Chapter Ten 2

“I should try Issani power-connection runes,”

she counters. “I can imprint one on each of us and set down a Noi flow rune between them to amplify the connection. It might set up a transient linkage that’s much stronger than a Mage ward.”

Mavrik’s brow lifts with obvious surprise before he grins wolfishly at her. Gwynn’s thoughts scatter a bit, the feral masculinity of that grin combined with the feel of his hand wrapped around hers bringing her right back to his exciting kiss.

“That’s wickedly clever,”

he purrs, looking her over as if seeing her, once more, in an expanded light. “Try it,”

he prods with a devilish grin. “Access your magic, Light Mage.”

Giddy from his encouragement—encouragement to own her power that no one has ever given her before—Gwynn pulls in a deep breath and murmurs the spell.

Small sparks of bright yellow light spurt from the wand’s tip, and a startled sound escapes Gwynn, her pulse accelerating. As her wand hand trembles in Mavrik’s grip, the yellow sparks fizzle out before they can even begin to form a rune, but still.

Still.

She coaxed actual light magic into existence.

Her magic.

From a wand.

For a moment Gwynn can barely summon a breath. She chances a look at Mavrik to find him grinning dangerously at her, the threads of color shimmering over his lips brightened along with the energy tingling over hers at the remembrance of how his thrilling kiss blasted their magic to more potent life.

The thought slips out before she can fully process it—

“We should kiss to amplify my power.”

Mavrik’s eyes widen slightly, and she stiffens, nearly overcome by the strength of the ingrained, cultural pushback ricocheting through her over so brazenly wanting things a Styvian Gardnerian woman is never supposed to ever want unless it’s sanctioned and controlled by the Magedom itself.

Power over her own magic.

And Mavrik’s lips on hers.

Religious conflict storms through her, fiercer than the inside of any storm band, and she looks at the red sand at her feet, readying herself for the Ancient One Himself to strike her down.

Mavrik’s hand comes to her shoulder. “Gwynn, look at me.”

Raging against the rise of mortal fear, she does.

“I think you might be on to something,”

he offers. “But we need to be honest about how overwhelming this thrall between us feels. Which makes it dangerous. We can kiss to try and free up your magic, and not go any further with it. Gwynn, we can’t go any further with it, ever. It has to be said.”

The full cruelty of her fasting is suddenly bearing down on Gwynn, her fastmarks an unbreakable prison. She can sense, in the mutual desire flickering in Mavrik’s look, that the subtext blazing between them doesn’t need to be voiced. They’re both clear that what transpired between them last night wasn’t just about a magical bond. His kiss was an explosively thrilling pleasure and a comfort, lighting her up in a way Geoffrey never lit her up. Leaving her both frustrated and ashamed to be suddenly considering that type of connection with someone she’s not fasted to.

“I loved my fastmate,”

Gwynn admits, feeling poised on yet another life-altering, unforgivable precipice.

“I’m sorry, Gwynnifer,”

Mavrik says with a look of pained commiseration.

She holds his gaze, impassioned conflict rising. “I never thought I’d ever want anyone else . . .”

Mavrik takes a step back, shaking his head as if warding off their magical pull. “We can’t dare to think that way. Not bound up in fasting spells.”

He gives her a stricken, searching look, gesturing toward the wand in her hand. “Gwynn, what do you want to do?”

Gwynn looks to the storm bands and thinks, yet again, of the Urisk she witnessed being herded into wagons, the Smaragdalfar children fleeing for their lives. The monster of the whole Magedom bearing down. And then, the memory of how kind Mavrik was to Ee’vee and Bloom’ilya, to the point that Ee’vee was reluctant to leave him.

She meets Mavrik’s piercing gaze. “Geoffrey is gone. But our power—it’s right here. This fight is right here. I want you to kiss me. Help me access my power. For the good of Erthia.”

