The Well of Wyrding (Revenant Wyrd Book 3) by Travis Simmons

that death is not completely out of your system yet, correct?” The dryad cocked her head curiously to the side. “Death is not something you will ever be able to escape, for it will court you right up to its final embrace.
    “I am Uthia,” she said, not extending her hand to shake it or proffering any other custom that the humans would recognize as greeting. Jovian’s head was spinning from the contact with the dryad and her words about death. He supposed that it had something to do with his wyrd being affected by his death; after all it had been the Pale Horse that had helped him slay all those hobbedy’s lanterns.
    “You fight the darkness plaguing our home,” Uthia said, withdrawing her hand. “For that I will go with you for as long as I’m required, and from there, if my thicket decides to help, I will take the charge placed upon me by the Realm Guardians Sara and Annbell, and aid the falling Realm of Earth in their plight.” They could tell by the way she spoke that Uthia, and most likely all the dryads, were not accustomed to being told what they would and would not do, least of all from humans.
    “I didn’t realize that the Realm of Earth was falling,” Angelica said anxiously, more to herself than to those around her.
    “The Realm Guardians Sara and Annbell face a great foe right now. It is a historical foe that has plagued the Realm of Earth for ages — the chaos dwarves. You may be familiar with their brethren, the dwarves of Nependier, as they are from your Holy Realm.” Uthia pointed to Jovian’s upturned palm in his lap to explain how she knew where they were from. The white stigmata shone in the ambient light like a beacon, announcing they were from the Holy Realm. “It would be much better for us if the chaos dwarves were extinguished for good, but such genocide would do more than rid us of the chaos they breed.”
    “What would it do?” Joya asked.
    “None of us are sure, but we can speculate,” Uthia told them in her odd guttural accent. “Let me tell you how it works. When the Great Realms were formed, and the different races placed upon it, wyrd was linked to wyrd. The wyrd of the gnomes was linked to the earth, the wyrd of the dryads to the trees, the averanym to all earthen things, and so on. The wyrd of the races that took up residence in each realm became a near-integral part of the realm. Each race gave to the realm something that should not be taken from it. Each one of us are, in a sense, an extension of the realm, but still just a race no matter how linked.
    “When Aaridnay ‘founded’ the Great Realms, she saw the need for humans to govern in each realm. Now, mind you, she was very smart and had incredible foresight, maybe to a fault. She drafted the Racial Proclamation and wyrded each realm to the document so that no Realm Guardian was able to rid their realm of any race. In essence she linked all the races to their separate realms, thereby protecting all of us from total extinction.
    “Now, this is where the speculation comes in. Each Realm Guardian is linked to the land, almost as if the land and the Guardian are one. If the land is fractured, who knows what would happen to the ruling Realm Guardian? One could imagine that the mind of the Guardian bent on tyranny would also be fractured. Now Sara and Annbell, being very good Realm Guardians, would not think of such a thing as genocide. They might have entertained the idea, and how much easier it would be on all the Realm of Earth to finally be rid of the chaos dwarves, but they would not make plans for such a thing.”
    “So you are helping them?” Joya asked, pushing the question a little more.
    “That hasn’t fully been decided. The gnomes refuse to help, and the dryads normally follow them. But now it’s different. The dryads feel the burden to act in accordance with the Realm Guardians. War is eminent in the Realm of Earth. It has recently come to the attention of the Realm Guardians that the chaos dwarves