Page 80 of The Dryad Storm

“A Reckoning,” Hazel warns, “is when Natural Death is forced to wash over Erthia. It descends in response to a severe Unbalancing of the Natural World.”

I briefly meet Errilith’s mournful stare before Yvan and I exchange looks of alarm, and I remember III’s vision of Shadow power advancing on Erthia’s last stand of the living Forest.

Yvan meets Hazel’s otherworldly stare head-on. “We need to pool our power and get our defenses ready to protect this Forest. Vogelwillattack—”

Black Witch!

A flash of vermillion and gold fire blazes through my vision, and I startle, an urgent hiss invading my mind, everything around me searing from sight.

Raz’zor?I send out through the fire, grasping for a connection, but Raz’zor’s fire disappears as quickly as it ignited in a spangle of red and gold flame, a trace of purple sparks trailing in its wake. I whip my stunned gaze toward Yvan and catch a trace of gold, red, and purple fire streaking through his eyes as well, a mirror ofmy own surprise evident on his angular features.

“What just happened?” Sylvan demands. “I sensed incoming Wyvernfire.”

“It’s... a dragon we’re horded to,” I answer as my thoughts spin. “Raz’zor...”

Yvan’s nostrils flare, as if he’s scenting the flame. “I sensed Naga’s fire merging with Raz’zor’s, along with a host of other Wyverns.”

Another flash of Raz’zor’s fire hits me, my vision searing to flames once more, my heart launching into a hammering beat. Because I can read danger in the urgent way Raz’zor is sending his power out to me. Rough images form in his fire:a winged horde of broken dragons, taking flight; a line of portals, arches flickering; a curved Noi sword; an Amaz axe.

“Multiple armies,” I gasp, looking to the Dryads as my vision clears. “Multiple forces are setting out. And they’re all converging.” My gaze collides with Yvan’s, alarm surging through our joint fire. “Yvan... they’re all cominghere.”

Chapter Four

Storming Rainbow

Gwynnifer Croft

Northern Forest Sublands

Sixteen days after Xishlon

Gwynn sweeps through the portal in a color-flashing blur, hurled at the speed of light from the Agolith Desert Sublands toward the southern underground edge of the Northern Forest.

She stumbles from the portal, knees hitting stone. Wynter, Sparrow, Valasca, and most of the others stagger to their feet before her. Gwynn blinks, and the multihued crystalline cavern surrounding her triggers a hail of chromatic sparks through her vision at the same time that she’s assailed by a stretching agony in her Magelines, her body jerked painfully toward the portal at her back.

“Mavrik!” she cries, multicolored light strobing across her vision as she skids backward over rough stone toward the portal, her twinned lines desperate to get closer to Mavrik before they stretch to the breaking point. In a flash of dread, Gwynn realizes that if Mavrik doesn’t exit the portal soon, their lines will snap and they’ll both die.

“Gwynn, what’s happening?” Mynx cries, the willowy Elf rushing toward her along with Cael, Valasca, and Wynter, just as Mavrik bursts through the portal’s golden mist.

He falls to his hands and knees, and their eyes lock in an explosion of color. A strangled cry escapes Gwynn as they lunge toward each other and grab desperate hold, the agonizing stretch of their twinned lines releasing with a swoop of vertigo. Hugging each other close, they breathe in staggered gasps as their magic re-fuses, the pain strafing through Gwynn’s lines replaced by a rippling surge of relief.

“Let’s not try that again,” Mavrik rasps against the base of her neck, his magictwining around her with such covetous fervor that it sends a shock wave of emotion through her. Because everything in her is surging toward him just as intensely.

Including her heart.

Swept into upheaval over the power of their connection, Gwynn draws away from him and glances around. She pulls in a deep breath, color strobing through their twinned power in raying blasts as they take in the surrounding scene along with their traveling companions.

They’re on a large, flat bridge of stone spanning the center of a huge, crystalline geode-cavern, an expansive river rushing by far below. The geode’s luminous crystals are a mosaic of every color in the rainbow, the river’s reflection of the iridescent hues brilliantly marbling the swirling waters streaming beneath them. Huge dark roots undulate through the cavern’s ceiling, and a vision of the Great Ironwood Tree pulses through Gwynn’s mind.

A reflexive ecstasy takes hold of Gwynn as the translucent images of hundreds of Watchers, perched on the largest roots, appear and then vanish just as quickly.

Gwynn looks to Wynter, shocked into continued silence as they both take in how the Verdyllion Wand in Wynter’s hand has turned fully prismatic, as if drawing on the explosion of color surrounding them. The Agolith Flame Hawks are perched on Wynter’s shoulders, their eyes intent on Gwynn and Mavrik, a number of Wynter’s other bird kindreds winging around the mammoth geode’s interior in joyful arcs.

“Mavrik... thecolor,” Gwynn barely manages. She meets his golden eyes to find them fired up with almost as much emotion as they were after they...

A flush sears Gwynn’s skin, and she averts her eyes only to be swept up anew in the gorgeous barrage of forbidden Fae hues. Awe tumbles to life inside her as she remembers what she’s read and overheard about the Smaragdalfar religious myths that speak of the Goddess Oo’na’s Sacred Roots—roots anchored in all the Light of the world and suffusing the root systems and Sublands around them with their light power for leagues and leagues.

Roots that feed and anchor all of life.

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