Page 81 of The Dryad Storm

“The Smaragdalfar myths,” Gwynn marvels, looking to Mynx’lia’luure as she and Mavrik rise to their feet, “they’re true in this.”

Yyzz’ra, Gavryyl, and Valkyr all scowl at Gwynn.

“Our ‘myths’ are true inall things, Crow,” Yyzz’ra snipes. “Did you really think your pious Mage delusions defined Erthia?” She draws back, a mocking look overtaking her expression. “Youdid,” she spits out with a disgusted laugh. “You actuallythought yourBook of the Ancientsruled above all else.”

Yyzz’ra’s words are an unmooring blow, and Gwynn feels the chastising sting of them, so much so that she barely hears Valasca and Mynx’lia’luure as they, pointing upward, comment on the broad reach of Mavrik and Gwynn’s Subland shielding.

Gwynn looks up and can just make out their shimmering net-shield beyond the network of roots as she’s overtaken by the implosion of her lifelong religious beliefs. No solid ground to land on anywhere. Nothing but a storming swirl of forbidden color and a forbidden heart-pull to Mavrik Glass.

“Do the Alfsigr myths speak of a Great Tree filled with light power?” Gwynn asks Wynter, meeting the Icaral’s serene, silver gaze.

“They do,” Wynter says.

“The Amaz, Noi, and Urisk myths do, as well,” Valasca offers.

Gwynn nods in dazed agreement even as she struggles against the damning sense of being hopelessly, irredeemably lost to sacrilege.

Wynter peers closely at Gwynn. “All of Erthia’s myths speak of the Watchers as well, in some form or other.” She glances meaningfully around the cavern, where the multitudes of Watchers were just perched, before lifting the Wand-Stylus in her hand. “And they all speak of the Verdyllion.”

“How will we find Oo’na’s Tree once we get past the Dryad wards?” Mynx wonders.

As if in answer, the Verdyllion pulses out a flash of color.

Everyone’s gaze flies toward it, Rhys’s, Wynter’s, and Cael’s bone-white features briefly suffused with the Verdyllion’s chromatic light.

Wynter lifts the Verdyllion, and a stronger burst of multihued light fans out from it, rapidly coalescing into a gigantic, translucent compass that fills the huge geode’s center, the lines of its chromatic design passing harmlessly through anything it touches, including Gwynnifer and her companions. The compass’s suspended circular form is divided into seven sections, each colored with one of the seven colors of prism-diffracted light.

Gwynn passes her hand through the golden section of the compass, awestruck as she takes in how its huge, silvery needle is not pointed toward any of a compass’s usual directional points, but toward the image of a color-flashing Ironwood tree.

“How did you conjure this compass?” Yyzz’ra demands of Wynter, seeming shaken as the compass contracts inward until it’s the size of a small plate, hovering around the Verdyllion’s tip.

“I’m finding that this Wand-Stylus is many things,” Wynter answers. “Things dangerous to the Shadow. It breaks cruel bonds—” Wynter’s silver-fire eyes pass over everyone gathered, a small smile lifting her pale lips “—and brings unlikely people together.”

“And it’s a compass,” Gwynn breathes out.

Wynter’s serene smile widens. “It’s a compass,” she agrees. “So, let’s follow it.” Compassion lights the Icaral’s gaze. “Have faith, Light Mage.”

Faith in what?Gwynn agonizes, her religious bulwark a swirl of broken beliefs. Shattered in a matter of months.

As if sensing her disquiet, Mavrik’s hand comes to her shoulder, his magic a warm caress. Color stings to life on Gwynn’s lips as she fights the urge to embrace him. Flustered, she gently shrugs off his hand and steps away from him, cursing the revealing riot of color flashing over her mouth. And now his. She’s barely able to meet his impassioned, questioning gaze.

“Let’s keep a fast pace,” Valasca commands, cutting through Gwynn’s color thrall. Valasca’s eyes flick probingly from Gwynn to Mavrik, clearly noting the color flashing over their mouths. “Now that we know the way forward,” she says, “we’ve got a Prophecy to intercept.” She levels her runic blade at Gwynn and Mavrik, grinning rakishly. “Andyou twohave some Dryad wards to get us past with all that fully twinned power.”

Guided by the Verdyllion, they journey through the day and into the night, the Varg time-keeping runes marked on the Subland Elves’ wrists tracking the passage of hours.

Gwynn follows Mavrik and the others through a narrow black opal tunnel, the stone veined with every color of Erthia, the color’s iridescence so vivid it sends dizzying flash after flash of forbidden color through Gwynn and Mavrik’s connected lines, her physical draw to him difficult to think around.

“The Great Tree’s Subland light magic,” she murmurs to him, “it’s intensifying our twinning.”

Mavrik casts her a glance over his shoulder, and just that brief eye contact sends another spangled rush of color through Gwynn’s lines, along with that unforgivable sting of heated color over her lips and everywhere they touched last night.

“I feel it too,” Mavrik states tersely, his gaze snapping away from hers as their magic clamors tofuse.

From the slight tightening of his shoulders and the tensing of his neck, she can tell he’s struggling with this just as intensely. Heat blooms on Gwynn’s face as she’s overtaken by the memory of Mavrik’s multihued explosion of passion when they took hold of the Sealing spell, and how much she loved being with him in that way, the surrounding riot of color making her crave it now.

Mavrik turns again and gives her a heated look, his lips so intensely suffused with color that she averts her gaze, upended by having such strong feelings for him in so short a time.

It’s just your twinned magic, she chastises herself, her throat tight with longing.You can’t be falling in love with him...

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