Chapter Ten

Lightning Kiss

Tierney Calix

Northern Vo River

Tierney peers up at the Vo’s translucent dome-shield, its purple-limned Dark runes barely visible against the starlit sky. Waist-deep in an isolated stretch of the Vo, she draws in a long, steadying breath as river life affectionately swims and buzzes around her, her storming power steadily channeling into the shield via Viger’s bond.

Their protection of Erthia’s largest River growing more crucial hour by hour.

The day started on a note of triumph. A potent rush of Fyordin’s power flooded their shielding as he placed a second focal-point shield rune on the Southern Vo River to complement Or’myr’s northern focal-point shield rune, the linkage of those runes amplifying the strength of their shielding over almost the entire River save for the southernmost portion, walled off by Gareth Keeler. Relief eddies through Tierney over both this proof of Fyordin’s success and that the ability to extend their shielding west to link to their allies’ shielding of the Dyoi Forest and Zonor River is now a possibility within their reach.

Tierney clings to this victory, desperately needing it.

Because she can also sense, through her River’s link to Erthia’s tapestry of Waters, that there’s been a monumental depletion of Nature’s Balance, huge swaths of the Natural Matrix in the continent’s southern-central lands consumed by Shadow. Tierney froze in that moment of detection, waist-deep in the Vo as she is now, her fears crashing through her with devastating force. In that moment, fear overtook her, surging with drowning intensity and heightened by her bond-sense of Viger’s draw toward a Deathkin Reckoning that grows ever stronger.

Viger is in the West somewhere, she’s sure of it. Close to this new locus of Shadow destruction, his directional pull through their bond like a living cord.

What Shadow horrors have you found out there, Viger? Tierney sends out to him through the bond.

A sense of Viger withdrawing his thrall snaps through her with whiplike force as he mutes their linkage with a silencing snarl.

Their connection going dark.

Viger’s violent withdrawal combined with her fear for Nature casts her every emotion into a hollowing implosion.

Disturbed, Tierney’s gaze slides toward Or’myr’s conjured purple moon, a tremble kicking up as she realizes that what she needs from Or’myr is, perhaps, no longer fully possible.

She needs her friend.

Or’myr has been kind but painfully formal with her these past days, both of them focusing their energy into preparing their shielding for Or’myr’s enlargement of it once it gains enough power, both Tierney and Or’myr doing their level best to ignore their undeniable draw to each other dredged to the surface by Viger’s bond.

A pull that seems to be mysteriously increasing as Nature’s Unbalancing gains ground.

Barely aware of the loving swirl of minnows around her, Tierney remembers how she got into the habit of seeking Or’myr out at the Wyvernguard, returning, night after night, to his blaringly purple laboratory high up in the military academy’s now-destroyed South Island. The two of them would prattle on about anything and everything while they worked out magical formulations to draw their power into Vu Trin weapons. Tierney’s roiling emotions were always put at ease, grounded even, by Or’myr’s earthy aura and the intent way he listened as he worked, interjecting a wry comment every now and then and brewing her his signature mushroom tea. Or feeding her, his love of cooking and all things domestic having always charmed the hell out of her. And so, she lingered in his lab with him, night after night, Or’myr never failing to offer her a scientific tome for her to take back to her lodging, a twinkle in his forest green eyes that sent an enticing tingle over her skin as he crooned the same words every evening—For your reading pleasure.

Tierney flushes as she remembers a very different kind of pleasure—the lightning-bolt excitement of their shared dream. Her heartbeat quickens even as a pained conflict rears, because she doesn’t want her outrageous, perhaps unforgivable dream actions to change what was becoming rock-solid between the two of them.

Tears suddenly stinging at her eyes, she blinks them back and sets out to find him.

Tierney locates Or’myr by the stone wall that holds their shield’s northern focal-point rune. He’s down on one knee, tracing his Wand-Stylus over it. The sound of his enticingly deep voice murmuring amplification spells sends a disquieting thrum straight through her, and Tierney struggles to suppress her awareness of how his Vu Trin tunic is draped over his muscular physique, the military garb morphed to vivid purple, as is all his garb, by his powerful Strafeling geomancy.

Violet sparks flash from Or’myr’s wand’s tip and fan out over the rune, its violet light casting a dreamy glow over Or’myr. Tierney’s breath catches in her throat, her heartbeat jumping into a faster rhythm.

He doesn’t glance at her as he works, but Tierney can sense the static charge of his lightning flaring toward her as she draws nearer, his power crackling against her water magic with unmistakable longing, a memory of their shared dream flustering her once more.