Mavrik stills, then nods, his breathing tripping into a faster cadence as he steps close, brings his hand up to caress her arm, then leans down and brings his lips to hers.

A shock of multicolored light cracks through Gwynn, an explosion of wanton pleasure flashing through her as they both gasp against each other’s mouths and their magic breaks free to surge through each other’s lines. Swept up in their powers’ prismatic undertow, they draw each other closer, and Gwynn can feel, in the twining of their power, their instantaneous mutual desire to fuse.

Something shocks through Gwynn, the sense of trapped magic in her center breaking open in a burst of light as she grips his tunic’s side.

Breaking the kiss, Gwynn looks around, dazed, to find that every color in the crimson desert around her is brightened, Mavrik’s face and form limned in an aura of shimmering multihued light.

“Try the spell again,”

Mavrik huskily prods as he slides around her once more and clasps his wand hand around hers.

Forcing focus, Gwynn lifts the wand, Mavrik following her motion as she murmurs the runic spell.

A clean, luminous yellow line sweeps from her wand’s tip, and Gwynn’s heartbeat leaps, utter disbelief surging. “Holy Ancient One,”

she rasps out.

“Go on,”

Mavrik prods, “finish the rune.”

Getting hold of herself, Gwynn finishes crafting two small suspended golden amplification runes then drags and fuses one to her wand arm and the other to Mavrik’s. Deciding to experiment, Gwynn hands Mavrik’s gold wand back to him and places her hand around his this time.

Murmuring the Noi flow-rune spell, Mavrik fashions a suspended sapphire rune, seeming stunned by his new Light Mage ability to create runes. Visibly gathering himself, he connects the Noi rune’s power to the golden runes on their arms via two luminous rays of sapphire, Gwynn’s light power running bright through his lines.

“This changes everything,”

Mavrik says, seeming awestruck by the Noi rune suspended before them, raying out light. He turns to her. “Do you have any idea of the magic we can do together? We have access to all five elemental lines.”

He hands her back the wand. “Try to cast a spell without me touching you.”

Drawing in a bolstering breath, Gwynn raises the wand and murmurs the Mage light-orb spell once again.

Her magic surges toward the wand and flashes against her palm’s underside once more, triggering an even stronger ache as it remains blocked. Frustration swamps her, but before she can give voice to it, dawn breaks over the distant storm bands’ towering apexes. Gilded sunlight washes over the desert’s breathtakingly vermillion expanse, and Gwynn’s heart lifts as her lines fill with a euphoric energy. A bright orange hawk soars into view overhead, then another, the raptors circling each other like two spots of saffron flame.

A small gasp escapes Gwynnifer. “Those are Agolith Flame Hawks,”

she tells Mavrik. “They pair for life.”

Her voice hitches around the words as she watches the hawks wheeling through the sky. She turns and meets Mavrik’s intense stare as an idea lights, bright as the hawks’ feathers and sudden flood of sunlight. “We could join ourselves with Issani twinning runes,”

she ventures. “The Issani twin their high-level sorcerers. That way, they have full, permanent access to each other’s magic. Without needing to touch each other.”

She can sense the wheels of Mavrik’s wandmaster mind turning as he peers more closely at her. “That’s Issaan’s most powerful military magic, Gwynn,”

he says, a strong note of caution in his tone. “A complete fusing. As permanent as fasting. More so. And the amplification of power it triggers . . . it can be lethal. Which is why it’s rarely cast.”

He shakes his head. “If you were to set down that twinning spell and we survived its fusing, we’d never be able to remove it. We’d never function as separate Mages again. We’d have to stay in the same location. Always. And if one of us died, the other would die too.”

Gwynn pulls in a deep breath, peering up at the hawks as her lines strain toward Mavrik’s. Undaunted, she lowers her gaze to his, tension igniting between them.

