Chapter Five

Tree’khin

Elloren

Northern Dyoi Mountain Range

I emerge from a few hours of sleep, hazily aware of falling from dreams saturated in swirling color, my senses muzzily awakening. There’s a crisp chill to the air that’s new, but I’m not cold, my Wyvernbond a constant source of warmth . . . as is Yvan. We fell asleep near each other in an isolated section of the woods, the two of us maintaining a discreet distance. But at some point in the night, we must have reached for each other, because Yvan’s lean, muscular form is wrapped around mine, his body like a furnace, his heartbeat strong and steady.

A spark of love and desire for him kindles along my every line, more fully rousing me, and my eyes flutter open, dawn’s rays of sunlight sparkling against my vision as I take in the Forest canopy above.

A rush of euphoria sweeps through me, a tingle racing through the III mark on my palm, my magic surging. There must have been a hard frost last night. Ice glitters at the edges of everything. And the cold . . . it’s flung the door wide open to the Forest’s miracle of autumn foliage.

I gape at the dazzling show. The foliage of the East is like nothing I’ve experienced before. Every hue of the rainbow has exploded into being along the edges of the purple leaves in a kaleidoscope of color.

“Yvan . . .”

The whisper bursts from my lips, from the center of my very heart as the color connects with my lightlines, every emotion and line of magic amplified by it. I arch more intently against Yvan, everything I feel for him surfacing in a blood-warming rush.

“Elloren,”

Yvan murmurs, firming his hold on me as he awakens.

His eyes open and meet mine, the whole world stilling on its axis for one power-surging moment. Violet fire ignites in Yvan’s gaze and through our bond, a shot of love searing through our linkage that’s so intense it obliterates all reserve.

We pull each other into a kiss that instantly deepens, our mutual hunger rising like wildfire, roaring through us. Yvan’s fingertips are live flames, his mouth urgent against mine, his seductive heat licking through my lines in a way that makes me want to strip off everything that separates us and merge with him fully.

And the Forest . . . it seems caught up with us, both the surrounding Dyoi and distant Zhilaan feeding heat into our bond, rooting us to each other.

“I love you, Elloren,”

Yvan says as his hands trace heat over my body. “I love you, and I want you . . .”

He sweeps me into another feverish kiss, our hands roving over each other with desperate abandon, my pulse racing hot against his. Drunk with light magic and his fire, molten lust kindles in my every nerve. I slide my hands down his hips and wrap one leg around him, urging him closer.

Yvan lets out a small groan, and the low timbre of it triggers a memory that sends conflict surging through my desire.

Lukas. On our Sealing night, and then, again, in the Forest and Agolith Desert.

Yvan pulls back a fraction, his breathing uneven as he gives me a probing look, a hectic red coloring his cheeks as my throat constricts and I’m suddenly swallowing an upswell of tears. I can’t think about Lukas. I can’t. Because this grief . . . I’m no match for its undertow.

“Yvan,”

I rasp out. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right, Elloren,”

he says, reaching up to caress the side of my face, his voice firm. “I can read you. I understand. And I know what you feel for me.”

I nod once, tears escaping my eyes and trickling down my face. Yvan leans in to press his warm lips to my brow, and the cadence of my breath smooths out as his invisible fire embraces me.

He moves to pull me into a reassuring hug but abruptly stiffens and sits up, looking past me into the Forest. My pulse kicks up, and I give him a questioning look, sitting up, as well. He holds up a cautioning finger, an expression of concentration tightening his eyes, his nostrils flaring. “Bleddyn’s coming,” he says.

Anticipation lights. Bleddyn, as well as a number of our allies, were absorbed into the Forest last night. We’ve taken turns standing sentry to wait for their reemergence so we could all catch a few hours of vital sleep.

A rustling of brush sounds as Bleddyn emerges from the Forest’s breathtaking mosaic of color, my Errilor Ravens flying down from the Forest canopy to alight around us. My eyes widen, astonishment crackling through Yvan’s and my bonded fire as we take Bleddyn in.

Her tall, vividly green form is surrounded by a penumbra of verdant light. Her breath misting in the crisp air, she’s gripping a striated piece of malachite in her fist that’s the same emerald hue as her skin and hair.

“You joined with the Forest,”

I marvel, sensing a similar line of kindred connection to the stone that connects me to my ravens.

