Page 97 of The Dryad Storm

Dark mist jets from his hands and insect legs and bolts toward III’s shielding, a stronger net of dark mist overtaking the graying shield, the Shadow storm’s forking lightning and killing wind battering against it with terrifying force.

“Elloren,” Yvan says as he drops to one knee beside me and takes firm hold of my arms. “I’m going to try to send power through you from my kindred Forest. Through our bond.”

I strain to voice my assent but am unable and summon a weak nod instead, as large swaths of my vision black out and the rootline-flaying pain intensifies, my surrounding Forest falling and the last traces of my magic falling with it.

Yvan’s mouth comes down onto mine and I grab weak hold of him, his violet fire roaring through me in a molten blast. I shudder against his kiss as a vision of his vast kindred Forest scorches through my mind—leagues of gigantic pine trees with midnight-hued trunks and deep-purple needles. I can sense the distant Zhilaan Forest waking up and becoming aware of how my sputtering power has come unmoored, sense it reading the destruction raging all around via my link to III.

The Zhilaan’s fury rises like a firestorm and blazes through us, its elemental might suddenly burning purple magic through my lines with lung-opening force. I draw in a desperate breath as Yvan deepens our kiss and his distant kindred Forest forges a tenuous connection to my rootlines via my Wyvernbond to Yvan.

I heave in another ragged breath as Yvan breaks the kiss, gripping my arms, my withered rootlines filling with a slim line of the Zhilaan Forest’s distant, fire-fueled energy, a branching tingle racing over my skin.

“Are you all right?” he demands, alarm blazing in his eyes.

I nod, pulling in one great, heaving breath after another. I glance down to find a faint purple branching pattern marked over my grayed skin. Before my astonishment can register over this visual manifestation of my slim Zhilaan Forest connection through our Wyvernbond, the surrounding storms abruptly withdraw and rise in a churning gray mass. Dread overtakes me as a 360-degree view opens up beyond Hazel’s shield.

A strangled cry bursts from my throat.

The Northern Forest is no more.

What used to be leagues upon leagues of complex Life has been reduced to charred trees, no color anywhere, the plants and wildlifemurdered.

Only III left standing.

More horrifying still, I can sense a colossal amount of Shadowed power being drawn up into wands by the huge grounded army positioned to the distant south of us, the consolidating storms above coalescing into a planetary ball of lightning-spitting chaos.

Like a Void moon hovering above III.

Yvan’s gaze swings to Hazel, his internal Wyvernfire still burning bright. “We need to get everyone onto Elloren’s ravens. Along with whatever kindreds we can.”

“I’llkillyou if you touch me,” Oaklyyn rasps, clutching at her throat as she casts Yvan a glare of pure hate. “I... won’t... leave... my...Forest!”

A tortured look twists Hazel’s expression as he thrusts his pitch-dark palms andinsectile legs toward Oaklyyn. Lashes of dark vine shoot from his palms and the tips of his legs, spearing toward her. She coughs out a vicious protest as Hazel binds her and works to encase her snarling wolverine before giving Yvan a prodding look, his black teeth bared, the wolverine shredding and biting through its bindings as fast as Hazel can create them.

Yvan leaps into action, lifting me onto Errilith’s back. Hazel tethers me there, and I sway against the bindings, my power depleted, my withered lines bolstered only by the line of distant Zhilaan Forest power.

“Keep Mavrik and his fastmate together!” I rasp out as Yvan drags a semiconscious Mavrik and his fastmate onto another of the huge ravens. Hazel tethers them to it, their orange hawks agitatedly perching atop them. “Their power,” I choke out, “it’s intensely linked. I’m not sure they’d survive for long if they were separated.”

I hazard a glance toward where I sense Vogel’s forces massing, the Shadow magic of his army still ominously motionless, the horrifyingly huge moonstorm above us rapidly gaining strength.

Help me!I silently implore the Zhilaan Forest.Help me to regain my full power so I can save III!

A ripple of energy shivers over my palm, a line of III’s energy flowing into it, as if the Great Tree is desperately trying to convey something with its last shred of power.

I look at my palm, my heart pounding out a ragged rhythm as a sputtering, prismatic glow flashes through my III imprint. A vision of the Verdyllion pulses against the back of my mind, and I’m filled with the sense of III channeling energy into the Wand-Stylus.

“Go!” Yvan orders, and I’m suddenly lifted into the air on Errilith, my Deathkin flock taking wing alongside Yvan, with Hazel on ravenback, Oaklyyn’s semiconscious form bound behind the Deathkin Dryad, Yulan’s heron soaring in behind the raven she’s bound to. Larch’s bear kindred lets out a soul-shredding growl of distress along with Oaklyyn’s wolverine and Lyptus’s panther as we wing away, the animals’ cries splicing straight through my heart.

“We can’t leave III and those kindreds to Vogel!”I cry, overtaken by wild despair as Hazel drags his shield away from III and draws it around us, my every nerve filling with the desire to hurl myself back toward III and the abandoned animals, a feral terror overtaking me.

Vogel’s Void tree slithers through my mind with what feels like a brutal taunt.I jerk my gaze south and take in the sea of soldiers massed in the far distance, past where the Northern Forest’s southern border used to be.

His forces still disturbingly motionless.

I look toward the Great Tree and take in the slowly turning, massive sphere of dark storm poised above it, curling black lightning and muffled thunder pulsing inside the Void sphere. A seismic dread builds, my weakened rootlinesstrainingtoward III, along with the energy of the entire purple Zhilaan Forest.

Every Forest on Erthia straining toward III.

As the giant killing moon of storm falls.

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