“It’s too dangerous, Gwynn . . .”

he insists, slicing his hand emphatically through the air. “We can’t—”

An explosive CRACK booms out from every horizon, knifing through Gwynn’s ears and breaking off Mavrik’s words as the image of the Verdyllion pulses hard against Gwynn’s mind.

Startled, they turn toward the sound, and shock lances through Gwynn at the sight they’re met with.

The tall black storm bands in the distance have morphed to dark gray and are rising higher into the sky, rapidly gaining height as they flash and boom with a strange, curving black lightning, their bright white lightning gone.

“Bloody hells . . .”

Mavrik exclaims as the morning’s golden light dims and Gwynn realizes that the storm bands are not only enlarging but moving toward them. The Verdyllion pulses against her mind once more with dire urgency.

Her eyes meet Mavrik’s as the horrific understanding crystallizes. “Vogel’s taking over the storm bands!”

she cries. “And he’s coming for the Verdyllion. We’ve got to get everyone below ground and shielded!”

Mavrik draws his Varg-marked wand and grasps hold of Gwynn’s wrist, their magic bolting through each other’s lines as they launch into a run toward Wynter, skidding over the sand, the wind picking up as the sky rapidly grays. A series of earsplitting rumbles of thunder crackle, and Gwynn winces, the surrounding storm bands barreling closer.

They speed under a crimson stone arch, birds and wildlife scampering and darting away from the advancing storm bands. Gwynn glances over her shoulder just as a dark swarm of flying creatures bursts from the incoming wall of roiling gray chaos and soars rapidly toward them.

“Wraith bats!”

Mavrik cries out.

A rush of pure terror courses through Gwynn as the bats fly nearer, wind and sand scouring her back as her mind runs through everything she’s read about the beasts, almost immediately realizing her fatal mistake.

“Control your fear!”

Mavrik yells over the wind. “They feed on it!”

Gwynn forcefully stamps down her panic as she’s filled with a sense of the bats’ vicious energy pressing into her mind, drawn to her terror.

“Wynter!”

Mavrik booms out as they run.

Wynter is sprinting toward them, the Icaral’s pale form pummeled by gray gusts, her eyes alight with silver fire, wings drawn in tight. The Verdyllion is clasped protectively against her chest, her bird-kindreds winging around her in panicked, wind-battered flight.

Mavrik releases Gwynn’s wrist, and her magic slingshots painfully back into her center as Mavrik throws himself between Gwynn, Wynter, and the incoming wraith bats. He drops down on one knee, thrusts his wand forward and grinds out a spell.

Emerald energy blasts from his wand’s tip. A translucent green half dome-shield shimmers into existence, high as a barn’s rooftop, and multiple wraith bats crash against it, their shrieks knifing through Gwynn’s ears as they burst into green flame. Wind roars against the shield as Mavrik springs back up, and the three of them race toward the Subland cavern’s entrance.

Cael, Mynx, and Yyzz’ra are running down the rocky path toward them, along with Valasca and Rhys. Mynx waves Gwynn, Mavrik, and Wynter forward as she skids to a halt along with Cael and Rhys, all three of them swinging Varg bows off their shoulders before nocking emerald-glowing runic arrows.

“Fight back your fear!”

Mavrik yells at the incoming soldiers. “They can paralyze you with it!”

Gwynn glances over her shoulder as a huge incoming wraith bat opens its fanged mouth. Dark lightning bolts from its maw and explodes against Mavrik’s storm shield, blasting it into Shadow mist.

Panic rises inside Gwynn once more, and before she can tamp it down, she feels the huge bat hooking into her fear, its vicious energy shouldering straight into her mind. She stumbles and halts as the bat amplifies her panic, mushrooming it into paralyzing terror.

“Gwynnifer!”

Mavrik shouts, grabbing tight hold of her arm as Cael and Rhys and Mynx release arrows at the screeching bats while Valasca and Yyzz’ra hurl Varg-marked blades.

