Epilogue

The Next Great Mage

Valen

Almost a year ago

Six-year-old Valen falls out of his mother’s arms and to the Valgard ground, tendrils of Shadow curling around him as panicked Mages rush by.

“My son!”

his mother cries, as she’s whisked from his sight by the press of fleeing Mages. “Help me get back to my son!”

he can just make out her screaming. “He’s our next Great Mage!”

“Mamma!”

Valen screams as the booted foot of a fleeing Mage connects with his shoulder, his leg. The poisoned sky overhead is full of low-hanging, nightmarish Shadow clouds spitting curling black lightning, Valen’s Level Five Magelines sizzling terrified fire through his whole body. Roughly jostled on every side, Valen breaks into heaving sobs just as a Gardnerian woman grabs rough hold of him and yanks him into her arms.

The terrifying scene surrounding them comes back into full view as Valen and the stranger-Mage are swept forward by the sea of black-clad Gardnerians, all in desperate flight toward a series of glowing arches made from prismatic runes situated at the plaza’s far end, the interiors rippling silver.

Valen glances around frantically, no sign of his mother anywhere. “Mamma!”

he screams again and again as shrieks split the air. Valen’s eyes widen in horror as Mage soldiers with multitudes of glowing gray eyes fly in on dragonback, their multi-eyed dragons possessing six or even eight limbs, huge gray wraith bats soaring in beside them.

One dragon lands a few paces away from Valen with a ground-shaking thump, crushing an old woman under its huge body. The multi-eyed Mage astride it dismounts, fast as a blur, then grabs a screaming woman and latches his elongating teeth into her throat. Valen’s gut clenches with terror as tendrils of Shadow course from the Mage-thing’s body, and the woman goes limp in his Shadow-clawed hands.

“MAMMA!”

Valen screams again, as the woman holding him suddenly throws him straight into one of the prismatic arches.

The scene cuts out, and a vision of a starlight bird flashes through Valen’s panicked vision as he hurtles, limbs flailing, through the silvery mist.

Valen lands with a thud and vomits onto brushy soil. His gaze whips around, the surrounding Forest bizarrely prismatic, some of the mostly gray-tinged leaves colored blue and purple along with the more familiar colors of fall. A cold rain batters his skinny frame and thunder rumbles, drawing his gaze skyward. Far overhead, he can make out a translucent dome marked with faintly visible prismatic runes.

So terrified he can barely pull a breath, Valen breaks into heaving sobs, all alone in the oddly colored forest.

“Mamma!”

he chokes out.

An onyx-hued woman with horns! and wings! and dragon eyes! bursts from the woods and runs toward him, a Lupine wolf-monster woman with wild amber eyes and flaxen hair racing beside her, a rush of terror shooting down his spine.

A Wyvern monster and Lupine monster! Just like his scariest toys!

Out to kill and eat Mage children!

Valen screams, fright turning him into a wild thing. He grabs hold of the closest branch, struggling to remember the words to the candle-lighting spell his mamma taught him to use if Evil Ones got hold of him—the same spell he learned for his wandtesting, when he blasted out a huge column of fire and blew a burning hole through the room’s wall. The priests’ eyes had widened, all the surrounding adults murmuring and exclaiming as the wand was wrested from his hand and they’d grouped around the wall’s smoking wreckage, eyeing him in a strange way that made Valen feel scared.

Calling him “the next Great Mage.”

Faced with the incoming Wyvern and Lupine monsters, Valen shrieks out the candle-lighting spell once more, screaming his vengeance at the monsters, along with his fear over not being able to find his mamma, his wand hand trembling.

A huge bolt of fire explodes from the branch and blasts toward the Evil Ones.

The Lupine monster throws up her forearm, and the firebolt glances off it, the flames quickly pulled toward the Wyvern monster and sucked into her outstretched palm.

Before Valen can blast out another column of Magefire, the Lupine monster reaches him in a blur, wrests the branch from his grip, and grabs him in her frightfully strong arms. Valen thrashes against her, snarling, his fire power searing through him, his ferocious magic desperate for release.

The Wyvern monster narrows her slit-pupiled eyes at him, her nostrils flaring. “Kill him, Diana,”

she urges.

The scary wolf woman keeps an iron hold on Valen’s writhing, screaming form as she growls at the Wyvern monster, low in her throat. “No, Voor’nile. He’s a child.”

“Do you sense the level of power coming off that child?”

the Wyvern monster growls back. “That’s no normal Mage child. That child is at least a Level Five, with the potential for Great Mage power. He should be destroyed before he can grow into it.”

Another growl cuts through the woods, low and scarily resonant.

Valen freezes as another Lupine monster, a tall male, strides out of the forest. Confusion rips through Valen. Because this Lupine monster is a Mage, with the same green-hued skin and night-black hair as Valen’s own.

