Chapter Two

Dryad’khin Call

Elloren

Northern Dyoi Mountain Range

“Vogel’s overtaking III’s rootline network with Shadow!”

I cry out to everyone under the Dyoi Forest’s dome shielding, allies and adversaries alike. “He wants to siphon up the Natural World’s remaining elemental power!”

“Do you have any sense of how we can fight him?”

Yvan demands as he firms his hold on me, keeping me from falling to the ground of the mountainside ledge as my surviving Errilor Ravens let out caws in deep tones of warning.

Meeting Yvan’s intent gaze, I open my mouth to respond, but all words are scoured away as I’m assaulted, once more, by the image of the Shadow Wand’s huge Void tree emerging from III’s smoking stump.

“Link me to the Dyoi Forest, quickly!”

Hazel suddenly shrieks.

Both Yvan’s and my attention whips toward the Deathkin Dryad, our bonded fire erupting into crackling tension.

Hazel is on his knees, his huge black insectile legs splayed out around him, larger than they were before. And his mouth . . . it’s grotesquely widened, his teeth sharper, his full-black eyes grown terrifyingly huge as they meet mine. A chill snakes down my spine as I realize he’s surrounded by my kindred flock, as if under guard. And he’s a distance away from all my allies, as if he’s keeping himself removed to protect us.

From him.

A sizzle of urgent warning from the surrounding Dyoi Forest rushes through my rootlines, the image of purple branches flashing through my mind. With a whoosh of dread, I intuit what the Forest is trying to tell me—that when we connected my Dryad’kins’ withering rootlines to the Dyoi Forest with living branches to save their lives, we never did the same for Hazel. And now, Hazel’s connection to the Shadowed Northern Forest has opened a pathway from Vogel’s great Void tree straight into his rootlines.

Shadow mist bursts to life around Hazel’s slender frame. He lets out a multitoned screech, his back bowing, his multiple legs contracting.

“Cut the Death Fae down right now,”

Vang Troi booms out from beyond the shield-wall dividing my allies and adversaries. “Vogel is taking him over!”

Before I can protest, Hazel springs up, breaks through the circle of giant ravens, and scuttles toward me in a blur, my ravens surging toward me, Hazel’s grayed legs whipping out tendrils of Shadow.

All Death Fae black gone.

“Dryad Witch!”

Hazel hisses in Vogel’s voice as Yvan springs toward him, Rafe and Wrenfir joining him, all three men tackling him to the ground. Hazel lets out a bloodcurdling shriek as they pin him to the ledge’s stone, his legs violently thrashing.

The Dyoi Forest sends a binding spell rustling through my mind as my lines gain enough power to launch spells. I level my living branch at Hazel, murmur the spell and thrust my branch forward.

Deep-purple vines blast from my branch’s tips and spear to Hazel, magically binding him as my ravens lash out ropes of their Death Fae power to reinforce my bindings, and Yvan and I exchange a quick, intense look.

Hissing and screeching, Hazel thrashes against the bindings and those holding him down, his gray eyes fixated on mine. Vogel’s snarl erupts from his throat with terrifying force. “I will impale you, Whore Witch!”

“Press this branch to his chest!”

I cry out to my uncle Wrenfir, tossing my branch to him.

Wrenfir deftly catches it, then rips open the collar of Hazel’s leafy black tunic.

Hazel snaps his too-long teeth at my spider-tattooed uncle. “Mage abomination!”

he hisses, the sound coming from everywhere at once, sending ice down my spine. “I will turn your lines to Shadow and indenture you as my SLAVE!”

Teeth gritted, Wrenfir forces my living branch to Hazel’s chest.

A purple-branching pattern races over Hazel’s grayed skin, and he stops thrashing. His insectile legs vanish into him, and the whites of his eyes snap back into existence as his irises contract to a more human size. His eyes lock with Wrenfir’s, midnight black overtaking the gray, a look of astonishment on Hazel’s visage.