“I just emerged,”

Bleddyn informs us, a revelatory look in her wide eyes. “I had to find you both. The Forest . . . it gave me back my geomancy power.”

Shock races through our fire.

Bleddyn lifts the malachite, tears sheening her eyes. “You were right, Elloren. This fight, it’s bigger and different than we all thought.”

She peers in the direction of the broad mountain ledge. “Vang Troi has emerged from the Forest, as well.”

My pulse kicks up. Yvan and I exchange a stark look before we rise and follow Bleddyn back to the ledge, along with Errlith and the rest of my flock, my power burgeoning with every step, shot through with fall’s power-amplifying explosion of color.

In the morning light, I take in the Shadow wasteland beyond our Dyoi Forest shielding, my grip tightening around Yvan’s. The sight is a fresh punch to the gut. To our east lies a fragile Forest caught up in early autumn’s glorious, chromatic show of light power. To our west lies a color-stripped, poisoned wasteland, stretching as far as the eye can see.

My lightlines contract just from looking at the Shadowed land, and I recoil from the sensation and exchange a quick look with Errilith beside me, my raven’s loops of power tugging my sight back toward the color-rich Forest. I follow the pull of my kindred’s magic, turn toward the trees, the tension in my lines slackening as they’re flooded with another shimmering surge of chromatic power.

“I see,”

I whisper to Errlith with a quick caress of his wing, Errilith’s returning embrace of Deathkin stillness bolstering me.

A large bonfire still crackles in the huge ledge’s center, spitting sparks and cutting through the morning air’s chill, most of my allies grouped around it, Freyja Zyrr and the soldier Hee Muur still on our side of the shield-divided ledge. Yvan and I stride hand in hand toward our allies, Bleddyn, Errilith, and the rest of my ravens fanning out around us.

Most of our adversaries are gathered just beyond the translucent shield-wall separating the ledge in half, the rush of Soleiya’s aura like a flaming dagger thrown straight at me.

Dryad Witch, Raz’zor growls into my mind, alliance blazing in his crimson-fire eyes. Naga nods to Yvan and me in greeting and we’re swept up in an embracing whoosh of our horde’s fiery support that I return with a blast of power that has Naga, Ariel, Raz’zor, and the others looking at me with widened eyes before giving me fanged smiles.

Those who also hold Dryad lineage seem as caught up in autumn’s surge of light power as I am. Mavrik’s and Gwynn’s golden eyes are ringed a more intense band of glowing color, their twinned magic’s looping golden aura shot through with streaks of rainbowed light, a thread of connection to that power tingling through my lines via our common Forest linkage. Even Gwynn and Mavrik’s kindred Flame Hawks seeming invigorated, their orange feathers aglow with a prismatic sheen.

Sylvan and Yulan appear renewed as well, their forest green coloration fully restored and shot through with a heightened, branching Dyoi purple, the elemental power running through their rootlines blazing with foliage light. Sylvan’s branch horns have shed their gray—they’re now a rich brown, his pine hair thick with deep-purple needles. I glance around, wondering who his hidden kindred might be, but find no clue.

Yulan’s grayed Noi heron hugs her side, some of the graceful bird’s feathers having regained their blue, white and lavender coloration. Ariel and Alder are stationed protectively beside them, Yulan’s long vine tresses holding a heartening explosion of delicate multihued flowers.

Hazel and Oaklyyn are conspicuously absent, as are Trystan, Vothe, Ra’Ven, and Rivyr’el, but Vang Troi stands near the ledge’s shielding on our side of it, her violet eyes fixed on Yvan and me.

Worry tightens my throat as I take in Vang Troi’s stiff stance and her lack of any obvious show of Dryad’khin transformation or kindred creature.

“Did the Forest show itself to you?”

I ask, my concern mounting.

“It did,”

she confirms, determination hardening her sharp features and flashing through her sapphire power. “I held back my assent when it asked for an alliance.”

My heartbeat quickens at this news, my fire spiking against Yvan’s equally unsettled flame.

Vang Troi unfurls her unmarked palm. “After the Forest revealed the wider fight for the Natural World to me, I wanted to forge an alliance with it. But both the Forest and I are holding back for the moment so that I could stand before my forces as proof that what the Forest offers is a true invitation to alliance—freely given and freely accepted or rejected with no compulsion. But what the Forest has shown me—”

she gives us a dire look “—it’s compelling to the extreme.”