The bats shriek as they fall, but Gwynn can hear scores more soaring toward them as Mavrik drags her rigid body toward the Subland entrance. Wynter throws herself between Gwynn and Mavrik and the bats as a much larger swarm soars straight toward them.

“Get back, Wynter!”

Mavrik cries, and Gwynn manages a glance behind her.

Wynter remains fixedly in place, snapping her wings out to their full breadth.

It’s over. It’s all over, Gwynn’s heart pounds out as Wynter throws her wings down, rises into the sky and raises the Verdyllion in her hand.

Gwynn’s breath stutters in her chest as raying lines of silver energy blast from the Verdyllion in all directions, each line of power rapidly coalescing into the translucent form of a rune-marked bird made of spiraling silver lines.

With a warrior cry, Wynter thrusts her free palm forward, and her runic birds wing toward the wraith bats and collide with them in sprays of silver light.

The bats shriek as the aura of Wynter’s magical energy hits Gwynn, flashing silver light through every line.

The light filled with pure, undistilled courage.

The fearlessness of a true artist.

Wynter’s power rushes through Gwynn, dissolving her fear and galvanizing her to move as bats explode into silver flame and Mavrik pulls Gwynn into a sprint.

“Get inside!”

Mavrik growls at everyone as they race up the rocky path to the Subland entrance and Wynter soars in above them then touches down on the entrance’s ledge.

They all burst into the cavern, Wynter’s panicked birds swarming around them along with the paired Agolith Flame Hawks.

Wynter leaps through the entrance, and they all turn toward it just as the Shadow storm band blasts against the cavern, a violent gust slamming through its opening and into them all.

Gwynn’s breath is punched from her lungs as she’s tossed clear across the cavern with the others, their backs colliding with the stone wall as they’re pinned there, the ferocious power of the wind rattling Gwynn’s very bones.

Cursing under his breath, Mavrik grits out a spell and thrusts his Varg-marked wand forward, blasting out another green half dome-shield that punches the Shadow storm back a fraction.

The wind releases, and they all drop to the ground in a heap.

Seizing the window of opportunity, Gwynn lurches toward Mavrik and throws her wand hand around his, their magic intertwining, Gwynn’s light magery releasing into his lines.

They thrust out the wand together, and Gwynn hastily conjures interconnected Varg, Mage, Noi, and Issani storm-repel runes shot through with multicolored lightning.

Huffing out another snarling spell, Gwynn blasts the runes forward.

Rays of color flash from the linked runes and flow through Mavrik’s shield, then crash into the Shadow storm with a resonant BOOM, driving the gray chaos clear out of the cave.

Mynx and Yyzz’ra hastily leap forward and press their palms to the Varg runes marked along the cavern’s entrance. A crystalline-green wall closes over the opening, sealing it shut.

Shadow power slams against the conjured barrier in a concussive BOOM, and Mynx and Yyzz’ra leap back as the very ground shakes beneath them all, sprays of stone raining down from the cavern’s ceiling.

“It’s Vogel,”

Wynter states, silver fire guttering in her eyes as she clutches the Verdyllion to her chest, her birds flapping around the cavern in panicked, aimless trajectories. “That entire storm . . . it’s shot through with his Shadow power.”

“We need to get farther underground and strengthen the Sublands’ Varg shielding,”

Mavrik urges them all.

Another explosion hits the cavern’s barrier, and they set off in a sprint down the spiraling stone stairs until they reach the cavern’s base. Following Mynx and Yyzz’ra, they race through a narrow tunnel, then into the expansive crimson cavern at its terminus, its huge ceiling covered in a net of interlocking Varg runes, part of the huge web of runes shielding the entire Central Desert’s Sublands.

Two young Smaragdalfar soldiers are there—Yyzz’ra’s comrades, the perpetually angry Gavryyl and quietly dangerous Valkyr—along with Sparrow, who rushes over to greet Valasca. The two Subland soldiers are casting Varg rune after Varg rune into the air from precharged runic stones, swiftly spelling each rune upward to strengthen the rune net as fast as they can.