Wrenfir stiffens, my uncle’s fire and earth power suddenly contracting toward Hazel’s Deathkin power with a force that seems to stun them both as Yvan and Rafe rise and cautiously step back.

The ropy tendrils of Hazel’s aura darken, morphing from gray to black as they whip around him before flowing outward to encircle both him and Wrenfir, as if moving of their own accord.

“Vogel’s gone,”

Hazel rasps to Wrenfir, their eyes still locked, Wrenfir’s palms and the living branch beneath them pressed to Hazel’s heaving, naked chest, Hazel’s skin starting to take on his natural lime coloration.

Wrenfir gives Hazel a terse nod before he rises, and takes hold of the wand sheathed at his hip as my ravens draw their ropes of power back into themselves. Wrenfir angles his wand at Hazel and growls out a spell that bursts my vine bindings to purple mist. Then he hands Hazel the living branch and steps back, my uncle’s rattled expression shifting to his usual angry intensity.

Hazel’s knife-sharp features return to their otherworldly severity as he and Wrenfir tear their gazes away from each other. But my power empathy can sense the way their invisible magical auras continue to circle each other with stunned, questioning fervor.

“Do you finally see why we need to align?”

Rafe is suddenly calling out to Vang Troi as he steps toward the translucent runic shield-wall separating our two factions, his amber gaze boring into the Vu Trin commander. My eldest brother levels his finger at Hazel. “Vogel isn’t going to stop finding ways to come at us, even under this dome-shield. We have to share every shred of our combined knowledge and every last weapon at our disposal to fight the Magedom.”

“We will not align with you to be consumed by trees,”

Vang Troi fires back.

“Sage and Thierren will emerge,”

I insist, catching Ra’Ven’s look of worry.

Vang Troi narrows her violet gaze on me, a tense standoff descending just as Mavrik and Gwynn begin to stir.

Blinking dazedly, the twinned Dryad’kin open their eyes, push themselves up to a sitting position and turn toward each other, their golden auras of power springing to life.

“Gwynnifer,”

Mavrik rasps out as they embrace and trigger an invisible shock of raying, prismatic light. The colors burst against my eyes and spangle through my power-empath senses, the intensity of the feelings flashing through their magic so potent it takes my breath away.

The two Agolith Flame Hawk kindreds standing sentinel beside them take on a brighter golden glow, and a sudden vision of the Verdyllion Wand shimmers into my mind as my lightlines give an unexpected, emphatic tug toward theirs.

“Mavrik Glass,”

Vang Troi huffs out, sounding astonished as she takes in her former double agent’s pointed ears, golden eyes, and prism-streaked hair as well as the deepened forest green hue of his skin.

“Nor Vang Troi,”

Mavrik responds, his voice rough with feeling as he and Gwynn rise, hand in hand, their hawk kindreds flying up to light on their shoulders. “I’ve much to tell you,”

he rasps out before filling everyone in on everything that happened in the Sublands and how Wynter Eirllyn and her brother, Cael, and Cael’s Second, Rhys, are trapped there along with the Verdyllion Wand, Valasca, Sparrow, and three Smaragdalfar soldiers.

“I can sense the Verdyllion Wand’s underground location,”

Gwynn reveals, golden eyes wide as she swallows, glancing southwest as if her gaze is drawn there by an invisible pull.

“As can I,”

Mavrik agrees, sharing a fraught glance with Gwynn. “Ever since we were transported to the Sunlands by III.”

“Valasca is alive?”

Ni Vin exclaims, voice breaking.

We all turn toward her, and my heart twists as I take in how obviously worked up Ni Vin is. She’s always been such a grim, silent figure, forever marked by the tragedy of the last Black Witch’s reign of fire, Ni Vin’s burn-scarred head, melted ear, and singed stump of a hand sustained when she was but a child, permanent marks of my grandmother’s atrocities.