“Diana’s right,”

the Lupine Mage man states, his stance powerful. “We’re placing him under the pack’s protection.”

The Wyvern monster spits out what sounds like a hissing curse as Valen devolves into wailing misery, screaming, “Mamma, Mamma, Mamma!”

And then he’s in motion, the forest around him a blur as he screams and screams and is carried through the trees by the Lupine monster woman, the scary Lupine Mage man keeping pace at her side.

Eventually, Valen’s earsplitting wails slow then stop, exhaustion overtaking him. A tremor kicks up as he finds himself able to manage only an exhausted, soul-destroyed whimper. The Wolf monsters reduce their tree-blurring pace, the Lupine woman gently shushing Valen as she rubs his back.

He goes limp in her arms. There’s something so warmly kind in her tone . . . something that seems, as her voice catches with what feels like kindred grief, like she understands on some heart-deep level his rageful, slashing grief and terror. And so, completely spent, Valen allows the Lupine monster to hug his limp form. Allows her to talk and murmur softly to him. And later, after they reach a small dwelling in the purple woods, he allows her to tuck a blanket around him before enveloping him in her strong arms and gently murmuring him to sleep.

Valen spends the next night falling asleep beside the Wolf monster woman.

And the night after that.

But days are a different thing.

Valen screams and rages and tries to hit and bite any of the Evil Ones who come near. He finds wood in an attempt to hurt them with fire. As he screams for his family. Screams out his terror and pain and trauma.

“He’s no good,”

passing monsters say. Elf monsters and Noi monsters and Fae monsters and others.

“That Crow child has too much power,” they say.

“You’re playing with fire, there, Diana.”

“Rafe, he’s another Great Mage. Get rid of him.”

But the wolf woman and the wolf man calmly refute all of it.

Time passes, and Valen starts to remain calm around Diana, the wolf woman, only Diana able to approach him without provoking an attack. He bites or punches anyone else who tries to come near. Finds a multitude of sticks and sets a multitude of things on fire.

But Diana and Rafe refuse to give up on him.

More time passes, and new monsters come to visit, those who are completely immune to his fits of fire because they have so much fire of their own. Elloren, a Dryad Mage monster who has as much fire as he does. And the Icaral monster, Yvan, who offers to fly Valen into the sky when he’s ready.

But still, when he’s not careening into outright hostility, Valen turns increasingly despondent, lapsing into dull silence when he’s not lashing out.

Until Ariel comes.

Valen hisses at Ariel, and she hisses back. Then she gives him a wide smile, her fire eyes full of fierce understanding. Thrust into a whirlwind of confusion, Valen lashes out at her. Tries to set her wings on fire. But she meets it all with narrow-eyed calm.

And comes back every day.

Soon, out of sheer confusion, Valen stops trying to set fire to her wings. Stops trying to set fire to everything in sight.

And before long, he’s going off with Ariel. Then with the Wyvern Raz’zor. Up, up, up into the sky, the three of them throwing fire out at the heavens. Great lashes of it across the sky, turning the night gold and crimson.

Good, they say, Ariel and Raz’zor both.

Be angry, they say.

Set the damned sky on fire.

And so he does. Sensing that Ariel and Raz’zor need to do this, too, from time to time.

And, as more time passes and Valen is surrounded by so many who are so kind, who understand and accept him, somehow, his fear and rage begin to lessen.

Before long, step by step, little by little, so incrementally he almost doesn’t notice the changes happening, he’s letting Ariel and Raz’zor fly him up so high that he touches the clouds.

Letting Trystan and his mate, Vothendrile, teach him to hone his fire into lightning bolts so he can light up the heavens with forking electricity through the dark of night.

Then, as more time passes and he grows taller and taller, Valen lets spider-marked Wrenfir teach him to care for injured cats and use his fire power to speed Wrenfir’s apothecary spells as they work together to fabricate medicines for both people and Wrenfir’s rescued felines, Wrenfir gifting him with a purple kitten of his own.

Interests build and build, and before long, Valen’s love of cats branches into a love of horses, and he’s letting Andras teach him how to treat injured equines. Letting Ariel teach him how to set a bird’s broken wing. Letting Wynter teach him how to sculpt a small statue of the bird he and Ariel just healed and released back into the wilds.

The Great, Blessed Forest.

More time passes, and before long, twelve-year-old Valen is letting patient Or’myr teach him how to throw power through crystals and charge them to heat a home, to power a ship. Then how to grow mushrooms and brew them into tea. How to play the violin.

And letting Elloren, Yvan, Oaklyyn, and Yulan show him the meaning of the Balance, and the Nature-balancing magic of the Zhilaan Forest.