“All the tunnels to the south, west, and east of us have collapsed,”

Valkyr calls to Yyzz’ra as he fashions runes. “We’re trapped. Cut off from the rest of our forces—”

Another seismic blow rattles the earth, and the Varg rune net gives a worrisome flicker to gray.

“Holy gods,”

Valasca snarls. “Vogel’s storm bands can overtake Varg magic!”

Wynter’s artistic courage still reverberating through her, Gwynn calmly narrows her eyes at the rune-netted ceiling and can tell, by reading which details of the runic design are flickering out, that the Smaragdalfar’s Subland barrier is a few minutes away from falling.

“It won’t hold,”

she says to Mavrik, harsh and emphatic. “We need to fuse our magic with the Issani twinning spell, then link it to the shield.”

She meets Wynter’s silver-fire-rimmed eyes. “Using the Verdyllion.”

Gwynn’s eyes snap pointedly back to Mavrik’s, a fervid look passing between them before he nods.

Without a beat of hesitation, Wynter tosses Gwynn the Verdyllion, and she catches it. A tremor passes through her as the Wand’s prismatic energy shoots through her every line. Her trapped power expands, a sense of pure rightness filling her core as the Verdyllion’s green glow spreads over her wand hand and straight up her wrist.

Mavrik’s arms come around her from behind, his wand hand closing around hers.

Their combined power floods Gwynn’s lines, her light magery streaking toward the Verdyllion. She sets about fashioning two large, bright gold Issani twinning runes to hover in the air before them, the potential consequences of the twinning magic be fully damned.

Another violent BOOM sounds, like a monster battering against the earth, its intensifying roar against the Subland ceiling a nightmare of fury. The Varg rune net above them shivers to a grayer green, a few pieces of the ceiling cracking off and crashing to the floor, a small preview of the devastation to come.

“Pull up your tunic,”

Gwynn orders Mavrik. He releases her hand, her light magic snapping into its trapped state as he wrests off the garb.

Ignoring her neck-prickling rush of heat from staring at his naked upper body, she grabs the side of his belt and drags him close. He takes hold of her wand hand once more and follows her movements as she touches the Verdyllions’s tip to one of the runes then drags the rune onto his body, murmuring an Issani spell to fuse it there.

Mavrik shivers as the rune brightens in a rush of golden sparks then settles into a luminous golden design against his taut abdomen.

Another devastating BOOM sounds, spiking through Gwynn’s ears. A hail of rocks rains down as the Subland Elves furiously cast Varg runes, the runes fragmenting to gray as quickly as they’re cast.

Hurling modesty aside, Gwynn pulls up her own tunic and drags the second rune onto her skin, fusing it there in a prickling profusion of sparks, Mavrik’s grip firm around her hand.

Wasting no time, she fashions a third golden rune in the air before them. Bolstered by Mavrik’s steady grasp, Gwynn clamps her teeth together to dampen the dizzying clamor of nerves, and crafts golden lines connecting the suspended rune hanging before them to the runes marked on both of their abdomens. Feeling like she’s about to jump off a cliff leading straight off Erthia, she draws in a deep breath, exchanges one, last fraught look with Mavrik . . . and murmurs the Issani twinning spell.

Searing gold cuts through her vision. A startling pain strikes through her every line, her affinity lines tearing toward Mavrik’s with eviscerating force.

She cries out, Mavrik grunting out a sound of agony as they collide against each other, desperate to relieve the terrible pull, Gwynn’s lungs feeling on the verge of collapse as the agonizing tension nears breakage.

Fumbling for a way to connect and survive, she crashes her lips onto his.

