Chapter Nine

Shadow World

Elloren

Shadowed Northern Forest

Eighteen days after Xishlon

My knuckles whiten as I grip Errilith’s dark feathers, despair twisting through my gut with such force, it threatens to undo me. I mentally urge my Deathkin ravens to arrow us toward the living Forests of the East, my semiconscious and unconscious Dryad’kin tied to my ravens’ backs.

Vogel’s airborne Shadow forces spearing toward us.

I glance down at the Shadow wasteland coursing by beneath us—only leagues of charred trees and stumps with Shadow smoke slithering around them remain where the magnificent Northern Forest once stood, millions of kindred plants and animals slain or fleeing for their lives. And the other Dryads who lived in our bonded Forest—were they all murdered by Vogel’s Shadow storm?

Hazel is crouched on ravenback, still morphed into his insectile form, his huge insect legs raised. Misty black shielding emanates from his legs’ tips to encircle us all in a translucent, midnight-hued bubble. Yvan flanks my other side, his violet-fire eyes alight, dark wings beating powerfully against air, our bond ablaze.

I teeter, depleted from having the Northern Forest bond cruelly ripped from my rootlines, my tenuous connection to the too-distant Zhilaan Forest through my bond to Yvan not powerful enough to strengthen my lines past sheer survival.

I glance behind me toward where III once stood, majestic and strong, and a vise of panic contracts my chest. Vogel’s airborne army is rapidly closing the distance between us.

I look to Yvan in a flash of alarm and am hit by a sense of the inferno of fire power he’s drawing from his core, a sizzling flush racing over my skin as his hands take on a violet glow. Yvan and Hazel exchange a quick look before Yvan whips around, midair, lets out a low, vicious snarl, and swipes out his hands in an arc.

Bolts of violet Wyvernfire erupt from Yvan’s palms at the same time that Hazel opens the back of our shielding.

Yvan’s lashings of flame fly through the sky and collide with the southernmost row of incoming Mages. Screams cut through the air as Yvan sweeps his hands from left to right, his line of fire slashing through the entire frontline of soldiers and their broken dragons.

They explode into violet flame, but bile rises in my throat as I take in the seemingly never-ending dark sea of soldiers flying in behind them to our west and soaring up from the south.

Too many for Yvan to take out.

Yvan hurls out another whipping attack of flame before Hazel swipes an insectile limb, closing the gap in our shielding at the same moment three surviving broken dragons spearing in from the west zoom closer.

I take in three salt-white Marfoir astride the grayed, multi-eyed Shadow dragons, and terror singes through me. The Alfsigr Marfoir assassins are even more grotesquely altered than the Marfoir that came for Wynter in Verpacia. Huge, pale spider limbs splay out from their backs, their gray insectile eyes multiplied to horrifying masses that cover their upper heads.

In chilling unison, they flick their spidery limbs toward me.

“Elloren, look out!”

Yvan thunders as gray webbing lances clear through Hazel’s Death-mist shielding, sizzling it into black smoke before the webbing collides with me and unfurls to encircle my body.

A cry of protest bursts from my throat, and Errilith lets out an urgent caw as the Shadow webbing singes away my tether to the raven and I’m tugged toward the Marfoir assassins, desperately scrabbling to hold tight to Errlith’s back feathers.

The Marfoir zoom in closer, everything in me yearning for a living branch, fully replenished Dryad power, and the knowledge to wield it and fight back.

Yvan’s rage flashes through our bond as a slim, focused dart of his violet fire sears in from the side and into the Marfoir webbing. The web ignites, the Marfoirs’ yanking pull on me releasing just before I can be dragged from Errilith’s back.

In a split-second blur, Yvan zooms through the air between me and the Marfoir, his power incandescent with fury as he raises violet-glowing hands. Twin bolts of violet light blast from Yvan’s palms and collide with the Marfoir. Two of the Elf assassins and their Shadow dragons burst into purple flames, the Marfoir shrieking as they hurtle toward the ground, but the third Marfoir dodges the blast and flies straight at me.

Before Yvan can attack, the Marfoir reaches me and thrusts the knife-sharp points of its spider legs toward me just as Hazel soars in close, leaps from his raven, and slams into the Marfoir, impaling the pale assassin’s body with his black limbs and shoving the Marfoir off its broken dragon, the two of them free-falling through air.

Errilith lets out another booming caw and veers us away from their battling forms, the Marfoir’s pale spider legs flailing, steely blood spraying. The Marfoir and Hazel fall away from each other, plummeting toward the distant, Shadowed ground, Yvan’s concern for both me and Hazel firing through our bond as he incinerates another incoming section of Vogel’s advancing army.

“Catch Hazel!”

I cry out to my kindred flock.

Their answering aura flare pulses the world black. The raven that was previously carrying Hazel swoops in under him, and he slams onto its back in front of a semiconscious Oaklyyn.

My heart hammering, I glance back up and take in the next wave of Shadow soldiers swarming toward us from the west. The feel of a Shadow storm rising in legions of wands overtakes my power-empath senses. I open my mouth to call out a warning just as potent roars split the sky to the east—the roars of unbroken dragons.