What must he think of me? she agonizes as she stills awkwardly behind him, struggling not to remember the electric feel of his kiss, the balancing energy of his touch . . . and the explosive love in their joining.

“I’ve figured out a way to hasten the enlargement of our shielding,”

Or’myr comments congenially, still not looking at her.

An edge of Tierney’s searing mortification softens in response to his warm, conversational tone. The tone of her friend.

Or’myr glances at Tierney, and a heightened relief sweeps through her in response to the calm, undimmed affection in his gaze. He scans the translucent shield’s faintly visible runes. “I’m keeping the bulk of the Vo’s shielding porous to all but Shadow power, but I’ve completely closed off the northern section we’re under and the southern section Fyordin is under to protect our runic focal points from both Vogel and the Eastern Realm’s forces.”

Tierney squints at the glowing purple focal-point rune beside him, as well as the newly crafted series of smaller purple runes orbiting it. She intuitively grasps what he’s building, her scientific mind’s appreciation of a clever solution further softening her emotional upheaval. But still, an undercurrent of fear remains, prickling under her skin.

“The Natural World’s Unbalancing,”

she warns, “it just accelerated in a monstrous way. Vogel’s managed to kill off another huge section of Erthia’s wilds.”

Or’myr gives her a grim look. “I felt your disquiet through our bond.”

Letting out a long sigh, he rises, sheathes his geo-wand at his hip, and meets her gaze once more. “Tierney, we’re giving this shielding all we’ve got for the moment. Not much to do but keep it steady and let our power amplify this focal rune as much as possible. Soon enough, we’ll shield the entire East and hold it.”

Leagues-deep emotion is suddenly balling up in Tierney’s throat. “Thank you, Or’myr,”

she says, barely able to get the words out. “Thank you for helping my River and all of Erthia.”

Lightning flashes through his eyes as their gazes lock more intensely, and Tierney feels the desire rising to fall straight into his purple-flashing gaze and into him. To pour her heart out over the powerful, confusing things that have transpired between them like she’s poured her heart out to him about practically everything else in her life.

“You’re welcome, Tierney,”

he says softly, a crackle of his lightning riding out to her, a static tingle rushing over her skin.

Stiffening and averting his eyes, Or’myr moves toward the purple bonfire he’s got going on the riverbank, a few stone seats surrounding it that he’s carved from the bank’s rock. A steel teapot hangs from a tripod over the bonfire, the metal stunningly crafted from the iron spikes that Or’myr pulled from the River, his transformation of iron to steel rendering the metal safe for Tierney to handle. What smells like a root-based stew is simmering in a pot set on the tripod’s metal base, sending up a mouthwatering aroma.

Tierney’s eyes flick toward the shelter Or’myr is in the process of cutting into the wall of purple-veined onyx riverbank stone just behind them. Stone trees are artfully carved into the walls, along with a variety of shelves, a table, and a bed.

Tierney’s lip quirks. “I can’t believe you’re managing to carve an entire home into the bank’s stone,”

she marvels, both charmed and amazed by his ability to do this so rapidly, his thick Urisk strain of domesticity such a bolstering comfort in this moment.

Or’myr glances aslant at her, one brow cocked as he takes hold of the gleaming teapot’s wooden handle. “Well, I don’t like to be idle. And I can draw only so much amplifying charge into our shielding in a day. Which leaves some gaps of time.”

He smiles at her as he pours mushroom tea into two cups carved from the bank’s stone. “And I can’t very well sleep with you at the bottom of the Vo . . .”

He stiffens and glances away. Heat blooms on Tierney’s face once more because she’s sure he’s remembering their brazen dream, as she, too, careens into a recollection of his astonishing level of passion. And love. So much love for her flowing through their bond when they dream-joined.

“It’s so . . . charming,”

she comments, as she takes in the small, suspended, purple moon orb magicked into the dwelling’s inside corner that illuminates the space with deep violet light, a door crafted from woven purple vines already set into steel hinges and thrown open.

She dares a glance at Or’myr to find him grinning at her. “If you like this,”

he says, “you’d love my Vonor. Oh, wait . . . you saw a bit of that . . .”

A flush rises in his purple cheeks and he averts his gaze once more before shooting her a resigned, amused look and holding out a warm cup of tea.

Another rush of affection for him ripples through their bond as she accepts the tea and takes a seat by the bonfire.

“I’ve never had a safe, permanent home,”

she confides, her throat suddenly feeling a bit raw. Or’myr stills, listening as she cradles the warm mug and stares fixedly at its rising curlicues of steam. “I was ripped away from my Asrai family at such a young age,”

she continues, “and my Gardnerian home, loving as it was . . . I was always under the threat of losing my new home, because I had such a hard time hiding my power. And now, my Mage family . . . they’re unwanted refugees here in the East . . . their lives torn apart because they took in my younger brother and me.”

