Chapter Ten

Dryad Witch

Elloren

Shadow lands

Vogel dismounts from his multi-eyed dragon and strides toward me across the Shadow half of the huge Dyoi Mountain ledge.

Terror leaps through me, but I hold his gaze, refusing to succumb to my well-founded fright. Vogel’s aura of silver gray fire power is stronger than it’s ever been, Yvan’s stolen Shadow-corrupted Wyvernfire still burning through it. His pale green eyes are ringed with a steely glow and fixed on me, his storm pushed up into a roiling dome above us.

“My Black Witch,”

Vogel croons in a tone of pained fondness, “stop fighting your destiny. It’s time for you to surrender fully to me.”

He stills and raises his Shadow Wand, the gray storm raging around us dying down to reveal the panoramic view beyond the ledge.

My throat clenches as I peer through the gray mist. The section of his army that came through the sky portal is massed at the base of the mountain range. I take in the destruction they’ve wrought, that they seek to wreak throughout the entirety of Erthia—leagues upon leagues of grayed land and charred trees.

Vogel’s bindings slacken a trace, and I spring up, pulse spiking, and lunge back toward the living Forest, its purple color visible just beyond the Shadow-netted dome-shield.

Vogel’s bindings around my ankles reassert themselves with a cruel yank. My belly slams to stone, the breath punched from my lungs as Vogel viciously drags me back.

I claw at the stone and growl out my fury, desperate to get back to Yvan and my other allies and loved ones, their repeated explosions of multicolored power booming against Vogel’s Shadow netting.

The branch, I suddenly remember. I have a living branch.

Desperation spasming through me, I move to take hold of the branch sheathed at my side before I once more remember Oaklyyn’s impassioned words—Your bastardized Mage spells won’t work! And even if they could, my rootlines are severely weakened, my faint indirect linkage to Yvan’s distant Zhilaan Forest stretched too thin.

The frustrated will to fight back pounding through my veins, I slowly turn to face Vogel.

He comes into sharper view as he strides toward me through the Shadow mist. His skin’s pale Mage-green glimmer stands out in bright contrast to his color-stripped Shadow world, his irises increasingly overtaken by Yvan’s stolen Wyvernfire.

Stolen by this Mage fiend who also murdered my fastmate.

Burning rage ignites, fury for Lukas slashing through it.

Vogel scans my face, my heart like a hammer against my chest as his eyes widen then sharply narrow. A flash of his heat sears through me, his immense fire power almost escaping his tight hold as a look of world-severing hate overtakes his expression.

Viper quick, he lashes out his Wand.

Gray vines bolt from its tip to lash around my wrists. I yank against them to no avail as he stretches my arms out from my sides and magically tethers my wrists’ bindings to stone.

He falls to one knee before me, grips tight hold of my face and jerks my chin up. “What have you done?”

he hisses.

Quivering with rage, I bare my sharpened Dryad teeth at him.

Vogel recoils as he takes in my pointed ears and the branching purple pattern covering my grayed skin, his invisible fire aura spearing out steely, corrupted Wyvern flame at me. Baring his own teeth, he reaches up and takes cruel hold of one of my newly pointed ears, his grip so crushingly hard I have to bite back a yelp of pain. He releases my ear and lowers his hand, his pale green lips sneering as he grips my tunic’s collar and gives it a hard, downward yank.

I growl out my outrage as my tunic tears to reveal the faint image of a giant, purple pine tree emblazoned across my chest and abdomen. It catches me off guard, a trace of glimmering violet pulsing through it.

Yvan’s fire-loving Zhilaan Forest. The great Eastern Realm Forest of Nightwood Pines . . .

Vogel’s gaze slowly meets mine, his eyes filled with flat, chilling hatred. In an arcing blur, he draws his hand back then swipes it toward me.

His blow hits the side of my head with brutal force, a strangled cry ripping out of me. Pain shears through my head, my body thrust sideways, stretching the bindings around my right wrist as Yvan’s desperate rage to reach me fires through our bond.

“You Fae beast,”

Vogel snarls, his upper lip quivering with a fury that’s so out of control, panic strikes through me. His head draws sharply back, his nostrils flaring. “You let the winged demon kiss you. I can sense his fire bond running through you. Again.”

Anger takes hold of me in a cresting wave, obliterating all fear as I lunge toward Vogel and bare my teeth, straining against my bonds. “I’ll bond to him in every way possible, Marcus.”

For a moment, our killing glares war against each other before Vogel’s silver aura of stolen Wyvernfire tightens into a molten ball, deep in his core. “I could have saved you, Elloren,”

he rues, his eyes flicking over me with almost bereaved disappointment before his gaze hardens with a look of terrifying finality. “We could have saved and purified each other along with Erthia.”

Vogel rises to his feet, a merciless look on his face as he calmly backs away.