My gaze whips east, and surprise explodes through me.

A horizontal tear in the distant sky has burst into being, its golden interior rimmed with the blue glow of Noi runes—a sky portal!—a dragon-borne army streaming through it.

Naga! Raz’zor! I mentally scream, frantically searching for their black and white winged forms, rooting around my diminished fireline connection to them for some sense of their hordefire as the incoming army soars into sharper view—none of the incoming dragons moon white, most black, some sapphire . . .

Vu Trin!

My pulse leaps as I remember the warning in Raz’zor’s fire of Vu Trin forces coming to kill the Black Witch.

A smaller sky portal blips into being, connected to the side of the larger portal, a compact airborne force soaring in, not astride dragons . . . but riding giant eagles the color of fire.

My dread slides into jagged panic, the multitude of forces all converging on us as I sense Vogel’s army releasing their power. I whip my head back as a band of churning gray bursts into being before the Shadow army and pummels toward us.

Yvan lashes out a long wall of violet fire, but the Shadow storm roars straight through it, blasting away Yvan’s flame before slamming into us. I cry out as Errilith and I are hit by a gust of wind, the two of us hurtled through the air, all sight cut out as we’re enveloped in the churning tempest.

I grab hold of Errilith’s feathers as the sky spins, my pulse exploding. Errilith lets out a great CAW, my kindred’s wings flapping wildly against the storm in a desperate attempt to right us as we pinwheel through the storming gray, down toward the tops of the charred trees below.

A bolt of golden fire spears through the tempest and slams into my side, hot pain lancing through me as I’m hurled clear off Errilith and into a terrifying free fall, Errilith sending out another frantic cry before he’s swept from my vision. A split-second rush of confusion bolts through my terror as I plummet, because I’ve an intimate knowledge of the fire that hit me—it’s Yvan’s flame, only shifted back to its original golden hue.

But . . . why would Yvan attack me?

I hit the ground, pain exploding along my side, stars streaking across my vision as the bones in my left arm and leg snap.

Buffeted by fierce winds, I cast my pain-blurred gaze wildly about, all sight cut off by the churning gray save for the spectral forms of the closest dead trees rising from the Shadowed earth, no sign of Errilith. Gritting my teeth, I force myself up, the booms of magical warfare sounding above, blue and gray explosions cutting through the gray, dragons roaring and shrieking.

“Yvan, I’m here!”

I cry, just as another bolt of his inexplicably gilded fire spears through the gray and hits my chest, my breath struck from my lungs as I’m skidded back across the smoking ground.

“Stop!”

I shriek, frantic with alarm.

A blurred figure takes shape, advancing purposefully toward me through the whipping storm, a vengeful hatred rippling through their fire aura. A figure that is not Yvan.

My eyes widen as I realize who it is—Soleiya Guryev, Yvan’s mother, her eyes lit with a murderous golden glow.

“I’m not your enemy!”

I cry, raising both palms in protest as Soleiya lets out a teeth-gritted snarl, thrusts her gold-glowing palms toward me and bolts out impressive columns of fire.

Her attack slams into my chest and punches me back against a dead tree, the breath struck from my lungs once more as I burst into flames, my broken arm and leg screaming with pain, but my Xishlon garb that Or’myr magicked to be fireproof holding together. All sight is briefly cut off again by the roaring gold as Soleiya’s inferno is quickly and intentionally absorbed into my Wyvernbond to Yvan by Yvan, his snarling fury over the attack shuddering through our bond’s flame.

Violet light blasts into being above me, and Yvan is suddenly soaring down into the clearing like a vengeful falcon and landing between his mother and me.

“What in all of Erthia’s hells are you doing?”

Yvan roars at his mother, alight with outrage as a portion of his invisible fire aura encompasses my injuries.

Soleiya gapes at him, wide-eyed, love and relief searing through her power. “My son!”

She takes a lurching step toward him. “Yvan, I feared this witch would kill you!”

“Elloren is my bonded mate!”

Yvan lashes back, his wings snapping threateningly out.

Surprise. Shock. Outrage. All of it flashes through his mother’s expression and fire power as she levels an incendiary look my way. “You gave this evil witch your Wyvernfire?”

“I did,”

Yvan snarls, his fire aura whipping protectively around me with such intensity that an aching love for him streaks through my pain. “If you kill my mate,”

Yvan hisses, glancing up at the light-flashing explosions of the battle raging above, “I’ll be temporarily stripped of all my power. Do you really want that happening right now?”

“You underestimate her capacity for evil!”

Soleiya hurls back.

Before Yvan can refute her, a swarm of multi-eyed Shadow scorpios leap through the mist and scuttle toward us from all sides, letting out bloodcurdling shrieks.

Chaos erupts. Yvan and his mother blast back the incoming swarm with repeated explosions of violet and golden fire. I clumsily dodge the swinging forelimb of one scorpio and the lashing poisonous tail of another, cursing my lack of a weapon as Yvan’s and Soleiya’s forms are repeatedly obscured then swallowed by the churning gray.

