Chapter Six Xishlon Hope

Chapter Six Xishlon Hope

Elloren Guryev

Noilaan

Xishlon night

The purple moon above shines its light down on me as I stare past the Eastern Realm’s translucent dome into its luminous depths.

My heart is so full of love that it feels like an ache, my sleeping baby, Tessla, wrapped in my arms, my child named for my

late mother. The two of us are poised by the railing that lines the edge of Voloi’s newly restored Voling Gardens, the city’s

docks and Tierney and Or’myr’s beloved Vo River spread out before us, suffused with every shade of violet.

The Great Tree, IV, sheltering it all.

Tessla shifts in her slumber, her velvety soft wings wrapped around her, and I can’t suppress my besotted smile. I stroke

her midnight-black hair, admiring the small horn nubs nestled amidst her tousled curls, her hue my same shimmering, Dryad

green. She stirs and opens her eyes then breaks into an adoring smile, and my heart swells as it always does. Because her

coloring might reflect mine, but her features are all Yvan, the vivid Lasair green of her eyes ringed with purple fire. I

breathe deeply, filled with a sense of the rootlines strengthening inside her, including her powerful line of prismatic light.

Amidst a potent core of Icaral fire.

Two young girls beside us giggle, drawing my attention to the golden-haired Issani girl as she breaks her purple moon cookie

and hands half to her Dryad Fae friend before the two of them happily stride off, hand in hand, as they munch on the traditional

sweets meant for sharing with those you love.

Emotion cinches my throat. It feels like an eternity ago that I was a naive girl breaking wings off Icaral cookies and believing everything that my culture fed me, these moon cookies such a vast improvement.

Hugging Tessla close, I look at the Xishlon moon once more and send up a small prayer of thanks that my naivete was smashed

to pieces, following that with a prayer of gratitude for everyone who challenged me along the way, my heart filling with a

fiery love for Yvan, Lukas, and so many others.

Tears pooling in my eyes, I feel Tessla snuggling back into sleep, and I kiss her warm head. The smell of loamy, upturned

soil is rich in the surrounding air as a vastly diverse crowd of people continue with the tree plantings that have been happening

all day, the surviving Xishlon Wisterias and the new saplings raining down glowing lavender tresses of flowers.

For months now, Dryad’khin have planted trees and other plants in every spare space throughout the cities and villages of

Noilaan, their soil and weather-stabilizing effect incrementally weaving a slice of Erthia’s Natural Matrix back together.

It’s a start.

A start in rebuilding the fragile Natural Balance, enough to aid the Deathkin in holding off the Reckoning.

But grief tightens my gut when I consider what’s been lost, not even the Xishlon moon above able to blot it out. The majority

of the continent has been stripped of Forest and riddled with Shadow-polluted waters and poisoned air, demonic creatures roaming

the destroyed land.

I glance West, toward the Vo Mountain Range that was blown up to half its former height last Xishlon, memories of Lukas constricting

my heart—his sacrifice making every good thing now surrounding Tessla and me possible.

Even the Vo Mountain Range Lukas had to explode is making a comeback, Or’myr, Sparrow, and a host of other geomancers working

with Dryad Fae and Gwynn and Mavrik to rebuild and rewild the mountaintop. An obsidian statue Wynter crafted of a piece of

music Lukas wrote for me marks the mountain range’s base in honor of what he did for us all. I’ve journeyed there, to the

mountain’s newly Snow Oak–forested side, a Noi violin in hand, to play the stone-carved notes of the song we played together

so long ago, swept up in a sense of Lukas smiling down on me as I caught a brief flash of Watchers in the trees, a bittersweet

memory of the Snow Oak pendant he once gave me suffusing my mind.

Resurgent tears burn in my eyes, my chest crushed in a love- and grief-constricted vise. I press my palm to the bark of the Wisteria beside me and am engulfed in a swirl of the tree’s affection and a wispy, dreamlike sense of Lukas’s love embracing me, as I so often am when I share a quiet moment with the Forest. His Dryad energy infuses everything , along with that of my Errilor kindreds.

“Thank you, Lukas,” I whisper through quivering lips, a tear streaking my cheek. And thank you, my Deathkin. For giving us a chance.

I peer up at IV’s distant canopy, Noilaan’s protective dome just beyond. Sliding my gaze west, I’m acutely aware of the Shadow

pollution ceaselessly pressing against the western side of our shielding, threatening my daughter’s future.

Threatening every child’s future.

Valasca, Ni Vin, and Alder have ventured to the West with a small pioneering army and Alder’s flock of giant eagles, all of

them intent on fighting their way through the Shadow filth and its multi-eyed creatures to regenerate what used to be Amazakaraan’s

Caledonian Mountain Range—Alder’s first kindred Forest.

To wrest it back from the Shadow and reclaim Amazakaraan for the Natural World.