She turns to our adversaries just beyond the translucent shield-wall, a penumbra of blue power shivering to life around her as she describes visions stressing Dryad’khin unity against the Shadow that the Forest sent to her. “I urge all of you to enter into the Forest as I have done,”

Vang Troi charges. “To simply listen to what it has to say. And decide, for yourselves, if you will align with it as Forest’khin, as I have decided to.”

My heart gives a leap as a troubled murmur goes up amongst our adversaries, Iris, Soleiya, and Alcippe all wearing expressions of outrage. Soleiya’s invisible fire aura whips ragefully against me, and Yvan and I both stiffen, but then, the unexpected happens.

“I’ll hear the Forest out,”

the young Vu Trin soldier Hee Muur announces to Vang Troi, her severe expression turning flintier still as she slashes out an emphatic hand toward the tree line. “But that’s it.”

As if galvanized by Hee Muur’s shocking declaration, Bleddyn strides away from Yvan and me and straight up to the ledge-dividing shield-wall, her geomancy aura of emerald light gaining intensity. Iris’s invisible flame aura burgeons into an out-of-control firestorm as Bleddyn halts a few paces before her, only the shield separating them, Iris’s perennially hostile expression turning flat-out belligerent.

Unmoved by Iris’s show of ire, Bleddyn holds her III-marked palm up. “Iris Morgaine,”

she states with impassioned formality, her aura crackling with emotion. “I implore you, as my friend. Just hear the Forest out.”

Iris doesn’t budge, fire spitting through the eyes she has furiously pinned on Bleddyn, her power blazing with enough conflict to level a mountain to charred ash. I know the two of them have a fractured friendship. Divided by cultural lines, like so much of the East.

But something in Iris softens, the angry sear of her fire dampening as she holds Bleddyn’s unflinching, forthright stare. And remarkably, Iris’s closed-off stance slackens, her defensive look collapsing into one of pained emotion.

“All right, Bleddyn,”

she snaps, her voice tight and raw, her fire now a discordant flare. “I’ll hear your Forest out, as well. But I won’t join with it.”

A gasp shudders through my throat, Yvan’s hand tightening around mine as our bond flares with surprise over Iris ceding even one trace of ground.

Alder crafts an opening in our shield for Iris to step through so that Bleddyn, Iris, Vang Troi, and Hee Muur can approach the tree line together, Sylvan and Yulan joining them.

I’ve a sense of our collective breath, trapped, as Vang Troi, Hee Muur, and Iris all place their palms to the bark of the same Noi Oak . . .

. . . and are abruptly pulled into the tree.

A tense murmur ripples through everyone assembled, just as the Alfsigr Elf Rivyr’el Talonir emerges from a Noi Oak a few paces away in a flash of prismatic color.

A ripple of emotion tingles through me.

Rivyr’el is kneeling on the ground by the trunk’s base, a gorgeous, flashing penumbra of color surrounding him. His formerly spiky Alfsigr-white hair is more intensely rainbow-streaked, jeweled dragonflies of every hue zipping around him.

A tear slides down his cheek as Rivyr’el raises his newly multicolored eyes and grins. “It’s all so beautiful,”

he murmurs, before he rises, dragonflies alighting on his shoulders and hair as he turns to Sylvan. “I want to help you save it. Teach us what we need to do.”

“Dryad power is seasonal,”

Sylvan says to everyone gathered around the smoldering bonfire, the strengthening sunlight rapidly overtaking the early morning chill. “Both Forest and Dryad power will peak before long, when the Forest’s foliage peaks.”

Yvan’s mother and a few of our other adversaries linger close to our barrier wall, listening, Soleiya’s hostility seeming unmoved.

Iris sits quietly between Sylvan and Bleddyn, more subdued than I’ve ever seen her. She has been, ever since she stumbled out of the Noi Oak and was caught in Sylvan’s strong grip before she could fall, headfirst, to the ground. Seeming dazed and overwhelmed, Iris met Sylvan’s green eyes with a shock that I sensed coursing through both their auras before Iris shakily held up her III-marked palm.

Sylvan took firm hold of her hand, III mark to III mark, Iris’s fire aura blazing toward his foliage-strengthened magic to whip around and through it.