The primal will to live spiking, I grit my teeth against the pain, turn toward the tree behind me, reach up and break off a charred Shadow-smoking branch, then level it at an incoming scorpio as I grind out the light-strike spell.

My weakened power doesn’t budge.

A remembrance lights—Dryad power requires Dryadin spells and living branches. Spitting out an epithet, I drop the dead branch and hurl myself to the side.

The scorpio barreling toward me collides with the charred trunk with so much force that its head cracks in two, black ichor spraying everywhere. But my victory is short-lived. My dread surges as a swarm of multi-eyed wraith bats and Mages on dragonback appear through the smoke above me while Yvan’s and Soleiya’s violet and gold explosions continue to detonate at my sides. The incoming Mages raise wands as they soar near and blast Shadow vines toward me.

I cry out as the vines slam into me and encircle my form. Blinding pain streaks through my broken arm and leg as my limbs are cinched to my body, a strangled scream torn from my throat as the Mages land, brutal triumph in their glowing gray eyes, my fear amplified by the wraith bats touching down all around.

What occurs next happens so fast I can barely process it.

A bolt of vermillion fire streaks in from the churning gloom above and blows up the Mages while streaks of blue and white lightning take out the wraith bats in flashes of bright light, their screams and shrieks overpowered by the roaring, multihued explosions.

A constellation of shock whooshing through me, I look up to find a huge onyx dragon with Vothe’s white-lightning eyes and Raz’zor soaring in through the Shadow storm, my brother Trystan carried on Vothe’s back, his wand raised.

Dryad Witch! comes Raz’zor’s ferocious growl.

My heart leaps into my throat as Ariel, her small raven, and three of the giant eagles fly in, my family members astride the giant saffron-hued birds.

Trystan, Vothe, Raz’zor, and Ariel immediately set about blasting away incoming Mages and Shadow creatures with great bolts of blue-and-white lightning and gold-and-red fire, their forms swallowed by the roiling gray storm as they dart into it to battle back Vogel’s forces.

Diana and Rafe leap from one of the eagles’ backs, Jarod and Aislinn off another, all of them launching themselves at incoming Mages and Shadow creatures while my spider-tattooed uncle Wrenfir, on eagleback, levels his wand and takes out another incoming Mage and his dragon with impaling bolts of thick, black vine.

Diana lets out a chilling growl, and I turn to her just as she leaps at a Mage in a blur and tears the head clear off his body before ripping the head off the Mage’s Shadow dragon. Rafe punches his fist through another Mage’s chest in a spray of blood while Jarod claws the neck of the Mage’s Shadow dragon.

And Aislinn . . . I watch, awed, as my previously timid friend leaps at one incoming Mage after another, her dark claws out, shredding through Shadow soldiers while large explosions of Yvan’s violet fire blast through the whipping Shadow storm to my left.

A pair of gold-burning eyes appear through the roiling gray, Yvan’s mother sprinting toward me, her hand raised.

“Stop! No!”

I cry as Soleiya bolts fire toward me with enough force to break bone.

A bright white stream of Vothe’s wind power jets in from the side and blasts Soleiya’s flame away. Pain throbs through my broken leg and arm like rhythmic knife strikes as Trystan knocks down Yvan’s mother with vine magic and tethers her, binding her palms to the ground.

Trystan leaps off Vothe’s back, and Vothe swiftly morphs to his human form. The two of them rush to me and drop to my level as pain sends stars through my vision.

“We meet again, Black Witch,”

Vothe says, and I meet his white-lightning gaze, his mouth lifting into a wry smile as he slashes through my bindings with his extended claws.

A dome filled with Yvan’s and Raz’zor’s combined Wyvernfire blasts into being around us, pushing back both the Shadow storm and the attacking forces and revealing Yvan alongside Raz’zor’s huge, white dragon form, the two of them steadily burning fire into their shield, Wrenfir and Ariel, her raven on her shoulder, swiftly adding their own power to the shield’s fiery might.

Dropping his hands, Yvan turns and rushes toward me in a blur, passionate urgency burning in his eyes and coursing through our bond. He drops to one knee beside me, his fire aura embracing mine as his hands come to my arm and my leg. “I can sense your injuries through our bond,” he says.

“My leg and arm are broken,”

I rasp, wincing from the pain as Yvan extends his claws and expeditiously slashes away my tunic’s sleeve before encircling my arm with his warm hands.

Pain spikes through me as Yvan closes his eyes, his brow knotted with concentration. A rush of his heat flows into my arm and I shiver, the pain instantly halving.

“Let me go!”

Yvan’s bound mother rages at Trystan, giving him a blistering death-stare as repeated explosions ignite against our shield and Raz’zor, Ariel, and others continue to blaze power into it.

“What madness is this?”

Diana growls at Soleiya as my Lupine sister drops the multi-eyed dragon head she’s effortlessly gripping in her fist and levels a blood-covered finger at Yvan’s mother. “Who are you?”