Year upon year passes, with so much love and attention enfolding Valen, his heart has trouble holding it all sometimes. It’s so gradual that it’s impossible to pinpoint the day it fully and irrevocably happens—the day he fully lays down his Mage defenses. The day the desire to draw a branch, rage out a spell, and set someone on fire truly abates.

The day he heals enough to stop fighting and lets in their collective love.

Thirteen years later . . .

For All of Us

Valen Ulrich

Lupine Territory, Northern Vo Forest

Xishlon night

Fern Hawthorne-Za’Nor has never looked as heart-expandingly lovely as she does right now. For a moment, nineteen-year-old Valen Ulrich can barely pull in a steady breath, his wits thoroughly scattered, his heart on purple-moon fire for her as he meets Fern’s gorgeous pink-amethyst gaze.

She’s hanging back at the edge of the large, lilac-grassed Forest clearing with her friends, her eyes boldly fixed on Valen where he stands in the clearing’s center facing Rafe and Diana. The whole Realm is awash in purple from Vo’s Xishlon moon, a sizable crowd of family and friends surrounding Valen.

On this momentous day.

His Lupine Change Day.

Fern is eyeing him with that entrancing mix of flirtatious mischief and shyness that never fails to quicken Valen’s heartbeat, dizzying love spiraling through him when he considers his outrageous luck to have had her as his Xishlon’vir for a full year now.

He’ll never forget that first intoxicating kiss under last year’s purple moon.

And another kiss, only a few days past, in the darkest, stillest hours in the Voloi kitchen of Mora’lee’s rune-ship restaurant, Fern’s back pressed against the counter, Valen’s tongue twining with hers, their bodies fitted so enticingly tight against each other.

His desire for her pressed so heatedly against her warm, curvaceous figure.

And oh, she noticed. Shyly and then boldly running a hand over him as he fought the urge to peel off her clothes and take her right then and there.

“Xishlon is only a week away,”

she’d managed that night, her breathing as uneven as his as he ran his lips down her rose-hued neck, pressed himself more urgently against her, wanting to get closer than ever before.

Wanting all of her.

But Fern drew herself back a fraction, her hands coming up to cup his cheeks, her face flushed a wild rose. Valen could barely stand the beauty of her, the two of them best friends since they were twelve.

And then, years later . . . more.

Their friendship blossoming into a connection that suffused his dreams and caused him to wake in heated sweats, murmuring her name, his desire as stiff as steel.

“It’s a great blessing to take each other fully on Xishlon,”

she offered, swallowing, her gorgeous amethyst eyes bright with desire, the two of them so enticingly alone.

Valen grew serious as he took what felt like a leap off a cliff, swept up in their shared intimacy. Swept up in his love for her. “I’m going to Change on Xishlon,”

he confided.

Fern’s breath caught on a surprised inhale, her hands on his cheeks stilling.

“What does that mean for us?”

she finally managed, a quaver in her voice.

Valen leaned in and kissed her with great care before resting his forehead lightly against hers. “It means,”

he said, a tremor now coursing through him, “that I’ll want to take you to be my mate on that same night under the Xishlon moon.”

Fern drew back a fraction, her gaze wide as she looked closely at him, and Valen knew she understood what he was asking. They had enough Lupine friends and family for it to be clear.

He was asking for a forever bond.

“You know that I don’t want to become Lupine,”

she reminded him, an emotional vibration in her tone, both of them poised on the edge of a beautiful precipice. One they’d been headed toward for years with reckless abandon.

He nodded. Of course he knew that. He knew Fern was attached to the Natural World in a different way, through her geomancy and affinity for rose-hued crystals and stones. Her love of cooking dovetailed with her attraction to agro-geology, his beloved widely sought after for her intuitive grasp on which rock powders could best replenish the Eastern Realm’s Shadow-depleted soil with vital minerals, enhancing crop yields.

Fern held out her palm to him, displaying the image of IV emblazoned there, and Valen calmly took the gesture in, his own palms bare, since he’d decided on a different type of bond to the Natural World.

The Lupine bond to Erthia’s Great Wilds.

“I love you, Fern,”

he responded in her Uriskal tongue, his heartbeat thundering. “I want to take you to mate under Vo’s moon as your beautiful geomancer self. And my pack is ready to accept you as family just as you are.”

Fern blinked, tears glimmering in her eyes, before she gave him a dazzling smile.

A whoosh of joy swept through Valen, everything in him bowled over by the happiness in her smile. Hard-won happiness. He knows this, all too well, from their countless late-night conversations when he held a weeping Fern close as she confided her struggles as a young child in the East, orphaned at a young age when her parents were killed by the Mages. Tears flowing, she told him how she was raised by her beloved grandmother, Fernyllia, who was eventually executed by the Mages for a feat of heroism that ultimately allowed Fern to escape from the Western Realm, along with so many of their friends and family. Like Valen, Fern became a child refugee in the war-decimated Eastern Realm.

