Leaping back, the deep sand slowed Jassyn’s movement. “Blind spot?” he asked, his voice strained from the effort. Anticipating another hit, Jassyn clenched his teeth before he slapped Vesryn’s staff in a deflecting blow. “Not meddling in someone else’s business doesn’t sound like you at all.” He spun, using his momentum to drive the prince’s weapon away.
Jassyn was aware of the discord between the magister and the king, coinciding around the appearance of the wraith. King Galaeryn had banished Thalaesyn to Centarya after the elves had completed the academy’s construction. Perhaps Vesryn knew more of the strife between them.
“Do you have a history with the magister?” Jassyn gritted out, twisting his wrists to meet Vesryn’s staff in a crash that jolted up his arms. Jassyn didn’t bother attempting an offensive move. It was all he could do to parry every thrust his cousin sent whistling in his direction.
Vesryn denied him any reprieve. “Thalaesyn and my mother…worked closely together when the infertility crisis began,” he said, lunging again.
The prince’s staff cleaved the air—this time nearly clipping Jassyn’s head. Rearing back, Jassyn reeled to halt the slash with a sloppy counter.
“Thalaesyn hasn’t allowed Stardust to interfere with his duties to any notable degree before,” Vesryn said as their staffs met three times in a series of wooden clacks. “I should’ve anticipated his habits affecting someone else.” The prince frowned at his staff before adjusting his feet under his shoulders. He twirled the weapon, sending it blurring in front of him like a windmill. “After you’re feeling more like yourself, you’ll show me this coercion. In the meantime, I’ll figure out how to address the magister’s recreation.”
Jassyn faltered, regretting that he’d exposed the start of his addiction. He never intended to cause trouble for his mentor. But Vesryn setting his jaw had him reconsidering any protest.
“I suppose I can show you the magic on Thalaesyn’s mind—if he agrees.” Jassyn yanked in breaths before Vesryn’s next assault, his thoughts wheeling back to their previous conversation. “What did you find out from the wraith?”
“Nothing,” Vesryn said, dashing forward. Their staffs collided in a crash of wood. Once. Twice. Three times, a relentless bombardment of blows. Vesryn spun. Jassyn leaped away as the butt end of the prince’s weapon nearly punched him in the gut. “I killed them.”
Jassyn fumbled, snatching the staff before it clattered to the ground. “What?”
Vesryn straightened from the onslaught, blinking rapidly. “One of them said my name.” The prince’s voice lowered, suspended on the brink of disbelief and bitterness. “I don’t know if it’s more unsettling that those beasts can speak or the fact that it seemed to want mercy.”
Reclaiming his rebelling lungs, Jassyn’s eyes widened in stunned silence even though he’d already discovered that wraith could converse. The wraith probably heard someone address the prince and learned his name.
The tendons in Vesryn’s neck strained before he slammed the staff into the sand, leaning against it. “I lost control. I rended every single one before I extracted any answers.”
Anger disintegrating, the prince scrubbed a hand over his face. “The attack…dredged up memories I’ve kept buried for so long.” His fingers tightened on the staff, grinding the wood further into the earth. “I couldn’t lose Serenna like I did my brother. Even if we haven’t accepted our bond yet, I don’t think I’d survive another connection breaking or failing another person.” Vesryn slumped as he shook his head, staring at the ground. “I ruined the only chance we had of discovering where those beasts came from.” His words dwindled to a whisper, nearly dusted away by the breeze. “I’m so tired of fucking up.”
Jassyn’s chest splintered in response, fracturing under the weight of his own guilt. He almost confessed his encounter with the elven wraith, informing his cousin that one of their number could wield Essence. But Jassyn wavered, the scab of his shame still too fresh to rip back open. It wouldn’t be any consolation to the prince anyway.
Jassyn hardly heard Vesryn as he spoke to the ground. “The night the wraith killed my mother and brother… I wasn’t at the palace. I should’ve been, but I wasn’t.” The prince swallowed. “I was at the Vallende estate…out of my mind…” Vesryn cleared his throat, voice breaking as he traced a whorl on the staff. “The only thing I remember was feeling split apart when the bond shattered. I blacked out after it happened. I don’t know for how long.” He blew out an unsteady sigh. “When I woke…Aesar was…just gone.”
Jassyn’s heart stopped at the admission and then twisted painfully as he watched Vesryn’s features contort, haunted by the pain of the past. An overwhelming urge had him wanting to provide some measure of reassurance that the prince wasn’t alone. Unsure of what to do, Jassyn hesitantly stepped forward, reaching out to clasp his cousin’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he said, knowing words were an empty comfort while the prince drowned in regret. “I never knew the details of that night.”