Diana demands, her eyes swinging toward Yvan. “I scent her as your kin!”

“She’s my mother,”

Yvan bites out, enough angry fire to melt planets searing through him as he rips an opening in the side of my pants and slides his hot hands around my broken leg. My teeth clenching, I hiss against the flare of pain.

“Do not heal that Demon Witch!”

Soleiya snarls at Yvan.

A growl erupts from Diana’s throat. “Silence, Lasair! You speak of my sister!”

Soleiya’s fiery gaze darts to Diana with an expression of sheer incredulity. “What?”

“Pleased to meet you, Yvan’s mother,”

Trystan calmly states as he levels his wand at Soleiya, his words dangerously clipped, “but maybe, just maybe, we could all turn our attention to killing Vogel’s forces instead of my sister.”

Ariel tosses me a sharp-toothed grin. “This is unexpectedly entertaining.”

“We’ve got to go, now,”

Rafe urges, and he and Yvan lock gazes. “Our forces are holding back both Western and Eastern Realm forces, all of them trying to fight their way toward Elloren.”

“This shield won’t hold for long,”

Vothe adds as the gray and sapphire explosions blasting against the fiery barrier gain potency, streaks of gray beginning to appear through it.

“Elloren, can you stand?”

Yvan asks, his searing violet gaze triggering another rush of heat through our bond.

“I think so,”

I shakily affirm.

He throws an arm around me and helps me to my feet, the pain in my arm and leg a fraction of what it was, the bones feeling more solid as I desperately look past the shield for some sight of Errilith or the rest of my flock. I close my eyes and search through my depleted lines for a trace of their aura and find it, all of them above us, encircled by our horde’s fire, hopefully with my Dryad’kin still tethered to their backs.

“My ravens and Dryad’kin,”

I say to everyone, “they’re with Naga’s horde. Along with two Mages joined with Issani magic, all of them carried on the backs of my flock of giant Deathkin ravens. Our horde is shielding them.”

“Raz’zor,”

Yvan calls, “I need you to carry Elloren and my mother out. I’ll cover you.”

An answering flash of affirming red blazes through our horde bond, and Yvan helps me climb onto Raz’zor’s broad back while Raz’zor continues to blast vermillion fire into our shielding.

“Kill the witch while you still can!”

Soleiya snarls at Yvan.

Yvan casts his mother an incensed look before turning to Trystan. “You’ll need to bind my mother’s palms and gag her when you tether her to Raz’zor so she can’t attack Elloren with Lasair spells.”

Trystan nods once and sets about the task, both he and Yvan dragging Soleiya’s bound form toward Raz’zor as she calls for my immediate death and Trystan secures her palms against her sides.

“I’m evacuating you with my mate,”

Yvan sharply informs his mother as he hoists her bound form onto Raz’zor’s back in front of me.

“She’s ensorcelled you!”

Soleiya hurls back at him as Trystan lifts his wand to bind her to Raz’zor. “Look at what the witch has done to the color of your eyes and your fire!”

Soleiya cries.

“I brought that about myself,”

Yvan shoots back, livid, as Trystan conjures a gag around Soleiya’s mouth. She growls against it, rhythmically slamming against me as best she can, as if striving to knock me clear off Errilith’s back.

Vothe fans out his wings. “We’ll need to draw in our shielding around us as we ascend!”

he calls out to everyone just as a slight motion in the charred tree branch above me catches my eye.

I look up . . . and fear sizzles straight down my spine.

There’s a multi-eyed raven perched amidst the burned-up branches, a pale green eye in the center of its head.

Set right on me.

Vogel’s dark tree punches into my mind.

“Vogel’s found me!” I cry.

Ariel throws a bolt of fire toward the raven, and the multi-eyed creature lets out an unnaturally deep caw as it explodes into a ball of golden flame.

“Vogel will be bearing down on us in a matter of seconds,”

Yvan warns.

Rafe gives him a grim look. “We got here by hijacking some of the magic of the Vu Trin sky portal. A Death Fae ally webbed two portals together and remained in the East to keep them bound. They’ve got a lag that’s only a few hours in length. We’re going to have to fight our way back to the portals, get through them, then destroy them before Vogel can follow us.”

“We’ve got to get my Dryad’kin to living Forest,”

I stress, “before their rootlines completely wither. Or they’ll die.”

With a determined light in his amber eyes, Rafe turns toward the others. “Let’s go,”

he calls out as the explosions slamming against our shield turn seismic.

I lean forward over Soleiya’s bound, struggling form and grip Raz’zor’s pale shoulder horns as Vothe shifts to dragon form and Trystan leaps astride him, others pulling themselves onto the backs of eagles.

We take to the air, my allies drawing our fiery shield in close as everyone who can flows power into it and it takes on the appearance of a colorful glass bubble, the sound of explosions reverberating above us growing louder and louder as we rise through the Shadow storm.

We break through the storm’s uppermost reaches, and alarm skitters through everyone’s power as we take in how hemmed in my allies are.