Decimated by what happens when so many groups are bent on hating each other and have forgotten their tether to the Forest and to Vo’s love.

“All right, Wolf Boy,”

Fern tossed out in the Common Tongue, beaming at him as tears streaked down her cheeks, her grin filling with flirtatious mischief. “Accept the Xishlon moon as a Lupine. Then bring it to me.”

And now, one week later, Xishlon has returned to the Eastern Realm.

Vo’s purple moonlight streams into the huge Forest clearing, anticipation and love quickening Valen’s heartbeat. A large crowd of family and friends are gathered around him, including the whole Eastern Gerwulf pack.

“You ready for this?”

his close friend Konnor Volya asks from beside him.

A broad grin breaks out over Konnor’s deep-brown face, warm merriment in his crimson Lupine eyes. Valen grins back at Konnor, his strapping purple-and-black-haired friend a good head taller than him and as steady and warm as his horse-healer father, Andras. Konnor’s solid manner is always such a balm to Valen’s tempestuous emotions and even more tempestuous Mage magic, Valen’s Level Five fire power often casting his emotions into turmoil.

But in a few moments, he’ll be free of his Magelines and linked to a whole new power.

His pack.

And bonded to the Forest in a whole new way.

“I’m ready,”

Valen assures Konnor, beaming back at him and his two other closest male friends, who are standing beside him on this momentous day—bookish and bespectacled Effrey and young Fyn’ir Za’nor. A penumbra of purple Strafeling mist surrounds Effrey’s straight-backed form, and purple-patterned Fyn’ir’s silver-green eyes are twinkling with his ever-present look of mischief, his Icaral wings pulled in tight behind him, his violet squirrel kindred hugging his arm.

Valen is bolstered by their presence, ready to be reborn as a wolf-shifter and take to the woods for his first run with his family and friends, as Lupine custom encourages.

Before taking Fern soundly to mate.

His eyes seek out Fern again, a thrill coursing through him as their gazes meet and they smile besottedly at each other. Fern’s good friends also bracket her—fiery, forest-hued Pyrgo, the purple-hued geomancer-Dryad Tibryl, Smaragdalfar sorceress Nil’ya, and artistic Ghor’li, along with geomancers Bloom’ilya and graceful Ee’vee, all of the young women regarding Fern and Valen with looks of open amusement. Valen’s attention slides back to Fern, his gaze wandering appreciatively over his love’s formfitting Xishlon tunic and pants, her lavender garb embroidered with Xishlon’s fabled purple blossoms, that lovely figure of hers never failing to set his blood and fire burning hotter.

Fern shifts slightly, cocking her hip enticingly and raising her bosom in bold invitation, and Valen has to look away, all too aware of his body’s overenthusiastic response to her sultry flirtation, a hot flush suffusing his neck as Pyrgo lets out a bark of a laugh.

“Easy now,”

Fyn’ir teases, nostrils flaring, his wings pulling in tight. “I’m not sure my sister’s ready for you.”

Valen returns Fyn’ir’s ribald smile, knowing full well that both Fyn’ir and Pyrgo, along with all the shifters and power empaths here, can scent the desire practically leaping in the air between himself and Fern.

“If anyone can handle Lupine Valen, it’s Fern,”

Effrey laughs as he pushes up his spectacles. “She’s managed to handle his out-of-control Level Five fire quite admirably.”

Fyn’ir’s grin widens, his squirrel on his head now, like a jaunty cap. “Of course, you’re right,”

he agrees. “She’ll quickly bring Valen to heel.”

“I can’t wait to see your eyes change!”

eight-year-old Kendra enthuses, breaking into his friends’ teasing.

Valen looks down to find his sister suddenly beside him and hugging his arm as she beams up at him with a warm, wide smile. Kendra confidently tosses her long raven-hued hair over her shoulder, one hand coming to her hip with rakish bravado, her stance dominant. Her ever-present twin, the equally raven-haired, green-hued, and ultraconfident Edwin, lopes up beside her, mirroring her cheerful grin, both twins strongly resembling their mother, Diana, in both facial features and unflappable charisma, their Dryad hue a mirror of their father, Rafe.

“We won’t just be your ’dopted brother and sister after this,”

Edwin adds as Valen brings his hand to his brother’s shoulder. “We’ll be full packmates and look even more alike!”

“You don’t have to look alike to be family,”

Diana good-naturedly chides.

And Valen knows this to be oh so very blessedly true.

He glances around at his huge extended family, their collective love washing over him, and his love for them heart-expandingly drawn to the surface by the Xishlon moon.

His aunt Aislinn and uncle Jarod approach, Uncle Jarod’s arm looped around her waist, the both of them Voloi University archivists.

“For you on your Change Day,”

his aunt Aislinn enthuses as she hands him a slim violet tome.