The pain exploding through Gwynn’s lines abruptly morphs into a stunningly intimate sense of Mavrik’s every line of power fusing to hers, a startled energy blazing through his magic as a bright Issani gold overtakes Gwynn’s sight. They break the kiss, both of them pulling in great gulps of air, the gold in Gwynn’s vision rapidly clearing . . . to reveal Mavrik before her, his irises now an incandescent gold that Gwynn can sense shimmering through her own irises. Her eyes flit to Wynter Eirllyn’s silver-burning gaze. The two Agolith Flame Hawks are perched on Wynter’s shoulders, their feathers illuminating her slender form in vivid orange light.

Another cave-rattling BOOM sounds.

Flooded with a resolve she can feel blazing through Mavrik’s power as well, Gwynn releases her hold on Mavrik and aims the Verdyllion at the Varg shielding while gritting out an Issani rune-connection spell, intimately aware that her and Mavrik’s connection no longer involves touch.

An iridescent bolt of their twinned power rays out from the Verdyllion and spears toward the cavern’s ceiling, the golden light startling Gwynn with its beauty. The rays furcate as they streak through the ceiling’s grayed Varg runes, blasting away the Shadow and recharging them all, each rune flashing into multihued light until the entire cavern’s ceiling pulses with Gwynn’s full spectrum of color power. The rain of stone lessens then abruptly stops, the Shadow storm’s onslaught muting to a faint, distant roar.

Gwynn pulls in a hard breath, filled by the heady, intrinsic sense of every Varg rune cast throughout the Central Desert’s Sublands now merged to her and Mavrik’s twinned power to create an impenetrable net of protection, the Sublands now a fortress.

Walled off from the Magedom.

Gwynn’s legs buckle. She’s caught by Mavrik, the two of them sinking to the ground, their twinned power momentarily spent, everything in them sent into the Subland shielding.

“You did it,”

he murmurs, kissing her forehead, seeming overwhelmed. “Well played, Gwynnifer.”

Gwynn clings to him as Mynx, Cael, Valasca, and others race over to them. She shivers, the full interconnection of her and Mavrik’s lines disorienting, the two of them like one fused entity. Gwynn can sense his emotions through their merged lines, almost as clearly as she feels her own, Mavrik’s potent determination to protect her rushing through her while her equally potent desire to protect him shimmers through them both in a sizzling aura of light.

“Don’t move!”

Valasca orders, raising the Varg-marked blade in her hand, her eyes pinned on something above and behind Gwynn and Mavrik.

Gwynn turns just as a raven soars from a stony alcove and Valasca hurls her weapon. The blade impales the raven. A chillingly multitone, too-low caw sounds from the raven as it falls, the pair of Agolith Flame Hawks screeching out sounds of distress as they wing away to perch on an outcropping of stone.

Valasca runs to the flapping, fallen raven, and Gwynn notes, with a sharp recoil of fear, that the bird has eyes of swirling Shadow massed all over its upper head, with a single pale green eye set in their center.

And there’s a Shadow rune on the raven’s side.

Valasca grabs the raven and hoists it by its feet, the pale green eye fixing on her with a look of palpable hate that sends a dart of fright down Gwynn’s spine.

“I’ve encountered this type of beast before,”

Valasca growls. “Vogel’s in it. He’s watching us through this runic spy. It’s likely he’s been watching us for a while now.”

With a sweep of her blade, Valasca decapitates the raven spy, and its head thumps to the ground, its Shadow eyes deadening to black, but the pale green eye—the Vogel eye—remaining brutally fixed on Valasca.

Growling, Valasca thrusts the thing’s body to the side, grabs hold of the raven’s decapitated head and stabs her blade straight into the Vogel eye, scouring it out.

Everyone stills while Wynter lowers herself beside the raven’s body and places her hand on its rapidly disappearing Shadow rune. A slight shiver ripples through her.

Valasca is breathing hard, her blade’s hilt gripped tight in her fist, as they all take in the horror before them. “So, he knows we’re here and that we have the Verdyllion,”

Valasca states. She looks to Yyzz’ra and the two young Subland soldiers bracketing her. “Which means he knows quite a bit about your Subland army.”