I watched, surprised, as Sylvan calmly met Iris’s grasping heat with a returning blaze of his elemental fire power, the sun’s Forest-nourishing heat burning bright at the heart of it.

Common ground.

It was at that moment that a night-black Noi Fire Falcon flew out of the Forest and landed on Iris’s shoulder. Iris promptly burst into tears and reached up to caress the bird, its eyes the same flaming gold hue as her own. A bird, Yulan later explained, that uses the flaming branches drawn from naturally occurring and Forest-replenishing wildfires to flush its prey out of hiding.

A bird as fierce and fiery as Iris Morgaine.

My focus sliding back to the present, I take in Iris’s invisible aura of fire power circling both the hawk and Sylvan, and I wonder, not for the first time, what Sylvan’s kindred might be. I can sense that he has one—a thread of his power flows into the Dyoi Forest in the same way a thread of mine flows out to Errilith beside me. But Sylvan’s mysterious kindred remains hidden, a quiet, strong presence deep in the Forest’s shade.

“Dryad power is communally amplified magic,”

Sylvan says, giving us all a pointed look, “which could give us a powerful advantage against the Magedom if we all join with the Forest and share our magic as Dryad’khin during peak foliage.”

My allies and I listen closely, Ra’Ven now III-marked and reunited with Sage, his fingers interlaced with hers as violet Noi Monarch Butterflies flit around Sage’s form. A purple-patterned Noi Subland Gecko kindred clings to Ra’Ven’s shoulder, Hee Muur beside them with a sheep-size violet Dyoi Dragon Lizard kindred pressed to her side. Most of my allies show signs of having merged with the Forest—a lavender tailorbird perched on Fain’s forearm, a silver dove on Sholin’s, a dark-furred, purple-spotted Noi Lynx standing sentry beside Kam Vin and a large black bobcat prowling around my feline-loving uncle Wrenfir.

I catch Rafe’s gaze, Aislinn and Jarod beside him. Diana flashes me a toothy grin, their kindred pack of wild wolves silently stationed near the tree line, the Lupines already connected to the Forest via their Change.

And Vang Troi—she went back into the trees and reemerged astride a wild, midnight-black mustang, her sapphire aura shining bright as she rode out to greet us, her horse kindred now grazing near the trees. I can’t help but glance at silent Ni Vin, who sits beside Vang Troi on our side of the shield, a III mark now on her palm, her new violet-hued mare kindred nearby beside Andras’s purple-speckled black stallion kindred. I remember, with great remorse, how I accidentally killed Ni Vin’s beloved black mare with my terrible Black Witch fire so many months ago. I’m deeply gratified by the Forest’s gift to her of this horse kindred, my determination rising to use my power to support Life instead of destroying it.

“Everything we are is about natural rhythms and connections,”

Yulan softly interjects before launching into a deeper explanation of the seasonal and moon cycles and their effect on the elemental power of Tree’kin.

I glance toward where Yulan sits with Ariel, Alder, and Andras. The four of them have been ministering to the Shadow-burned and orphaned animals who fled here from the West along with the rest of us, the terrified, dazed-looking beasts staggering out of the tree line in spurts, their fur and feathers and bodies grayed and mutilated.

My heart constricts with grief, even Yvan’s constant caress of fire unable to staunch the sorrow. The loss of habitat cuts horrifyingly deep. But despite all the trauma and Soleiya’s intractable aura of hostility, I find a spark of hope in how a generous portion of Sylvan’s power is intentionally flowing toward Iris, offering her a sustained mooring as the Forest’s magic embraces her.

I glance at Yvan and catch him studying Iris and Sylvan closely, the shimmer of surprise in his fire echoing my own as Iris and Sylvan meet each other’s eyes, fire sparking hard through both their auras before they glance away.

Iris stills, a tortured look overtaking her expression. “I wanted Lasair dominance,”

she blurts out as she abruptly rises to her feet, a slight quaver in her forceful tone. Everyone grows quiet, looking to her. “I wanted a restoration of Lasair rule over the East,”

she grits out, her eyes sparking with gold fire, a flash of her former condemnation flaring in them. “Which I saw as our right. This land was ours.”

Everyone is silent for a moment.

