Chapter Six

Oo’na’s Roots

Gwynnifer Glass

Northern Forest Sublands

Eighteen days after Xishlon

“You two look like you ate a bunch of rainbows,”

Valasca archly comments.

A flush warms Gwynn’s cheeks as she and Mavrik stare down the line of Dryad dome-shielding runes, the Verdyllion in Gwynn’s hands. The primordial Varg barrier rune hangs suspended, emerald bright, before the row of Dryad runes.

Mavrik’s muscular body is pressed to Gwynn’s back, his hands clasped around hers, her flush stoked hotter as she thrills to his power-amplifying proximity. Gwynn knows Valasca’s humor is kindly meant, the Amaz warrior prone to outrageous commentary to diffuse the near-constant tension. But still, she finds herself hyperaware of the color shimmering over her lips and body as well as Mavrik’s, the two of them lit up with a riot of glowing, swirling hues everywhere they touched when they so recently joined.

Even their hair is streaked with lingering color.

“We devoured all the rainbows,”

Mavrik tosses back at Valasca, his hands tightening slightly around Gwynn’s in a private, affectionate squeeze. “And they were delicious.”

Shocked amusement bubbles up in Gwynn as Valasca barks out a laugh. Gwynn returns Valasca’s smile, even quiet Sparrow’s and Rhys’s lips lifting as Yyzz’ra, Gavryyl, and Valkyr maintain their ever-present scowls. Cael and Mynx look on silently, their arms encircling each other, and Wynter a quiet presence beside them, the two Agolith Flame Hawks perched on her shoulders.

Gwynn chances a glance at Mavrik, and he winks at her. “Ready?” he asks.

Gwynn nods, her memory of the past few hours expanding. She and Mavrik practiced the unlocking sequence of spells several times before returning here, the two of them near drunk with amplified light power after their coupling.

“Everyone will know what we’ve done,”

Gwynn worried when they’d readied themselves to rejoin the others, feeling a bit like a criminal as the pleasurable tingle of light magic danced over her lips and body, their love bond a bright, unmistakable beacon.

Mavrik simply reached up to caress her cheek with exquisite gentleness before pulling her in for a deep kiss that set off another explosion of multihued light through Gwynn’s every line.

“Let them know,”

he challenged. “Gwynn, this is your life. Be bold.”

Gwynn sharply inhaled as his words lit her up, striking deep.

Striking true.

Thrilling to the memory, her focus swings to the present. She pauses for a moment, turning to study the dark river snaking through the black-opal cave surrounding them, everything in her suddenly galvanized by the desire to test her light power’s unbridled flow, love-fueled rebellion rising.

She gently draws away from Mavrik, and a questioning energy flashes through his power as she levels the Verdyllion at the river and murmurs a spell.

Their twinned power courses through her and into the river, and the entire body of water bursts into glowing, marbled color, gasps rising from their surrounding companions. Delighted surprise lights up Mavrik’s lines, the shimmering water filled with undulating, glowing ripples of every hue that throw chromatic light over the entire cave.

Gwynn’s eyes widen, her lines filling with explosive joy over what she’s wrought, feeling herself suddenly unleashed.

Empowered.

Her heart thundering in her chest, she catches Mavrik’s enamored grin as she sweeps the Verdyllion in an arc and murmurs a light spell, the cave’s every expanse of dark opal bursting into a mosaic of iridescent rainbow hues.

Pulling in an ecstatic breath, Gwynn catches Wynter’s satisfied smile before she shoots Yyzz’ra a narrow look of triumph before turning back to Mavrik, feeling drunk on color.

“There,”

she says, breathless, “now we match everything.”

Then she reaches up, slides her hand through Mavrik’s hair, and draws him into a deep, light-magic-detonating kiss.

She can feel Mavrik’s smile against her mouth, feel the jubilant color leaping through their joined power as he eagerly responds with his own surge of forceful passion through their twinned lines.

They break the kiss, the two of them filled with more color than ever before, every single blasphemous shade of it, a wicked smirk on Mavrik’s color-infused lips.

