Page 6 of The Dryad Storm

The image of a Wand-Stylus, glowing green and edged with prismatic light, shimmers into Alder’s mind.

A rush of connection to that Wand-Stylus whips around her, coursing through her with chest-expanding force, the palm of her right hand tingling. Alder pulls her hand away from the trunk and draws in a shocked breath as she finds the image of III—the Great Tree and Heart of the Forest—imprinted on her palm. She peers up at the purple canopy, tears in her eyes, as she realizes what this purple Vo Forest is doing.

Marking her as its Guardian.

“I can’t be Guardian to you,” she chokes out. “My kindred has beenmurdered. I cannot be Guardian without a kindred.”

A crackling of twigs sounds, and Alder turns as an emaciated, horse-size eagle staggers toward her. Its singed feathers are a wash of grays, its eyes dulled by devastation, burn marks on its taloned feet.

“Oh,” Alder says, compassion tightening her chest as fresh tears well. As she realizes this damaged Forest is bringing her a fellow orphan.

And this giant winged one isn’t a gray eagle at all.

This is one of the Saffron Eagles from the decimated Central Desert lands, stripped of her color by Shadow and torn from her home. Alder can sense the bird’s grief over this strange new place. Over thewrongnessof this habitat.

“Both of us,” she says to the eagle, her voice breaking, “both of us have lost our habitat.”

Alder holds out a shaking hand, and the eagle nears cautiously, then lowers her great head, Alder’s palm meeting grayed feathers. They touch, forehead to forehead,and Alder is flooded with the bird’s heartbreak, her hands trembling against feathers and bark.

And as much as her own heart is broken in this moment, as much as her kindred’s death feels like it destroyed her very soul, a remaining shard of Alder’s heart knows that this new Forest, a Forest that has just weathered its own devastating blow...

It’s calling to her.

Calling her to take this equally battered bird as kindred. To bind with this Forest as Guardian, even with the unstoppable Shadow bearing down. To find the allies of the Dryad Witch—her fellow Forest Guardian—so they can save Elloren Gardner Grey. And to find the Forest’s Wand of Power—the Verdyllion, the Great Wand of Myth.

And so, even though her body quivers with grief, Alder summons her last remnant of courage and answers the Dryad call.

“I accept you,” she says in Dryadin to the bird, voice breaking as she caresses the side of the eagle’s great head. “In the name of Azion, my beloved, I accept you as kindred.” She looks to the gray-tinged purple canopy above, pressing her free palm to bark. “And I accept you, Vo Forest, as Guardian’kin. I will fight for you. I will die for you. I pledge myself to you, Forest kindred.”

Silence descends, even the chirring of insects momentarily ceasing.

And then, the Forest’s aura loosens in a great rumble and flows in, a huge sigh pushed through Alder’s chest as the trees’ Life-giving energy rushes through her rootlines, restoring her Dryad magic, the tingling energy passing from her into her eagle, who shivers, as well. Alder’s eyes widen as the deep-green glimmer of her skin returns and a violet branching pattern spreads over it, even as a smattering of the great eagle’s grayed feathers morph into the color of flame, the eagle’s eyes brightening to orange.

Fireling.The Saffron Eagle’s Issani name lights in Alder’s mind.

“Well met, Fireling,” Alder says, her heart swelling. “We will fight together, Great One, for what’s left of our Forest.”

More rustling echoes in the woods, and Alder gasps as six more emaciated gray eagles move toward her, then three more. Forest power rushes through the root-rich ground toward the eagles, and they stiffen, smatterings of gray feathers turning flame-hued, their dulled eyes lighting into sunburnt orange.

“My flock,” Alder whispers, realizing in one monumental sweep of emotion that no one is ever truly lost, truly alone.

Not while there are trees still rooted and breathing on Erthia’s soil.

The Shadow is coming for the land, she thinks to her displaced flock and battered Forest.It’s coming for you. But it’s also coming for the Air and the Life-giving Waters.

It’s coming.

She looks at each of the eagles in turn. “Who here will fight with me for the Forest?”

The eagles fan out their wings as one and lower themselves to the ground, wings to roots, as pride bursts through Alder’s breast.

“We fight then, kindreds,” she vows, Dryad and Amaz steel rising.

Foreststeel rising.

“In the name of Azion, free eagle of the Caledonian Mountains,” Alder vows, “we fight for the surviving Forest.”

Purple branches from every nearby tree drop down around her, one landing in Alder’s lap. Tears mist her eyes, and power from the ground rushes into her and thrums through her Dryad rootlines.

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