“It was,”

Sylvan agrees, a tremor of unsettled force brewing in his power. Iris turns to him, and their gazes connect, triggering a sharp flare of their elemental attraction. “But the Dryad’kin were here before the Lasair,”

Sylvan notes.

Iris’s gaze locks tighter with his, their auras whipping around each other in a hotter flare. “I know,”

she finally admits, voice tight. “The Forest . . . it showed me the history of both our peoples. It showed me how my people drove the Dryad’kin from the East with great cruelty. And generations later, what the Kelts did to my people in turn.”

She pauses, a haunted look overtaking her fiery gaze, her voice rougher when it comes. “So many Lasair massacred with iron . . . almost wiped out . . . my people nomads after that. But we did a similar thing to the Dryads . . .”

She reaches up and rakes her fingers through her crimson hair, her face tensing with a look of fierce remorse. “Sylvan . . .”

“And now you’d wipe us out further,”

Soleiya snipes at Iris from beyond the shield-wall, Yvan’s fire aura instantly sparking with frustration.

Iris’s expression turns distraught as she turns to Soleiya. “Lasair’kin,”

she implores her in Asrai, “you have been like a second mother to me all my life. Lasair’lhir’in, please, just listen to what the Forest has to say.”

Soleiya’s eyes catch fire. “Where was this Forest power when we were being slaughtered by the last Black Witch, Iris’iyl’ir?”

she demands. “Or have you forgotten your true Asrai name?”

Iris winces as if struck, and I stiffen against Soleiya’s heated vitriol, an invisible lash of Yvan’s angered fire flashing out toward his mother.

“Enough,”

Yvan levels at her in Lasair, rising to his feet.

“No, Yvan,”

Soleiya bitingly returns in Lasair, pointing a finger at me as anguish streaks through her power. “This witch has poisoned your mind. These ‘alliances’ are getting us nowhere but closer to the complete annihilation of the Fae’kin—”

“There can be no Fae’kin without the Natural World!”

Iris shrilly levels back at Soleiya. “All this division, it simply keeps us too powerless to fight back against the Shadow!”

“No, Iris,”

Soleiya fires back. “And I will call you that Mage-bastardized version of your name because, apparently, that’s what you are now.”

Soleiya slices another glare at all of us, but most especially at Vang Troi. “You will be the ruination of my people,”

she snarls. “So, go ahead. Finish the work the Mages started.”

Vang Troi’s expression remains stoic, her gaze fixed on her clasped hands as Soleiya storms off in a tempest of fire power along with most of our adversaries, save for Freyja Zyrr on our side of the shielding, Alcippe Feyir and another member of Freyja’s Queen’s Guard remaining protectively beyond it, a look of conflict on the Amaz monarch’s face.

Yvan’s eyes are two points of conflagration as he watches his mother storm off, his aura’s churning tension hot in the air, so hot I fear one spark will ignite an explosion.

Iris turns to Yvan. “Yvan’myir,”

she implores in Lasair, “I’m sorry for the rift I caused between us.”

Yvan pulls in a deep breath and shakes his head, a compassionate warmth coursing out to her. “Iris’iyl’ir,”

he says, heartfelt, “there’s no need. All is forgiven.”

Iris swallows, tears glistening in her eyes as her gaze slides to me, without rancor for the first time. “Elloren’mysshir,”

she says in Dryadin, her voice fracturing. “I’m sorry . . . for so many things.”

Emotion tightens my throat as the Dyoi Forest’s embracing energy flows toward us both, and I painfully recall how I behaved toward Iris and others in the Verpax University kitchen.

“I’m sorry too, Iris’mysshir,”

I tell her in Dryadin. “For so many things.”

“Then let this discord between us end now,”

she offers, her fire simmering toward me in a passionate stream as she strides to me and holds out her hand, a slight tremble to the gesture. My heart thudding, I rise, a huff of emotion escaping us both as I take her hand then draw her into an embrace, fire to fire, Forest’kin to Forest’khin.

“The Forest needs such a fierce ally,”

I tell her, tears glassing my eyes.

She nods as we draw away from each other, her cheeks slick with tears. She squeezes my shoulder warmly before returning to Sylvan to take a seat, once more, by his side. “Well, Dryad’kin,”

she says, turning to him, “it looks like I’m hells-bent on being the worst possible Lasair I can be. So be it. I’ve pledged my full power to your Forest.”