My freely chosen fastmate, Gwynn thinks, her heart beating out a strong new rhythm.

The pang of guilt still cuts deep, along with the deeply ingrained fear that she’s forever cursed and cast out.

But her defiance and power burn brighter.

Fully ready, Gwynn turns to the runic wall and levels the Verdyllion Wand at the Dryad and Varg warded barrier. Mavrik’s hands slide around her from behind once more, and together, they sound out the series of unlocking spells.

A bolt of multicolored light blasts from the Verdyllion and collides with the Varg rune before them, piercing a small gap in the rune’s design and spearing into the Dryad ward behind it, both runes overtaken by multihued light.

Both the Varg and Dryad wards split in two, the halves sliding apart and forming a small archway limned with sparking color.

Opening a narrow route into the Northern Forest.

Valasca lets out a whoop as Mavrik pulls Gwynn into an enthusiastic hug, the Verdyllion in her hand suddenly tingling with a magnetic pull.

Toward Wynter.

Gwynn turns to Wynter and holds out the Verdyllion. “Here, Wynter’lyn,”

she offers, grinning from inside Mavrik’s embrace, her magic sparking brighter than ever before. “Lead the way.”

“Oo’na’s Roots . . .”

Mynx’lia’luur gasps.

Mynx’s stunned gasp resonates through Gwynn, and her heart trips into a pounding rhythm. They all step from the narrow series of tunnels they’ve been journeying through for hours and spill into an impossibly huge crystalline cavern with an arching ceiling, the huge, jutting crystals filled with an explosion of forbidden color, Gwynn and Mavrik’s runic net-shield hugging its ceiling.

Unsteady on her legs from the onslaught of so much concentrated light power, Gwynn cranes her neck, gaping in wonder at the gigantic roots waterfalling from the cavern’s ceiling. Thick as a barn, the roots undulate over the cavern’s floor, walls and ceiling, their python-size root-hairs entangling with the network of smaller roots flowing in from every direction—a network of thousands upon thousands of interconnected tree roots snaking over the Subland’s ceiling that Gwynn has taken note of throughout their entire journey here.

One vast web of Forest.

And now here she and her companions are, in the place all the roots were leading to—the living, breathing heart of Erthia’s Natural Matrix, spoken about in all of Erthia’s religions and myths.

Erthia’s Source Tree.

“Holy Goddess on High,”

Valasca gasps as the Tree’s bone-deep frequency of power shivers through Gwynn and Mavrik’s twinned magic, Mavrik’s grip on Gwynn’s hand tightening.

Watchers blink into existence—hundreds of them—shimmering to life, bright as starlight, and perched all over the enormous roots.

Gwynn’s breath seizes, a strangled sound of surprise escaping Mavrik’s throat as the Smaragdalfar fall to their knees and perform the complicted Oo’na’s Blessing gesture over their chests. Cael and Rhys simply gape at the vision that Gwynn realizes they all can miraculously see. Both Valasca and Sparrow murmur what sound like Amaz and Uriskal blessings, and Wynter’s wings fan out to their glorious full expanse, the two Agolith Flame Hawks on her shoulders taking joyous flight to land on the Great Tree’s roots amidst the Watchers.

The Verdyllion Wand in Wynter’s hand rays out multicolored light.

“You see the birds, don’t you?”

Gwynn says to Mavrik, relief spasming through her as the starlight hue of the ethereal Watchers shifts to a constellation of every color on Erthia—the full spectrum of light power.

Mavrik nods without taking his eyes off the Watchers. “The Ancient One’s birds,”

he murmurs, emotion crackling through his power.

“Oo’na’s birds too,”

Gwynn offers, tears welling in her eyes, “and the Alfsigr faith’s birds . . . the birds of the Amaz and Noi goddesses . . . everyone’s birds.”

Mavrik turns to her, seeming uncharacteristically overcome. “I wanted to believe again.”

He swallows, looking back to the otherworldly scene before them. “When I first turned away from the Magedom, I figured, well, I’m going to all the hells now.”