Valen glances down at the book. Lupine Forest Dream by Aislinn and Jarod Ulrich. He smiles—it’s their new book of poetry.

Touched, Valen embraces them both, shooting a smile as Aislinn and Jarod’s seven-year-old daughter, Daciana, peeks out from behind them. The black-haired, amber-eyed child smiles back at Valen, her arms wrapped around a slim stack of books as usual, the whimsical, gentle child always bringing “three book friends”

with her everywhere she goes.

Daciana’s best friend, the equally bookish and bespectacled eight-year-old Fernyllia, hugs Daciana’s side, a book bag slung over her shoulder. Three branches are sheathed at Fernyllia’s hip, and her small owl kindred sits solemnly on her shoulder. Her black hair is woven into braids and secured with purple ribbon, her parents, university professor Jules Kristian and naval Dryad’kin Lucretia Quillen, hovering nearby.

Fernyllia’s glimmering green-hued face is turned expectantly toward Valen, the girls obviously curious about all his Change Day gifts. He can’t help but remember when Fernyllia and Daciana were tiny babes with comical tufts of black hair, and he finds himself unable to suppress a swell of delight to have grown up alongside so many of the children here.

“A joyous Change Day,”

his aunt Elloren enthuses as she and his uncle Yvan step forward, and Elloren holds out their Change Day gift, tears brimming in her Forest green eyes.

Valen’s throat tightens as he accepts the violin case. Yvan and Elloren’s adopted ten-year-old son, Lukas, hugs Yvan’s side, the war orphan’s wings flapping. It’s a blessing to see Lukas so settled in here, the Icaral child originally a feral, uncontrollable, and heartbreakingly unnamed three-year-old when first brought to Elloren and Yvan.

Lukas is still fiery and high-strung, but blossoming in the circle of fiery love coming not only from fire-resistant Elloren and Yvan and their daughter, Tessla, but from so many friends and family who are gathered here now—his aunts Ariel and Wynter as well as Naga’s expansive horde, along with Grandma Soleiya’s community of Fire Fae friends and loved ones.

“I helped make the violin,”

Tessla crows with an emphatic flap of her wings and a cheeky smile, the thirteen-year-old flame-eyed and fiery, her black horns glinting purple in the moonlight, her garb, which is usually every shade of the rainbow, glowing purple instead, lines of Xishlon moons printed along every hem. A powerful Icaral and Light Mage, Tessla is the spitting image of both her father and equally fiery grandmother, Soleiya, who hovers nearby. But Tessla’s black hair and green coloring are all Elloren, a rainbow parakeet kindred perched on her shoulder.

Valen opens the violin case, heart leaping when he finds the instrument made of purple wood and handcrafted by Elloren and Tessla nestled inside, two lacquered purple moons shining bright from its surface. For a moment his throat is too knotted with emotion to allow speech.

“It’s beautiful,”

he finally manages as he’s enveloped in a hug by Yvan, Elloren, and Tessla, wiry Lukas reaching out to tentatively bump Valen on the arm. Valen ruffles Lukas’s hair and is rewarded by a quick flash of a smile.

“Welcome to an even fuller bond to our very strange family,”

his uncle Wrenfir drawls as he approaches with his partner, the Death Fae–Dryad Hazel, their arms wrapped loosely around each other, tendrils of Hazel’s Darkness encircling them both as Wrenfir’s bobcat hugs his side. There’s a huge smile on Wrenfir’s dark lips as he holds out a small vial filled with midnight-black liquid, a swirl of Dark mist encircling it. “A potion,”

Hazel explains. “To further enhance the night vision you’re about to develop along with those amber eyes.”

Valen thanks them both and takes the vial, the Dark mist winding around his hand. He considers how different Wrenfir has been since Hazel emerged from his melding with Natural Death several months earlier.

It’s as if a heavy misery lifted from Wrenfir, their renewed pairing resulting in the most unexpected of outcomes. Their magic infusing each other’s rootlines, they promptly set about pooling their Deathkin and Dryad magic to create a net of magic able to hunt down and kill the microbes responsible for the Red Grippe, rapidly clearing the cruel pathogen from the East entirely.

Forever wiping out the deadly disease.

Emotion constricting his chest, Valen considers how so many Dryad’khin couples have merged power through their love pairings. He wonders, as he pockets the vial and anticipation tingles over his skin, what revelations the pairing of his soon-to-be Lupine self with geomancer Fern will bring.