She holds up her III-marked palm.

“Our Forest,”

Sylvan gently corrects her as his power encircles her, the Dyoi Forest’s embracing energy pulsing out more strongly toward us all.

“Traitor,”

a female voice snarls from the tree line.

We turn to find Oaklyyn suddenly there, inside the great ledge’s forested rear. She looks haggard, her skin still grayed under the Dyoi Forest’s purple branching pattern. I can sense that the Forest’s attempt to feed elemental power into her lines isn’t enough, and there’s no kindred in sight. Her elemental energy feels perilously unmoored.

One of the animals Yulan is tending to—a young fisher cat with singed, grayed fur—takes a faltering step toward Oaklyyn and sends out affectionate kindred energy to her, but she refuses to even glance at the injured animal.

“My Dryad sister,”

Yulan says as she rises to her feet, compassion tightening her lovely face as she takes in Oaklyyn’s battered state, “let one of these unbonded ones accept you as kindred—”

“My kindred is dead!”

Oaklyyn snarls as she levels an incendiary glare at Yulan. Her grayed gaze swings to Sylvan, and she jabs a shaking finger at me. “We should have killed that witch the second we took her prisoner! We should have killed every non-Dryad in existence!”

She glances toward the leagues of destroyed land, her eyes wild with grief. “That Shadow was brought down on our Forest by the Black Witch’s people, and now you’ve become an ally to them! I renounce you all! I hate you all!”

With that, Oaklyyn disappears back into the Forest, her severely depleted aura soon untraceable on the air.

A heavy silence descends in her wake. It’s as if a cyclone has departed, devastated looks on Sylvan’s and Yulan’s faces, Raz’zor’s fire giving a troubled flare in the direction Oaklyyn stormed away to.

“We need her,”

Sylvan comments grimly, meeting Yulan’s anguished stare.

“I know we do, Dryad’kin,”

Yulan agrees.

Sylvan glances up at our dome shielding, Vogel’s barely visible trace of Shadow webbing coursing over it. “I’m a power empath,”

he tells us. “I can gauge the power in our shielding. It may be enough to hold off the Magedom for now, but it’s not enough to break through that Shadow net and draw our shielding over the entirety of the East. We need the power of everyone under this shield to do that.”

He glances toward our adversaries, grouped together in the distance. “Or we’ll remain trapped here until winter descends, our magic goes dormant, and the Magedom strikes down our dome-shield and levels all the remaining Forests. Which will unleash the complete destruction of the Natural World.”

“We cannot afford to lose even one more half league of Forest,”

Yulan agrees, grave warning in her moss green eyes. She reaches up to caress the grayed sparrow with a splinted wing perched on her shoulder. “Nature’s Balance is held by a weakening thread.”

“I’ll try to convince my allies to simply listen,”

Iris quietly offers, glancing toward Vang Troi’s forces before turning to Yvan with an expression of grim concern. “It’s going to be difficult with the widow of ‘the Great Icaral Who Saved the East’ so set against Elloren.”

“I’m quite clear on that point,”

Yvan responds, voice clipped, an angsty motion to his fire that has me reaching for his hand, a fervent look passing between us as he grips hold of me.

“We need the Verdyllion,”

Yulan chimes in, looking at Gwynnifer and Mavrik. “Great Balancing energy is said to lie within III’s Verdyllion branch. Perhaps enough to make up for what we lack in power. Gwynn and Mavrik possess a trackable link to it that we can follow.”

Naga’s form abruptly contracts, and my eyes widen as first Naga and then almost our entire horde, including Raz’zor, morph to human form.

Yvan and I gape at Naga, now a tall, black-scale-armored woman, her green eyes overtaken by golden fire. The ear that Damion Bane tore from her head is a slash of a wound, and her skin is the same onyx hue as her scales, her short, tightly curled black hair tipped in gold. Horns rise from her head, dark claws grace her fingers, and the Mage Council M cruelly branded on her side stands out in relief. She shoots me a bemused look as I gulp, my shock ratcheting up to roaring heights as my gaze swings to Raz’zor . . . who is now a striking, snow-hued young man with eyes of vermillion flame. Alabaster horns rise from his tousled, chalk-white hair, his body covered in white-scale armor. His head tilts with inhuman, serpentine rapidity as he considers me.

