Page 60 of The Dryad Storm

“Wherever its location,” Alder says, “Vogel is coming for this Wand-Stylus. And he’s coming for both Elloren and Yvan. He wants to force the Prophecy.”

“We need to get to Elloren and Yvan and the Wand-Stylus before Vogel does,” Jarod Ulrich insists, his tone decided, his hand tight around Aislinn’s, unbreakable love swirling around them both.

The young Mage, Thierren Stone, steps toward her. “Vogel will go after the Dryads with Elloren and Yvan,” he warns, his severe features drawn with an ever-present tortured look. “I’m ready to go West and fight with the surviving Tree Fae.”

Compassion rises in Alder—one touch of Thierren’s hand was all it took for her to read the unassuageable grief inside him over the capture and certain death of his beloved, the Urisk woman Sparrow Trillium, lost to him when the Vo Mountain Range exploded around her. But Alder can also read Thierren’s single-minded willingness to give his life for any Dryads that might remain in the Northern Forest, due to having witnessed a massacre of the Tree Fae during his brief time as a Mage soldier.

“Vogel’s army will be on dragonback,” Fain Quillen, Lucretia’s brother, cautions. The powerful Water Mage exchanges a somber look with his horned life partner, the Zhilon’ile Wyvern-shifter Sholindrile Xanthile.

“That gives them a huge logistical advantage,” Sholindrile agrees.

“You’ve dragon flight,” Sholindrile’s nephew, Vothendrile Xanthile, offers Trystan. Vothe flexes his onyx wings, threads of lightning forking through them, the silver tips of his dark, spiked hair catching the light.

He wants to claim Trystan Gardner as his mate, Alder can’t help but scent, Vothendrile and Trystan’s mutual attraction one of the strongest she’s ever encountered.

“We’ll need access to more flight than just Sho and Vothe,” Rivyr’el Talonir challenges, the pale Elf’s rainbow-glitter decorated eyes sparkling in the silvery light.

Alder tips her head toward the cenote’s rune-warded opening and sends out a call with her mind. Powerful wings beat down on the air above, and her kindred flock of Giant Saffron Eagles soars down through the cenote’s oval opening, Fireling in the lead, the mammoth wingeds alighting all around.

Fireling, the Great Eagle of the Agolith, steps forward and touches her forehead to Alder’s, flooding her with the entire flock’s love and willingness tofight.

Alder reaches up to stroke Fireling’s huge head, feeling the arc of destiny sweeping down to gather them all up in its arms. She turns to Elloren’s allies, readiness to do battle for the Forest sizzling through her. “We’ll give you flight,” she offers.

Rivyr’el shoots her a wide, dazzling smile as he reaches into his alabaster tunic’s pocket and draws something out. He unfurls his pale fingers to display two sapphire-rune-marked, fully charged portal stones. “These can speed us there,” he offers. “They’re linked into the magic of a powerful Vu Trin sky portal.”

“How in the name of Vo on High did you manage to get hold ofthose?” Kam Vin marvels.

Rivyr’el jabs his alabaster thumb at Bleddyn Arterra, the tall, broad green-hued Urisk woman grinning conspiratorially at him.

“Turns out,” Bleddyn crows, “Rivyr’el, Or’myr Syll’vir, and I have a talent for pilfering from the Vu Trin military.”

“Well, all right, then,” Rafe Gardner says, giving them both a dangerous, teeth-baring smile. “Let’s go find Yvan and my sister.”

Chapter Fourteen

Horde

Raz’zor the Unbroken

Top of the Northern Voloi Mountain Range, north of Voloi

Sixteen days after Xishlon

Raz’zor is bowed down, his head lowered to the purple-veined, isolated cavern at the top of the Voloi Mountain Range, Ariel Haven beside him. His battle-scarred wings are fanned out in supplication, as he and Ariel wait for Naga the Unbroken’s answer to their Erthia-shattering request. Only the chill wind breaks the silence as Raz’zor holds his position, stridently ignoring the wounds the Mages lashed across his scaled hide when they briefly captured him along with Or’myr and his horde mate, Elloren.

Before Lukas Grey blew the top off the Vo Mountain Range.

Now, Naga the Glorious Unbroken One, Liberator of Dragon’kin, stands before him and Ariel in all her gleaming, onyx glory. Naga’s horde of sixteen unbroken Western Wyverns encircle them, the Wyverns’ black scales gleaming like opals even in the East’s Shadowed light, their eyes a uniform, golden blaze.

“You ask much, unbroken ones,” Naga hisses in the Wyvern tongue before drawing her head back, two tendrils of smoke rising from her nostrils.

The horde’s combined heat sizzles through the air, and Raz’zor’s vermillion fire leaps with yearning to be bonded to it. But still, a hot tension remains. Because as much as he yearns to be part of Naga’s horde, he can’t abandon his chosen horde mates. His bonded ones.

Elloren and Yvan.

Raz’zor remembers how hastily he had to horde-bond to Yvan to give the Icaral the power to track Elloren through that bond. Raz’zor remained behind, to surrender himself to Naga, heal from his wounds, and, in a leap of ferocious faith, workto gain the trust of this powerful horde in the hope of bringing them to his small horde’s side.

That quest has proven to be prescient.

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