Naga and our horde are positioned around us in a wide circle, blasting flames into an encircling wall of Wyvernfire, their powerful wings beating down on the air. Repeated blasts of Shadow power detonate against our horde’s shield from the south and the west while a section of the Vu Trin forces strike sapphire power at their shield from the east. I can just make out a larger section of Vu Trin in the far distance, the Eastern Realm soldiers engaged in fierce aerial battles with Vogel’s Shadow legions.

Relief stutters through me to find Hazel on ravenback, still in his terrifying Deathkin form, Oaklyyn before him. He’s sending visible lashings of his dark power into the Wyvernfire shield from the tips of the giant insectile limbs still sprouted from his back, my Errilor flock hovering near him, an unconscious-looking Sylvan and Yulan still secured to my ravens’ backs along with Mavrik and Gwynn, my Dryad’kin’s elemental auras drained to alarmingly wispy traces, Yulan’s heron kindred nowhere in sight.

In a split-second glance across the skies, I catch sight of the Amaz Dryad, Alder, and to my surprise, Thierren Stone, the young Mage who aided Lukas and me when we escaped from Valgard. Both Alder and Thierren sit astride giant eagles and feed elemental power into our horde’s circular fire-shield with branch and wand. And Fain Quillen is there, carried by what I sense is his Wyvern-shifter partner, Sholin, in dragon form, as well as Andras, a Varg-rune-marked axe gripped in his hands. Sage, Ra’Ven, Kam Vin, and Ni Vin are borne aloft on eagleback, the Vu Trin sisters shooting bolts of sapphire Noi power into the shield from runic swords.

I notice with a flash of dread that two of my Errilor Ravens are missing, along with the Dryads Luptus and Larch. And . . . Jules Kristian . . . he’s alarmingly bloodied and unconscious and secured to Errilith’s back, with no sign of Lucretia anywhere. Or my cousin Or’myr . . .

A circle of suspended silver Alfsigr and emerald Varg barrier runes shimmer to life just inside my horde’s Wyvernfire barrier, and I spot the rainbow-decorated renegade Elf Rivyr’el Talonir astride one of our horde mates, his starbright stylus raised, silver eyes flashing as he casts defensive rune after defensive rune into our horde’s barrier.

“Join shields!”

Kam Vin commands us, and Yvan joins Trystan and the others in pushing our smaller orb shield’s power into our horde’s larger, circular shield in a blazing stream.

“Hello, Black Witch!”

a jovial voice calls from one side, and I turn just as Bleddyn Arterra soars close on eagleback, a Varg-marked sword gripped in her emerald green hand, an incredulous grin forming on her mouth as her gaze sweeps over my altered features. “Nice ears!”

she calls out, motioning toward her own ears’ points.

My relief in finding Bleddyn here is overtaken by the sudden, empathic sense of a colossal wall of Shadow storm forming to our west. Vogel’s dead tree slams through my mind, a cry forced from my throat.

Yvan pivots midair and our eyes meet, a questioning energy flashing through our bond.

Horde Witch! Raz’zor booms into my mind, red fire swirling around the thought as his pale wings beat down to either side of me and Soleiya. What do you see?

“Vogel’s coming!”

I cry. “I can sense him flying in from the west with more power than we can shield against!”

The smile whisks from Bleddyn’s face. “Time to get the hell out of here!”

she yells.

“On my mark!”

Kam Vin cries, raising her sapphire stylus before swiping it down. “GO!”

My allies draw in our shielding around us, and we surge toward the sky portal’s huge horizontal maw as one, our shielding forcing back the Vu Trin forces in our way.

A defensive line of Vu Trin, Amaz, and Lasair on Wyvernback hover before the sky portal, the horn-helmeted commander of the Vu Trin forces, Vang Troi, and Freyja Zyrr in the line’s center, along with a young Smaragdalfar-Amaz sorceress.

Concern flashes through Vang Troi’s visible sapphire aura as her eyes find both me and Yvan’s mother. “Hand over Soleiya Guryev and the Black Witch,”

she booms out, “and we will grant you passage!”

“We need to retreat together!”

Yvan yells back as we soar in toward their defensive line. “Vogel’s about to overtake us all!”

My gaze slides to the knot of Fire Fae, surprise slashing through both my fire and Yvan’s to find my old nemesis from the Verpacian kitchens there—Iris Morgaine.

“Iris, get East with us, now!”

Yvan thunders, both anger and concern flashing through his power as we slow before them, my sense of Vogel’s incoming power mounting.

“I will never let you bring that evil witch back East!”

Iris snarls at him, golden fire swirling to life around her upraised, glowing hand.

“This is your last warning!”

Vang Troi bellows as she raises her runic sword, its sapphire-glowing Noi runes catching blue fire.

“Don’t make us fight our way through you!”

Kam Vin roars back.

Vang Troi’s aura triples in intensity. “FIRE!”

she cries.

Her entire line of soldiers attacks as one, hurling bolts of runic power and arrows at us, Vang Troi’s lash of might coming at us in a huge column of blue flame, the sky lit up sapphire.