But Ni Vin’s grim reserve has been blasted clear away, her slim military-uniformed figure and blazing dark eyes conveying the sense that she’d jump right into the middle of Vogel’s forces if it meant getting to Valasca.

“I assume you’re Ni Vin,”

Mavrik ventures.

Ni Vin nods once, her throat bobbing, as if she’s struggling not to choke on the rise of emotion. Tears escape her eyes and streak down her cheeks, a tremble kicking up in her shoulders, her sister, Kam Vin, placing a bolstering hand on Ni Vin’s shoulder.

“She spoke of you often,”

Mavrik tells Ni Vin. “She spoke of her ‘Great Love, Ni Vin.’?”

Ni Vin lets out a strangled sound, silently weeping.

Mavrik turns, exchanging a grave look with Jules Kristian, and I recall when Jules mentioned, long ago in Verpacia, that Mavrik and he were in league with each other in the now-shattered Western Realm Resistance. “Jules,”

Mavrik ventures, concern writ on his face, “where’s Lucretia?”

Jules shakes his head, barely able to get the words out. “We were attacked by Marfoir on dragonback and forced to the ground. They ambushed us, and one of them knocked me unconscious. When I awakened . . .”

Jules grimaces, his lips quavering.

“When he came to,”

Fain grimly finishes for him, looking heartsick, “my sister was gone.”

Ni Vin’s tear-soaked face swings to Jules and Fain. “I was the last to see her,”

she roughly chokes out.

Their eyes widen.

“Where?”

Jules demands, desperation clawing through his tone.

“I was fighting Marfoir beside her when they attacked us with their Shadow webbing,”

Ni Vin tells them. “They used it to wrest the wand from Lucretia’s hand. When they closed in on her, she backed away toward a half-dead tree and . . . disappeared into its trunk.”

Jules and Fain remain frozen for a moment, blinking at Ni Vin.

“She may yet emerge,”

Alder staunchly interjects.

Jules’s gaze swings to her. “How?”

he demands.

“The living Forest of Erthia has rootline connections that span the entire continent,”

Alder answers, her voice and forest green eyes as steady as those of the small purple eagle perched on her shoulder. “If the Dyoi Forest’s connection to that half-dead tree remains, Lucretia may yet emerge—”

A flash of purple light rays out from two trees at the ledge’s edge, breaking off Alder’s words, and Yvan and I turn toward it to find Sage and Thierren suddenly there, kneeling amongst the trees’ knotty purple roots.

“Sagellyn!”

Ra’Ven cries, his invisible green aura blasting into a passionate sizzle as he rushes toward her.

Breathing hard, Thierren and Sage dazedly take us all in. Both are transformed, their ears pointed, Thierren’s skin now a darkened Northern Forest green patterned with purple Dyoi Forest branching, a verdant streak through his short black hair. Sage’s bright violet hue is heightened, a deep-purple branching pattern gracing her skin as well, both Sage and Thierren grasping purple living branches.

“Ti’a’lin,”

Ra’Ven exclaims, falling to his knees before Sage and sweeping her into his arms. My gaze darts to Sage’s and Thierren’s hands and my breath catches.

Their fastmarks are gone.

Dyoi Monarch Butterflies flutter out of the Forest, the color beneath their wings’ black stained-glass lacings a luminous mosaic of every hue of purple. The monarchs light on Sage in a whorl of kindred affection at the same time that an Eastern Peregrine Falcon swoops in from the Forest and lands on Thierren’s forearm. The sleek bird of prey ruffles its night-purple feathers, its lavender eyes shining like two amethysts as they meet Thierren’s with a look of fierce, protective alliance. Tears glaze Thierren’s eyes, his severe face tight with emotion.

“Ti’a’lin,”

Ra’Ven rasps, his voice breaking as he reaches down to cradle Sage’s fastmark-free hands. “You’re free.”