Her dark gaze swings to Wynter. “And there’s a chance he knows what Wynter can do with the Verdyllion.”

Valasca turns to Mavrik and Gwynn, her eyes flicking toward the prismatic Subland shielding they just conjured. “And he knows that you’ve twinned your magic to wall the Magedom out of here.”

“So he has his little spy,”

Mavrik snarls back. “He can’t get through our shielding.”

“He can,”

Wynter murmurs.

Everyone’s gaze swings toward Wynter.

She draws her hand back to cradle it against her chest as the Shadow rune marked on the raven’s side vanishes, her wings drawing in protectively around herself. “Vogel is going after the wilds,”

she warns. “I read his intent through that Shadow rune’s tether to his power. He’s not just targeting Elloren and Yvan, but the entire Northern Forest.”

“To get hold of the Black Witch,”

Yyzz’ra impatiently snaps.

“Not just that,”

Wynter counters, looking to Yyzz’ra. “To destroy the forest itself.”

“Well, we best hope the Dryad wards surrounding that forest hold,”

Mavrik says. He narrows his gaze at the prismatic shield above them, the chromatic runes pulsing every color over the cavernous space before he lowers his gaze back to Wynter’s. Gwynn stiffens as his worry sizzles through their twinned power. “If Vogel destroys enough forest,”

Mavrik says, “he might be able to break through our shielding.”

Gwynn furrows her brow. “I don’t understand,”

she says. “How could destroying forests break through our shielding?”

Mavrik gives her a grim, searching look. “Gwynn,”

he says. “We’re Dryads.”

A reflexive protest rears over this outrageous claim. “We’re Mages . . .”

“Yes, Gwynn,”

he agrees, a hard edge entering his tone, “we are. And all Mages are part Dryad. Trees are the source of all our magic. Magery flows from the rooted forest, through our lines, then out through our wands. If you kill enough trees, you destroy our magic.”

His gaze darkens. “Unless you replace the elemental power in our lines with Shadow power.”

Gwynn blinks at him, pinned by the intensity of his stare, her thoughts at war. Just uttering that thought is the highest sacrilege in Gardneria.

“Did you ever think about the dead trees that decorate practically every Gardnerian home?”

Mavrik presses, unrelenting. “The dead trees set into the Valgard Cathedral itself? The forest decor everywhere, in every Mage home? The wands of layered wood? The religious obsession with Ironflowers, which are the beginnings of trees? The Sealing ceremony full of dominion over the elements of nature culminating with control over the trees themselves?”

Gwynn’s disorientation intensifies, and she can feel the blood draining from her face.

“We’re part Kelt, part Dryad,”

Mavrik vehemently continues. “We’re not ‘First Children,’ sprung from the Great Ironwood Tree. Gwynn, we’re part Tree Fae.”

The undeniable truth cycles down, slamming through Gwynn with the force of a thousand runic storm bands. Part Tree Fae. We’re part Fae.

She gapes at him, stunned, as Vogel’s muted power thunders against the world above. “How have I never pieced that together?”

Mavrik’s lips give a bitter twist. “The power of religion. Able to make us deny even the most glaringly obvious of truths.”

He glances up at their color-pulsing shielding. “Wynter’s right,”

he says, warning in his eyes. “We’re not just walled off from the surface of Erthia by Vogel’s Shadow storm bands—”

“We’re walled off from the trees,”

Gwynn finishes for him, holding his piercing gaze with burgeoning alarm.

“Vogel is going to keep us trapped underground,”

Wynter states with terrible certainty. Her eyes flick toward the Verdyllion in Gwynn’s hand before she meets her gaze. “And while we’re trapped, he’s going to destroy Dryad magic, bring down your Subland shielding, and take hold of the Verdyllion.”