“Draw the bulk of our shield’s power forward!”

Vothe growls as we relaunch our trajectory toward the sky portal.

In one, unified swoop, my allies yank almost all our shielding’s magic forward and blast it toward the Vu Trin’s magical attack just as a monstrous mass of Shadow power slams into our weakened rear, exploding it out of existence in a spray of chromatic sparks.

I blanch, desperation crawling up my throat as the wall of Shadow power races toward us and the fortified front of our shield slams into the line of Vu Trin and their allied forces, forcing them through the sky portal.

Vogel’s wall of Shadow hits our back, speeding us into the sky portal’s golden depths.

The world snaps out, my vision cutting to liquid gold as Raz’zor, Soleiya, and I hurtle forward through the seemingly endless gold only to blast out of it what feels like mere seconds later.

We streak into an overcast, twilight world, a Shadow-corrupted landscape beneath us, gray smoke ghoulishly rising from the steely ground toward a grayed sky, the Vu Trin forces we pushed through a distance in front of us.

Heart thundering, I whip my head backward, a hot whoosh of relief blazing through our bond as I meet Yvan’s gaze, my allies and loved ones streaming from the portal into the sky and rapidly reconjuring a shield around us. But when I look past the sky portal, my relief curdles. Leagues upon leagues of Shadowed wasteland stretch before me, a darker mass of Shadow filth hanging over the distant western horizon, a sickening dread pooling inside me at this visual proof of Vogel’s expanding reach.

I slide my gaze to the East as Yvan soars in beside me, recognizing the signature lines of the purple Dyoi Mountain Range through the gray mist ahead. The sight shocks through me, every rootline inside me lurching toward it.

Living Forest. Spread out before and over the mountains like a violet carpet.

Vogel hasn’t killed it all, I register with a light-headed swoop of elation.

A crack sounds, jerking my gaze backward. Vang Troi’s surviving forces stream out of the sky portal and draw up a formidable amount of attacking power as they cast large, sapphire portal-destruction runes around the sky passage, the soldiers we shoved through the portal before us doubling back to join them.

A larger CRACK connects with earsplitting force, the portal-destruction runes flashing into gray as Vogel’s Void tree knifes through my mind.

Before I can call a warning, Shadow soldiers on broken multi-eyed dragons pour from the sky portal. A battle commences, the Vu Trin attempting to slay the Shadow-shielded forces to no avail before they launch into a hasty retreat eastward, Vogel’s forces now hot on the tail of both us and the retreating Vu Trin. I sense Marcus Vogel in his forces’ center, his aura a silver gray wildfire blaze.

“Vogel’s there!”

I both cry out and send through my horde bond.

Yvan and my allies throw more power into our shielding as the Eastern forces draw in to flank our left, and I sense the brutal truth as I read our collective power—we’re all too depleted to fight off Vogel’s Shadow forces and battle each other.

Yvan, Raz’zor, and the rest of my allies accelerate, and the instinctual, blazing sense builds through my rootlines that we have to reach that living Forest before Vogel’s forces get to it if any of us are going to survive.

We will get you a branch, Dryad Witch! Raz’zor blazes out to me through our bond.

It won’t be enough! I counter, Raz’zor’s powerful alabaster wings beating down on either side of me. I’m not directly linked to a Forest, I mentally cry out to him. And my power is depleted. And I don’t know the words to any Dryad spells!

Raz’zor sears a vision of crimson fire consuming Marcus Vogel through my mind, his rebellion rising to tempestuous levels. You will regain your power, Elloren the Unbroken! he mentally hisses. And rise to strike the Mage fiend down!

Just get us to the Forest! I send out to Raz’zor in a pleading snarl. Get us to the living trees!

Raz’zor growls, speeding us toward the line of living purple, my emotions on fire along with Yvan’s as he and Ariel keep pace beside us along with her small raven.

I glance over my shoulder once more just as our shield is hit by a lash of Shadow power. It gutters gray, the image of a branching Shadow network slithering through my mind as my power-empath senses are filled with the impression of Vogel’s forces parasitically siphoning energy from both our shield and every newly destroyed tree.

Urgency grips me as I look ahead toward the expanse of living purple Forest. Vogel’s going to kill this Forest, too, I think to Raz’zor, anger rising.

Then we fight! Raz’zor thinks back in a roar. We battle to the death for Erthia!

I can sense Raz’zor’s determination doubling down as Thierren Stone’s full wind power suddenly swoops in behind us and to our sides in a potent gust, so strong I sense his lines collapsing, the roaring force of his magic exponentially increasing both our speed and the speed of the Eastern forces beside us as we spear forward in a blur, a gap suddenly yawning between us and Vogel’s forces.

Thierren slumps forward on his giant eagle as we blast over the edge of the living Forest’s purple canopy and soar toward the Dyoi Mountain Range’s western-facing ridge. We touch down on an expansively long shelf of stone near the ridge’s top, the ledge jutting out from a flat section of Forest, the surviving Vu Trin, Amaz, and Lasair forces landing on the ledge to our north.