Sage’s eyes glisten as she looks besottedly back at him, butterflies decorating her hair, her shoulders. “I’m free in so many new ways,”

she says in Smaragdalfarin, lifting her palm to display the image of III marked on it.

Surprise darts through Yvan’s and my bonded fire, the Great Tree marking on Sage’s palm evidence that something of III’s energy still thrums through Erthia’s rootline network.

Sage presses her III-marked palm over Ra’Ven’s heart. “Tia’lin, I need to bring you to the Forest . . .”

“Sparrow’s trapped.”

Thierren cuts off Sage’s words, urgency writ in the severe lines of his face as he pushes himself to his feet, the falcon now perched on his shoulder. “The Forest sent me a vision of her. She was inside III when Vogel struck. She’s imprisoned inside the Shadow abyss that overtook the Great Tree.”

The blow connects with pummeling force. “Ancient One, Thierren,” I gasp.

“We’ve got to get hold of the Verdyllion,”

Sage says as she and Ra’Ven rise to their feet. “It holds power that might be able to free Sparrow.”

“Explain,”

Vang Troi demands in a harsh voice from beyond our line of division.

Sage meets Vang Troi’s stern gaze. “The Forest showed me that the Verdyllion Wand-Stylus is a counterforce to the Shadow when it’s wielded by powerful light sorcerers connected as Dryad’khin.”

Sage turns to me. “Elloren, there’s a reason we were drawn to the Verdyllion as its Bearers. Every one of us holds potent light sorcery.”

She looks to Ra’Ven. “The Smaragdalfar myths are true in this—multicolored light is a weapon that can overtake Shadow, especially when it emanates from seven points, seven Dryad’khin light sorcerers.”

Her gaze swings to Gwynnifer. “That includes you, Gwynn,”

she says in the Dryad tongue.

An ocean of feeling rises in Gwynn’s and Sage’s formidable light auras as Gwynn’s mouth trembles into a remorseful frown.

“Sagellyn,”

Gwynn says in a fractured voice as she releases Mavrik’s hand and steps toward her. “You were my good friend, and I betrayed you. I betrayed you in Verpacia when I pointed the Mage-hunt toward Ra’Ven, and I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

She gives Ra’Ven a tortured look, tears streaking down her cheeks. “I was wrong. I’m so sorry.”

Sage and Ra’Ven share a look of intense conflict, a storm of emotion in it before Sage turns back to Gwynn, an expression of resolve on her purple features. She surges toward Gwynn, a cry escaping Gwynn’s throat as the two Dryad’kin fall into each other’s arms.

“You were like a sister to me,”

Gwynn sobs into Sage’s shoulder.

“You are my sister still,”

Sage insists before drawing slightly back from their embrace, holding on to Gwynn’s forearms. “We both fell prey to the Magedom’s lies.”

Sage looks to the tree line, brow knotting. “And we were both ignorant of our Dryad rootlines and our true Forest home. But now,”

she says, smiling through her tears as she holds up her III-marked palm, “we are forever united as Dryad’kin. I forgive you, my sister.”

“I forgive you as well, Gwynnifer,”

Ra’Ven staunchly assures Gwynn, bringing his hand to her shoulder as she weeps.

“We need to follow their example and stop fighting,”

Rafe calls out to Vang Troi.

Thierren levels a finger at the still half-conscious Dryads being tended to by Bleddyn, Aislinn, Jarod, and others. “We need to join with them and their Forest. All of us. So we can combine power and get hold of the Verdyllion, then rescue Sparrow and the others and fight back.”

“He speaks the truth,”

Alder affirms, the small purple eagle still perched on her shoulder. “As more of us link to the Forest and become Dryad’khin, its power and the power of the Verdyllion Wand-Stylus grows.”

She studies me. “And Elloren, I can sense with my power empathy that you not only have a strong lightline, you’re potentially the Wand-Stylus’s strongest amplifier.”

“I’ve had enough of these lies!”