A flood of Change Day gifts follow—a small statue of Vo’s purple Xishlon dragon manifestation, gifted to him by his uncles Trystan and Vothe, who are partially responsible for the restoration of the mighty Zonor River; a piece of rare purple lumenstone shaped like a Xishlon moon, given to him by Fern and Fyn’ir’s parents, Sage and Ra’Ven; a pale-white moon orchid gifted to him by Yulan and her Alfsigr love, Rhysindor; and a green Caledonian pine seedling brought back East for him by Valasca, her love, Ni Vin, and their good friend Alder, along with an invitation to visit their fledgling Amazakaraan colony in the Western Realm, where they’ve recovered seeds under the Shadow filth and are fighting back the gray with rewilded land.

Valen can barely keep up with the flood of gifts and love. He accepts an emerald tin covered with Smaragdalfar script from Mora’lee and Fyon.

“Smaragdalfar courting tea,”

Mora’lee saucily reveals with a wink and a sly glance toward Fern as he accepts the tin.

“Enough for thirty cups,”

Fyon adds, grinning.

Next comes a conch shell holding whale song from Gareth and Marina; a violet reed basket that Or’myr, Tierney, and their fifteen-year-old daughter, Li’ra, crafted for him, purple gems sewn into the basket’s intricate design, tins of mushroom tea inside; then a portal stone from Gwynn, Mavrik, and Gwynn’s Dryad’khin parents, containing enough charge for several journeys to visit distant friends and family; and a whole host of other presents, including an Amaz blessing pendant depicting the Goddess’s starlight deer form from Queen Freyja and her partner, Clive, and a statue of a purple crystalline geo-tree crafted by Thierren and Sparrow, the geo-tree having become a potent symbol of victory over the Shadow.

Finally, all the Change Day gifts have been received, Valen’s friends carrying them off to create a sizable pile at the clearing’s edge, but Valen knows he’d be content if there were no gifts at all. Because he’s rich in the most important things he could ever hope to possess.

Connection . . . and love.

And soon I’ll be even richer, he muses, looking to the Forest’s canopy.

Rafe steps forward, smiling with vast affection. His father’s unfailing paternal love washes over Valen, filling him with the fierce desire to do his family proud.

“Are you ready, son?”

Rafe asks, glancing up at the Xishlon moon, Vo’s benevolent light shining down on them all.

Valen straightens, thrilling to the muscular, energetic feel of his body, vitalized by the moon, his emotions swept up in anticipation of joining fully to his pack then to his love, Fern.

“I’m ready,”

he answers, clear and sure as the moon above.

The throngs around them grow reverentially quiet, anticipation crackling in the air, as he and Rafe speak the traditional words of consent and Rafe grips hold of Valen’s upper arm and moves to lower his elongated canines to the base of Valen’s neck, Valen’s heart quickening to a pounding rhythm.

“WAIT!”

A woman’s urgent, desperate plea sounds out through the clearing.

Everyone pauses, and Rafe straightens as they all look toward the Gardnerian woman rushing out of the purple tree line, her hue a pale, dormant green, her ears rounded.

Four other Mages accompany her, their pale green faces tensed with dour expressions, all of them garbed in conservative Styvian Mage blacks. White birds are embroidered over their chests, wands sheathed at the male Mages’ sides, all of them around Jules Kristian’s age.

“What is it you seek, friends?”

Rafe inquires calmly, as Diana gives a subtle flick of her hand, claws snicking out, the pack tensing as one—an army facing possibly hostile invaders.

The Mage woman’s narrowed gaze darts around the gathered crowd, as if sizing up an enemy, and Valen is struck by her resemblance to . . . himself, the two of them possessing the same sharp features, vividly green eyes and curve to their lips.

The Mage woman is now peering at him strangely, as if he’s the focal point of the entire world, the family and friends surrounding him mere chaff—something to be swept clear away.

“I am Magda, your aunt—your only surviving relative,”

she states, shooting Rafe and Diana a look of barely concealed loathing before fixing her intense gaze back on Valen. “We have spent years trying to find you. We guessed you were here when we heard of this gathering. Valen, please. We need to talk before you do this irrevocable thing.”

Valen blinks in surprise at the desperation in all the Mages’ eyes. Deeply thrown, he looks to Fern. Her rose-hued brow is high with surprise, her gaze narrowing into a look of concern. He turns to Diana, who seems to be swallowing a growl, her nostrils flared, her forearms now covered in golden fur. A tortured question in his eyes, Valen meets Rafe’s amber gaze as some of that turmoil from his younger years floods back, a shard of it forever lodged in his core.

“Rafe . . .”

Valen starts.

Rafe brings his hand to Valen’s shoulder, his grip firm and reassuring. “This Change,”

Rafe says, adamant, “is freely chosen.”

He flits his gaze toward the Mages before it slides back to Valen. “It’s never forced. Hear them out if you need to, my son.”

Valen pulls in a deep breath, bolstered by Rafe’s unyielding acceptance as he’s filled with the sudden desire to hear what his Mage’kin have to say. And so Valen nods once at the woman and follows the Mages out of the clearing and into the Forest.