“I will see you again, Black Witch,” Valasca insisted after we bade each other a tearful farewell and I promised to care for her

goat kindreds while Andras took in Ni Vin’s midnight-hued mare.

I send up another prayer for their safety as I gently rock Tessla, hoping against hope that we’ll all see each other again

someday.

Someone steps up beside me, and I glance over and see Jules Kristian leaning on the railing and studying the Xishlon moon,

his silver kestrel perched on his shoulder. It’s clear he’s pausing in the planting of trees, a soil-encrusted shovel in his

hand. Noilaan’s surviving Vo mystics have declared the rewilding of land a new sacred Xishlon tradition, like so many other

traditions being created or rewritten to support the Natural World, along with love and connection and Life. It’s a welcome

change.

But why did it have to come so late?

“Do you think there’s hope for the Natural World?” I ask Jules as purple fireworks detonate over the river, sizzling into

the shapes of hundreds of Xishlon moons.

Jules frowns and draws in a deep breath. “I don’t know if there’s as much hope as we would like.” He meets my gaze. “A slim

ecological chance, perhaps? Erthia is not what it was, Elloren.” He holds up his hand, unfurling his fingers to reveal the

imprint of III on his palm. “I think a lot depends on us staying connected to the Forest and letting it change us. Truly being with the Forest.” His kestrel ruffles her feathers, and Jules reaches up to absently stroke the bird’s side, tension knotting his brow. “It’s a new paradigm. A whole new way.”

He’s right, I consider. A whole new, often difficult, Dryad’khin way of life.

Living simply.

Counting riches in trees planted and wilds restored and protected, not in wealth or power accrued. Embracing sustainability.

Embracing Life .

“There’s so much discord,” I say, casting him a worried look, thinking of the infighting going on among the new Dryad’khin

Conclave, of which he’s an elected member along with Vang Troi, Soleiya, Lucretia, Naga, and Ra’Ven, among others. “I know

a great many people here think we made a mistake in striking down the runic border and letting the Mage and Alfsigr refugees

in,” I rue. “Especially since so many Mages have refused to join with the Forest. There are arguments over such a multitude

of things, it’s... daunting.”

Jules tilts his head. “There is debate and conflict. But that’s what the road to a better world looks like—everyone finally getting their say, especially

the recently oppressed. Full disagreement and reckoning. Difficult dialogue.”

“Confusion?” I venture, shooting him a fraught look as I remember our conversations in Valgard.

He laughs, a knowing gleam in his eyes. “ Especially confusion.” His expression grows serious. “But then, a healing of the fracture. The old cycles can’t stand. They brought

this Shadow to our gates and almost destroyed everything.”

III’s promise comes to mind, an ethereal thing, fragile and gleaming.

The story is not yet over.

Jules’s hand comes to my arm in gentle support. “Elloren... I believe time will prove beyond a doubt that breaking the

cycle of hate and letting the Mage and Alfsigr refugees in amongst the others was the right thing to do .”

I nod, clinging to a thread of hope that the vision III sent to me in its depths was right—that the unexpected can come when

division is healed.

“Ah, my beautiful daughter and granddaughter,” a familiar voice says from just behind us. “We’ve found you.”

Jules and I turn as Soleiya and Lucretia make a beeline for us, the two of them meeting me here as promised, to care for little

Tessla for part of Xishlon eve.

They’re crowned in wreaths of purple flowers and wearing clothing dyed violet for the festival, like Jules’s and mine. Their arms are jauntily linked as they beam at us, Soleiya’s eyes like Xishlon beacons, burning Zhilaan-violet bright. I grin, pleased that the two of them surprised Yvan and me by becoming fast friends over these past few chaotic months.

Soleiya coos at Tessla, and I transfer my sleepy babe into her arms along with a cloth sack of baby-care items while Jules

sweeps Lucretia into an embrace and kisses her with a Xishlon fervor that heats my cheeks and has me glancing away, her water

aura swirling ardently around him.

Tessla settles against Soleiya’s chest, and Soleiya smiles at me as I’m struck, once more, by the heartwarming awareness of

how much Tessla is going to look like her and Yvan.

She’ll be beautiful like them both.

Another thought strikes home, and I still. The face of the Black Witch potentially ends with me.

Could it be that the Gardnerian line of Great Mages is finally, truly over?

With that momentous thought reverberating through my mind, I nod farewell to Jules, Lucretia, and Soleiya and silently walk

through the gardens and throngs of revelers. Eventually I step into the grassy, moonlit clearing that used to be the Voling

Gardens’ largest plaza. IV’s great trunk rises from its center, right where the old statue of the Great Icaral slaying the

Black Witch used to stand.

IV’s purple mist envelops me, the Great Tree’s embracing love pulsing through my rootlines, and I smile at IV. Xishlon moonlight

caresses the Great Tree’s every leaf, and a multitude of revelers continuously stop by to press IV-marked hands to the trunk

and spend time in IV’s loving presence.