Yvan’s mother hisses from beyond our defensive shield-wall, startling me, the vicious look she’s giving me like a blow to the gut. She levels a damning look at Alder, pointing at me. “You’d cast this spawn of that monster witch, the same witch who killed my husband, as some type of savior?”

“Her name is Elloren,”

Yvan says, low and adamant, a portion of his internal fire whipping up with angry heat, the rest blazing ardently around me as Raz’zor erupts into a low growl.

“Elloren is not a savior,”

Alder calmly counters. “She’s potentially a catalyst. For amplifying the combined, Forest-linked light power of the Verdyllion’s Bearers.”

Yvan and I share a quick, intense look, the urgency of the situation blazing through our commingled fire.

“The witch needs to die,”

Iris insists from beside Soleiya, her invisible flaming aura whipping out to encircle Yvan.

Diana takes a menacing step toward Iris. “Lay one hand on my sister, Lasair,”

she growls, “and I’ll claw your fire straight out of you.”

Rafe places a cautionary hand on Diana’s shoulder, his stance pure dominance as he faces both Soleiya and Iris down. “We are not your enemies.”

“Cast the witch aside!”

Iris snarls at Yvan, ignoring Rafe. “You’re not even truly mated to her!”

I flinch, her words like the lash of a whip as Yvan sends another reassuring lash of heat around me. “Mav’ya,”

he says to Soleiya in Lasair. “We need to align.”

His violet-fire gaze swings to Vang Troi. “Nor’hoi’yhir Vang Troi,”

he formally addresses her in Noi. “All we ask is that you hear the Forest out.”

It’s at that moment that Sylvan, Oaklyyn, and Yulan begin to regain consciousness, Sylvan forcing himself into a sitting position, soon followed by Oaklyyn and Yulan.

Sylvan glances down at the branching purple patterns on his skin and stills, his elemental power rising in the air around him in a gathering storm that has me drawing back.

“Sylvan . . .”

I caution, and he slowly looks up, his pine gaze fixing on Hazel.

A vicious growl erupts from Sylvan, and his aura of power explodes as he springs up and rushes at Hazel, fists balled, shock jolting through me.

Yvan, Wrenfir, and Thierren leap toward Sylvan as he slams his fist into Hazel’s face.

Hazel falls back, insectile legs bursting from his body once more, his teeth elongating as he snarls, jaw snapping, eyes enlarging and morphing back to full black as Yvan, Thierren, and Wrenfir wrestle Sylvan to the ground.

“Traitor!”

Sylvan cries at Hazel, struggling to free himself. “You took us from our Forest!”

“You would have died!”

Hazel lashes back, ferocious pain slashing through his Dark aura.

“Where are Lyptus and Larch?”

Sylvan growls, eyes wild as he glances searchingly around. “Where are our kindreds?”

“Lost to us,”

Hazel grits out, the whole world strobing dark.

“I will kill you!”

Oaklyyn rages as she springs up and hurls herself at Hazel, knocking him back down only to be flipped onto her back and imprisoned in a cage of Hazel’s legs.

“Do not provoke me!”

Hazel seethes, his jaws enlarging and snapping. “Or you will feel the full wrath of my Darkness.”

“Stop!”

Vang Troi bellows, slamming her curved runic sword’s tip onto the ledge’s stone.

A great flash of sapphire energy ignites, my empathic sense of her power streaking through my lines, my very bones, the hairs on my scalp raising. All of us freeze, even the battling Dryads seeming stunned into silence by Vang Troi’s powerful display of Noi sorcery.

Hazel withdraws, insect fast, and Oaklyyn lurches to her feet, tears streaking her cheeks as she levels a devastated glare at him, her mouth trembling and her elemental aura shot through with violent rage and grief.

“I will hear you out,”

Vang Troi levels at us all.

Her words are like a runic explosive, impassioned protest immediately rising amongst her surviving Vu Trin forces and Amaz and Lasair allies.