A wave of turmoil eddies through Tierney’s magic and she struggles to contain it. Or’myr sets down the teapot and takes a seat next to her. She can feel the weight of his fervent gaze on her, his quiet like an embracing lifeline as she looks up and meets his eyes. “Your sense of home,”

she says, “it’s so solid and sure, built right into stone. When I’m with you, I feel like I’ve finally found a place where . . .”

Her words trail off as she’s overtaken by a gut-deep yearning for this thing in him that she always craved with everything in her but could never pinpoint why until right now, Or’myr’s aura of steadiness like a home in and of itself, so solid and true . . . save for the frenzied lightning in his kiss.

Lightning that stands between them.

“Make me a space here,”

she’s suddenly imploring, motioning toward the cavern. “Extend it maybe . . . so my River flows in . . .”

The words catch, too much emotion trussed up in them for her to say more.

They hold each other’s gaze for a heartbeat. Then another.

“I’ll make you a space here,”

he offers quietly, the lightning flashing through his gaze emphasizing the subtext running through his words. A more heated tension flares, a frustrated energy running through both their auras.

A bitter ache grips Tierney’s throat, this sudden yearning for him twisting her heart so hard that she can barely get out a thank you. She focuses doggedly on the teacup in her hands, an earthy steam wafting up from the tea inside it, but her yearning for him only intensifies—his conjured moon, the teacup and mushroom tea, the home he’s forming even with the Magedom’s demonic forces breathing down their necks. It’s as much of a defiant battle cry as his readiness to deploy his power against the Magedom with lethal precision.

“Tell me more about your Vonor,”

she prods, casting about for a distraction. “I’ve been curious about it for a while.”

Or’myr cocks a quizzical brow before his expression lightens. “Well, there are many, many books, as you’d likely expect. As well as a small geomancy lab and quite a few weapons. And I have a mushroom farm in a cavern on one side.”

Welcome amusement bubbles up inside Tierney. “You have a mushroom farm? You never mentioned that.”

“Shhh,”

he chastises, shooting her a look of mock censure. “Don’t tell anyone. You’ll ruin my great mystique. Don’t mention the teacup collection either.”

She lets out a short laugh. “You have a teacup collection?”

“I do. And quite a few violins. And drawings that I did.”

He hesitates. “Mostly of the Vo.”

He glances at her sidelong. “Quite a few of you.”

Tierney’s skin prickles as his lightning aura crackles through the warming churn of her water aura.

His expression shifts to one of amusement. “Is this enticing you?”

She gives him a flustered, wry look.

Or’myr breathes out a laugh, mischief in his eyes as he sits back, cradling his tea. “Well, then, you’ll love hearing about the waterfall.”

Tierney gulps, her heartbeat tripping over itself. “There’s a waterfall?”

His grin widens. “There is,”

he croons, his voice dropping to a teasingly suggestive octave. “Deep in my Vonor’s most cavernous recesses. It flows down from an outcropping of amethyst then out over the Voloi Mountain Range’s lower peaks. Its water is suffused with my purple geo-energy and eventually flows down into your Vo.”

“I’ve sensed it,”

she murmurs in a flash of realization, barely breathing, completely under his spell. “I’ve sensed your purple energy in the water.”

“See, Tierney,”

he murmurs, his voice like silk, a suggestive thrum in it. “I’ve been there in your river all along.”

Tierney’s power shivers. He’s so close . . . she almost forgets herself as they both draw closer, and she angles her lips toward his . . .

She gives a start and jerks back, remembering the pain of his lightning, their magic dauntingly incompatible, save in that dream . . .

Bitter chagrin slices through their thrall and they both stiffen and move farther away, even as Tierney’s heart and the rippling energy of the Vo itself seem to urge them to do exactly the opposite—a pull she knows Or’myr can also feel through Viger’s damned bond.

Or’myr’s brow furrows and he gives her a charged look, a sliver of his magic breaking loose to brush against hers in a heated sizzle. The contact only intensifies the ache in Tierney’s heart as she forces her water aura into a churning barrier to try and wall off his power, instantly strung up into tighter conflict as she catches the tension around his eyes.

Or’myr forcibly withdraws his magic, then lets out a sigh, peering into the bonfire’s leaping purple flames. An uncomfortable silence descends.

“So, you bound yourself to the Death Fae,”

he comments. “Xishlon night. With a kiss.”

