Page 71 of The Dryad Storm

Amplifying her pull toward him.

Their twinned magic has made it difficult to be separated from each other, the two of them careful to sleep just out of reach.

Which is increasingly an exercise in magic-provoking torment.

Which means, Gwynn realizes, that it’s been over three days since she’s had any real semblance of sleep, exhaustion bearing down like a leaden weight.

Gwynn steps into the cavern and stills, engulfed by the sudden, potent sense of Mavrik pausing on the cavern’s threshhold, their prismatic draw intensifying. Flustered, she turns and meets his eyes.

Their twinned bond bursts into color, and a rush of magic sizzles straight through Gwynn’s entire form, the unbidden sensation prompting a rise of illicit heat.

Mavrik quickly looks away, biting at the tracery of prismatic color now forking over his mouth.

He wants to kiss me, Gwynn realizes, breath catching.

Light power crackles mortifyingly to life over her own lips, and she stiffens, thegold color of Mavrik’s eyes spangling over her wand hand.

Mavrik’s hands come to his hips, his jaw tensing. “It’s getting stronger,” he says.

“It is,” Gwynn admits, giving him a sheepish look. “We need to stay focused on spellwork. It’s an awkward time for this to kick up.”

“Or a good time,” Mavrik suggests. “We’re going to need the full might of our twinned power when we get north.” He sighs, shooting Gwynn a heated look. “This draw, frustrating and dangerous as it is, seems to be part of it.”

Gwynn bites at her tingling lip and nods, railing against her physical pull to him. “I know we need sleep,” she says, “but we should take a moment to pool our knowledge of ward-breaking spells.”

Mavrik nods, seeming as if he’s struggling to assemble his scattered thoughts. “There’s a cavern farther down this tunnel,” he says, angling his head toward it. “It’s shot through with obsidian. The black in it is absorbing much of the charged color so the cavern... it’s less likely to amplify our... light draw.” He casts her a meaningful look as another tingling rush sweeps through their twinned magic.

Gwynn’s thoughts fragment, muddled by both their dangerous attraction and the way their magic is increasingly intertwined. She remembers Mavrik’s words.A complete fusing... as permanent as fasting... we’ll have to stay in the same location, always... and if one of us dies, the other dies too.

Holding his gaze, she nods and follows him toward the obsidian cavern.

“Vogel is going to strike at those wards with everything he’s got,” Mavrik notes.

Gwynn nods, down on her knees beside Mavrik, his golden wand clasped in her hand, all of their rune-marked blades and wands, save the ones in their hands, strewn around them to experiment with.

The complicated runic diagram they’ve drawn on the floor of the black cavern is splayed out before them, ward designs fabricated with streaks of golden wand light that illuminate the room in a buttery glow that’s so gorgeous it quickens Gwynn’s pulse.

Mavrik taps a section of one of the ward designs with his midnight-black wand’s tip, the rune drawn from Gwynn’s memory of a diagram of the Northern Forest’s warding that she uncovered in the Valgard armory. “I suspect Vogel will siphon energy from his storm bands and attempt to link that energy to the Forest’s wardinghere,” Mavrik postulates, “to blast the Dryad barrier apart.”

“Hmm... most likely,” Gwynn agrees, glancing at him. “We’ll need to markeveryone’s weapons with runes that can counter every known angle of Shadow attack. In case Vogel gets through the wards before we do.”

Mavrik nods in affirmation, his eyes fixed on the sprawling diagram. “I’m going to stay up a bit and mark our weapons with a linked combination of Noi mirror-strike runes and Varg spell-dismantling wards.”

Comprehension clicks. “Ah,” Gwynn breathes out, her mind thrilling to his cleverness. “To neutralize Mage deflection runes.”

He shoots her a mischievous glance. “That might cause a time lag in the deflection spell’s rebound.”

Gwynn smiles. “And give us an unexpected edge.” She taps her light-infused lip, deep in thought as they both mentally tussle with the likely avenues of attack. “You could cast an Amaz shield spell over those two spells,” she ventures. “You’ll get a longer lag.”

Mavrik’s embracing magic stills around hers. “Gods, you’re brilliant,” he breathes.

Surprised by the emotion in his tone, she meets his eyes, the openly enraptured look he’s giving her catching her off guard. The flush that rises on his face matches the heat she feels in hers, prismatic color pulsing to more intense life on their lips.

“Gwynn,” Mavrik says, swallowing, a pained look tensing his face as he rubs his mouth. “This draw is insanely difficult to manage.” A more potent heat sears through their merged lines, and Gwynn’s emotions burst into a turbulent storm of conflict as she struggles to formulate a response...

... just as a stinging pain takes hold of her fastlines.

Gwynn flinches at the same time Mavrik does, a strangled cry escaping her lips. They both drop their wands and jerk their hands protectively inward. Dread sluicing through Gwynn’s veins, she glances down, her gaze zeroing in on the tendrils of Shadow smoke coiling up from her rapidly graying fastlines.

---