Page 90 of The Dryad Storm

The air and surrounding ocean overtaken by gray-swirling corruption.

Families... children...dying.

A scream of protest rises in Gwynn’s throat.

The horrific scene disappears in a swirl of malignant grays, and Gwynn and Mavrik find themselves suspended, once more, in the Great Tree’s all-encompassing darkness. An eviscerating despair grips hold of them both as they comprehend what Gwynn instinctively knows is coming for their continent.

What’s alreadyhere.

But then, an image of the Verdyllion bursts into being, the Wand-Stylus suspended before them.

Gwynn’s eyes widen as a translucent, seven-pointed star, big as a miller’s wheel, shivers to life around the Verdyllion, each point glowing one of the seven colors of prism-refracted light. She and Mavrik glance down, the two of them positioned in front of the large star’s sole golden point.

Figures shimmer into being in front of the star’s other points, and surprise stutters through Gwynn as she takes in the purple-raying, blurred form of Sagellyn Gaffney suspended before the star’s violet-glowing arm. Her entire form is tinted with purple hues, a benevolent smile on her deep-violet lips.

“Sage,” Gwynn rasps, her heart cracking open with both love and remorse to suddenly find herself in the presence of her long-lost friend.

Another figure gains clarity, and a more potent surprise constricts Gwynn’s chest, the female figure’s skin shimmering a deep forest green, her ears slightly pointed, a verdant streak in her Mage-black hair. Her face is familiar, so similar tothe features carved into the martial statue in front of the Valgard Cathedral depicting the Black Witch doing battle with the Winged Icaral.

Elloren Gardner Grey.

There’s a glowing green branch in Elloren’s hand and a raven perched on her shoulder, her form poised before the star’s luminous green point.

Wynter shivers into being before the star’s indigo point, her lightning horns forking out prismatic light. And then, a figure Gwynn does not recognize shimmers to life at the star’s blue point, an equally blue woman made of flowing water, the light-raying images of two color-flashing octopi streaming around her, a purple root in the woman’s hand, her hair a flash of silver. Another figure, an Alfsigr man surrounded in a rainbow haze, appears at the star’s red point.

And then, a final figure, made up entirely of fractals of prismatic light.

The Forest vision from before shimmers to life around them, the forbidden hues of the East’s autumn raying out to join with the Verdyllion, the star and everyone gathered around it.

Gwynn looks to Mavrik, swept up in the overpowering sensation that channeling their collective light power through the Verdyllion is somehow key to holding the vast Shadow power at bay.

A palpable sense of invitation ripples through the air. Gwynn can feel its world-shifting energy inside her very soul, a joyful tug on her lines, beckoning her to join with the complex prismatic magic that runs through III and the Forest and every living thing.

III’s silent invitation quivers in the air, like a hand, held palm up.

A lifeline for Erthia.

A chance.

Gwynn meets Mavrik’s beloved gaze in silent affirmation before, together, they bring their hands to the star’s golden point and accept.

An explosion of multicolored light detonates as elemental magic bolts through their fastlines. Gwynn grasps Mavrik close at the same time that he grabs desperate hold of her, and they’re hurled through the Great Tree’s roots, upward and out into the surface world’s light.

The real world solidifies into being, and Gwynn finds herself ensconced inside III’s huge, green crown, clinging to a branch, her nails digging into bark, thunder rumbling in the distance, Mavrik beside her.

Gwynn pulls in a shocked breath as she takes in Mavrik’s dramatically altered appearance, and his eyes widen with an equal level of shock as he takes her in.

His ears... they’re pointed... and the pale Mage green of his skin has deepened to a rich, late-summer green. His dark, tousled hair is streaked with a rainbow of hues, and his gold irises are rimmed with prismatic light.

Gwynn draws in an expansive breath, overcome by the sensation of herself and Mavrik newly and prismatically rooted to the entire Northern Forest and III via their twinned lines, a rush of the Great Tree’s affection suffusing them both.

III’s pulsing energy strobes through Gwynn’s wand hand, and she turns it palm up. Astonishment sizzles through her as she finds III’s image fused there in dark lines that weave into and intimately link to her lightning-patterned, gold-glowing fastlines.

Aware of a stretching sting along her ears, Gwynn reaches up and is stunned to find her own ears coming to the same subtle points as Mavrik’s. She grabs at her hair and pulls it forward, finding hers shot through with rainbow color as well, her nails newly deep green and slightly clawed, her skin a deepened forest green hue.

“Holy Ancient One, we’re Fae,” she gasps to Mavrik, almost choking on the words when they come out not in the Common Tongue but in a whole other language, the sounds dry and leafy, the words feeling intensely true. “Can you understand me?” she asks him, almost light-headed from shock.

“I can,” he answers in the same leafy tongue, his equal astonishment sweeping through their twinned power.

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