” he insists, an impassioned ferocity entering his eyes. “Harden your heart. Don’t wait to do it. I made that mistake.”

The choking feeling grabbing at her throat intensifies. Gwynn can barely breathe around the thought of her mother and father performing a ceremony marking her dead to them.

“I... I’m not sure I can,” she admits.

“Youhaveto,” Mavrik counters, his gaze filled with sympathy. “Youcan.”

She nods, blinking back tears as she holds his kindred stare, this Mage who walked away from Gardneria for an unknown future, as well. She glances at his fastmarked hands and wrists, barely able to get the question out, but she has to know. “Are you truly fasted?”

She knows, from his small wince, that he catches her subtext.

Are you still with her in any true way?

“No,” he says, his lips twisting with derision. “Not for years. Shebelieves. In everything the Mages are doing. Helps them, even.”

The information strikes deep. And overcomes Gwynn’s storming hesitation.

“Mavrik,” she says. “Please, stay.”

Mavrik looks probingly at her, then concedes with a tight nod before lying down against the wall, too far away to touch.

They lie there for a while, his eyes locked with hers, intensity crackling through the air between them,magiccrackling between them as turmoil churns through Gwynn. The last thing she hears before sleep claims her is Mavrik’s low, drowsy voice, murmuring, “Gwynn... I should wandtest you. Our magic... it’s been upended by each other.”

“I’ve never had access to my own power,” she murmurs back.

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