“We need to protect this Forest!”

I call to everyone as Vogel’s swarm wings toward us in the distance. “Vogel is siphoning elemental energy from the destroyed trees and turning it into Shadow power!”

I meet my brother Trystan’s gaze.

Urgency writ on his face, Trystan turns toward Vang Troi and her Eastern Realm forces. “We need a combined shield!”

he booms out in Noi as Vogel’s forces release power and a wall of Shadow storm blasts into being, churning toward us.

In answer, Vang Troi levels her runic sword not toward Vogel’s forces, but toward me.

In a blur, a barrage of Vu Trin and Amaz weapons fire, bolts of runic power and arrows releasing, all of it hurtling in my direction.

Yvan leaps in front of me, along with Naga and my entire horde, all of them blasting out a wall of flame before us, every incoming Vu Trin weapon and bolt of power incinerated or deflected as Vogel’s Shadow storm reaches the purple edge of the surviving Dyoi wilds.

The Dyoi Forest’s westernmost edge explodes into steely flame, the trees’ screams slashing through my heart, birds screeching and animals crying out in terror as they flee toward us.

“Stop wasting your power!”

Hazel shrieks, his Death Fae voice seeming to come from everywhere at once. He leaps in front of Yvan and my horde mates, striding right up to the edge of our Wyvernfire shield, dark limbs extended from his back, the whole world momentarily strobing with his Dark aura and our shielding rendered translucent as he points an emphatic finger toward the incoming Shadow chaos. “SHIELD THE FOREST!”

I can sense the split-second equivocation shivering through Vang Troi’s aura, the energy of resolve descending.

“Deploy a combined shield!”

Vang Troi thunders.

Her forces fan out across the huge ledge to the north as my allies fan out to the south. Vang Troi’s forces thrust their weapons up, swiftly conjuring a translucent emerald-and-sapphire wall of shielding. My allies join our blazing, storming energy to it—one solid wall of power streaking up from the ledge’s center to curve over us, along with the mountainous sea of purple trees behind us and the sprawling Eastern Dyoi Forest beyond, lightning repeatedly bolting up from the length of the dome-shield’s pinnacle to prevent Vogel’s forces from flying over it.

Vogel’s storm slams into the western-facing side of our shield with Erthia-shattering force, the mountain’s stony shelf shuddering beneath us, my heart in my throat. But our shield holds.

Sweet Holy Ancient One, it holds.

I can sense Vogel’s scream of fury, his Void tree image punching through my mind again and again in furious assault as his roiling Shadow rages against our strengthening shield to no avail, the Shadow storm soon dying down to a steady roar.

Hazel shrieks out a multitoned snarl, and the bindings tethering all the semiconscious Dryads to my Errilor Ravens turn to smoke.

My allies pull Sylvan, Yulan, and Oaklyyn, and Mavrik and Gwynn off the ravens and Thierren off a giant eagle and lay them on the ground, all of them gasping for breath and barely conscious. Jarod and Rafe lift an unconscious and bloodied Jules Kristian off Errilith while Yvan rushes toward both Jules and Thierren, our horde forming another defensive line between us and the Vu Trin forces.

Sylvan is grasping his chest over his heart, his pine hair morphed to deadened sticks as he murmurs “My kindred one . . . my kindred”

over and over, his mysterious, hidden Northern Forest kindred almost certainly murdered. Yulan’s flower tresses have turned into ashen, withered vines, all of my Dryad’kin alarmingly grayed.

A heartsick fear for them rises in me as I slide off Raz’zor and stumble toward the Dryads, the pain in my leg and arm now manageable aches thanks to Yvan’s ministrations, but my power still disastrously weakened, even as Yvan’s Zhilaan Forest thrums its courageous energy through me. I catch sight of a purple branch on the stony ground and lean down to swipe it up. A bolstering shimmer of energy rushes through my lines from the living branch. Grasping it tight, I set my sights back on the Dryads as I approach.

Oaklyyn is splayed out on the ground, pulling in air in great heaving gasps, her hand clasping at her rib cage, as if her heart is seizing. Mavrik and Gwynn are struggling for breath as well, as they keep tight hold of each other, their orange-hued hawks staunchly by their sides and ruffling their feathers with obvious distress.

“These Dryad’kin will die without an immediate linkage to the Forest!”

Alder cries as she drops to her knees by Oaklyyn’s side, bringing her hands to the combative Dryad’s chest. I note that Alder’s green hue is undimmed and has a purple branching pattern marked over it, the design bolder and more vivid than my faint Zhilaan branch markings.

Speaking of a full link to an Eastern Forest.

“How can we link these Dryads to the Forest?”

Diana demands in an urgent growl.

In answer, Alder raises her hand.

Small eagles burst from the tree line edging the back of the ledge, a purple branch clasped in each eagle’s talons.

“Press the branches to my Dryad’kin’s hearts!”

Alder calls out as the eagles drop the branches on each Dryad and Alder yanks Oaklyyn’s leafy tunic open then thrusts a living branch onto her chest.

