She’s survived. And now, after everything she’s been through...after everything I put her through in Verpacia...she’s doggedly coming back to help me.

The desperate thought lights—Maybe she’s right. Maybe prophecies should be fought and subverted rather than numbly accepted. No matter the odds. Lukas never stopped fighting. Neither did Yvan. And then there’s Ariel, who, in spite of everything, rises again and again.

“Ariel!” I cry out to her. “I’m here!”

More rustling in the woods. And then...an unnaturally large amount of rustling, coming not only from Ariel’s direction, but from both sides of her, as well.

Ariel snarls. Ravens caw. The sounds of struggle crackle in the brush, and a loud thump reverberates before ravens explode from the trees in panicked flight. Then silence.

Fear jolts through me. “Ariel?” I call, my voice high-pitched with fear.

More rustling sounds from behind me, and I turn just as a hard blow connects with my head. A shower of stars lights my vision before the world goes dark.

Part Seven

PART SEVEN

The Forest

The Dryad Prophecy

(Read directly from images and
emotion sent out by the trees)

An Icaral rises!

Fire! Smoke! Burning!

And the Black Witch returns!

FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!

A Shadow Branch of Ruination

Gray power seeping into the Forest

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CHAPTER ONE

DRYADIN

Elloren Vogel

The Forest

The first thing I become aware of is the rhythmic swinging motion of my netted body. Hard twine digs into the entire length of me. My hands are tightly bound behind my back, my legs lashed together, my broken ankle throbbing.

And Shadow ripples through me, steady as a tide.

It’s so much stronger now, its slithering grayness invading every line to the point that I can’t connect with a single wispy remnant of ungrayed power. My vision aglow with silver gray, I sink deeper and deeper into my corrupted state. I’ve the inescapable sense of Vogel lurking in my mind, his thoughts filled with images of his Shadow host winging toward me...

Black Witch.

The words knife into me from the Forest, and I open my eyes, roused from my stupor. I wince, my head throbbing where the blow that knocked me out connected.

My gaze darts around the nighttime scene, frantically searching for Ariel, my glowing vision allowing some gray sight into the dark. The shadowy forest passes by through the gaps in my net, the nearest trees illuminated by flickering light as I’m carried through the wilderness like a captured animal.

Carried by a group of green-glimmering Fae.

Soldiers, garbed in armor formed from leaves and bark, their verdant hue able to cut right through my Shadow-tinted vision.

Dryads.

The stunning revelation grips hold as I remember the pictures in Aislinn’s books at university—pen and ink depictions of the Forest Fae. Supposedly wiped out during the Realm War...