Chapter Twelve

Dryad Warrior

Elloren

Northern Dyoi Mountain Range

“Hand over the Black Witch of Prophecy!”

Vang Troi’s powerful voice booms out over the Dyoi Mountain ledge as the Vu Trin high commander takes a step toward me.

Yvan’s fire rises to a focused inferno, his wings arcing around me. “Vanglira,”

he warns, “stay back.”

Naga and the rest of my horde as well as my Lupine allies have closed in to form a defensive line between me and Vang Troi’s surviving Eastern Realm forces, tension mounting in the air, my Errilor Ravens gathering around me.

Fain steps forward, glancing between Yvan and Vang Troi. “Let’s all take a deep breath, shall we?”

My breathing labored and my power still depleted by my fight with Vogel, I take in the curved sword gripped in Vang Troi’s hand and the runic blades and battle stars strapped all over her body. My concern intensifies as the two formidable Amaz soldiers—Freyja Zyrr and Alcippe Feyir—along with my old kitchen nemesis, Iris Morgaine, close in around Vang Troi.

Our opposing sides are close to equally numbered.

“Move one step closer to my sister, and I will separate you from your head, sorceress,”

Diana growls at Vang Troi, raising a clawed hand, golden hair coursing over her forearm in lethal warning.

“We’re all on the same side,”

my brother Rafe states calmly but firmly, holding out a conciliatory hand toward Vang Troi.

Vang Troi and her combined Vu Trin, Amaz, and Lasair forces don’t budge, their eyes and power focused on me, murderously bright. The rhythmic scald of Yvan’s mother’s aura knifes into me in pulsing spikes from where she’s still bound to Raz’zor, raising the hairs on the back of my neck as a threatening ball of golden fire bursts to life above Iris Morgaine’s raised palm.

I can’t help but gape at Iris’s unglamoured form, her formerly blond hair now a fiery Lasair-crimson like Yvan’s and Soleiya’s, her ears sharply pointed, her green eyes afire with rage. I tighten my hold on the living branch in my hand, my depleted power recharging too slowly as I draw on the magic of the Dyoi and Zhilaan Forests. Both the Dyoi and Zhilaan are twining their support around my rootlines, the maternal Dyoi filling me with a growing sense of its Life-supporting root network, Yvan’s kindred Zhilaan infusing me with pure warrior energy.

Dryad’kin, the Dyoi murmurs through me with embracing affection.

Dryad Warrior, the Zhilaan sizzles through me, its enraged violet fire flashing through my binding to Yvan.

Vang Troi’s runic magic rises in the air, a visible penumbra of raying, sapphire power flashing to life around her straight-backed form in an obvious display of power. “Hand yourself over, Elloren Gardner Grey,”

she orders again, her violet eyes meeting mine. “We watched you fight Vogel with true courage, but you must face the fact that you are too easily compromised by Vogel’s power. You’re a proven danger to us all.”

Before I can answer, Yvan blasts out a line of violet flame to wall off me and our allies from the Vu Trin and their forces, our entire horde adding to the flame, multicolored fingers of it blazing up in hot warning from the huge stone ledge, a chilling growl rising from Raz’zor’s throat.

“I won’t ask twice.”

Yvan glares at Vang Troi, his fire readied. “Resheathe your weapons and order your forces to do the same. Elloren is my Wyvernbonded mate.”

A hot charge shoots through our bond that sends a shiver through me, Yvan’s arm sliding protectively around mine.

Without warning, Vang Troi lifts her swords and points them toward me.

Hundreds of sapphire spears of runic energy blast into existence and dart toward me, each filled with explosive Noi power.

Before I can react, Yvan yanks me backward and Sage, Trystan, Fain, and Wrenfir lift wands. Alder raises a branch, and Ra’Ven and Rivyr’el level emerald and silver styluses while my ravens send out a hard pulse of Dark aura that momentarily dims the world. A colorful glassy wall of power marked with Varg runes springs to life in front of my horde’s barrier of Wyvernfire, foggy lines of my ravens’ magic coursing through it.

Vang Troi’s surprise attack collides with our runic barrier in an explosion of raying, sapphire light, the spears that manage to pierce it instantly singed away by my horde’s wall of fire.

“This is madness!”

