Chapter Eight

Demon Storm

Elloren

Northern Forest

Eighteen days after Xishlon

“Use my power to reshield our Forest!”

I cry out to the Dryads as a wind coming off Vogel’s incoming Shadow storm band roars through the unshielded Northern Forest. The unnatural gusts crack off branches as they whip through the terrified trees and begin to siphon up their elemental magic, birds and animals in an uproar.

A rustling cry for help courses through my rootlines as the leaves of the surrounding trees begin to gray at the edges. Flapping dark wings, my kindred ravens quickly fan out around III, their urgent Dark aura strobing through the air. A confusing vision of purple, crystalline imagery flashes through my mind as III’s power gives a hard contraction downward, as if the Great Tree is channeling all its elemental might into the soil surrounding its roots.

“Use our power, as well!”

the gold-eyed Mage, Mavrik Glass, shouts over the wind, as both he and his equally golden-eyed fastmate unsheathe wands, my empathy detecting how their merged auras orbit around each other in brilliant, golden loops, bright gold fastmarks emblazoned on their hands and wrists, flame-orange hawks on their shoulders. “Gwynn and I possess twinned Level Five power in every single elemental line!”

Mavrik yells, holding up his wand.

“Get rid of those wands!”

Lyptus spits out with venomous force, her kindred panther snarling.

“You’re not dormant anymore,”

Sylvan agrees, his gaze lancing into Mavrik. “Forget what you think you know about magic. Dryads do not wield dead wands. They wield living branches connected to the Forest through their rootlines.”

“And your bastardized Mage spells won’t work!”

Oaklyyn hisses, her wolverine kindred pacing around her as it growls. “The Balance of words is all off! They’re built for halflings cut off from the Forest!”

Vogel’s Void tree blasts through my mind, reverberating there as the storming roar advancing from the south gains potency.

“That storm band is shot through with Shadowfire,”

Yvan warns, his wings stiffening. “He’s going to burn down this entire Forest.”

“We need to link everyone’s power!”

Sylvan calls out to us all as he unsheathes a second living branch and holds it out to me. “Make contact with this, witch. We’ll draw on your magic and that of your allies to shield III, then expand the shield over our entire Forest.”

I grab hold of the top of Sylvan’s living branch, energy from the surrounding Forest streaming into my rootlines as he points the branch in his other hand skyward.

Oaklyyn’s elemental power whips into a raging fury. “It’s a mistake to link to these halflings!”

Hazel bares suddenly darkened, elongated teeth at her, his eyes going fully black before he swings around and sets his gaze on Gwynn and Mavrik with a look of open rebellion. “Tree’kin,”

he snarls, drawing two dark branches sheathed at his hips. He thrusts one of them out toward the twinned Dryad’kin, his subterranean Death Fae voice cutting straight through the Shadow storm band’s roar of power. “Make contact with this branch!”

“Come, Icaral!”

Yulan cries out to Yvan as Mavrik and Gwynn wrap their hands around the top of Hazel’s branch and Yulan thrusts one of the two branches she’s holding toward Yvan, his surprise flashing through our bond.

“You can’t use Wyvernfire to shield our Forest!”

Oaklyyn snarls at Yulan.

“I don’t seek his fire!”

Yulan cries against the wind’s roar. “I seek to draw on his Lasair healing energy, which can counter Void Death!”

Comprehension blazing through his fire, Yvan springs forward and grips hold of the top of Yulan’s branch, as I catch a whiff of the acrid tang of unnatural smoke drifting in on the poison wind, the screams of trees blasting through me as Vogel’s fire blazes through the Forest’s southern edge.

Murmuring Dryadin spells in unison, Hazel and Yulan join Sylvan in thrusting one of their two branches toward III’s canopy. Oaklyyn, Lyptus, and Larch cast them damning looks before thrusting their branches upward as well, joining their voices to the chant.

A deep-green suspended line of magic bursts into being, crackling out from the Dryads’ raised branches and connecting them all in a single line of power.

Sylvan booms out a single word in Dryadin. “Linkage!”