Ah, there it is, Tierney thinks, hollowing out. The conversation she knew would rear its head the moment they both had a chance to catch their breath. She meets Or’myr’s gaze, a frisson of remorse tightening her gut. His words were idly said, but there’s a flash of purple lightning ringing his irises and leaping around the edges of his power. Clearly this has been eating at him, shoved aside as they’ve dealt with securing the Vo.

And this bond . . . it has a way of dredging up matters of the heart and putting them into blaring focus.

“I did,”

she admits, throat dry and tight. Go ahead and say it, Or’myr, she thinks. “You kissed him right after you kissed me.”

But he doesn’t voice the words. Instead Tierney feels them hanging in the air, weighted with tension.

Another uncomfortable silence ensues.

“Was it good?”

he finally asks, and Tierney can feel both things in the question—her friend falling into heartfelt conversation with her . . . and the pained bitterness of rejection.

Grasping at their friendship, needing their friendship, she decides to level with him as she recalls Viger’s astonishing Darkness. And the sensation of being pulled to the very center of Erthia.

“It was otherworldly,”

she admits.

Jaded amusement flashes in Or’myr’s eyes. “Otherworldly?”

She scowls at him. “It’s not what you think. It was . . . revelatory.”

His eyes widen. “Revelatory?”

he echoes, his expression turning a tad too mocking for her taste.

She glowers at him. “You don’t understand.”

He loses the smile. “Nor will I ever.”

Tierney’s water power gives a defensive flare. “Bitterness doesn’t become you, Or’myr.”

He spits out a mirthless laugh. “Says the woman who can kiss anyone but me. Who has a multitude of men mooning over her.”

He shakes his head and looks away, his unspoken words like a bolt through her emotions. Including me.

Ire rises. “Is any of this important right now?”

She gesticulates wildly toward their shielding, the Vo, the surrounding land.

“No, Tierney,”

Or’myr says, leveling his lightning gaze back at her. “But it doesn’t change the fact that we’re bonded in a way that draws all of this straight to the surface.”

He shakes his head, cursing under his breath. “This bond feels like someone bottled the Xishlon moon and fed it into our damned veins.”

His tattoo flashes into Tierney’s mind—the Xishlon moon emblazoned on his chest—as she’s cast into another heated memory of the feel of his body pressed against hers. And how good his lightning felt, cracking straight through her . . .

Tierney tenses against the accompanying vortex of emotion, speechless for a moment and feeling frozen. “I don’t want to lose you,”

she finally rasps out. “Even if we can’t . . .”

She pauses, not able to finish the sentence. Instead, she looks at him full on and bares her heart. “Or’myr, I don’t want to lose you.”

She stops, scared that the tears stinging her eyes might give way in a torrent.

Or’myr loses his guarded look and peers at her, his hand coming to hers in a gentle caress. “You could never lose me,”

he reassures her, his voice heartbreakingly kind. “We’re allies and close friends. Always. All right?”

Tierney nods stiffly, blinking back tears. “Everything that’s happening in the world right now,”

she roughly manages, “it’s frightening.”

“It is,”

he gravely agrees. “But we’ll fight the Shadow together. And I know that despite the madness of this bond, Viger and Fyordin are with us in this fight too.”

Tierney nods again, some of the tension in her shoulders, her body, slackening as she gives him a grateful look.

Or’myr removes his hand, sits back, and regards her squarely. “So,”

he says, cradling his teacup and taking a sip of his tea, “you had sex with all of us in our dreams.”

Tierney’s eyes widen. She was used to the unvarnished bluntness of their conversations at the Wyvernguard. But never about a topic like this.

Or’myr barks out a laugh and mock-toasts her with his mug. “If I wasn’t so busy being jealous, I’d be impressed.”

Tierney winces and glances away. When she looks back at him, she finds his eyes narrowed with an all too knowing mischief.

“You know there’s a name for women like you,”

he says before launching into a string of Noi words her translation rune can’t make out.

Hurt spears through Tierney, evisceratingly sharp. Because she can just about guess what his words mean, and it’s beyond painful to hear coming from him.

Angry tears burn her eyes as she slams down her teacup in a clatter of stone against stone. “I thought you were different,”

she hurls out. “Go ahead, Or’myr. Tell me what that means. What is it? Slut? Whore?”

Or’myr gapes at her, seeming wildly taken aback. “Sweet Holy Vo on High, no,”

he exclaims. “That’s barbaric. Why would you think that about yourself . . . or me, for that matter?”

She glares at him.

“It means,”

he emphatically states, “one who embraces the garden.”

Tierney scrunches her face in confusion. “What?”