With a jolt of apprehension, I realize that Vogel has made a full mental shift, marking me as irredeemably evil, a lethal target rapidly solidifying on my point-eared form. Pulse spiking, I take advantage of my loosened binding to angle my side away from Vogel so I can grip hold of the branch sheathed at my side without detection, my mind desperately whirling—my rootlines are depleted, and I don’t know Dryad spells. I don’t know anything about my Dryad abilities.

Please, I beg the Ancient One, the Forest, anyone or anything that will hear me. Help!

A single word flutters through me, like a breeze sent toward me from the East.

Dryad’kin.

That’s not a spell! I want to scream at the Dyoi Forest. It’s just a word in Dryadin!

An amorphous recognition lights, stilling the breath in my chest as I’m filled with the sudden sense of the entire Dyoi and Zhilaan Forests stilling, as well.

A word in Dryadin.

The words to the candle-lighting spell flow into my mind. Words in the Magedom’s Ancient Tongue, which, I realize in a flash, is just poorly pronounced Dryadin.

Light-headedness almost brings me to the ground as I realize what Alder and then the Dyoi and Zhilaan Forests have been trying to tell me as Vogel lifts the Shadow Wand and begins murmuring spells, filling the evil tool with killing power.

I already have a route to Dryad spells and magic.

I just need to accept a direct Forest connection to access them.

Remembering how Alder and my Dryad’kin forged a new linkage to the Dyoi Forest, I thrust myself sideways, further stretching the binding around my right wrist, and manage to bring the living branch in contact with my naked chest, right over my heart.

The Dyoi Forest’s power instantly floods my rootlines, root linking to root. A tingle prickles over me, the deep-green Dryad hue to my skin reasserting itself while the Dyoi Forest’s purple energy races over my faint Zhilaan branching pattern, filling it with more robust coloration as purple leaf garb snaps into being on my body, my torn tunic and my pants falling away.

A spell sounds through my lines as I grip my branch tight.

“Abolish bindings and repel attack!”

I cry out in Dryadin as both Vogel and I thrust our weapons forward, his vine bolt spearing toward me.

Energy explodes from my branch in rays of purple light, Vogel’s vine bolt exploding as my bindings dissolve into purple mist and wick away.

Vogel’s eyes widen, my own surprise swiftly overcome by a fierce rush of warrior energy through my faint link to the Zhilaan Forest. A vision of huge, black-trunked, violet-needled Zhilaan Pines rises in the back of my mind like an incoming army as both the Dyoi Forest’s and a trace of the Zhilaan’s power floods my rootlines, a Dryadin spell breezing through me.

“Shheer’ith’ruush’hhhiir!”

I scream, seizing on my split-second advantage as I thrust my branch toward Vogel once more, suffused by the sense of every tree in the Dyoi and Zhilaan Forests bending their will toward mine.

A spiraling cyclone of violet wind blasts from my branch and hits Vogel, blowing him into the air. Extreme shock sears through his power as he slams to the ground, the fulsome sense of the Forests rising within me surging, my power now not just my own . . .

. . . my power a communal alliance.

Our power.

True Dryad power.

“Shield me!”

I cry out in Dryadin.

A vision of leagues of huge, purple pine trees lancing the clouds like spears flashes through my mind as a line of fiery purple Dyoi and Zhilaan power blasts from my branch with such force that I skid backward over the stone ledge, the purple flame flying up before me in a translucent, shielding half orb.

Vogel rights himself, hisses, and hurls out lines of forking Shadow lightning from his Wand, the silver gray lightning rapidly branching into the shape of a prone, fire-spitting tree as it lances toward me.

The lightning tree knifes into my orb shield, and pain spikes through my branch arm. Alarm streaks through me as my shield contracts inward from the spearing blow, skidding me farther back, but my orb shield holds. Barely. Its purple glow crackling with gray sparks.

A chilling look of reappraisal overtakes Vogel’s expression. He growls out another spell, gray fire overtaking his irises as he snaps out a larger, sharper Shadow tree.

“Tree of fire!”

I snarl in Dryadin as I thrust my branch forward, drawing on not only Dyoi and Zhilaan Forest power, but an edge of Yvan’s Wyvernfire, as well as a line of my horde’s fire. A battle cry erupts from my throat as multihued fire explodes from my branch and passes harmlessly through my shield before swiftly branching out into an attacking tree of flame, my body shuddering from the rush of Dryad and Wyvern power.

Our trees collide. Vogel’s Shadow tree bursts into silver sparks as my tree of flame shoots toward his cloaked form only to be fully absorbed by the Shadow Wand, Vogel’s eyes taking on a wicked, multihued glow that quickly morphs back to silvery gray.

Confusion rocks through me.

How did he just draw in all that fire? He practically ate the fire.

Vogel thrusts his Wand toward the sky, and his army appears, rows of soldiers on multi-eyed dragons rising from just beyond the ledge’s precipitous drop. With a jolt, I meet the cruel eyes of Damion Bane, and he smiles, my thoughts immediately skidding to Aislinn.