He grows quiet for a moment, his magic crackling with bright feeling. “I missed praying. I missed believing in something. But I figured, if I was irretrievably lost, I might as well fight for those who might not be so lost. Who still had something worth believing in.”

Gwynn’s heart tightens, a luminous tide of love for Mavrik shimmering through their power, tears misting her eyes. “I think we were led here,”

she says. “By the Wand. And the Watchers. And Oo’na’s Roots.”

An expansive rush tingles through Gwynn. It feels revolutionary to name these roots “Oo’na’s”—to embrace the confusing, glorious mingling of Erthia’s faiths.

Seeming to understand the seismic shifting of her thoughts, Mavrik raises their linked hands and kisses the back of hers, multihued sparks flashing through them both as the Tree’s all-encompassing power tugs on their twinned lines.

“Let’s go meet Erthia’s Source Tree,”

Mavrik offers. “Together.”

Gwynn nods, scared and confused and ready. Gripping tighter hold of Mavrik’s hand, she meets Wynter’s compassionate silver gaze, and they all set out together toward Erthia’s Great Tree.

“Stop!”

Yyzz’ra snarls.

They startle to a halt as Yyzz’ra lunges between them and the Tree’s roots, Gavryyl and Valkyr closing in beside her. The three Smaragdalfar soldiers swiftly unsheathe Varg hilts and flick them out, the sword blades telescoping from the hilts’ emerald runes.

“What’s this?”

Valasca demands, low and deadly, as she and Sparrow unsheathe their own smaller blades, Mynx, Cael, and Rhys nocking arrows to bows in a blur.

“Lower your weapons, now,”

Cael orders Yyzz’ra, his aim lethally focused.

“Silence, Maggot,”

Yyzz’ra snarls. “Alfsigr filth have no place here.”

Her combative gaze swings to Valasca and Sparrow beside her. “Disarm right now, or I will activate those runic collars around your necks and choke the breath from your lungs!”

Gavryyl and Valkyr swipe their blades through the air, and a multitude of emerald-glowing Varg daggers blink into existence, suspended before Gwynn and every last one of her allies, the blades’ razor-sharp runic points a hair’s breadth away from each of their throats.

“Yyzz’ra,”

Mynx’lia’luure carefully ventures, “what are you doing?”

“What you should be joining us in doing!”

Yyzz’ra hurls back at her with a hateful glare at Cael. “This is Oo’na’s Tree. Not for Varg’plith!”

Yyzz’ra levels a blistering gaze at Wynter and holds out her hand in emphatic demand. “Give me Oo’na’s Shard, Icaral.”

Gwynn flinches at hearing Icaral hurled at Wynter so abusively. Mavrik’s magic blazes through hers, a series of runic sequences flashing through their twinned lines—runes that could be deployed to blast Yyzz’ra and the two Subland Elves off their feet.

Gwynn quietly begins murmuring the Issani spells, the sting of the runes she’s conjuring beginning to tingle against her palms just as Wynter flicks her wings out to their full breadth with such unexpected, compelling force that everyone turns toward her with evident surprise.

Seeming undaunted by the suspended Varg blade aimed at her pale neck, Wynter serenely holds out the Verdyllion to Yyzz’ra. “Take it,”

Wynter offers. “And return it to Oo’na’s Sacred Tree.”

Yyzz’ra glares at Wynter, seeming thrown by her calm response. She springs forward and grabs the Verdyllion from Wynter, then steps backward toward the huge roots and beckons Gavryyl and Valkyr to join her with a quick swipe of her hand.

Backing toward the Great Tree’s roots, swords raised, Yyzz’ra, Gavryyl, and Valkyr all reach out their free hands and make contact with the Great Tree.

An explosion of chromatic light rays from their hands, and Gwynn recoils as the suspended Varg blades all blink out of existence and Yyzz’ra, Gavryyl, and Valkyr are absorbed clear into the Great Tree’s roots, along with the Verdyllion in Yyzz’ra’s hand.

Red shock blazes through Gwynn and Mavrik’s power.

