“You throwing me all over the beach to release your frustration has nothing to do with finding Serenna,” Jassyn argued, tossing his hands up. “I’ve spent the past week unraveling coercion with Thalaesyn from nearly sunup to sundown.”
“And it hasn’t been enough,” Vesryn growled, a tendon twitching in his neck. He shifted his stance, every muscle in his exposed arms taut.
Jassyn took a calming breath, not rising to meet the prince’s hostility. “We’re overwhelmed with how many wraith you and your rangers are corralling.” He readjusted one of his concealed daggers that was jabbing him in the ribs, cringing as trapped sand scraped between his skin and armor. “And no matter how fast you have us work, we can’t extract answers that don’t exist.”
After spending time consoling Velinya, Jassyn had gathered that her last memories were of a wraith nearly ripping her apart. When Thalaesyn had unraveled the final knots of coercion, she became coherent in the stables—with no recollection of what had happened to her after the attack or how she came to be transformed and magicless.
It was the same story with the other thirty or so wraith the rangers had rounded up from the wilds. Jassyn and his mentor had freed them from their mindless, coerced states, acquiring more questions than answers. The former recruits now secretly lived in dwellings at the Ranger Station while the prince and his warriors determined the next course of action.
This conversation was the closest they’d come all week to discussing the wraith, skirting the truth of the elves devoid of power. The prince had viciously refused to hear any matter pertaining to the wraith or speculate further on Serenna’s disappearance.
Dispensing sheets of rain, the wind sawed at the dune’s grasses. Water sluiced down their faces in rivulets as Vesryn glared at him. Silence stretched as the tension swelled and thickened, clogging the air. The prince stubbornly clenched his jaw, hinting at words restrained.
Chilled and fatigued, Jassyn’s patience with his cousin evaporated. He ruthlessly pointed out the obvious. “If Serenna has already been turned into a wraith, there’s nothing we can do.”
As soon as the admission slipped past his lips, Jassyn immediately recognized that he couldn’t have said anything worse. He knew they’d both been thinking of the possibility, but neither had given it voice.
Jassyn tensed when Vesryn’s retaliation detonated, shadows erupting from the ground. The darkness twisted up the prince’s legs, slithering over his arms to pool in his fists. Completely drained of Essence, Jassyn dodged a lash of rending whipped in his direction.
A bludgeon of force slammed into his back, knocking the breath out of his lungs. Sprawling forward, Jassyn’s palms shredded on black sand as he caught himself.
“I could be searching for Serenna, but instead I’m wasting my time here with you.” Vesryn planted his boots in front of Jassyn’s face. “You can’t even hold your own with access to ancient magic.”
Curls curtaining his eyes, Jassyn glowered up at his cousin. He battled to summon some type of courage to strengthen his spine, but Vesryn ground down his composure with every verbal blow.
“I don’t understand why the Vallendes are so fixated on your bloodline.” The prince’s words turned as dark and destructive as his shadows. “There’s nothing special about you if you can’t even use that power.”
Panting out of his nose, a remnant of icy fear seized Jassyn’s mind.
“You’re a lost cause,” Vesryn growled, looming over him. “A coward who can’t even fight to save himself.”
“The elves never gave me the chance.” Staring at his hands, remembering where the tattoos had been inked into his skin, Jassyn’s excuse sounded as pathetic as he felt.
Vesryn would never understand. The prince wasn’t the one who’d been shackled to the realm. A captive, catering to every depraved whim.
“I went against the council to claim your contracts. For what? There’s nothing to show for it.” Vesryn’s scathing words rattled around in Jassyn’s head, echoing like a gong. “Perhaps I should let Farine have you back.”
Pulse thrashing in his ears, Jassyn’s racing thoughts went silent. The prince’s taunt sent fury barreling through him like a storm. Jassyn’s vision flashed to white, the elements in the squall igniting like thousands of fires blazing across the sea and sky.
Fingers curling into the dune, Jassyn snapped. Chest heaving with livid breaths, he disintegrated into all of it. Turning into nothing. Freezing. Burning. Transforming into everything. The world inverted, splintering as time stretched and then stilled, threatening to shatter.
Sensing a fountain of charged air converging, Jassyn lunged to his feet. Lightning flashed, fracturing the sky. Like leaves stretching to the sun, he instinctively reached toward that whispering source of power buzzing in his veins. Jassyn hauled on the crackle of energy, yanking the sparks to his palms.
Vesryn’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly as he retreated a few paces. The ground given by the prince spurred Jassyn on.
“Is this what you want from me?” Jassyn raged over the wind, his voice fueled by anger. “You portal us to three different locations to find the biggest storm so I can show off this magic?” He flung his fingers out, hurling a spear of lightning at the prince.
“I want you to stand up for yourself for once,” Vesryn snarled, his shadows clashing and tangling with the sizzling blue light. “Stop acting like you’re so weak.”
Jassyn bared his teeth. “Fine.” Tunneling his perception, the surrounding breeze blazed with streamers of light. “Have it your way.” Driving out his hands, Jassyn channeled a blast of wind at the prince.
Vesryn stumbled, but his magic flared, darkness exploding around him.
Jassyn snatched another whirlwind of sparks from the sky, pressing offensively. For the first time, he could fight back. While the prince was off balance, Jassyn released a volley of energy. His breath snagged as the charge unexpectedly ripped through Vesryn’s cloud of rending.
Now on the defensive, Essence coiled around the prince. He slammed a violet shield between them. Lightning crashed into the ward, showering an explosion of purple and blue light.
“Is that all you’re capable of?” Vesryn jeered as rain dripped down his chin. Flicking his wrist, he conjured a tidal wave of force.
Jassyn clenched his jaw so tightly that his teeth creaked in protest. Shoving his hands forward, he met Essence with a rampart of air. Propelled backward by the prince’s onslaught, he slid, boots digging trenches into the sand.
Jassyn snatched another crack of light webbing across the sky, twisting it, turning it, aiming it at the prince. Glittering Essence pulsed as Vesryn fortified his shield to absorb the blow.
Sparks spun between Jassyn’s fingertips as he released the current. He channeled another surge of energy from the horizon. And another. Slamming a barrage of relentless strikes into his cousin’s ward.
Wrenching the wind, Jassyn punched a gale at the prince’s chest. Vesryn smirked as his barrier wavered, giving ground as Jassyn pressed ahead. Moving beyond the grassy dunes, waves brewed by the storm splashed over their boots.
Vesryn’s amusement only incensed Jassyn further. The anger in his chest was wound too tight, a mooring line stretched too thin. Refusing to relent until he had the prince on his knees, Jassyn channeled chains of lightning, pressing his cousin backward with persistent slaps of air.
His frenzy was a wildfire, fueled by decades of kindling stacked, doused with oil, primed to burn. Losing himself as he drowned on power, Jassyn harnessed the sea. Summoning a colossal fountain, he twisted the water into a cyclone, funneling it into the air.
The flash of fear in Vesryn’s eyes broke his cloud of rage, jolting Jassyn back to his senses. His connection to the earth dissipated like fog on the wind. But it was too late to recall the vengeful waters.
The prince disappeared under the crashing swell.
Scorching stars! Jassyn rushed to the shore as the ocean receded, eyes darting along the froth before the next wave knocked into his knees. Clasping his temples, Jassyn’s palms shook as he knotted his fingers in his curls.
Breath held, he waited. Moments passed. Each second without sight of the prince only magnified Jassyn’s concern.
