Chapter Four Prophecy War

Chapter Four Prophecy War

Elloren Guryev

Shadow wasteland

“The Magedom is stronger than a thousand hordes,” Vogel hisses.

He advances toward me over the Void wasteland, the Shadow Wand raised. I can feel Yvan’s rage and desperate fight to regain

hold of his power from the giant Shadow spiders imprisoning both him and my horde mates.

Shadow mist is now thick on the ground, obscuring my feet, the body of the colossal queen spider poised over Yvan increasingly

lit up with pulsing gray lightning as she consumes his vast power.

Slumped on the ground, Shadow fog swirling around him, Yvan blazes a line of fire to me, only to have it siphoned into the

giant spider before I can latch hold of even a cinder of it.

“Elloren,” Yvan calls in a strangled voice as he raises his quivering, III-marked palm, giving me an urgent look before thrusting his

hand down through the mist, the motion quickly followed by the rest of my horde.

My heartbeat quickens as I realize what they’re doing—pushing their III marks under the Shadowed soil in an attempt to manifest

trees to empower me.

Desperate, I drop to the Shadow-fogged ground, transfer my sapling branch to my non-marked hand and thrust my III-marked palm

into the soil as well, hoping against hope that we’ll be able to manifest a small grove of saplings through the thickened

Shadow to restore my power.

But... nothing .

Only a slight tingle along my III mark as thick Shadow slithers over it, Vogel’s power too strong for Life to break through.

Vogel stops before my lowered form, a smile on his lips as he stares contemptuously at the branch gripped in my left hand.

I transfer my branch back to my III-marked hand, immediately filled with a sense of the distant Zhilaan Forest desperately

hurling elemental power into my rootlines via our linkage, only to have that power consumed by the Shadow.

Vogel glances around pointedly, as if daring me to take in his triumph. To take in the Magedom’s domination of the entire

world.

“You’re an Icaral ,” I grit out, rage rising. “How can you think the way you do?”

Vogel’s silvery eyes ignite with hatred. “I’m not an Icaral,” he seethes, baring unnaturally sharp teeth. “I’m the Ancient One’s conduit. Soon to be purified once the Fae

corruption of Erthia is swept away.”

My mind frantically casts about for a way to defeat him as I tighten my grip around my sapling’s branch, a speck of life still

thrumming in it, but enough for only a single weak spell—perhaps enough to light a candle or send out a single vine, but no

more.

Black Witch , the distant Zhilaan Forest booms through our bond from leagues away.

Too far away.

Vogel’s cruel smile returns as he gestures toward my branch. “You can’t best me with your speck of Fae energy. I’m a power

empath, just like you. I sense that you’re stripped bare .” His smile turns leering. “I will instantly incinerate any attack you conjure. Your filthy Fae power never had a chance against the Holy Magedom.”

Something inside me breaks, and I rise, hand clenched tight around my branch.

I level it at him and Vogel gives me a bemused look, clearly savoring this moment as he draws his wings in tight.

“Let your army through your storm band,” I challenge, taking a confrontational step toward him, nothing in the world left

to lose. “I know you have the power to create a path through it. Let them see your wings , Marcus. And see if any of them want to follow an Icaral.”

A look of malignant hate distorts Vogel’s features. “Our war ends here , Dryad Witch,” he hisses with terrible finality, raising the Shadow Wand.

I sense him drawing up a world-ending level of power, siphoning Yvan’s and my horde’s corrupted Wyvernfire from his tethered

storm spiders straight into the Shadow Wand. “When my Wand’s power hits you,” he snarls, “it won’t just kill you . It will flow its full storm right through your bond to the Zhilaan Forest. And explode it to ash .”

A shock of cold terror slashes down my spine, freezing my branch hand, the world seeming to tilt on its axis as Vogel furiously

draws up more power.

Further depleting mine.

My knees buckle, and I sink toward the ground, gasping.