Wynter turns and gives them all a beatific smile before she steps toward a colossal root and presses both hands to it in a blasting array of colored light. The Watchers all shimmer out of sight as Wynter, too, is absorbed into the Great Tree.

Wynter is the first to reemerge, close to an hour later—an hour that they all spent in the throes of alarm.

Gwynn’s arm rises reflexively to shield her face as prismatic light blasts from the roots, awe spasming through her as Wynter steps from the light and Gwynn takes in the Icaral’s dramatically altered appearance.

Wynter’s eyes are no longer silver but flashing every prismatic hue, her alabaster complexion tinted to pale green. Her wings ray out silvery light, and two flashing horns that seem made of star-white lightning rise from her head. A Watcher is perched on her shoulder, the translucent bird surrounded by an ethereal green mist.

“My sister,”

Cael says, his voice splintering.

“The Center of Life is calling us home,”

Wynter says to them all as she raises her palm. There’s an image of an Ironwood tree wrought in dark lines there, Wynter’s lightning horns forking out a cavern-brightening light. “There is nothing to fear,”

she states serenely. “We are being called, all of us, to join with the Natural World’s power. To amplify it and save it from Shadow destruction.”

Wynter fans out her wings just as Yyzz’ra, Gavryyl, and Valkyr emerge from the gigantic root beside her. The three Smaragdalfar soldiers stumble to their knees, and Gwynn, Mavrik, and their allies immediately fall into defensive positions.

But the three Smaragdalfar make no move to attack. They look dazed, all of them clutching what look like tangles of purple roots in their fists, the Verdyllion grasped tight in Yyzz’ra’s alternate hand.

Yyzz’ra looks at Wynter, a shaken expression on her usually fierce visage as she sheathes the prismatically glowing Verdyllion and lifts her palm, turning it outward, Gavryyl and Valkyr displaying their palms, as well.

Gwynn draws in a tight breath.

The same tree image imprinted on Wynter’s palm is emblazoned on the palms of the three Subland Elves.

Yyzz’ra’s expression shifts to one of intense remorse. “I was wrong,”

she chokes out to Wynter before turning to Gwynn and Mavrik and the others. “I was wrong to shut you all out. Oo’na’s Tree, III, bonded us to this kindred.”

She holds up the tangle of purple roots. “We’ve been bonded to the Sublands beneath a great Eastern Pine Forest.”

Yyzz’ra glances in that direction, as if her gaze is being drawn by some internal compass. “The Sublands . . . it’s not a cutoff territory like I imagined. It’s part of a whole. A cradle to Life’s root connections. If the Sunlands fall, the Sublands fall, as well.”

“The Mages and the Alfsigr,”

Valkyr roughly manages to say, and Gwynn is startled to hear the brooding Elf speak, “they’re killing too much of the Forest in the West. If we don’t stop them from destroying both this Forest and the Forests of the East, the entire Natural Matrix will unravel.”

“We saw images of suffering people from every group on the continent,”

Gavryyl puts in, his silver eyes haunted. “Children. From every group on Erthia. Dying of hunger and thirst as the Shadow poisons the land . . . the water . . . everything.”

“I thought our fight was only for the Smaragdalfar,”

Yyzz’ra forces out, her silver eyes glassing with tears, “but it has to be for us all. Or we’re going to lose everything to the Shadow.”

Yyzz’ra looks to Valasca and Sparrow as she retrieves a runic stone from her tunic’s pocket and holds it up, sliding her thumb over the rune and pressing along its edge.

The imprisonment collars around Valasca’s and Sparrow’s throats vanish in a spray of emerald sparks.

“I should never have imprisoned you both,”

Yyzz’ra admits. She pockets the rune stone and rises, unsheathing the Verdyllion and holding it out to Wynter. “Here, Wynter’lyn,”

she offers, her voice tight with feeling. “It wants to return to you.”

Gwynn exchanges an astonished look with Mavrik as Wynter smiles, steps toward Yyzz’ra and accepts the Verdyllion, its chromatic glow brightening as soon as the Icaral makes contact with it, a sense of the momentous circling down.

Mythological in its potency.

