Page 54 of The Dryad Storm

“We’re walled off from thetrees,” Gwynn finishes for him, holding his piercing gaze with burgeoning alarm.

“Vogel is going to keep us trapped underground,” Wynter states with terrible certainty. Her eyes flick toward the Verdyllion in Gwynn’s hand before she meets her gaze. “And while we’re trapped, he’s going to destroy Dryad magic, bring down your Subland shielding, and take hold of the Verdyllion.”

Chapter Eleven

Shadow Storm

Marcus Vogel

Agolith Desert

Twelve days after Xishlon

Marcus Vogel holds his Shadow Wand aloft, grayed wind power rotating outward from its tip like a dark hurricane. Hawk-focused, Vogel watches as the roiling spirals radiate over the Agolith Desert’s huge expanse of graying land and sky.

The view is sweepingly panoramic from the apex of this highest of stone arcs he’s flown onto, one of the multitudes of giant, graying stone formations adorning the Agolith. Vogel’s elevated position allows him an unimpeded view of his black-lightning-lit Shadow storm bands moving toward him from every horizon.

Storm bands newly overtaken by the Magedom’s sanctified Shadow power.

Vengeful excitement swells against Vogel’s chest and sears fire through his lines as he murmurs spell after spell, pulsing radiating bands of Shadow magery toward the Wyverncrafted storm bands.Linkingthem to his power.

And drawing them in like Shadow-tethered wraith bats.

Hisstorm bands now.

Storm bands that will soon hold enough power to smash through the Northern Forest’s Dryad warding, so he can take back his Black Witch fastmate—who belongs tohim.

Vogel glances at his fastmarked hand. He’s linked a Shadow tracking rune to his fastlines, and he canfeelthe trajectory of his fastmate through the stretch on his lines. The desire for domination over Elloren lashes hot through his power, the Black Witch caught up in a days-long lag as she streams toward the Dryads’ Northern Forest.

Giving him time to close in.

Oh, he’ll be ready to regain hold of Elloren as soon as she touches down in that forest. And then he’ll use her to bind the Icaral demon and strike down the Dryad Fae surrounding her, along with the Subland filth converging on her with their Heathen Wand.

Wind lashing through his dark hair, Vogel continues to hold the Wand aloft. His multi-eyed Shadow dragon is preternaturally still beneath him as the Shadow Wand’s power courses outward and the storm bands rumble in from all directions, enveloping every crimson stone arc in their path, instantly graying them, the arcs’ highest curves jutting up from the storm-sea like forlorn, color-stripped islands lost to the churning chaos.

A simmer of holy purpose burns through Vogel as he surveys the huge swarm of Mage soldiers on dragonback flying in from the West. Ready to join those already massing on the pinnacles of the giant, rocky arches—an unstoppable Mage force about to annex the entirety of the Central Continent to the Blessed Magedom.

A verse fromThe Book of the Ancientsreverberates through Vogel’s mind.Nothing is beyond the Ancient One’s reach. Not the lashing storm nor the moon nor the tides.

Gnashing his teeth, Vogel sends another pulse of magic out toward the storms.

A returning wave of storming energy floods his body, his back arching in pained ecstasy. The silver gray fire he can sense blazing through his lines heats to darker flame as his Shadow power feeds on the elemental power in the desert trees and plants and wildlife being consumed then morphed into Shadow might.

The land increasingly purified of its vile Fae stain.

A Mage soldier on dragonback soaring over the consolidating storms catches Vogel’s eye, the Mage’s Shadowed water-and-wind aura breaking into hot steam against Vogel’s fiery lines. The Mage angles down toward the pinnacle of Vogel’s towering arch, his multi-eyed broken dragon touching down beside Vogel’s in awhooshof powerful wingbeats.

“Excellency,” Damion Bane greets Vogel, his green eyes glinting with a flash of awe as they sweep over the slowly rotating sea of storm surrounding them, dark lightning and thunder forking and crashing through it. Like a steely hurricane pulled down to hug the land.

Brought toheel.

A slash of vicious ire breaches the awe in Damion’s expression. “We’re unable to break through the shield of magery that’s been sent out over the desert Sublands,” he admits. “Fallon and a squadron of our finest Level Five Mages arethrowing everything they have at the shield-net, but she can’t blast through even a small section of it. The Level Five power at play is impervious to elemental attack as it contains all five affinities wrapped in an Issani twinning spell. The source of the twinned spell is just under us. Their Smaragdalfar army is under us, too, trapped to the south. The army was moving north before we blocked their route.”

Toward my Black Witch, Vogel seethes, lightning crackling through his lines.

“My runic crow spy sighted all this before it was cut down,” Vogel murmurs as he peers north along with Damion, keeping his Wand aloft. “The Subland shielding is the work of Mavrik Glass and his whore, Gwynnifer Croft Sykes. It was cast using the corrupted Wand of Myth. They’ve escaped our attempt to cut them off from the Subland route to the north, as have the runic sorceress, Valasca Xanthrir, and the Icaral demon, Wynter Eirllyn.”

Damion’s mouth tightens, the unspoken filling the silence between them: the Heathen Wand headed straight toward Elloren Gardner.

---