“The garden,”

Or’myr sputters before repeating the Noi phrase.

“What on Erthia are you talking about?”

Tierney cries, throwing up her hands. “I don’t speak Bizarre Eastern Realm Euphemism!”

Or’myr blinks at her. “More specifically, it means one who wants to gather many flowers.”

Tierney blinks at him in turn.

“One of the many ways of approaching romance,” he prods.

“There are many ways?”

This seems to bring Or’myr up short. He splays out his palms. “Of course there are. There are those who ‘stand outside of the garden.’ Those who ‘choose to be their own garden.’ Those who ‘share the garden and become the flowers’ . . .”

This goes on for several minutes as Tierney just stares at him, mired in a confusion that’s dancing on the edge of a hilarity over their screamingly huge cultural divide.

“That’s a bizarre number of love categories!”

Tierney exclaims, frustration making her aura explode in all directions.

“Hold on,”

Or’myr counters, “are you saying that your limited Western categories . . . wait, I mean your only allowable single category to describe something as complex as love and lust, makes any sense at all?”

Tierney is stunned into silence, backhanded by the possibility there could be some truth in his words even though these Eastern Realm ideas about love and lust are bizarre to the point of laughable and smash clear through her rigid cultural framework.

She wrestles with it all, struggling to regain her bearings.

“So,”

she finally starts, trying to piece together the veiled meanings of each of the multitude of garden metaphors, “do you want to ‘gather many flowers’ . . . or would you if . . .”

“If not for my terrifying lightning?”

Or’myr supplies.

Again, an uncomfortable silence ensues, the two of them staring at each other.

Or’myr lets out a long sigh. “I’m a bit different. There are names for people like me too.”

He sets down his mug, gets up, walks over to the tree line, and picks a single, violet-glowing Twining Lily from a vine encircling an Eastern Maple’s slender trunk. Then he strides back to Tierney, a pained edge entering his gaze as he holds out the flower to her.

“I’m ‘the one who desires the single Xishlon rose,’?”

he admits, ardent longing crackling through his power.

Forking straight into her.

Warmth spreads over Tierney’s skin as she accepts the flower, their eyes meeting. And then, with palpable effort, Or’myr clamps down on his power and whisks it into his core. Sitting back down, he picks up his mug and warms his palms with it, his eyes lit up now with simmering purple heat.

“You’re a hopeless romantic,”

Tierney murmurs.

“It’s true,”

he admits with a rueful smile, even as his tightly controlled power continues to strain toward hers. “But I can never ‘partake of the garden’ with my true love.”

His gaze intensifies, both pain and desire in it, the potency of it triggering a surge of Tierney’s own power. Her magic jostles against her hold, striving to surge toward him.

Pulling in a harsh breath, Or’myr peers fixedly back at his tea. “I’m cursed to stand on the outside of it all, it would seem.”

He lets out another long sigh and attempts a smile. “My own personal tragedy to bear. I suppose there’s romance in that too.”

He nods toward the shield above them. “But at least I can make myself useful.”

Tierney’s throat tightens, thick with longing. “The dream I shared with you,”

she says, “our connection in it . . . it was the one that brought Balance to my River. But it was more than that. I care for you, Or’myr. As more than a friend.”

She hesitates, barely able to draw an even breath. “I want you back in my dreams.”

A stronger heat fires on the air between them, reflected in Or’myr’s eyes.

“If I was able to regain access to your dreams,”

he says, low and emphatic, “I would incinerate them.”

Tierney’s eyes widen, a forbidden warmth sparking low in her core. “I bet I could handle you,”

she teases, completely enraptured. “Since I’m such a connoisseur of ‘the garden.’?”

Or’myr coughs out a surprised laugh, giving her a sly, suggestive look. “You certainly seem to be.”

Tierney swallows and looks away, striving to maintain her composure. “If you had been raised by an Easterner,”

she finally ventures, “do you think you’d be different?”

He cocks a brow. “What do you mean?”

She shrugs. “Do you think you’d want more than . . . just the ‘one flower’?”

Or’myr seems to seriously consider this, looking into his tea. “I don’t know. I’m private by nature and have a tendency to form strong bonds with those I care for. It’s hard to say.”

Tierney’s ache for him intensifies, and it’s not just for his gorgeous tattooed body, or the lightning-rod excitement of their dream coupling. Or even for the Balance their joining brought to her Vo’s energy. It’s a complex longing for all of him. For everything that he is.

“I really want you back in my dreams,”

she admits, surrendering to his draw as their eyes find each other once more, the heat in his gaze shifting to flame as his eyes travel over her more wantonly than they ever have before, a stronger heat sparking through them both as his lightning aura crackles around her form.