Iris cries out to Yvan, her voice shrill with fury. “Have you forgotten everything you stand for?”

She levels her finger at Soleiya. “You’ve bound your own mother!”

“Unhand Soleiya Guryev!”

a young Vu Trin soldier with a dragon shaved into her close-cropped black hair shouts, her face twisted in an enraged scowl. A chorus of livid voices rise, all demanding Soleiya’s release.

Vang Troi arches a black brow at the cacophony of demands before giving Yvan a stern look. My gut tenses as I remember how revered Soleiya is in the East—the heroic Resistance-soldier wife of the slain Icaral who took down the last dreaded Black Witch, my grandmother Carnissa Gardner.

Yvan turns to Trystan, eyes burning. “Unbind my mother,”

he stiffly directs.

Trystan nods, a cautious light in his eyes as he raises his wand and swipes it at Soleiya.

The vine bindings tethering her to Raz’zor’s back disappear, but any hope that Soleiya’s hate for me has been tempered is instantly and thoroughly quashed as she swiftly dismounts, steps away from Raz’zor, then rounds on Yvan and levels a damning finger at me. “That witch will forever be your enemy!”

Yvan’s fire aura explodes, a rush of his heat searing my skin as he gives his mother a look of blazing incredulity. “Did you witness anything that just happened?”

He thrusts his hand toward the leagues upon leagues of dead Forest just beyond our translucent dome-shield’s western-facing side. “There’s your enemy,”

he snarls. “This infighting—”

he gestures between himself and his mother “—it’s playing right into Vogel’s hands!”

I glance toward our semiconscious Dryad’kin, splayed on the stone ledge, all of them tenuously stabilized through the Dyoi Forest branch connection. Purple branching patterns are forming over the sickly gray skin of Sylvan, Yulan, Oaklyyn, and Mavrik and Gwynn.

“You’re being played for a fool!”

Soleiya snarls back at Yvan, her voice breaking with red-hot emotion. “The Crows are full of deceptions! The witch’s show of alliance is a ploy. Think, my son! This witch and Vogel are playacting so that they can infiltrate your power through this ill-fated Wyvernbond you’ve set down! The only way to save yourself and defeat the Magedom is to kill her!”

I draw back from the punishing strength of Soleiya’s fire power, anguish spiking through me in response to the level of hate in her aura and in the belligerent look she’s giving me, offensive fire gathering in her palms.

Fealty. Raz’zor’s vow shimmers through my mind as he readies his own vermillion fire.

Raw panic spears through me over the martial energy rising in Raz’zor. She’s not our enemy! I insist through our bond.

Raz’zor’s fire rears hotter. FEALTY, he stresses, baring his teeth at Soleiya.

Alder Xanthos calmly steps forward, staying Raz’zor’s rage as she strides up to Soleiya. “Yvan Guryev speaks the truth,”

she states, her tone as hard as Ironwood. “The Prophecy has been rewritten. I have read it in the Forest. Elloren has become a Dryad Witch truly set against Vogel. She stands with the trees.”

“Alder Xanthos,”

Freyja grits out, her tattooed face tensed with a commanding level of ire, her runic axe gripped in her fists. “As your queen, I order you to stand down. Elloren Gardner Grey is a murdering Black Witch, just like her grandmother. She leveled Voloi.”

Surprise lights inside both my and Yvan’s fire to find out that young Freyja has succeeded Alkaia as queen of the Amaz.

“Elloren didn’t attack Voloi,”

Vothendrile counters from where he stands beside Trystan, their invisible lightning auras crackling around each other. “Marcus Vogel did. I’m a power empath. Vogel had Elloren under his thrall during the Siege of Voloi through a Shadow link to her fastlines. But she’s broken free of him, and her fastings, as well.”

“What’s to prevent him from enthralling her again by some unknown Shadow spell?”

Freyja sternly counters.

“What’s to prevent Vogel from enthralling me?”

Yvan challenges. “Or you? Or any of us?”

“Which he will do if we stay divided,”

I add, unable to remain silent one second longer.

“Silence, witch!”

Vang Troi snarls.

“No,”

I snarl back, stepping out of Yvan’s embrace to face her down, “I will not be silent.”