A shivering sense of rightness blooms in Gwynn’s breast, drawing her and Mavrik’s lines and power toward the Source Tree’s roots with undeniable force.

Gwynn’s eyes lock hold with Mavrik’s, unspoken agreement spiraling through their lines before they step forward, together, along with Cael and Mynx’lia’luure, Rhys, Valasca, and Sparrow, all of them bringing their palms to the Great Tree’s roots.

Gravity gives way beneath Gwynn’s feet, her and Mavrik’s magic seizing in a shock of multicolored light. They grasp protective hold of each other as they fall straight into the root, suddenly enveloped by darkness and hurled into a shocking free fall. Gwynn’s pulse explodes as they plummet through darkness that feels like it has no end.

Then slow to a sudden halt, suspended in the void.

Disoriented, Gwynn clings to Mavrik, his arms clutching her close as they take in the vision shivering to life all around them.

They’re standing in a purple forest, its spectacular autumn coloration lit up with dream-vivid intensity. Its brilliant fall hues ray out light at the edges, the leaves’ riot of fall color encompassing not just the Western Realm hues of reds, golds, and rusts, but also the fabled autumn coloration of the Eastern Realm—magenta and sapphire, vivid lavender, and bright swaths of turquoise.

Gwynn’s lightlines expand, a euphoric shiver rippling over her skin as she drinks in the tapestry of color, the hues so rich they make her Light Mage heart ache.

Watchers shimmer to life, perched throughout the forest’s branches, and Gwynn and Mavrik’s twinned lines are suddenly flowing down, down, into Erthia and linking into a vast network of tree roots all leading to the Great Tree.

The Great Tree’s true name strobes through Gwynn’s mind—

III.

The Center of Erthia’s Natural Matrix.

The scene morphs into a swirl of color, and disorientation overtakes Gwynn again as they’re thrust into an aerial vision of an entire continent surrounded by ocean, green and golden trees blanketing its expanse. The image of Vogel’s Shadow Wand flashes through Gwynn’s sight as a wave of gray closes in over the densely forested continent, the steely mass of corruption filled with black, curling lightning.

And then they’re being yanked toward the continent’s ground and assaulted by image after image of tree-witnessed horror, the forests burning with steely fire as Shadow armies ravage everything and a toxic gray storm rolls in like a demonic tide and collapses the Living World.

Farms destroyed.

Water poisoned.

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 already here.

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 to the 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.

In a flash of multicolored light, the two Agolith Flame Hawks that portaled here with them burst out of the Great Tree and perch in a nearby branch, their luminous orange feathers ruffling with what seems like vast surprise over their rapid change in location.

Gwynn’s and Mavrik’s lines twine into a deeper linkage to the Forest as the hawks take wing to light on her and Mavrik’s shoulders, their lines flooding with the birds’ affection. An instant, kindred connection flashes into being, love for both birds expanding Gwynn’s heart with an emotional ache.

“Our lines . . .”

Mavrik marvels as he absently reaches up to stroke the hawk kindred’s feathers “. . . they’re not what we thought they were.”

“They’re roots,”

Gwynn breathlessly murmurs as their fully anchored light power flashes through the Forest. “And what you told me when we were in the Agolith . . . it was all true. Magically, we’re Dryads.”

Urgency overtakes Mavrik’s deep-green features. “Gwynn . . . where are the others? Where’s Wynter? And the Verdyllion—”

An Erthia-shattering BOOM sounds above them, breaking off his words. Alarm streaks through their lines as their hawks startle.

Gwynn and Mavrik exchange a look of dire concern before they both launch into an upward climb, Gwynn finding herself stunningly agile and strong. A stiff breeze hits her as they burst through the canopy’s top, the Northern Forest’s panoramic expanse of green spread out around them, the two translucent green dome-shields encasing it.

Gwynn’s lungs contract as a roaring tide of Shadow storm crashes against the Forest’s nested shields, the storm band’s dark, curling lightning breaking into a frenzy, all of it knifing into the Varg and Dryad shields.

“Ancient One,”

Gwynn gasps, just as muffled shouts rise from the ground far beneath them. Their widened gazes meet.