Vesryn’s shoulders caved in. “If I didn’t foul myself with Stardust for years, Aesar wouldn’t be dead.” He drew in a shuddering breath. “My mother wouldn’t be dead. Along with so many others. The wraith left nothing behind but shredded corpses. My sire didn’t even allow me to say goodbye.” The prince released a bitter laugh. “All I have to remember my brother are a shelf of his books, his glaives, and his boots.”
Sadness devoured Jassyn whole as he glanced at Vesryn’s shoes at the edge of the yard—that offensive, tattered pair he’d always detested. He blinked back an uncomfortable sting in his eyes, realizing why the prince clung to the unsightly footwear. After decades, the leather was falling apart—most likely only held intact by magic. We’re all broken in our own ways and sometimes it’s only frayed threads holding our seams together.
“Thank you for helping me the last few days,” Jassyn said, squeezing his cousin’s shoulder before pulling away. He wiped at a stray tear, suddenly finding the distant mountains interesting to look at. We’ve both failed those around us. Maybe we’re not so different after all.
Wingbeats thundered through the air. The prince tossed his staff to the sand and rolled his shoulders. “Take a break and get some water. I need to speak with Zaeryn.”
The weight of the moment dissipated. Jassyn turned, following Vesryn’s gaze over his head toward the sky. The earth trembled, the vibrations rippling up his legs as the rangers’ flight captain landed her chestnut dracovae in a sprawling meadow.
Vesryn strode off while Jassyn stumbled to the watering rifts located in the grass outside the ring, beyond grateful for the interruption. Two horizontal portals spanning a pace in the air suspended an undulating column of water, presumably drawn from a nearby mountain stream. Seeing no other way to drink, Jassyn cupped his hands to catch the flow, splashing water over his face.
Eyes unfocusing, he stared at the gushing fountain, dwelling on the long road ahead—especially considering Vesryn’s star-bent notion to personally oversee his fitness. But if outright war with the wraith is approaching, I need to prepare.
As his body relaxed, Jassyn’s senses suddenly buzzed, his skin pinching tight with his lifting hairs. Everything lurched into a vivid, crisp focus. The wind sighed as it shifted. The grass thrummed under his toes. A stream of water from the portal’s cascade began rippling toward him like a flower turning with the sun.
Jassyn frantically squeezed his eyes shut, ruthlessly yanking his awareness inward, away from the earth. The handful of times he’d allowed his mind to drift recently, the surrounding world had seemed to beckon to him. He hadn’t yet determined how to prevent it from spontaneously happening. How am I supposed to tune out this magic when it’s always around me?
Not having the head space to deal with how he channeled a power that was supposed to be extinct, Jassyn shoved the thought away to dwell on at another time. Instead, he focused on recovering his body, quenching his thirst, and slowing his heartbeats along with his breaths.
Jassyn jumped when the prince’s voice sounded next to him. “Slow down.” Vesryn swatted him away from catching the column’s water. “You’ll throw up again at the rate you’re going. And I’ve had a lifetime’s worth of hearing you retch.”
Gut sloshing as he wiped his hands on his leathers, Jassyn sighed. The prince probably had a point.
Vesryn helped himself to the draft, shoving his face into the flow with the manners of an animal at a watering hole. “I think you should come to the sparring ring in the evenings,” Vesryn said after he finished drinking, wiping his arm across his mouth.
Jassyn released a humorless laugh. “I can hardly stand on one leg without falling over, let alone be of any consequence to anyone who wants to practice.”
“You have to start somewhere.” Vesryn shrugged. “Why not train with the best?”
Too exhausted to fire back a retort, Jassyn settled on rolling his eyes.
The prince’s attention wandered over his shoulder. Twisting around, Jassyn saw Flight Captain Zaeryn sitting in the grass, sharpening a knife while her dracovae stretched out, brown scales absorbing the sun. She waved across the field.
Vesryn nodded in her direction, raising a hand back. “She asked if I’d be bringing you around more.”
Jassyn studied the prince’s second in command. “I have no interest in joining the rangers.” He glared at his cousin. “You ruined the whole flying experience for me.”
“You missed my meaning.” Vesryn smirked, apparently unrepentant for inducing Jassyn’s fear of heights by shoving him off a dracovae in flight decades ago. “She’s curious about you.” The prince caught water with his hands this time, before guzzling from his palms. “Like…she’d be interested in getting to know you.”
Jassyn’s lip curled in disgust at the stream of liquid leaking from the corner of Vesryn’s mouth. He blinked, registering the prince’s insinuation. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not? She’s a formidable fighter and has put me on my back more times than I can count.” Vesryn elbowed him. “Those thighs of hers could snap a dracovae’s rib. You should see how—”