Bleddyn and I drop down beside Yulan, while Yvan rips Thierren’s tunic open, grabs hold of a branch and presses it to his chest while bringing his other hand to Jules’s bloodied temple to heal him. Desperate to link Yulan to the Dyoi Forest, I yank her clothing open as well, and Bleddyn presses a living branch to her sickly gray chest. Yulan shivers from the contact, a purple branching design radiating out from where the branch is contacting her skin.

“Where’s Or’myr?”

I press Bleddyn, fearing her answer.

“Here in the East by the Vo River,”

she assures me. “He stayed to summon Tierney back—”

“LUCRETIA!”

Jules Kristian is suddenly crying out as he regains consciousness, breaking off Bleddyn’s words. Jules pushes himself up, batting Yvan away as he forces himself to his feet and stumbles toward our shield, looking as if he’s bent on leaping straight through it.

“Jules, stop!”

Andras cries as he and Rafe lunge toward him and wrestle him away from the barrier.

“What’s happened to my sister?”

Fain calls out to Jules, dire urgency lighting his green eyes.

“She’s trapped in that Shadow hell!”

Jules growls back as he fights against Andras’s and Rafe’s holds, eyes wild, spectacles cracked. “We can’t leave her there! We can’t leave her to Vogel!”

As if in cruel mockery of his words, the Shadow storm roars to more intense life in a thickening wall of poisonous gray, a dark Shadow net forming over our entire shield.

“Ancient One,”

I breathe, sensing the Shadow net’s power. “Vogel’s trapping us under our own shielding with an impenetrable net.”

Sheathing my living branch through my tunic’s belt, I rise and take a faltering step toward our shield, transfixed by both the Shadow netting and the parasitical gray might assaulting our barrier. Massive and growing in power while the living wilds diminish.

We’ve walled Vogel off from the East, I consider, stricken, but not for long.

A huge Varg rune blasts into being on our shield, a net of emerald magic coursing out from it. I turn, taking in the young Smaragdalfar-Amaz sorceress standing before it, her glowing stylus raised. From our side of the ledge, Ra’Ven adds his Varg power to hers.

“Vestylle, my friend,”

Alder calls out to her.

The sorceress’s invisible emerald aura flickers with anger as she casts a daggered glare at Alder. “Silence, traitor,”

she hisses.

I pull in a shuddering breath as the Varg rune rays out emerald light, its net of magic rapidly coursing over the entire shield, my power empathy sensing the amplification of our shield’s power, the Shadow roaring against our shield instantly muted.

Slowly, both Ra’Ven and Vestylle lower their styluses, the surviving Forest firmly shielded.

A moment of unbearably tense silence descends, and everyone turns their attention to me.

The Black Witch.

“We’ve allied with you to wall off Vogel’s forces,”

Vang Troi bites out to my allies in a tone that brooks no argument. “Now hand over the Black Witch.”

Yvan rises and faces her down, his hands and wrists taking on a violet glow. “Move against Elloren, and you move against us all.”

My pulse quickens as a low growl works its way up Diana’s throat and my horde flexes their wings and gathers fire while the Vu Trin and their allies draw up power, all hell about to break loose. Forced into a fight I do not want, I move to take my sheathed branch in hand.

Without warning, several dark vines punch through the base of our huge dome-shield and slash around my ankles. I yelp as my feet are pulled out from under me and the world tilts, my back hitting stone.

“Elloren!”

Yvan cries, both his internal fire and Raz’zor’s and Ariel’s surging with defensive heat as they leap toward me along with Diana, my brothers, kindred ravens, and other allies, Errilith letting out an urgent CAW as I’m dragged, in a blur, toward the small opening in our shield where the vines punched through.

An opening, I notice with alarm, that Vestylle’s and Ra’Ven’s net of emerald Varg magic had failed to reach.

“You need to freely link—”

Alder cries out to me in Dryadin, her words cutting out as I’m pulled through our shield into the Shadow storm, the hole snapping shut behind me, Vogel’s net of Shadow coursing over our entire dome-shield.

Fierce winds buffet me, dark lightning scything above and unnatural thunder booming as I’m dragged away from Yvan and the others. Fighting the pull, I twist onto my belly, my stomach scraping against the huge ledge, my tethered ankles on fire with pain. Yvan’s and my allies’ magic blasts furiously against Vogel’s Shadow net to no avail, even Yvan’s violet firestorm unable to break through.

“Yvan!”

I cry out as the living purple world rapidly recedes, Yvan’s winged, crimson-haired form obscured by the thickening Shadow net and his repeated attacks on it, Yvan’s rage and concern lashing through our bond, his incandescent violet eyes the last thing visible before Vogel’s darkening Shadow net blots him out.

I come to an abrupt halt near the edge of the huge stone ledge, the whipping gray storm pulling back to create a roiling dome, a broken dragon’s shriek sounding out.

Heart thundering, I yank myself around and look up to find Marcus Vogel flying toward me on a multi-eyed dragon, smiling as he swoops in from his Void storm and lands before me.