Page 67 of The Dryad Storm

A vision of the Great Tree, III, flashes in Tierney’s mind, gravity giving way as they all turn to mist and spear north, as one, through the midnight black.

Part One

Shadow Wand Rising

Chapter One

Wyvernbonded Mate

Elloren

Northern Forest

Eighteen days after Xishlon

I shudder against Yvan, his lips on mine, my heart fracturing open as our Wyvernbond reignites under the Great Tree, III.

Our bond’s churning flame visibly lights up the world, and I’m barely able to hold back sobs as Yvan holds me to his muscular form and the Forest sizzles out of sight, my vision overtaken by our joint blaze’s golden-green glow.

Yvan deepens his firestorm kiss, fire to fire, the feel of our bond enveloping me, sending a volcanic charge through my rootlines. I surrender to it fully. Overcome by thepowerin it.

Overcome by the power inhim.

As Yvan’s heartbeat pulses strong against mine, I’m hit by a rushing wave of Tierney’s magic at the same moment the Northern Forest’s aura flows around my restored Wyvernbond to Yvan, the trees and IIIlinkinginto Yvan’s Icaral of Prophecy fire through my rootline connection to the surrounding Forest.

Tierney’s magic fades, but before I can wonder at it, revulsion explodes through III and the trees, lashing through the very air. Alarm tightens my gut as leaves rustle and trunks bend and creak all around us, the image of leagues upon leagues of trees consumed in flame slicing through my mind.

The Forest gives a painful, wrenchingyankon my rootlines, violently intent on severing their connection to Yvan’s Wyvernbond, the caws of my huge kindred ravens sounding, the scene around us snapping back into sight.

Shocked, Yvan and I break our kiss, and I cry out, tensing my rootlines against the strangling attack of Forest power and the planetary force of III’spull.

Yvan hisses, tightening his protective hold on me as he hurls fire into our Wyvernbond, and I’m caught up in the feel of his power thrashing against my Forest’s yanking assault.

“An Icaral cannot link to our Forest!” the Dryad Oaklyyn’s rage-filled voice spears out. “He’s allkilling fire!”

My gaze flits to the Dryads, who all stand against us.

Oaklyyn’s fern-hued face is twisted in a scowl, her oak staff gripped tight in her hands, its luminous forest green runes charged for battle, her brown wolverine kindred snarling at us. The stance of the mushroom-tressed Dryad Lyptus is just as combative, her mint-green, lightning bolt–marked face livid, her silver panther kindred emitting a low, threatening growl. The Dryads’ branch-horned and pine-haired leader, Sylvan, as well as graceful, flower-tressed Yulan, the Deathkin-Dryad Hazel, and the huge branch-horned Dryad whose name I don’t yet know, are all glaring at us with equal parts horror and outrage, the huge Dryad’s black bear kindred dropping into a threatening crouch.

Alarm spiking, I realize that Tierney and her Death Fae companion have disappeared, along with that greatwhooshof water power I sensed, and only the semicircle of six Dryads, their kindreds and my flock of giant Errilor Ravens remain in the clearing around III, Errilith and the other ravens moving in to encircle Yvan and me.

“Where’s Tierney?” Yvan demands of the Dryads as he keeps tenacious hold of our bond.

My same urgent question is torn away as the surrounding Forest intensifies its assault on our Wyvernbond with furious, wrenching force. My whole body constricts with pain, a gasp ripping from my throat, the full might of the Northern Forest’s Natural Matrix slashing against Yvan’s bond to my rootlines. Yvan’s invisible aura rears, half of it burning protectively around me, the other half whipping against the Forest’s attack in a potent firestorm.

Errilith lets out another thunderously loudCAW, as if threatening the Forest in return, my kindred raven’s ground-shaking cry quickly taken up by the rest of the Errilor flock, the world pulsing with their strange Dark aura mist, even as III’s immense power whirls around Yvan and me in ever-tightening spirals.

“Tell the Forest tostand down!” Yvan snarls at Sylvan, Hazel, and Yulan.

Hazel’s otherworldly night-dark eyes scan my ravens, his lime-green face tensing with a conflicted look as the world strobes with the ravens’ world-dimming aura.Hazel’s gaze snaps to Sylvan’s and Yulan’s equally tumultuous gazes, and a conflicted look passes between the three of them.

As one, Sylvan, Hazel, and Yulan thrust their III-marked palms out toward the surrounding wilds.

I gasp, hit by a radiating blast of Hazel’s dark mist and Sylvan’s and Yulan’s powerful elemental auras, their combined magic flashing against the Forest’s relentless assault to no avail.

Oaklyyn cuts Sylvan, Hazel, and Yulan a murderous glare and jabs a finger at Yvan. “Our Forest sees him as anenemy!”

“He’s myally!” I snarl back, as the Forest sends a series of images screaming through my mind...

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