Black Witch! the Zhilaan Forest growls to me, my kindred Forest’s warrior defiance so strong I can feel it pulsing out over the leagues

and leagues of Void land between us, urging me to hold the line.

In a slash of brutal reckoning, I realize there’s only one way to fight back. Only one way to give the Zhilaan Forest another

day to live. Only one way to give our incoming Dryad’khin army a chance to hold on to their Zhilaan-anchored power and fight back .

“I love you, Yvan!” I cry out as I bring my branch’s terminal point to my chest and draw on my last trace of magic as I prepare

the vine strike.

“Elloren, NO!” Yvan roars out over the Shadowed expanse between us, my entire horde taking up the protest with spitting growls. Every spark

Yvan can still wrest hold of crackles toward me, the ferocious love in it searing through me even as the bulk of his power

is consumed by Vogel’s Shadow. Tears glassing my eyes, I begin to murmur the words to the spell that will impale my heart.

Dark wings flash into being in the back of my mind, and I freeze. A spark of unfamiliar, prismatic flame ignites low in my

belly, its heat volcanic .

My eyes widen, astonishment overtaking me for a split second as the dark wings pulse powerfully through my mind. Prismatic

light sears through my vision, my firelines and bond to Yvan filling with multicolored flame, my body shuddering against it.

And it’s not just flame...

It’s prismatic Wyvernfire .

Black Witch , comes the Zhilaan Forest’s triumphant cry, its voice startlingly clear, the Zhilaan’s full elemental power suddenly flooding

my lines and my branch via the prismatic flame in my center, as if I’m standing in the middle of the Great Nightwood Pine

Forest instead of leagues away in a Shadowed wasteland.

Stunned exultation overtakes me, Erthia’s full, creative power of Life flooding my body, the fiery power of my bond to Yvan

surging, the mating mark on my shoulder igniting with glorious potency.

As the miracle conceived in the Zhilaan Forest blazes to more intense life inside me.

Gaining fire .

The dark wings strobe against my mind once more, Vogel’s look of smug victory sliding into one of confusion, then shock as he takes in the gaze I have pinned on him, prismatic fire flashing through my sight as a tingle races over my skin, my deep-green, purple-branch-patterned hue returning in a rush.

Murmuring spells, I thrust my living branch forward at the same time Vogel levels the Shadow Wand at me, the full power of

the Zhilaan Forest along with the surging prismatic Wyvern power in my core exploding through me.

A storm of elemental might blasts from my branch at the same time that Vogel sends out a countering stormwall of Void power.

Our storms slam into each other, his curving lightning crackling against my riot of chromatic lightning.

Vogel’s wings beat against air, and he skids backward. The will to fight surging, I press forward and snarl out another series

of spells the Zhilaan Forest is sending to me, while sensing Yvan drawing up a huge amount of fire power from our bond.

My gaze briefly flicks toward Yvan just as he springs to his feet and thrusts his palms outward.

The queen spider imprisoning him explodes in a huge ball of churning prismatic flame, his renewed fire blazing through our

entire horde.

Naga’s roar splits the air as my horde mates blast the remaining spiders into churning balls of multihued Wyvernfire. Power

roars through my bond to Yvan as I battle Vogel, the mating mark on my shoulder burning hotter as my wall of power gains potency.

Yvan and the rest of the horde surge toward me as my storm blasts clear through Vogel’s in a spray of multicolored lightning,

the air between Vogel and me rapidly clearing.

Vogel snarls at me, teeth elongated, a wild, silver-fire look in his eyes as he lifts the Shadow Wand and draws on the full

force of his demonic power, and I murmur the spells the Zhilaan Forest is hurling out to me. We thrust our weapons forward,

my spells clicking into place a split second before Vogel’s can engage.

Living purple branches spear from my wand and slam into Vogel, impaling him at multiple points. He’s punched backward, the

Shadow Wand flying from his hand.