“The others must be at III’s base,”

Mavrik says, his tone harsh with steel-sharp purpose. “We need to pool our power with theirs and strengthen our Forest’s shielding.”

Warrior purpose firing through their magic, they climb down the Great Tree’s massive trunk with startling rapidity, Gwynn adjusting to her lithe, newly muscular body, her movements strong and assured as her green claws dig into III’s black bark.

They careen through the densest portion of the canopy, leaping from branch to branch before they drop down into the clearing surrounding III . . .

. . . and come face-to-face with a band of Dryads, a crimson-haired Icaral man, who can only be the Icaral of Prophecy, amongst them.

A stunned breath shudders through Gwynn as Yvan Guryev’s violet-fire eyes meet theirs, his pupils vertically slitted. Dark horns rise from his flame-like hair, and black wings fan out from his back.

Beside him stands the Dryad-Fae Black Witch herself, Elloren Gardner Grey, her ears pointed, her hue deepened to Forest tones, a streak of dark green slashed through her black hair, a flock of giant ravens surrounding her.

Memories of visions sent to Gwynn of Elloren the Dryad dart through her mind as she comes face-to-face with the reality that Elloren Gardner Grey is clearly no longer under Vogel’s control.

“Mavrik!”

Yvan cries as all the Dryads level Forest-hewn glowing runic weapons at Mavrik and Gwynn, the distant Shadow storm band roaring against the Forest’s shielding.

“We’re on your side!”

Mavrik cries, both Gwynn and Mavrik displaying their III-marked palms.

Elloren Gardner Grey’s eyes widen as she takes in their III marks before her gaze swings to Yvan’s. “This is the wandmaster who pretended to kill you?”

she asks in fluent Dryadin. “The traitor to the Magedom?”

Yvan nods, his eyes pinned on Mavrik. “Now our Dryad’kin ally,”

he responds in the same tongue.

“They are no kin of mine!”

a female Dryad with coiled hair festooned with oak branches snarls, readying a branch weapon, a growling wolverine hugging her side. She lurches threateningly toward Mavrik and Gwynn just as raptors’ cries sound out above them all.

Everyone’s eyes snap up as two points of golden light soar down from III’s crown, Gwynn’s heart and magic surging toward their kindred Agolith Flame Hawks. Both she and Mavrik hold up their forearms, the hawks landing on their arms in a rush of fiery love.

Three of the Dryads, including a fierce-looking man with branch horns, a petite, flower-tressed woman, and a lime-hued Dryad with frighteningly intense black eyes, lower their weapons, but the angry female Dryad with the staff and the two Dryads beside her—a huge branch-horned male Dryad with a bear kindred and a mushroom-haired female with a silver panther kindred—all keep their weapons leveled.

“We were with others in the Sublands,”

Gwynn calls out to them all, ignoring the hostility aimed their way. “The Icaral Wynter Eirllyn amongst them.”

“Wynter?”

Elloren exclaims.

“She has the Verdyllion,”

Gwynn tells her as an image of the Wand of Myth flashes into being in the back of her mind, a directional tug pulling her lines down. Gwynn’s eyes widen. “I’ve a sudden sense of the Verdyllion . . . in the Sublands below us.”

Mavrik gives her an intense look. “I feel the Verdyllion’s tug on our lines, as well.”

He turns to Yvan. “Wynter’s brother Cael and his Second, Rhys Thorim . . . they were with us too,”

he says. “Along with Valasca Xanthrir and Sparrow Trillium. And three Subland Elf soldiers.”

“Where are they now?”

Yvan presses, urgency firing in his eyes as Vogel’s Shadow storm booms louder against the southern edge of the Forest’s shielding.

Gwynn meets Yvan Guryev’s gaze. “I don’t know,”

she shakily tells him. “I think most of them might still be inside III—”

A huge explosion detonates. Everyone looks up as the nested dome-shields cast over the Forest ray out forest green and emerald light. The ground rumbles beneath their feet, and horror lances through Gwynn as the Northern Forest’s shielding blasts clear out of existence.