A wrenching pull on my power nearly knocks me off my feet as I’m flooded with a harder rush of the Northern Forest’s line-expanding magic. The Forest’s magic roars up through my rootlines and out through the branch I’m holding, before coursing up through the raised branch in Sylvan’s other hand and into the green line of Dryad magic.

A crack sounds in the air above as a dense translucent green wall of power blasts up from the line. Its top rapidly fans out to create a dome-shield encasing III and the surrounding clearing, the Shadow wind furiously buffeting it.

I sense the colossal amount of combined elemental magic flowing into our shield, most of it being drawn from my rootlines. It’s stronger than any shield I’ve felt before. Stronger than the shields that used to encase Noilaan and Amazakaraan, rapidly gaining enough charge to spring outward.

Branch raised, Sylvan turns to me with a look of shocked incomprehension. “Your power,”

he gasps, “it’s immense.”

His gaze darts toward III’s cloud-piercing canopy, his gaze seeming to sharpen with resolve before his gaze bores back into mine. “Dryad’kin,”

he says with measured force, “I need you to climb to the top of III’s canopy to provide an anchor point so we can channel your power and rapidly expand this shield.”

He releases his hold on the branch in my hand, a crackling green line of connection springing to life, flowing from my branch’s tip to the line of green power connecting the Dryads’ upthrust branches as I take hold of the branch’s base. “Once you reach III’s canopy,”

Sylvan directs, “we’ll send out spells through our linkage and cast our dome-shield outward to reshield the entire Northern Forest with a barrier stronger than anything Erthia has ever seen.”

Yvan and I share an intense look, our unvoiced agreement in it, his fire flaring to embrace me before I sheathe the branch in my tunic’s belt and launch myself at III. My dark green nails bite into bark as I scramble up the Great Tree, vaulting myself ever higher. My pulse jumping in my throat, I burst through III’s expansive canopy, peer out through our shield’s translucent green surface and come face-to-face with Vogel’s storming nightmare.

The Magedom’s churning storm band is arced around the Forest’s eastern, southern, and western edges, rapidly gaining height, its dark lightning raining fire onto the trees in explosion after explosion.

But our fledgling shield’s combined power—I can sense that it’s stronger than the Shadow storm band. And our linked power is building, our entire Forest standing with us, roaring its power through our rootlines and into our shielding as I draw a deep breath and thrust my branch toward the heavens.

The rumble of my allies’ combined power surges into my wand arm, my magic amplifying it to world-bending heights. I can feel the Dryad spells charging into my branch, our shielding around III readying itself to spring outward over the entire Northern Forest . . .

. . . just as Vogel’s arcing storm band abruptly triples in height and crashes forward in a nightmarish tidal wave of gray.

Faster than I would have ever imagined possible, the Shadow storm rolls over the Northern Forest’s entire southern, eastern, and western expanses, league upon league of trees exploding with silvery-black flame, vast quantities of our Forest-linked power disintegrating with them.

My eyes widen as I’m overtaken by the instant sense of my magic hollowing out, my connection to my Dryad’kin guttering along with my connection to my too-distant dragon horde.

My allies’ magical connection wavers, the line of green coursing from my branch’s tip sizzling out of sight as the Shadow destruction mows through the Forest with astonishing speed and my rootlines seize.

“Augh!”

I cry out, the Forest’s scream tearing through my mind.

My lungs contract with choking force. My grip slips from both the slim branch I’m holding and the huge branch I’m clinging to, and I fall, panic exploding as I fight for breath and plummet, Yvan’s fire suddenly igniting into a scorching roar through our bond.

He reaches me faster than I would have imagined possible, his strong arms seizing tight hold of me from behind, halting my free fall and soaring us upward into the sky before angling us back down toward III’s canopy.

I’m met with one last panoramic look south through our shielding around III. More than half of the Northern Forest has been destroyed, the Shadow storm bands rapidly consuming leagues more, the killing chaos headed straight for III.

“Help us!”

I cry out to III, the choked-off scream forced from my throat as my rootlines begin to shrivel, Errilith’s caw of alarm sounding out.

