Page 104 of Realm of Wind and Vines
She just looks back at me in stubborn silence.
“Lavendera is obviously not a dryad,” I press. “She’s fae. Or half fae, at least.”
My friends raise their eyebrows at me in surprise.
“I think she might be the child of Emperor Bane and one of his previous fae life slaves,” I explain.
Lyra sucks in a sharp breath.
Next to her, Alistair stares at me with eyebrows raised while thoughts churn behind his eyes. “It would certainly explain her weird loyalty to them.”
“Yes. Though it’s still just a theory.” I shift my gaze back to the Dryad Queen. “Regardless, she’s clearly not a dryad. So what did you mean byshe’s one of us?”
The leaves and vines in her hair continue rippling around her as if on a phantom wind as she just keeps looking back at me in silence, her jaw stubbornly clenched.
“Is it because she has tree magic?” I push.
“The reason is irrelevant,” she finally replies. Power and command both lace her voice and gleam in her brown eyes as she stares me down. “What matters is that we want her. And we want her unharmed.”
My head spins. What could the dryads possibly want with Lavendera? They already have tree magic. And tree magic which is no doubt much stronger than Lavendera’s. They also hate the Icehearts, and she is stubbornly loyal to them. So why do they want her? She does whatever the Icehearts want, which has no doubt harmed the dryads in some way. So do they just want her in order to punish her for that? But then why stop me from killing her up there?
“I can read the questions in your eyes, young fae,” the Dryad Queen says. “But I will not answer them. All you need to know right now is that we want Lavendera brought to us. It is our most desired wish, and one we are willing to strike a bargain for. So tell me, what is it that you would want?”
“We want what we came here for last time,” I reply, holding her gaze. “An alliance. We want you to help us take down the Icehearts.”
She throws her head back.
The abrupt move startles me enough that I jerk back a little, but she only spreads her arms wide while keeping her head thrown back like that. Her hair streams out both to the sides and behind her, and her dress seems to almost grow down into the ground. The sight of it all is shockingly terrifying.
A hissing, rippling sound fills the woods for a second.
My heart slams against my ribs, and fear trails an icy finger down my spine.
Then it stops just as abruptly as it began.
The Dryad Queen tilts her head back down, and her hair returns to flow more normally down her back. She locks those ancient eyes of hers on me, and I am once more reminded thatthis being isn’t mortal. This being isn’t a normal person who lives and dies while the world continues moving. This being is part of thefabricof the world.
“We accept,” she declares. “If you bring us Lavendera, the dryads will go to war. For you. For us.” Her eyes sharpen like lethal blades. “And for revenge.”
My heart pounds at the unforgiving fury in her voice.
I truly wonder what the Icehearts did to the dryads all those millennia ago.
It seems like a reckoning is coming. An unholy alliance between the Seelie Court, the Unseelie Court, the dragon clans, and the dryads. All of it coming for the Icehearts. Like a boulder rolling down a mountain, picking up speed.
First though, we need to get Lavendera. Not just for the dryads. For the dragon shifters too. Somehow, this strange and certifiably insane fae who stares at walls with blank eyes half of the time is the key to the entire war. She is also utterly loyal to the Icehearts.
So the question is, how in Mabona’s name are we supposed to save someone who doesn’t want to be saved?
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Water splashes as Draven slams his arms down into the river to catch the fish that swam past. It shoots out of reach right before he can grab it. On the riverbank, Galen chuckles and casts a glance at Draven over his shoulder while he continues towards the rest of us with the fish that he himself caught.
“Amateur,” Galen calls to Draven, a smile on his face.
Straightening in the water, Draven turns towards the riverbank and gives his best friend a dark look that is completely ruined by the smile that threatens to spill across his lips. “I could always just fry the entire river with lightning.”
“You could. But it would just prove that your reflexes really are worse than mine.”