I reach into my tunic pocket and pull out the wrapped gift Wynter gave me earlier, telling me, with a shy smile, It’s for you. And Yvan. And Baby Tessla. Open it near IV on the night of the purple moon.

Walking to a more isolated edge of IV’s vast trunk, I study the present’s wrapping—a swath of lavender cloth on which Wynter

painted a glowing Xishlon moon, the package bound with artfully tied purple string.

Warm arms slide around my waist, and Yvan’s fiery aura encircles me. I smile, the feel of his body pressed against my back

immediately tugging on our mating bond. Warmth races over my skin, our melded fire power giving a hard flare.

“Happy Xishlon, my beautiful Dryad Witch,” he hisses in Wyvern, then kisses my neck with an affectionate slowness that sends

hot shivers of delight straight through my rootlines.

I pivot to face him, my heart tripping into a faster rhythm at the sight of his beloved, angular face, sultry affection burning in his eyes, his wings arcing around me.

His crimson hair is tinted reddish-purple by the moonlight, the Xishlon moon’s thrall swiftly revving our mating bond up to

such molten heights that I can feel the flush blooming on my skin. Yvan cocks a brow and smiles, his knowing look quickening

my pulse as he draws me into a slow, deep kiss, a more intense desire for him firing through my every line as I surrender

to his enthralling heat.

“You said you had something to show me,” he murmurs against my lips as he lightly presses his forehead to mine, his fingertips

trailing sparks over my skin.

My breathing erratic, I nod and lift the cloth-wrapped gift. “Wynter made this for us. She wanted us to open it here.”

Curiosity lights in Yvan’s eyes as I untie the purple string and fold back the cloth.

We both draw in emotional breaths as we take in what Wynter has crafted for us. It’s a small statue, carved from purple stone.

A statue I envisioned during Shadowed times—a revolutionary reimagining that Wynter read from a single touch of my wrist.

A new Prophecy to replace all the others.

An Icaral and a Dryad Witch embracing, Watchers perched on their shoulders.

A trace of peace settles in my heart as I take in the impassioned nonmartial vision. Because Erthia can’t take any more martial

visions. Erthia can’t take any more Realm Wars. We need a future free of that type of conflict, if there’s going to be any

future at all.

It’s time for new visions and new statues.

Yvan lifts his hand and wraps his palm around the statue’s edge, running his thumb over my stone form in a way that mirrors

the mesmerizingly deft way he runs those hands over me .

His mouth slants into a smile as he lets out a short laugh. “Well, that’s an incredible improvement.” We exchange an intense

look, this statue feeling like the turning of a corner. Like a story ending and a new, better one just beginning.

Pocketing the statue, I reach up and trace a teasing line of heat down the center of Yvan’s bare chest. He shivers, giving

me an inviting look, the violet fire in his eyes glowing hotter.

“It’s our last night in Noilaan for a while,” he comments, his eyes and fire suddenly full of so much love that my heart can

barely hold it. Drawing me closer, he leans in and gives me another heated kiss. “Be my Xishlon’vir, Elloren Guryev.”

I laugh, grinning at him. “I think I’m already your Xishlon’vir about two hundred times over. Maybe more.”

Yvan shoots me a wicked look that quickly takes a turn for the adoring, affection for him warming my every rootline.

“I’m ready for us to return to Zhilaan tomorrow with Tessla and your mother,” I say, our bonded fire-Forest always tugging

on our Wyvernbond, beckoning us home. “I’m ready to build our home there and raise our daughter. And take up my work as an

apothecary and luthier, while we work to safeguard our Forest.” A tingle races through me, so much possibility opening up

with the lifting of war, so many former goals reasserting themselves. I glance toward the West, growing serious, even the

Xishlon moonlight unable to dampen our awareness of the urgent Forest-saving work ahead. “And you?” I ask, turning back to

him.

“Physician,” he states without hesitation, his gaze taking on a meaningful light. “Along with raising Tessla and building

our home together. And safeguarding our Forest with our Dryad’khin.” The fire in his eyes intensifies, brighter than the moon

above. “I never want to be parted from you again, Elloren,” he hisses in Wyvern, as everything we’ve been through circles

around us and tears sheen my eyes.

“I love you, Yvan,” I say in Wyvern, the hissed words sliding easily off my tongue.

“I love you too,” he says in Dryadin, smiling as he draws me into another rootline-heating, toe-curling kiss that leaves me

wanting and breathless. He trails his lips along my neck, then runs the hot tip of his tongue along the edge of my ear before

kissing me there, his fingertips tracing a spiral of sparks along my waist, desire firing through our bond.

“Are you looking to ‘find the moon’?” I tease.

He flashes me a smile that’s feral and loving at the same time. “Oh, I’ve already found it.” His wings fan out to their full

breadth, his lips brushing mine once more before he lifts me into his arms, eyes aflame. “Now, let’s fly out of here, my Dryad

Witch, find a mountaintop cavern... and set each other on fire.”