A hot flash of Yvan’s support fires through our Wyvernbond, along with a simmering rise of Raz’zor’s, Ariel’s, and Naga’s flame through our horde bond. “If we remain divided,”

I say, “Vogel will pick us off one by one while he kills off the rest of the Natural World. And then it will be truly over. For all of us. Erthia’s Natural Matrix was anchored in a Great Tree that Vogel destroyed. And now, that Matrix is close to being irretrievably broken. If any more Forest is destroyed, it will fully break. We’ll have no more clean water. No more food. Nothing but that.”

I level a finger west, at the leagues of Shadow-destroyed land beyond our shielding. “Without the Forest, everything unravels.”

“And a Death Reckoning will descend,”

Hazel growls, a wild look in his full-dark eyes, “before the Shadow sweeps in to consume everything!”

“These are outrageous lies,”

Iris growls at Yvan. “Your mother speaks the truth! The witch is still linked to Vogel!”

“I’m not,”

I counter, raising my III-marked palm. “I’m joined to the Forest.”

“Let us bring you to our trees so you can hear them out,”

Alder offers Vang Troi, Iris, and their allies, displaying her III-marked palm, as well. “Let us link you all to our Forest.”

Vang Troi gives Alder a look of pure outrage. “You want us to link to a dying forest?”

“No,”

Alder vehemently counters. “To the remaining living Forest. Because if it dies, Erthia is lost. We are all lost. This needs to be our unifying fight.”

“It came as a shock to me, too,”

Yvan offers, impressively paring back the ferocity in his fire’s flow. “That there’s a bigger fight underneath all the things we’ve been aligned over. But there truly is.”

His words don’t soften the belligerent flow of Vang Troi’s and her allies’ power, not one bit. In fact, they only serve to stoke our adversaries’ ire higher as Soleiya glares fiery daggers at me.

Hope shrivels in my chest. Because if we can’t even convince Yvan’s own mother to hear us and the Forest out when I know she and Yvan love each other deeply, what hope is there for any type of alliance with the East?

“Do you intend to hold me prisoner?”

Soleiya challenges Yvan. She casts a pointed look at the barriers my allies have thrown up to wall us off from Vang Troi’s forces.

“Let her pass,”

Yvan stiffly rejoins, his fiery aura and his mother’s battering against each other.

My allies open a portion of our shield-wall, and Soleiya strides through it to Vang Troi’s side, anger flickering through Yvan’s fire as his mother glares at me, making her alignment clear.

Vang Troi and her forces begin to draw up power once more, and I move to warn Yvan and the others just as Sage lets out a strangled cry and falls to the ground.

Alarm leaps through everyone’s magic as Ra’Ven drops down beside her and grabs hold of Sage’s arms. “Ti’a, what is it?”

he cries, his aura of emerald runic power crackling around Sage with impassioned urgency as he launches into a questioning stream of Smaragdalfar.

Sage raises one shaking, fasting-wound-marked hand, then convulses and lets out a soul-shearing cry, her bloody fastlines flaying open further.

The fasting wounds begin emitting tendrils of Shadow smoke.

Horror singes through me as Sage’s terrified purple gaze swings to mine. “Vogel is in me! I can feel him . . .”

“Aughh!”

Thierren cries out as he, too, drops to his knees, desperately cradling his fastmarked hands as his marks also begin to seep Shadow smoke. “It’s happening to my fastlines, as well!”

he chokes out. “Vogel is wresting control of me!”

“Get them to the trees!”

I cry. “The Northern Forest’s Great Tree broke my fasting to Vogel. The East’s trees might be able to break their fastings, as well.”

Alder, other allies, and I rush to Sage and Thierren, Yvan and I taking hold of Sage’s arms.

“This is some trick!”

Yvan’s mother cries to Vang Troi. “Strike down these Crows!”

Yvan shoots his mother a harsh look and spits out a blistering epithet in Lasair as we hoist Sage to her feet.

“Disarm!”

I call out to Sage and Thierren. “Disarm in case Vogel takes you over!”

Sage and Thierren give me panicked looks before hurling all wands, blades, and styluses aside, my allies swiftly requisitioning them before we bring Thierren and Sage to the Forest lining the huge mountain ledge’s back edge.