“This is what my husband’s sacrifice has wrought?”

Soleiya rages at Vang Troi, angry tears glinting in her fiery eyes. “Hearing out the granddaughter of the Black Witch who murdered him?”

“Not just her,”

Vang Troi returns, a serious look in her eyes. She turns back to the Dryads, import flashing through her gaze. “The Tree Fae, as well.”

Sylvan wrenches himself from Yvan’s and Wrenfir’s grips and rises, devastation writ hard on his face as he looks toward the destroyed Shadow lands beyond the dome-shield. “It’s too late,”

he rasps, tears streaking down his greening face. “It’s over.”

Oaklyyn remains slumped on the ground, violently sobbing.

Sylvan levels his tortured gaze on Vang Troi. “Our people are dead. Our kindreds are dead. And your infighting will soon destroy what’s left of the Natural World. It’s over.”

“Your people are alive,”

Thierren raggedly states.

Sylvan’s head jerks toward him.

“The Forest showed me a vision of them,”

Thierren explains. “The Verdyllion . . . it was able to blast open a small path for your people into the Sublands below the Northern Forest.”

Confusion gutters through Gwynn and Mavrik’s twinned power. “I sense no break in our Subland shielding,”

Mavrik says.

“If this is so,”

Gwynn postulates, “it must have happened when Mavrik and I were semiconscious.”

“Our people will die without a Forest connection,”

Oaklyyn lashes out, choking on her tears. Her misery-tight gaze swings to Hazel, blistering hate overtaking it. “Like you should have let us die!”

“We need to find them,”

Yulan cuts in, the petite Dryad’s melodic voice frayed, her breathing labored, her lichen-lashed eyes stricken. “We need to find them and tether them to the surviving Forest.”

“There can be no true tether!”

Oaklyyn snarls at Yulan. “Your kindred is dead! As is mine!”

She breaks into more furious tears, glaring at all of us with a fury so potent, it slices straight through my heart as she glares damningly at us all. “Our wild ones burned in the fire of your discord!”

“You are not the only one grieving,”

Yulan chokes out. “The Shadowed ones blasted my beautiful kindred apart. I will never recover, but, perhaps, some of our people might.”

A sting ripples across the III-imprint on my palm as the Forest pulses out what feels like a wordless plea. My heart in my throat, I turn toward the tree line, along with Yvan and all my other III-marked Dryad’khin, as an injured creature emerges from it.

I draw in a tight breath as the Tricolored Heron limps toward us, its normally blue, lavender, and white feathers stripped of color and covered in Shadow ash. The grayed heron drags a limp, broken wing, picking its way toward Yulan before stilling before her.

Yulan lets out a strangled sob as she brings her trembling hand to the bird’s slender back, and I have to fight off my own tears, the whole world seeming shattered beyond repair.

But then, the unexpected happens.

Ariel breaks away from our horde’s defensive line and strides toward Yulan, eyes set on the crumpled Dryad and the heron before her. Gentler than I ever imagined she could be, Ariel comes down on one knee beside them, her wings fanning out in a protective arc, Yulan and the heron recoiling slightly.

“Don’t be afraid,”

Ariel croons. “I can heal wings.”

Yulan raises her trauma-stricken eyes to Ariel’s and looks at her deeply. Seeming to gather herself, she nods and gently prods the heron forward.

The bird lets out a frightened squawk as Ariel leans in and sets her hand on the heron’s singed feathers with exquisite gentleness. The bird goes stock-still, its grayed eyes now riveted to Ariel’s, as if mentally conveying horrors endured. Ariel’s expression tenses with a look of outraged understanding before she makes a low shushing sound, and the slender bird takes a stumbling step toward her. Murmuring to the winged, Ariel gently strokes the bird’s back, then traces her fingers along its wing, crooning softly the whole time as she carefully assesses it.