He pauses when they’re a few paces in, overcome by the feeling that these Mages would lead him far away, if they could.

And he has no intention of being led away.

They stop and turn to him, their urgency burning through the air.

“Valen, you are not just my kin,”

the desperate woman states, bringing her hand to his arm, eyes ferocious, as if she’s willing him to understand her earnestness via her stare alone. “You are the Magedom’s last, great hope. Valen, you are our people’s next Great Mage.”

Valen stiffens. He’s studied history. Read books given to him by Jules and Lucretia. He’s clear on what came of the Magedom having ultimate power.

And he knows that the power in him is beyond Level Five.

“The last time the Mages had power,”

Valen says to her, “Marcus Vogel took apart the world.”

“An Icaral demon took apart the world,”

the woman seethes before pausing, as if she’s casting about to find the right words to make him see. She swipes her hand toward the clearing. “You’ve been tricked and fooled. Brainwashed into believing those heathens and demons should not be slain. Like that demon Marcus Vogel should have been slain. The Magedom itself was led astray. But, Valen, you can change all that for us. You can bring about the true Reaping Times and fully cleanse Erthia.”

She is staring at him with an expression of such hopeful rapture that a chill shivers down Valen’s spine, his emotions rapidly overtaken by a rush of shocked anger.

But then, something else floods in to replace it.

A mixture of pity and gratitude. Pity for these Mages and their life-limiting hatred and delusions. And vast gratitude that they are no longer in power. That they have no power over him.

“The Reaping Times won’t save Erthia,”

he insists, quiet and certain.

An expression of pained compassion floods the woman’s severe face. “Oh, my nephew, you’ve been misled—”

“No.”

Valen cuts her off, revulsion for her destructive ignorance shuddering through him. “Stabilizing the weather. Rewilding the land and safeguarding the Waters. Protecting the mangroves. Planting trees. All of us, working together. That’s what’s going to save Erthia. And if you join with us, the Forest will welcome you.”

The woman’s expression turns vicious. “Don’t do this, Valen,”

she hisses. “Don’t let yourself be led down a heathen path. We won’t let you throw your life away. We won’t let you throw away the Magedom’s only chance to rise again. You can’t let that bastard Urisk’s daughter become the next Black Witch!”

For a moment, Valen’s mind spins with confusion.

That bastard Urisk’s daughter . . .

Comprehension lights, quickly followed by sheer incredulity.

They’re speaking of Or’myr and Tierney’s teenage daughter, Li’ra, a Level Five Mage-geomancer, who is Fyn’ir’s secret crush. Li’ra, who is named for Or’myr’s mother and looks exactly like a purple-hued Elloren and holds Black Witch level power, only Valen’s own power able to best hers.

Li’ra’s face an exact replica of the Black Witch’s.

A purple Black Witch.

Amusement bubbles up inside Valen.

Yes, he thinks, if anyone should be the next Great Mage, it should be Li’ra. And she’s welcome to it. Time for a Xishlon-bright violet branch on the Black Witch family tree.

The sheer outrageousness of the situation sends laughter breaking through Valen’s throat, which seems to cast the Mage woman into near spasming anger.

“You cannot fight the Ancient One’s Holy Will!”

she shrieks at him.

Valen jumps back as two of the male Mages draw wands, viper fast, but Valen is faster, his wand unsheathed as he recites a spell and deploys it.

Quick as a flash, the Mages’ wands are charred to flame while several Lupines, Sylvan and Iris, a portion of Naga’s horde—including Raz’zor, Oaklyyn, and Ariel—and a whole host of his former-Mage Dryad’kin friends emerge from the Forest and surround them all. His friends Erin and Isil level branches at the Mages, the small black cat gifted to Isil by Wrenfir perched on his shoulder. Three Noi panthers prowl in with Isil, growls rumbling in their throats, and Erin’s lavender-spotted leopard kindred slinks in beside the panthers alongside a large purple moose kindred with impressive antlers, two bears, and several raptors, all of the animals poised for attack.

The Mages’ gazes dart around, taking in the Forest allies and kindreds.

“I’ve made my choice,”

Valen says to his Mage’kin, staring his aunt straight in the eye. “I’ve chosen both my family and what I want to do with my life and my power. Your way is over.”

And then he turns and strides away, headed back toward his family.

“Wait, Valen . . . stop!”

the woman cries.

Valen glances back and sees the Lupines, Wyverns, and Dryad’kin close in behind him, keeping the Mages at bay. He walks back into the clearing and strides up to Rafe, then stills before him and emphatically draws his tunic’s edge back from his shoulder.

Rafe studies him closely before nodding. And then Rafe straightens, his voice booming out over the clearing once more. “Valen Ulrich. Do you seek this Change of your own free will?”