Well, you’re full of surprises, I send out to him via our mind-link.

Raz’zor flashes me a toothy smile.

“Get my horde to the Sublands,”

Naga hisses, her stance full of coiled power, “and we will liberate both the Verdyllion and the Unbroken Alfsigr Icaral who wields it, along with her Subland forces and the surviving Dryads.”

Ariel’s fiery aura crackles with urgency at the mention of Wynter, the flame in her eyes burning hotter as she looks at Mavrik and Gwynn, our path to the Verdyllion.

“You forget,”

Mavrik cautions us all, “we don’t just lack the power to break out of Vogel’s dome-net. He’s cast a barrier over our Subland shielding, as well.”

“Shielding Vogel will soon break through,”

Alder cautions. “If we can’t best him before winter descends.”

“Which will place another Wand of Power in his hands,”

Vang Troi notes.

“Power Vogel could use to speed his control over every Mage’s fastlines and every Alfsigr Elf’s Zalyn’or bindings,”

Mavrik adds. “And keep in mind, he already possesses the ability to glamour and portal.”

The whole world shivers into darkness, and we collectively startle as Hazel, in human form, bursts from the woods at a rapid clip, his compact form like a dark star hurtling toward us, the legs of three dead ravens clenched in his fist, the lifeless birds hanging upside down. I inwardly recoil. Swarms of eyes cover the raven’s heads, Shadow runes emblazoned on their sides.

Sylvan, Vang Troi, and my uncle Wrenfir bolt to their feet.

“It seems as if Vogel has been with us all the time,”

Hazel snarls. “I caught four of these abominations.”

“You’re only holding three,”

Vang Troi points out. “Where is the fourth?”

Hazel narrows his pitch-black eyes at her. “I ate it.”

Shock ripples through me as Hazel bares his teeth and I take in the disturbing gray glow sparking to life around his irises. “I’m linking to the energy in Vogel’s branching Shadow.”

“Take care, Hazel,”

I caution. “Vogel could consume you through that link.”

Hazel shoots me a scornful look, his aura pulsing through the world around us once more. “The blood of the Forest balances the Death in me,”

he hisses. “As long as my link to the Natural Matrix holds, my power is stronger than Shadow.”

“What do you mean, ‘blood of the Forest’?”

Wrenfir presses, his bobcat bristling.

Hazel tilts his head toward my young uncle, the movement disturbingly quick. “Have you not guessed my kindreds? The source of my shifter self?”

I remember Hazel’s huge, eight-legged insectile form, terrifyingly bloodthirsty with slashing teeth. Spiderlike but not completely that, some other, terrible force of Nature within him.

Hazel’s thrall loops around Wrenfir. “You cannot guess it, can you, Mageling?”

he snarls. Challenge knifes through Hazel’s words and power, and oddly, what feels like an attempt to intimidate my uncle as Wrenfir’s bobcat begins to growl.

Wrenfir’s magic gives a defiant flare, his blackened lips ticking up as he motions to his bobcat for calm and shoots Hazel a narrow-eyed grin. “Why don’t you show me, Deathling,”

he challenges in turn.

Hazel bares his teeth, a foggy rush of his Darkness suddenly flashing straight through Wrenfir.

I flinch, but Wrenfir simply holds Hazel’s stare, shooting him a wider, canine-bearing grin.

A twitch of surprise shudders through Hazel’s magic before his expression turns to one of viciousness so feral it sends a chill through my lines. Hazel closes his eyes, arches his head back and opens his mouth. It stretches grotesquely wide, tendrils of Darkness emanating from it. A rushing sound erupts from the Forest, and all of us who remained sitting bolt to our feet as an insectile carpet of black flows toward Hazel and Wrenfir.

They’re ticks, I realize as the stream passes close. So many bloodsucking ticks they could fell us all in a heartbeat. Before we can protest, the ticks flow up Hazel’s and Wrenfir’s bodies, all the way up to my uncle’s raven-tattooed neck, his kindred letting out a distressed snarl.

“Hazel, stop!”

I cry out, but am silenced by my uncle’s halting, tick-covered palm.

Wrenfir, unflinching, hold’s Hazel’s full-dark gaze, ticks streaming all over him.

And then he smiles.

Hazel tenses, confusion overtaking his sharp features.