An image flashes through my mind via my III connection—Wynter and her brothers along with three Smaragdalfar soldiers assembled underground in front of III’s roots, Wynter, Cael, and Rhys now tinted green. The Verdyllion is gripped in Wynter’s hand as she blasts a circular shield around the Great Tree’s roots, the Verdyllion filled with a huge portion of III’s rapidly diminishing power, the rest of the Great Tree’s magic focused toward a mysterious purple aura suffusing the soil around its roots.

Dread slams down.

Because as Yvan soars us down through III’s canopy, I realize what’s happening. III is sacrificing its power to save Wynter and the Sublands and those trapped inside it.

And III is saving the Verdyllion.

Yvan touches down in the clearing surrounding the Great Tree as my rootlines collapse inward and I gasp for air, my vision beginning to black out as what’s left of my magic scours out of my body. Everyone, save Hazel and Yvan, is crumpled on the ground and struggling for breath, Yulan’s vine tresses stripped of their blossoms. Larch and Lyptus are unconscious, Larch’s bear and Lyptus’s panther pawing at them, while Yulan’s heron frantically rustles its wings. Everyone’s green hues are shifting to gray, a sense of our shield’s diminishing strength heightening my alarm.

My knees buckle as I struggle for breath, and Yvan tightens his hold on me before I can crumple to the ground. I glance at my quivering wand hand, a cascading sense of doom shuddering through me as I take in how, like my Dryad’kin, my forest green hue is rapidly morphing to gray.

“Our shield is giving way . . .”

I force out to Yvan, and he glances up to where the new dome-shield around III is already beginning to gray, its tang of power dissolving.

My ravens let out booming caws as Hazel hisses out a string of Dryad spells and lifts his branch. Dark mist explodes from its tip and courses over our decaying shield, lines of power from my Errilor Ravens joining Hazel’s Deathkin magic.

“Elloren, what’s happening to you?”

Yvan exclaims, his violet-fire gaze burning into mine.

“My rootlines are dying with my bonded Forest . . .”

I gasp. The scouring sensation inside me turns eviscerating, as if my collapsing lines are about to be ripped clear from my body.

The flow of Yvan’s fire through our bond turns searing, a ferocious determination blazing through it. His gaze swings to Hazel. “We need to evacuate everyone to the Forests of the East! Now! This magic is too powerful to fight!”

“We will never evacuate!”

Sylvan growls at Yvan from where he’s fighting for breath on the ground, his pine hue morphed to deadened gray and his branch hair stripped of its needles. The ferocity in his ash-tinted eyes remains undimmed. “This is our Forest! We are its Guardians! Our people . . . if this fire reaches them in the North and consumes that portion of Forest, too, they will all die, along with their kindred ones!”

My giant ravens caw out a louder warning, Errilith’s wings ruffling; a stark urgency lights his coal eyes as the incoming storm band’s Shadow winds slam against our decaying shield and all the trees surrounding the shield explode into gray fire.

A strangled scream tears from my chest, and I’m only half-aware of being lowered to the ground before Yvan raises his palm toward the incoming chaos and an inferno of horde-bonded fire ramps up in his core.

“No fire!”

Hazel snarls, his lime hue stripped away to a haunting alabaster, dark horns raised, eyes fully black. “It will trigger a backblast from my shield that could destroy III!”

“It’s over!”

Yvan hisses. “This Forest and III are doomed! We’ve got to evacuate everyone now!”

“Never!”

Oaklyyn chokes out, the word cut off as her body seizes and her wolverine snaps at us.

A devastated look crosses Hazel’s features as he takes in Oaklyyn and her kindred. He turns back to Yvan, the two of them exchanging one lethally decided look before Hazel’s face elongates and he gnashes his extended, blackened teeth, six black insectile legs bursting from his back.

Shock skids through my agony as Hazel drops his branch and lifts both his blackening palms and insectile legs.

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 wildlife murdered.

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’ll kill you 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 and insectile 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 rootlines straining toward 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.

A world-shaking explosion of Shadowfire detonates on III and the kindreds, a scream tearing from my throat. A planet-shifting sense of the Natural World ripping apart lances through my every rootline as III burns and Vogel’s army launches itself into motion by land and air.

His entire Shadow force coming straight toward us.