Page 83 of The Dryad Storm

Evening descends, the others eventually moving off into side caverns to grab some sleep. Gwynn steps back, sweat beading her brow, her chest tight with frustration bordering on desperation.

Mavrik sheathes his wand and rounds on her, intensity firing in his eyes. “I’ve finally parsed out what’s going on. You’re fighting our connection. Gwynnifer. We’retwinned. If you fight it, neither of us can fully utilize our magic.”

Gwynn’s heart twists, every suppressed emotion rearing, her magic strainingto pull the emotion through it. And thrust it out toward him. “I don’t know how to stop fighting it,” she admits, her voice breaking, her eyes burning. “I... I’ve developed strong feelings for you in such a short time and... I don’t know how to handle that.”

Mavrik narrows his eyes at her, his magic suddenly sweeping around her in an ardent embrace. “Come with me,” he says, offering her his hand.

Gwynn follows him toward a small side cavern, her lightlines storming with every hue of distress—ashen dark blues, bruise blacks, turmoil-laden maroons. She falls back against a wall and tightly closes her eyes, wrestling with her uncontainable longing for him.

“Gwynnifer.”

She opens her eyes to meet his, the static in their fused lightlines like a storming rainbow, Mavrik’s golden irises flashing with impassioned brightness. But his magic... it’s held back, only a trace of its turbulent flow palpable against hers.

“What are we going to do about this?” he asks, the storming color firing even more intensely through their twinned magic as he motions between them.

Gwynn can barely pull in a breath, her heartbeat thudding against her ribs. “It’s wrong for me to feel this way about you,” she manages. “We’ve known each other for a matter of days—”

“During which we’ve permanetly fused our magic and have become intimate with each other,” Mavrik emphatically interjects. “Gwynn, I can sense yourevery emotion. Even though you’re trying to keep us separate.”

“I can sense yours, as well,” she admits, lips trembling.

“We complement each other,” Mavrik says. “And not just because you gave me a line of light power I lacked. Gwynn, it’s increasingly clear that we’re perfectly compatible inevery single way. Do you sense it, as well?”

She blinks back the tears stinging her eyes as she clings to the understanding in his gaze and the affection he’s flowing around her magic—understanding the likes of which she’s never experienced with anyone else.

“I sense it too,” Gwynn whispers. “And, Ancient One help me, I want to give in to this.”

“Then we should,” Mavrik offers. “Gwynn, for so many reasons.” He holds out his golden-fastline-marked hand to her, a look of resolve in his eyes. “I can’t fight it. I want you. Ineveryway.”

The deep-hued storm of conflict knifing through Gwynn’s lines intensifies, her heart knotting, painfully tight, and she knows he can feelall of it.

“I’ve fallen in love with you,” Mavrik admits, voice rough, his magic holding steady against hers, tears sheening his eyes. “For the first time in my life, I’m truly in love. And it’s not just our magical or physical draw. I havenevermet someone I can be so honest with. You understand me in a way no one else can. Like I understand you. And I love every last thing I feel about you through our linked magic.”

Gwynn can barely hold his gaze, the intensity of the feelings running through his magic shearing straight through her heart, mirroring exactly the emotions igniting in her own lines.

“Ancient One, Mavrik,” she manages, her eyes glassing over as invisible sparks of color crackle through the space between them. “I broke asacred fasting. With someone I’ve known for an incredibly short amount of time.” She holds up her fastmarked hand. “I don’t want to feel this guilt, but it’s ripping my heart intwo.”

“Yes,” he fires back. “And in that short time, we’ve forged a stronger connection than I have with people I’ve known mywhole life.”

A sob almost breaks free from Gwynn’s throat because it’s true for her, as well. She knows it’s devastatingly true.

“If you had never fasted to anyone,” he presses, his whole body coiled with tension, “what would you do? What would you want?”

Pain shears through her heart. “But Ididfast to someone...”

“But if youhadn’t.”

“I’d wantthis,” she admits, trembling. “I’d want to embrace this fasting. But it’s impossible to get past everything I’ve ever been taught mywhole lifeabout virtuallyeverything.”

“We didn’t get tochoose,” Mavrik insists, his acid bitterness jolting through their power. “We didn’t get to choose our fastings atthirteen—”

“Ichose—”

“No, Gwynn, youdidn’t,” he harshly counters. “You were friends with Geoffrey, and that’s a damned sight better than being dragged into a fasting with someone you didn’t care for, I’ll give you that. But it was still coercion into a magically powerful binding attoo young an age.”

Gwynn grows quiet, biting the inside of her cheek as she wrestles with an onslaught of guilt and grief and flashing magic.

“I loved him,” she finally manages in a strangled voice.

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