Wrenfir flinches as if from the sting of sudden bites, his smile vanishing. “Enough,”

he levels at Hazel. “I’m your ally, Primordial.”

Hazel’s power shivers, a pained look slicing through his eyes before he murmurs a bone-shivering sound that seems to shudder through the very stone beneath us.

The carpet of ticks flows back into the Forest as quickly as it came.

“You do not fear me,”

Hazel says to Wrenfir, seeming deeply thrown.

Wrenfir huffs out an incredulous sound. “I embraced Death Fae as my allies from the age of thirteen on,”

he snaps. “I know you have bite. But take care, Primordial. I might bite back. I have magic of my own.”

Their eyes remain locked for a protracted moment, and I look away, feeling like I’m intruding on something that just tilted toward the private.

“I will not draw your blood,”

Hazel promises Wrenfir, his tone holding what feels like formal Death Fae apology in it.

Wrenfir’s gaze slides languidly up and down Hazel’s slender form, his smile turning wicked. “Oh, I might let you, Deathling. But only if you ask me very nicely.”

Hazel gapes at him, then barks out a surprised laugh that has Wrenfir’s smile broadening, the tension between them bizarrely broken as Wrenfir strokes his bobcat’s head.

Hazel abruptly shudders, his body stiffening, the gray glow around his irises intensifying as Wrenfir’s power is cast back into fitful flares.

“I’m getting flashes of Vogel,”

Hazel tells us, and we listen, rapt, as he conveys the rise of a new Black Witch—Fallon Bane—as well as the fall of the continent’s center, an invasion of Ishkartaan underway. “Vogel has more raven spies throughout the East,”

Hazel conveys, “and likely throughout this Forest. Be vigilant. He seeks to unravel any alliance that could form between all of us under this dome.”

“Well, we’re doing a bang-up job of that all on our own,”

Bleddyn grouses, before casting Hazel a wary look. “Let’s just make sure we keep close tabs on you, Deathkin. This link of yours is risky, whether you think it is or not.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him,”

Wrenfir offers, his gaze swinging to Hazel with confrontational force as Hazel’s eyes flick toward him and fix hard, all the light surrounding us briefly shuddering Dark once more as their power jolts toward each other.

“Is there any way of knowing when Trystan and Vothe will emerge from the Forest?”

I ask Sylvan.

“And what of Lucretia?”

Jules Kristian puts in, a haggard desperation roughening his tone. I look at him in concern, Jules having adamantly refused to enter the Forest even though he seems torn over his decision.

Yulan is studying Jules with a look of deep sympathy. “I do not know when or where any of these Forest’khin will emerge,”

she answers.

An invisible, devastated rush of water and wind power has me turning toward Thierren, and I catch him glancing toward the Shadow wasteland. I can easily guess at the turn of his thoughts, the falcon kindred on his shoulder agitatedly ruffling its night-purple wings in a show of understanding. Because Sparrow is out there, somewhere. Perhaps caught up in the wastelands with Lucretia.

Trapped in Vogel’s Shadow.

Yvan turns to me and our eyes meet, fire sizzling through our bond. “I’m going to arrange a meeting with my mother and try and bring her to our side,” he says.

“And I’ll work on swaying my forces to do the same,”

Vang Troi announces.

“I’ll accompany you,”

Freyja Zyrr calls out, Hee Muur echoing her offer.

Ra’Ven holds up his stylus. “I’ll cast Varg power connection runes on our shielding just in case you’re successful,”

he says to Vang Troi. “They’ll speed a linkage of their power to ours if they join with the Forest.”

He turns to Sylvan. “Can you show us how to strengthen our spellwork with Forest power?”

Sylvan nods. “We can.”

Sylvan meets my gaze. “We can make use of your foliage amplified magic to aid us.”

“My power is yours,”

I offer, but find myself hesitant to release Yvan’s hand as the heat of our bond revs up. I exchange a knowing look with him, the sudden reluctance to part sputtering through our flame as offers of aid sound out around us.

Battling our draw, Yvan and I let go of each other just as Jules Kristian gets up and walks decidedly away from us all, making for the tree line.

“Where are you going?”

I call to him, concerned.

Jules swings around, walking backward now, a tortured look on his face. “To scour every inch of this Forest for some sign of Lucretia.”

And then he turns away without slowing and disappears into the prismatic Forest.