Sage unexpectedly lunges for me, and I stumble back as Yvan and Diana swiftly restrain her. Sage’s expression has turned alarmingly wicked, her eyes glowing gray as she bares elongated, steel-hued teeth, Vogel’s voice hissing from her mouth. “I will rip those pointed ears from your head, Fae Witch. And then I will shove them down your throat, along with the bloody pieces of your Icaral beast’s cursed wings.”

Beating back a pulse-speeding rush of fear, I stare Vogel down. “Push her palms to living bark,”

I grit out as Sage breaks into chilling laughter before turning feral, attempting to snap at Yvan as both he and Diana drag her to a large Noi Maple, while Rafe and Alder drag Thierren to an adjacent Noi Birch. Diana forces Sage’s hands to the bark as Thierren slams his own palms onto the tree trunk and Rafe grabs hold of his wrists from behind, keeping them there.

A slash of fear tears through the Dyoi Forest’s aura as Thierren turns and sets his chillingly altered gaze on me, his eyes lit with a gray glow.

“I’m coming for you, staen’en witch,”

Vogel’s voice seethes through Thierren’s mouth before he gives me a wide, murderous smile.

The Zhilaan Forest’s warrior might shocks through me, my own outrage rising with it. “Oh, I’ll be coming for you too, Vogel,”

I vow. But my bravado evaporates as Sage and Thierren buck wildly against my allies’ holds on them.

Please, I beg the Forest, the Ancient One, and any deity or tree that will listen as Thierren and Sage growl and struggle. Please free them.

A ripple of the Dyoi Forest’s awareness shimmers through my rootlines, a fearful, questioning energy in it that settles into courageous understanding. And then, the Forest’s elemental aura swoops around Thierren and Sage . . .

. . . and draws their forms straight into the trees.

Immense relief shudders through me as shocked sounds erupt from Ra’Ven and throughout the ranks of Vang Troi’s forces.

Ra’Ven rounds on me and Yvan, an alarmed expression on his emerald-patterned face. “Where has she gone?”

“What have you done to them, Black Witch?”

Vang Troi demands.

“The Forest has embraced them,”

Alder insists. “It will free them from Vogel’s hold.”

“Just like it freed me,” I stress.

My adversaries’ weapons power up once more, the Forest itself seeming to sense their aggressive intent. A palpable call from the trees reverberates throughout the entire Dyoi Forest.

Birds and animals are suddenly flooding out of the tree line and streaming toward me, many of them color-stripped to gray, some grievously burned by Vogel’s Shadowfire, all suffused with urgency and terror. My throat tightens as they gather around me in a stunning show of alliance, a brilliantly purple fox with a singed, grayed ear slinking in against my calf, a moon-white Barred Owl with burned feathers landing heavily on my shoulder, the bird’s predatory courage feeding into my own. An almost fully grayed Noi Deer moves in to lean against my other side, both grief and fierce affection for these kindreds firing through me.

The huge congregation of animals seems to stun those set against me, disorientation shivering through their power. Even Iris looks thrown.

I’m about to plead my case once more when there’s a sudden, vicious tug on both my rootlines and the roots of the entire Forest. A gasp tears from my throat, and my balance gives way as a cry bursts from Alder and Hazel lets out an otherworldly shriek, his teeth chattering in obvious agony as he falls to his knees.

Yvan catches me, his fiery aura lashing around mine, the owl on my shoulder taking flight and the other animals fleeing back into the Forest’s shelter, my ravens letting out loud caws. Every semiconscious Dryad’kin, including Mavrik and Gwynn, cries out even in their stupor.

“Elloren, what is it?”

Yvan presses, urgency burning through our bond, but I can barely focus on him.

An image overtakes my mind—the Void tree’s energy latching on to the smoking stump of III, a gray trunk and branches emerging from the stump’s central abyss, growing and burgeoning into a huge tree of Shadow. My rootlines fill with the slithering sensation of Shadow power settling there, the Void stump consuming the elemental power of the destroyed Northern Forest with parasitic fervor while it sends feelers out toward the Eastern Realm.

“III,”

I roughly force out to Yvan as my rootlines shiver with the Forest’s terror. “Vogel and his Shadow Wand have invaded III’s rootline connections. And once they gain enough power, they’re going to use them as a route to attack the East.”