He wrenches his gaze away, looking toward the sky as if praying for strength. “This conversation,”

he rasps, “coupled with the draw of this bond, is making me so hard.”

Tierney gapes at him in utter shock.

He lowers his gaze to hers and registers her expression, his lips twisting with incredulity. “You dream-paired with all three of us, and I’m scandalizing you?”

Tierney huffs out an incredulous sound. “I’m from the West. We don’t say those things!”

Smirking, Or’myr gestures toward her with his mug. “You should practice saying scandalous things. I think it would be good for you.”

She tosses him an arch look. “Maybe I like being oblique.”

“All right, then.”

Or’myr suppresses a smile as he glances up at their shield. “I, for one, could use an occasional distraction from the end of the world. We can be oblique together. And discuss matters of love and lust in bizarrely metaphorical ways. We’d best work through what’s going on between us, though, as it seems you and I are linked in a way that puts our every feeling and desire on full display.”

He gives her another slow once-over, their powers snagging, his lightning sizzling against her water magic with potent force.

Unable to resist the draw of their bond one second longer, Tierney sets down her tea, rises and holds out her hand for his mug. A questioning look enters Or’myr’s eyes before he hands it to her, purple light flashing through his gaze as she sets his mug aside.

Her heart thudding, Tierney brazenly throws a leg over his and lowers herself onto his lap, straddling him. Her heartbeat thudding against his, she presses herself against him, uneven breaths shuddering through both their throats. Hard, indeed.

“What are you doing?”

Or’myr whispers, his breath warm against her cheek, his hands on her waist, light and tentative.

Tierney swallows, overcome by the wild pleasure of pressing herself against him so intimately, the reality of it so much more intense than their dream. “I’d like to ‘dance around the Ironwood tree.’?”

Or’myr coughs out a laugh. “Is that a bizarre Western Realm euphemism?”

Tierney can’t suppress her smile. “It actually is.”

“You talk about pairing . . . as Ironwood trees?”

“Mm-hmm,”

she admits.

“That’s ridiculous,”

he breathes against her ear.

“I want to test your lightning,”

she offers, serious. “To see if it’s just in your kiss. I think I’m falling in love with you.”

“Tierney . . .”

“Shh, just don’t kiss my mouth.”

She leans in and runs her lips down his warm neck, then kisses him at the base of it.

Or’myr groans low in his throat, his grip on her waist tightening. He draws back and stares into her eyes, his own lit up with incandescent streaks of purple lightning as he carefully searches her gaze, as if affirming that she’s sure.

Tierney’s heartbeat turns erratic as she leans back and runs one trembling finger down his chest, sliding it lower . . . and lower . . .

The world spins, and the next thing she knows, she’s on the ground, Or’myr above her. Her power surges toward his and she gasps, thrilling to the feel of his long, hard form pressing her into the ground, his lips on her neck in a tongue-swirling kiss that shocks radiant, electrified pleasure through her entire body. Her back bows against the sensation and she moans, wanting more of him, as a much stronger shock of lightning flashes from his mouth straight through her neck and a jolt of searing pain knifes through her.

Stars flash against her vision, and Tierney lets out a strangled cry, shoving at Or’myr, barely able to see through the scalding pain lancing through her neck and shoulder.

Or’myr immediately rolls off of her, and she recoils then bolts into a sitting position, wincing from the agonizing pain that feels like a flaming brand pressed into her skin.

“Oh, Tierney,”

Or’myr says, as tears blur her eyes and he curses himself, the pain swiftly tamping down to a more manageable scald. Teeth gritted, Tierney struggles to catch her breath, her emotions a wild torment as the pain dissipates.

“I’m okay,”

she insists, feeling wrung out. “It’s gone . . . the pain’s gone.”

Or’myr gives her a stricken look before he gets up and rakes his fingers through his hair, cursing again in Uriskal.

Tierney hugs her knees, shivering as she inwardly curses both her power and his, as well as fate and all the elemental magic of Erthia.

“I can’t do this,”

Or’myr says in a shattered voice, shaking his head, a tortured look in his eyes. “You’re right. Compared to what we’re facing, this doesn’t matter. At all. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve been falling for you from the moment I met you and I can never have you. And now I’ve been thrust into this cursed garden with you along with two other men. I cannot do this, Tierney.”

Tierney glowers at him through tear-streaked eyes, vulnerability cracking her dangerously open. “So, you’re no longer my friend, even?”

“I am your friend. Always. But I also happen to love you. And seeing you with other men, even if it was just a dream . . .”