I blanch and take a step back, the brewing storm of Void magic too powerful for me to best, countless Shadow-corrupted wands rising along with the Shadow Wand . . .

I turn and break into a run toward my allies, heartbeat galloping, pulling my shield with me as I go.

Yvan and my other allies’ power is slamming against the dome-shield in bright bursts of color as I sprint toward it, Trystan’s blue lightning crackling through Yvan’s violet fire along with my Errilor Ravens’ streaks of Dark aura.

I glance over my shoulder just as a great BOOM of Shadow power slams against the back of my shield, skidding me forward and shattering my shield’s molten surface in a raying flash of color that morphs to gray as my shield disappears.

Fear leaping, I hasten my pace as Vogel and his forces close in, broken dragons shrieking and winging toward me, the Mages drawing up another cataclysmic amount of Shadow power.

“Get back!”

I cry out to my allies as I reach the Dyoi Forest’s dome-shield and pull my rootlines wide open to Dyoi, Zhilaan, and Wyvern power while leveling my branch at the shield, bent on elemental strike, the full might of the Dyoi Forest and a potent trace of Zhilaan magic rising within me. “Break through Vogel’s Shadow net!”

I cry out in Dryadin as my allies open a small entrance in our shield.

A sizzling tang of energy hits my back, and animalistic desperation sizzles through me as I’m flooded by the split-second foresight of a Shadow storm about to slam into me just as a column of purple energy bolts from my branch. My power collides with Vogel’s Shadow netting, blasting a small hole clear through it.

I throw myself headfirst into the passageway.

Yvan’s protective fire aura instantly roars around and through me as his strong hands grip hold of my upper arms and he yanks me fully through the opening with ferocious purpose, my power empathy instantly overtaken by the awareness of Trystan, Vothe, Sage, and my other allies blasting their combined power over the shield’s hole to seal it, Ra’Ven and Vestylle’s shield-amplifying Varg power flowing over the sealed hole, leaving no gaps this time.

Vogel and his forces’ full assault of Shadow slams into our shield, and the shield’s entire, cloud-high side contracts inward like a sheet of molasses.

Yvan’s fire envelopes me as he pulls me close, my vision spitting stars as I gasp for breath, both of us down on our knees. I feel as if my rootlines are close to collapsing in on themselves, my lines severely depleted from releasing so much magic at once.

Yvan brings his lips to mine at the same moment I grab desperate hold of him, knotting my fingers in his hair and drawing him even closer as emotion surges through our bond, both of us clear that, for me, his kiss is the surest route to both his power and the Zhilaan Forest’s. His lips are Wyvern-warm and urgently firm, a hot line of our love for each other searing through us as he blasts not only his power into me, but the elemental strength of his kindred Zhilaan Forest and our entire horde via our Wyvernbond, lighting up my lines like a fiery beacon as both his and the Dyoi Forest’s strength floods through them.

My power slowly restoring, I break the kiss and meet Yvan’s impassioned gaze before I force myself to my feet, rage surging through me as I lunge back toward the shield, not able to see Vogel through his forces’ whipping storm, but able to sense his lurking power.

“You will not take this Forest!”

I snarl at Vogel. “I will regain my power, and I will come for you!”

“Elloren,”

Yvan cautions as he moves in behind me.

“He doesn’t hold enough power to get to me,”

I bite out. “Isn’t that right, Marcus?”

Vogel’s figure takes shape through the maelstrom beyond the shield, his black-clad form obscured by the wall of churning magic between us, but his silver, rage-bright eyes shining through. Shadowed magic pounds through his lines as Dryad might fills mine, our powers fully and viciously aimed at each other.

Vogel’s eyes flick over me in leering appraisal as he draws his storm’s full strength back into his Wand, the terrible truth inescapable.

Our power is an even match. But as more Forest dies, mine will be depleted.

Whereas his will grow stronger.

Vogel’s lips lift in a slow, mocking smile as his Void tree shimmers to life in the back of my mind. I stiffen against it. And against the shivering premonition that has always been brewing, from the moment of our first encounter . . .

Vogel and I are destined to battle for Erthia.

But then I look past Vogel and his forces. At the leagues of charred trees and grayed, poisoned sky, the Natural World’s vulnerability constricting my heart. Millions of years of complex beauty—beauty that I’m only just starting to meet, to root to—gone in the span of a few hours. The power to destroy Life so much more potent than the power to protect it.

Vogel clearly detects the flicker of fear in my gaze. His eyes narrow to slits, and his slight grin turns malefic as he glances toward the destroyed Forest behind him and then back at me. “Your defeat has already begun, Fae Witch.”

And then he raises the Wand and releases his Shadow storm, his figure instantly engulfed in the churning gray.

When the storm clears, Vogel and his forces are gone, along with the distant sky portal. Only the leagues of dead Forest and poisoned sky remain, splayed out in front of us in dark warning.