And then, as if Ariel’s gesture was the spark needed to shift the hopeless tide, a deep-purple vine ripples out from the Forest toward Yulan and flows around her, delicate lavender flowers blooming to life all over it and forming blossoming tresses on Yulan’s flower-stripped head to replace the gray, withered vines. I can sense the Dyoi Forest’s fragility in the gesture. Its need for Dryad’khin protection.

Its need for us all.

Yvan’s invisible aura of fire is suddenly blazing toward his mother. “Mav’ya,”

he says, “please, hear us out.”

Soleiya simply glares at him, her power rife with outrage and hurt. She turns and walks away from us, along with Iris and almost all the Vu Trin and Amaz, save for Vang Troi, Freyja Zyrr, and the young, muscular Vu Trin runic sorceress with a dragon design shorn into her close-cropped hair.

Vang Troi lets out a Noi curse under her breath and narrows her eyes at all of us before looking straight at me and Yvan. “Well, you have my attention. So . . . explain.”

Night falls before we finish our story. Vang Troi, Freyja, and the young Vu Trin sorceress have been permitted onto our walled-off side of the ledge, grouped now with my allies and me around a central crackling bonfire. The multicolored runes marking our Dyoi Forest’s shielding shimmer against the star-flecked sky, Vogel’s Shadow net a faint, ominous presence against the shield’s runes. There’s another distant bonfire glowing in the center of the ledge’s northern edge, Vang Troi’s forces grouped around it, all of them encased in a small, emerald-glowing dome-shield.

I lean back against the arm and wing Yvan has wrapped around me. I’m trembling, my grief for Lukas a dredged-up ache after conveying everything that happened, from Yvan’s mock death at Mavrik’s glamoured hands to Lukas’s Realm-saving sacrifice. All the way to my abduction by the Dryads and merging into III.

“We align with the Forest, or we die,”

I roughly state to Vang Troi. Yvan’s fire encircles me in a steady caress as I briefly meet Sylvan’s grief-stricken gaze.

“Those are our choices,”

Yvan agrees. “Our only choices.”

“They speak the truth,”

Yulan affirms, Ariel and Alder beside her, the injured heron hugging Yulan’s side, its wing deftly branch-splinted by Ariel, the branches secured by Alder’s conjured vines. Yulan sets her compassionate gaze on me. “Tell them what III revealed to you, Dryad’kin,”

she gently encourages, her words of acceptance stunning me, my heart clenching tight around them. I can sense my giant raven flock converging around me, as well as Raz’zor’s bolstering line of invisible red flame.

I glance at Raz’zor, his eyes like two vermillion stars.

Speak, Dryad Witch, he prods in turn.

I look back to Vang Troi, Freyja, and the young Vu Trin soldier with the dragon shaved into her cropped hair who is named Hee Muur, or Heelyn, as some informally call her.

“III showed me that we need the impossible,”

I say, grief for the Great Tree tightening my throat. “We need a massive paradigm shift if we’re going to win this war against the Shadow and have any type of future at all. We all need to heal our divisions and bind to the Forest.”

I gesture toward the East, toward Noilaan. “If, by some miracle, we can come together as Dryad’khin, we need to quickly draw on our combined power and the power of the trees to extend our Dyoi Forest shielding over the entire Eastern Realm. And then, we need to travel southeast with great haste to Voloi to gain the Noi Conclave’s aid in bringing everyone in this Realm to the Forest.”

Hee Muur narrows her dark gaze at me, incredulity twisting her features. “You truly want to bind everyone in the East to an increasingly fragile Forest?”

“Yes,”

I return. “Because if the Forest falls, we all fall.”

I look to Sylvan for guidance. He’s gone very still, his pine green eyes fixed on me.

“Go on, Dryad,”

he quietly prods, sending a thin line of elemental energy out to my rootlines in a palpable show of support.

A swell of emotion tightens my throat in response to his display of alliance despite his terrible grief. An alliance I desperately want to prove myself worthy of.