A sense of anticipation builds in the air more intensely than before, and Valen’s heartbeat quickens.

“I seek this Change of my own free will,”

Valen affirms.

Rafe draws nearer but pauses, Valen knows, to allow him time. To grant him this one last chance to step away.

But Valen is ready.

Surer than he’s ever been in his entire life.

Rafe’s smile broadens with parental pride as he takes firm hold of Valen’s upper arm once more, then lowers his teeth to the nape of Valen’s neck. Valen stiffens as his adoptive father’s canines puncture his skin, a sting chasing the motion.

He gasps as amber light bursts across his vision, his gaze drawn upward in a swooping rush that almost buckles his knees, the Xishlon moon seeming to enlarge above, his whole self drawn toward it. His chest expands with the deepest breath of his life as the entire Forest contracts inward to greet him in a euphoric tide. As the energy of the entire pack floods in and bonds to him, steel solid, connecting to his very core.

Rafe draws away, smiling, and the entire crowd bursts into cheers and applause as Valen’s internal Magelines and magic fade away and a new power rushes in, strengthening his already strong limbs, drawing the very Forest into his heart.

Suddenly the whole world is brighter, the moon’s glow more vivid as his every muscle is suffused with a tingling sensation that heralds his incoming shifter powers—power that will soon give him the ability to fully morph to wolf. The feel of Fern’s love for him rides out over the clearing in heady waves that he can newly scent on the very air, her flower-sweet aroma wafting toward him in an intoxicating rush that almost sweeps him off his feet.

And then he’s running to Fern and sweeping her into his arms, the Forest’s love swooping in around them both.

Fern breaks into a delighted laugh before he kisses her ravenously, wolfishly, and she returns the kiss in kind. Valen draws back to look to her, his heart feeling moon bright, as he scents her heightened certainty.

Taking hold of her hand, he turns toward the rest of his loved ones. “I have an announcement!”

The raucous cheers die down, the scent of love and support rich in the air, Rafe and Diana beaming at him and Fern. Tears are running down both Elloren’s and his geomancer-aunt Bleddyn’s faces, the two friends clinging to each other as if joyfully waiting for what everyone likely anticipates is about to happen next.

Tears sheen Valen’s eyes as he takes them in. He knows how close Elloren and Bleddyn were to Fern’s grandmother Fernyllia, Jules and Lucretia’s daughter’s namesake. And he knows what they all sacrificed to get Fern out of the Western Realm.

Hand in hand, Valen and Fern stride to the center of the clearing, everything washed in the loving light of Vo’s purple moon, and for a moment, Valen swears he can spot translucent white birds dotting the surrounding tree canopy. Swears he can feel the Ancient One’s and Vo’s and Oo’na’s and the Lupine Goddess Maiya’s combined light shining down on them all.

Clearing his throat, he launches into a recitation of his entire adopted lineage to all assembled, a look of grief briefly tensing Rafe’s, Elloren’s, and Trystan’s features when he gets to the names of the adoptive grandparents he’ll never meet—Vale and Tessla. And then Fern, in a voice clear as bell, recites her own lineage as well, Bleddyn and Aunt Elloren and others breaking into more intense tears as Fern gets to Fernillya’s name.

“Before my entire pack,”

Valen announces, his heart thudding as he holds tight to Fern’s hand, “I take Fern to be my forever mate.”

A sound of joy escapes Fern, happy tears streaming down her cheeks, the entire crowd and even the moon above seeming to hold their breath.

“Before this entire pack,”

Fern chimes in, “soon to be my own pack as well, I take Valen to be my forever mate.”

A roar of cheers rises as Valen pulls Fern into an enthusiastic hug, his beloved laughing and crying at the same time as he kisses her tear-slicked lips, the instinctual desire to set down a full mating bond surging and heating his blood.

But first, there is something he must do.

Something the Forest and the moon are calling him to do.

First, he must run.

“C’mon, cousin!”

Li’ra calls to him from the tree line, where all his friends are gathering with eager anticipation. Ready to take that first Lupine run with him. The twins, Kendra and Edwin, look fair ready to burst out of their skin if he doesn’t launch into a wolfish streak through the woods with them soon.

Joy and love for his family and friends rushing inside him, Valen sweeps a shocked and delighted Fern into his arms and launches into a run toward the Forest.

His Forest.

Everyone’s Forest.

The trees speed past in a blur, his friends laughing and boisterously calling out to him as they run by his side, the Xishlon moon shining down on them all as they merge into the wilds. Into the magical, gloriously complex, blessedly still here Natural World.

It’s all out here, Valen’s blood sings with joy as he runs.

The Whole of Life.

Here and spread out like a loving banquet. Welcoming and ever waiting.

For all of us.

Are you ready, Dryad’khin?

The Shadow Times are here.

And the Forest’s Wand is calling to you.