Page 64 of The Dryad Storm

“Tierney,” Or’myr says with lethal calm, his eyes narrowed on Viger, the threat of violence flashing in them, his wand still leveled, “are you certain you’re acting under your own free will?”

Tierney inwardly curses. “I am,” she admits, a fitful storm cloud forming above her head.

Or’myr eyes Viger warily, seeming wholly unconvinced as Tierney’s rain starts to fall. Or’myr’s eyes flick toward hers, his voice tight when it comes. “May I ask, approximately,whenon Xishlon that this kiss took place?”

Chagrin slams down, Tierney’s chest stiffening against it as she remembershow she slid that Xishlon’lure necklace around Or’myr’s neck. And how much she wanted to kisshim. To be withhim. And how crushed she felt when they did kiss and his lightning aura sent that unbearable shock of pain through her lips.

“Before Vogel’s invasion,” she rasps. “I kissed Viger soon after I kissed you,allof it of my own free will.”

She can feel the sudden press of Viger’s penetrating stare as well as the jealous disturbance sputtering through Fyordin’s water aura, a pained slash of violet lightning striking through Or’myr’s green eyes.

“Hold up,” Fyordin demands, his storming power barely contained now, a scandalized look on his face. “You took thembothas your Xishlon’virs?”

Tierney’s temper snaps its leash. “That’s right,” she bites out, her rain beginning to sheet down, thunder rippling through her enlarging cloud. “I took thembothas my Xishlon’virs. And you know what, Fyordin?Noneof this matters right now!”

“Oh, it matters,” Or’myr rejoins, his flashing green eyes fixing on Viger like twin blades. “Did you fully inform her what kissing youmeans?”

Viger’s snakes hiss at Or’myr as Viger’s horns elongate, forming sharper points than Tierney has yet seen on them. Angled threateningly toward Or’myr.

“What does it mean, Viger?” Tierney demands, undaunted by his spiky horns.

“Itmeans,” Or’myr cuts in, “that he can enter your dreams now. And he can infiltrate your mind through your fears. Isn’t that right, Viger?”

Viger hisses, a larger portion of his thrall breaking free to encircle Tierney in a powerful whirl of dark mist just as Fyordin hurls out his invisible water aura to lash around her and batter against Viger’s power... and then, incredibly, purple lightning forks through all of it.

Tierney’s temper turns cyclonic.

Gritting her teeth, she balls her fists and swipes her arms outward, releasing a huge blast of her own power’s aura.

Their magic explodes, her magic forcing theirs back as her rain sheets down with pummeling force.

They all gape at her, even Viger’s snakes seeming a bit stunned by her magical outburst.

“I said, this isn’timportant!” Tierney growls, lips rain-slicked. “I don’t care if you canallinvade my dreams and infiltrate my fears! Maybe I took a hundred Xishlon’virs!” Fyordin draws back, eyes wide. “Maybe I kissed everyone who crossed my path on Xishlon!” she exclaims. “Noneof that matters right now!”

“Yes it does, Asrai!”Fyordin booms, a storm spitting to life over his own head as he levels a finger at Viger. “You disappearing with...him, matters! Because I’ve needed you foreighteen straight daysand couldn’t find you!”

Eighteen straight days?

Panic rears. Tierney thrusts her hands out then slams her palms down. Her rainstorm falls along with Fyordin’s, clouds meeting earth and instantly turning into mist twining up from the riverbed. Her gaze sweeps up toward the unnaturally gray sky, and she zeroes in on the gauzy half-moon in the darkening twilight where a full purple Xishlon moon hung what seems like only the night before.

The world tilts from the force of her disorientation, and Tierney’s eyes snap toward the Shadow-free surface of the Vo River, the Shadow-smoking, half-decimated Vo Mountain Range just beyond. The runic ward-net she and Viger placed over the entire Vo River to keep magic out of it is still blessedly in place, their runes rippling against its waters. The invading Mages and their broken dragons and other nightmarish Shadow creatures—she can’t spot them anywhere. It’s as if the skies have been stripped clear of them.

Eighteen straight days...

“My... my family...” Tierney stammers.

“I checked on them,” Or’myr reassures her. “They’re fine and sheltering in the Sublands.”

Her thoughts spin. “We went through a Dryad portal...” she starts, eyes still pinned on the Vo.

“Which areslow as pine tar,” Or’myr rigidly supplies. “Alder Xanthos surmised as much. She read your location in the trees.”

Tierney’s rattled gaze swings to Or’myr’s drenched form, his flashing eyes. She takes in the emerald Varg color-fixing rune on the side of his glistening purple neck, there to hold his color against Shadow. A type of rune that takesdaysto fabricate...

Portal lag, Viger hisses into her mind, and her hackles rise over the potent clarity of his voice right in the center of her head.

She shoots him an acid glare, and Viger gives her an unrepentant look in return that sends a chill through her, whatever ardent emotion there was in him in the Northern Forest now gone. Replaced by that impenetrable Death Fae veneer. But there’s no time to think too deeply on any of it as a fuller clarity of exactly what’s happened descends—

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