As the dim moonlight bathed Karla's backyard, I sat cross-legged in the center of the clearing. The girls had set up a protective formation, and the air hummed with the energy of the containment crystals. I held the jade bottle containing the Sylvan Lightning, feeling its pulsing energy resonate with my own.
"Ready, Nick?" Merry asked, her eyes filled with excitement and anticipation. It reminded me that every breakthrough made me closer to my goal of fending off anyone objecting to my union with the two fairies.
I nodded, taking a deep breath. "Let's do this." Back in the day when I made Nyssa mine, a hundred years sounded like an eternity, endless time I could use to practice and grow stronger. But the more I learned, the more I realized that thinking was naïve.