“Vogel’s Shadow Wand is growing in power,”

I say to Vang Troi, “but I think we can grow our power too.”

I briefly meet Yvan’s gaze. “When Yvan joined with the Zhilaan Forest, I felt an increase in his power, and gained the ability to draw a line of that Forest’s power through my lines. There might be some way for us all to intensify and connect our power in this way.”

Yulan nods. “That’s how Forest power works,”

she says. “Through connectivity. Link the trees’ roots, and their power amplifies. Cut them off from each other, and their power diminishes.”

“As Dryad’khin, I think we’re the same as the trees,”

I say, looking pointedly toward Vang Troi’s surviving forces gathered around the distant bonfire. “If we cut ourselves off from each other, our power diminishes.”

I turn back to Vang Troi. “And the Shadow wins.”

“This is unwise,”

Freyja protests as she motions toward the leagues of Shadowed land. “We can’t bind ourselves to something whose magic we don’t understand that can be struck down in one day.”

“I’ll do it,”

Trystan suddenly announces, rising. Love for my brother wells up as I meet his staunch gaze. “I’ll join with your Forest, Elloren,”

he quietly continues. “I feel like it’s calling to me . . . its elemental power is tugging on my lines.”

I nod shakily, going on instinct now, the safe, sure world gone. But the Living World . . . it’s spread out before us.

Calling to us all.

Vothe is suddenly rising too. “I’m going with you,”

he tells Trystan, taking his hand, their invisible lightning auras crackling to life around each other. Vothe casts a glance at the tree line. “I feel a draw as well . . . like the draw I felt to keep coming back to the Zonor.”

He meets Trystan’s eyes, a smile tugging at his onyx lips. “And like the draw I feel to you, my Xishlon’vir.”

Trystan’s magic surges toward Vothe, and the shifter’s power meets it, full-on, in a storming caress. Hand in hand, they step toward the tree line, Sylvan and Yulan along with Alder, Rafe, Yvan, and I following.

Halting in front of the trees, Trystan and Vothe give each other one last, ardent look and place their palms on the same huge Dyoi Oak.

They disappear into the tree as one in a crackle of blue and white lightning and my chest is seized by emotion. I reach out to trace the hand-shaped marks filled with their powers’ residual threads of lightning, concerned to be so suddenly parted from my younger brother, even though I’ve taken this journey myself.

Yvan’s hand comes to my shoulder, his touch a warm caress. “They’re going on faith,”

he assures me.

“We all are,”

Rafe agrees.

“I’ll speak to your trees,”

Vang Troi suddenly announces as she stands.

“As will I,”

Bleddyn volunteers.

“I’ll accompany you,”

Ra’Ven says to Bleddyn before turning to Sage. “I trust you, tia’lin. This message of alliance rings true.”

“I’ll join in the tree festivities, as well,”

Rivyr’el Talonir, the rainbow-decorated Elf, chimes in, tossing us all a dazzling grin as he gives Gwynn and Mavrik a look full of mischief. “I think a streak of color would look spectacular in my hair. You lot can keep your lofty reasons.”

And with that, Rivyr’el strides to the trunk of a huge oak and places his ivory, rainbow-nail-polished hand alongside Vang Troi’s, Bleddyn’s, and Ra’Ven’s.

Before I can blink, they’re all whisked into the trees, a spray of silver flashing against the trunk in Rivyr’el’s wake.

Our bonfire gutters dark, and a weighty stillness descends. We all turn toward Hazel, his eyes once again morphed to full black.

“You best bring the entire East to the Forest quickly,”

Hazel urges, the ominous look on his face raising the hairs on my neck. “If Vogel destroys the slim amount of Natural Balance that’s left,”

he warns, “Nature will slide into a Reckoning as merciless as the Shadow to try and regain it.”

A pained look tightens his features. “It will bring the full might of Death to wide swaths of the Natural World. And the power of every single Deathkin will be pulled into it.”