He pauses, lightning flashing in his eyes. “I want you. And right now, it’s hard not to hate every man who’s able to touch and kiss you without causing you terrible agony.”

“Or’myr . . .”

“You have to leave me be in this,”

he sets down, adamant. “Until I can have you, which is never, we can’t pursue this, even in dreams.”

Tierney gets up and tries to go to him, but he steps back, a wild look entering his eyes. “Tierney, you will shatter my heart.”

“I’d be with you if I could!”

she cries, her voice breaking as a storm cloud bursts to life over her head. “I realized that in the dream . . . I do care for Viger and Fyordin. A great deal. But I want you.”

“And I want you,”

he fires back, eyes burning. “Only you. But fate won’t allow it. Believe me, I’ve tried to parse out some magical way around our clashing magic, but we’re both too powerful.”

He brings his hands to his hips and forces a deep breath before meeting her eyes once more. “If we survive this, go find your comfort where you can. Embrace the whole cursed garden if it pleases you. But this, Tierney—”

he motions between them “—we have to find some way to block this attraction. Because I have to focus on the possible end of Nature rather than my own yearning for someone I can never, ever have. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take my currently out-of-control power and use its force to blast a line of purple moons into being in front of the Eastern Realm.”

Tierney nods stiffly, stifling her ocean of tears, and Or’myr giver her one last purple-lightning-spitting look then walks away.

Tierney lies just under the Vo’s lapping waters that night, staring up at the sky, watching Or’myr on the distant riverbank as he conjures a line of purple moons in the sky, ready to transport them west through the line of magic he set down inside the V’yexwraith’s Shadow power, her emotions a turbulent mess.

Unable to fight off the pull of sleep any longer, she succumbs to its embrace as Or’myr’s line of moons flash a deeper purple and blink out of sight.

Viger opens their dream-linkage and comes to Tierney that night.

She startles at his sudden presence beside her, the two of them sitting side by side atop a huge gray stone desert arch, his pulsing draw to her held staunchly back.

Fear ripples through Tierney’s power as she takes in the nighttime scene before them—leagues and leagues of Shadowed wasteland spread out around their every side, charred Forest under a poisoned, gray sky, slashes of Shadow storm bands marring every horizon.

“Tell me this is only a dream,”

she implores as she takes in the Central Continent’s devastation. She turns toward Viger. His horns are absent, claws in, his thrall’s suspended ropes of Darkness slowly encircling them both.

“It is not only a dream,”

he says, his multitoned voice low and dread filled, seeming to envelop them from everywhere at once.

Tears sting Tierney’s eyes as it hits her anew—what they’re up against. What the Natural World is up against. She takes in Viger’s contained presence and how he’s maintaining complete control over his thrall, even as he allows a slender pulse of what he feels for her to escape his hold, that slim trace of it filled with a mind-bendingly potent rush of sheer want.

Realization grips hold.

“You purposefully drove me away,”

she murmurs, barely able to get the words out.

His dark eyes remain fixed toward the West. “It is not our time, Asrai.”

A torrent of emotion churns into being, what Tierney feels for Or’myr warring with what she was starting to feel for Viger too. “Are you saying there will be a time?”

she asks, confused.

“Someday, if the Natural World survives,”

he answers, his power encircling them both. “Soon, I will dissolve myself into Nature to hold off a Reckoning. The dissolution of my power of Natural Death into the living Forest will buy you time and form a bulwark against the Shadow’s Void.”

Tierney’s thoughts whirl, alarm surging. “Viger, no . . .”

He sets his full-black gaze on her, the whole world contracting around them as he bares his teeth. “It is the only way to ward off our Unleashing.”

Pain flickers through his eyes. “There is no Balance between you and me at the moment, Asrai. You know this. We both felt it when we dream-paired. You hold too much Deathkin lineage. And there is too much Death coming for the Natural World. We can’t risk amplifying it.”

Tierney’s lips tremble as she holds his full-Dark gaze, remembering how he told her, on Xishlon, that two Death Fae never pair because there is no Balance in it. A fuller comprehension stirs. “You used my fears to drive me away, didn’t you,”

she rasps, tears burning her eyes. “You read my fear of someone trying to own me and used it to drive me away.”

“I did,”

he says, still as a Dark star.

She shakes her head and looks back out over the nightmare landscape. The nightmare coming for her Waters. The nightmare Viger is willing to sacrifice himself to fight.

“I just want you to know,”

she says, voice shredding, “that I could love you too. I love Or’myr. A great deal. And even Fyordin as a good friend. But, in another place, another time . . . I could love you intensely.”

