Page 47 of The Dryad Storm

“The Zalyn’or necklace I used to be marked with was forced upon me at only ten years of age,” Cael comments. “I tried to fight my people, but they held me down and placed the binding on me in an effort to subdue my will and make me hate my sister.”

Emotion balls in Gwynn’s throat in response to the pain in Cael’s eyes.

Yyzz’ra’s biting voice cuts through the moment. “See,” she crows at Mynx,“even your Alfsigr agrees that these bindings are barbaric.” Yyzz’ra loses her jeering smile as her gaze swings to Mavrik. “And now, there’s a growing risk that Vogel might take control of every Zalyn’or-marked Alfsigr and every fasted Mage via your fastmarks, isn’t there?”

“The Mages are poised to take overeverything, Yyzz,” Mynx angrily counters.

Yyzz’ra rounds on her. “No, Mynx. These two Mages are aparticulardanger, and you know it. They need runic imprisonment collars around their necks. As do the Alfsigr, Zalyn’or marked or not.”

“All my wands are rune marked to self-destruct if I try to cast spells corrupted with Shadow magic through them,” Mavrik flings back at her. “Satisfied?”

Yyzz’ra’s glower turns white-hot. “No. I amnotsatisfied. And I won’t be until your kind are thrown out of the Sublands and wiped clear off the face of Erthia! The Alfsigr too!”

Mavrik slams down his mug and gets up, lightly touching Gwynn’s shoulder. “Come with me, Gwynn,” he stiffly offers. “Let’s get to work.”

Gwynn swallows thickly as she rises, so troubled and flustered she’s barely able to meet Mavrik’s gaze. When she finally dares to, she finds a blazing understanding there, but it does little to temper her lashing turmoil.

“Mavrik, we know you’re on our side,” Mynx starts, seeming concerned.

Mavrik gives Mynx a harsh, cautionary look that silences her as Gwynn follows him down a rocky path toward the desert sands, an argument breaking out behind them in Smaragdalfarin.

An argument aboutthem.

Gwynn does her best to blot it out, feeling as if the whole world is battering her like the winds roiling inside the storm bands in the distance, even though the sheltered predawn space surrounding her is cool and still and dry.

Arms splayed out for balance, Gwynn follows Mavrik down from the ledge and over the Agolith’s crimson sand. Rose sparks suffuse the edges of her vision in response to the deep-rose light of predawn brightening as the sun moves closer to the storm bands’ apex.

They pass Wynter’s distant form, the Icaral’s eyes closed in concentration. The Verdyllion in Wynter’s hand is raised as she murmurs spell after spell, small runes forming around her like suspended silver rain.

Gwynn’s shrewd eyes scan the designs of these newly conjured runes.

Storm-amplifying runes, all of them.

“Why is she crafting storm runes?” Gwynn asks Mavrik as she follows him under one of the Agolith’s towering scarlet-stone arches, decadent red sparks flashing through her Light Mage vision and over her wand hand.

“She’s getting ready to feed more power into the storm bands so we can overtake them and deploy them against Vogel’s forces,” Mavrik answers as they stride into a sheltered semicircle of stone, the stone’s rose striations alternating with lines of vivid purple, the streaks of forbidden color dizzyingly alluring.

Gwynn lifts her gaze toward the dark storm bands. They’re flashing with bright energy, a wall against Vogel’s forces, about to be strengthened and controlled by the Verdyllion. A slim bit of relief edges into her, but it’s doused by her memory of Yyzz’ra’s angrily voiced concerns.

“Yyzz’ra is right about us being a potential danger,” Gwynn admits.

Mavrik turns to face her. “She is,” he concedes, the color still crackling over his lips with provocative force. “So, we exhaust every magical course of action to fight Vogel and our fastings. Pool our knowledge. Pool our power. See what you’re capable of. And, what we’re capable oftogether.”

He pauses as their magic gives a palpable, insistent pull toward each other, the tingle of magic dancing over Gwynn’s lips intensifying along with the color flashing over Mavrik’s mouth.

“This is a good, open site to wandtest you,” Mavrik comments matter-of-factly, all business as he draws one of the four wands sheathed at his hip—the golden, Issani-rune-marked one—but Gwynn can detect pent-up emotion in his tone.

She glances at his fastmarked hands and wrists, her own pent-up reaction to what transpired between them last night lapping against her in a damning tide. She tenses her hands against her looping fastlines—a fasting that was once the most precious thing in all the world to her. When tears threaten to make a play for her eyes, she blinks hard to press them back.

None of this matters, she chastises herself.The only thing that matters is fighting Vogel’s Shadow.

But still, the question clamors for release, and she’s unable to stop it from bursting forth. “Did you love your fastmate?”

Mavrik freezes, his expression turning as impenetrable as the Agolith’s crimson stone. He lets out a harsh sigh, his lips compressing into a tight line. “I was thirteen when I was fasted, same as you, I’d imagine.” His jaw ticks as he glances toward thestorm band lining the horizon, before turning his blazing green eyes back on her. “It was forced on me.”

“But... you’re also Sealed,” Gwynn blurts out. Both of them, bound not just in a fasting but also in a Sealing at or past eighteen years of age, the consummation of the fasting nonnegotiable.

Mavrik narrows his eyes at her, a flash of intensity heating them. “I went on my first deployment the day after our Sealing. By the time I returned, I was hells-bent on resistance. And quickly found out I had been paired with a woman who’s like your Geoffrey. Who fully supports slashing the tips off the ears of children like Bloom’ilya and Ee’vee, then deporting them to ‘purify the Magedom’s Holy Soil.’?” He grimaces and glances away before casting her a troubled look, jagged pain in it. “It was animpossiblesituation. I quickly found myself very much alone.” He looks away again, mouth tensing before he turns back to her. “I was soon undercover to the Vu Trin, lying to every Mage around me.” His eyes take on a haunted look. “Gwynn... if you’d seen the Fae slaughter going on in the north...”

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