I lunge toward him and ready another spell, drawing from both the burgeoning chromatic fire in my core and the Zhilaan Forest’s

power as Vogel lurches toward the Shadow Wand, gasping and clutching his chest, snatching the Wand from the Shadow-misted

ground before I can reach him.

He levels the Wand at me, a cruel gleam in his pale eyes. “The Holy Magedom will rise against you,” he snarls.

“Then they’ll face our Dryad storm,” I snarl back as Yvan and our horde bolt out strikes of multicolored fire at Vogel, blasting the Shadow Wand far from his hand as I spear a large vine straight through his chest.

Vogel screams, his wings beating against the ground then stilling as his body begins to disintegrate, rapidly reduced to Shadow

ash in the shape of a horned, winged figure singed into the ground.

I’m frozen in place, locked into stunned silence, the Prophecy finally come to pass. The Shadow fog closes in over Vogel’s

charred remains, and I immediately cast my empathy out, picking up no sense of Vogel’s army advancing.

Yvan reaches me and throws his arms desperately around me, pulling me tight.

“Yvan,” I barely manage, trembling as I reach around to grip tight hold of him in turn. “Oh, my gods... Yvan .”

Emotion surging through us both, he draws slightly back to give me a searing look before his lips meet mine in an impassioned

flash of fire that I eagerly return, clinging to him as our mating bond’s flame surges to new heights, black wings flashing

through my mind again and again with heart-swelling vibrancy.

“How are you manifesting so much power?” Yvan asks once we break the kiss, that spark of prismatic fire within me burning

through our Wyvernbond with the force of a star, our power merging with the Zhilaan-bonded new life taking root inside me.

Tears sheen my eyes as I hold Yvan’s gaze, love for him expanding my heart to the point where the surge of joy is almost too

painful to endure as the rest of our horde draws in around us. “I’m pregnant,” I tell him, my hand sliding over my abdomen,

“with our baby, who happens to be an Icaral and an incredibly powerful Light Mage.”

Yvan’s eyes widen, and I watch everything falling into place in his astonished gaze. A blaze of echoing joy shudders through

his power, our multihued flame now whipping around not only each other but the new life growing inside me—new life so intimately

linked to the Zhilaan Forest, it was able to anchor Yvan’s and my power with enough strength to hold fast against the Shadow.

Concern cuts through our joy as I remember our need to unite the Shadow Wand to the Verdyllion so we can free everyone imprisoned

by Shadow power.

My gaze darts toward the Shadow Wand, my concern surging into wildfire alarm as I catch its fog-obscured form sinking into

the ground.

“The Wand!” I cry just as Ariel and Raz’zor pounce on the area in a blur only to find the Wand disappeared into the poisoned earth.

Ariel and Raz’zor scrabble at the soil with their claws as I’m filled with the awful sense of the Wand moving .

“It’s going toward the storm band!” I cry as I leap toward it, but my words come too late.

A crack of Erthia-cleaving thunder punches through my ears, just before a demon I’ve seen only in mythological texts rapidly

emerges from the ground—a demon my allies warned us about.

Dark lightning flashes around the V’yexwraith’s pale gray, stretched-out form as it unfurls up from the Shadowed ground, rising

higher and higher. Spiky horns emerge from its flat head and bubbling eyes form all over its upper face, gray mist cycloning

around where its legs should be.

In its long-fingered hand, it holds the Shadow Wand, their poisonous energy one and the same.

With a screeching cry the V’yexwraith thrusts the Wand upward and absorbs Vogel’s entire storm band, the demon growing tall

as the clouds as it does so.

Vogel’s huge army revealed, massed in the far distance.

I realize, in a devastating jolt, that Vogel and the Magedom have been pawns of a larger battle all along, and this evil we’re

still facing has taken on a life of its own.

The Shadow Wand has gained enough power to take on a life of its own.

The V’yexwraith opens its sharp-toothed maw, lets out a bone-jarring, continent-shaking ATCH ATCH ATCH , and surges toward us, along with its Shadow-possessed army, every Mage’s skin morphed to gray.