She forcibly keeps her eyes on him, holding steady against his hypnotic thrall.

“I know,”

he says. “I’ve read your fear of that too.”

And I’ve read your fears, she thinks to herself, her heart twisting. I’ve read your greatest fear in those three words you keep buried so deep inside you.

“It’s as I told you,”

he says, turning his Dark gaze back toward the poisoned landscape, his two snakes suddenly there, twined around his shoulders, “when we kissed on Xishlon and in the Northern Forest, I thought I could hold back a full mating bond. I didn’t expect to unearth such a strong Deathkin lineage in you.”

“Viger . . .”

“We can’t be together with so much Death power running between us,”

he states. “Even dream-pairing, we almost drew each other toward the Reckoning that could bring Nature’s full fury down on the Living World. If we were to take each other as mates, your Asrai nature would fall away. At a time when your River needs you as Asrai’lir.”

Tierney fights back the surge of emotion, those three words that Viger fears most shivering through the bond connecting them. “Can you feel me inside your fears?”

she whispers as a tear breaks loose to streak down her cheek.

No answer. They sit there for a long moment, eyes locked, enveloped in his stillness. And then he lifts a hand to caress her cheek, her breath hitching at the warm contact, his voice a bone-deep thrum when it comes. “You never know someone as well as you do when you know exactly what they fear,”

he croons. “And your fears, Asrai’vhia’lir . . . your fears are beautiful.”

Tierney gives up trying to contain the tears and lets herself melt into his touch, goodbye shivering in it. “How long will you be absorbed into Nature?”

she asks, hoping against hope that the Natural World will survive what’s coming.

He tilts his head, as if considering. “A hundred years. Perhaps two hundred. Our power works in those cycles.”

“I’ll never see you again,”

she protests, the tears flowing.

Viger’s dark mouth slides into a faint smile. “We may yet meet again. It’s as I’ve told you, Asrai. You are immortal because of your Deathkin lineage. Unless pierced through with iron. But the Asrai part of you, after the course of a normal Fae lifespan, it will drop away. You will become, increasingly, one of us.”

Tierney stills, shock lancing through her before it settles, so many things about her falling into place. A wavering smile forms on her lips as she holds Viger’s hypnotic stare. “The idea should scare me, but it doesn’t.”

“Until then,”

he says, low and resonant, his thumb tracing the edge of her mouth, “follow the Waters’ Balance.”

She can sense Viger’s undercurrent of meaning, knows he senses the overwhelming Balance that flowed out of her dream with Or’myr.

A fresh wave of tears pools in Tierney’s eyes, and she shakes her head. “I can’t be with Or’myr in that way. His kiss, his touch—there’s too much fire in it.”

Viger’s hand slides down to her shoulder, a pained, ardent Darkness in his eyes. “You’ll find a way.”

“If we do,”

Tierney shakily offers, “I want your blessing.”

Some amusement shines through Viger’s pain. “You seek the blessing of a Death Fae?”

She nods.

“His fears are beautiful too,”

Viger states, his voice shot through with feeling. He takes her hand, their fingers interlacing, ribbons of his Darkness twining around their wrists. “They’re noble, like yours.”

He gives her a wry look. “As are the bulk of Fyordin’s.”

Tierney coughs out a laugh through her tears. “Your lack of jealousy . . . it’s both impressive and confusing.”

Viger’s expression turns ardent, everything he feels for her simmering Dark in it. “The Strafeling will have you for perhaps sixty years. Seventy. I’ll have you forever. If the Natural World survives, I’ll be back for you, Asrai’lir.”

And then Tierney is being flooded by another of his fears, almost as strong as his fear of those three words.

His fear of her being alone.

Tierney swallows against the pain rising in her throat. “Find me in the future, Viger.”

“Bring the Balance, Asrai,”

he responds, the scene around them wavering. “Restore the Natural Matrix. When the world needs more Death as its Balance, instead of more Life, I’ll be back for you with my full Darkness.”

And then they’re on the Shadowed ground, three huge desert serpents rising from the ashen sand, black as tar. One of them lowers itself before Viger, and he climbs onto its back. He peers down at Tierney, giving her one last, abyss-Dark look, before the serpents coil and turn, then dive into the ground, Viger and the serpents turning into black mist as they go.

Her heart in her throat, Tierney feels a parting brush of Viger’s Darkness against her lips and swirling around her in an ardent caress, those three words at the base of Viger’s fears simmering through her very soul.

She can feel him sending them out to her through their linkage. Feels them pulsing into the center of her power. A statement and a promise, as strong as eternity.

As powerful as Death.

I love you.