He had no doubts the elves were doing the same to those Aesar had abandoned on the island. Lykor’s fangs drew blood from his gums, dwelling on the wraith left behind. All those lives lost. Deserted. His people would break under torture. Reveal the location of their fortress. Lykor’s objective became clear—he needed to learn how much time remained until the elves confronted them in force.
“What do you know of the wraith?” Lykor demanded.
The warrior dragged in breath through her nose before spitting at him, the spittle hardly landing halfway across the room.
Lykor’s lip curled away from his teeth. In one step, he warped, materializing in front of her. With his gauntlet, he snatched the elf by the throat, lifting her to her toes. He wrenched her neck to make the restraints cut into her collarbones, flashing his fangs at her insolence.
“I will ask one more time,” Lykor clipped, rage boiling beneath his ribs. Shadows whipped around him in a tempest, fury evoking rending. “Answer unsatisfactorily and I won’t hesitate to plait your entrails after I peel the flesh from your bones.”
The warrior whimpered, eyes rolling with fear, but remained silent.
Lykor struck out with a sliver of darkness. Cutting like a blade, he channeled the rending, splitting the female’s skin under his gauntlet. She swore as he withdrew the metal from her throat. The flesh from her neck sloughed away, stuck to the steel like sap dripping off a pine.
The way she stubbornly set her jaw had Lykor snarling. Eyes flicking to her broken arm, he detected the next key to try to unlock her secrets. He grabbed the exposed bone, twisting it farther in the wrong direction.
The female shrieked through her teeth as she panted. Eyes glazing over, she slumped in the chains, passing out.
Lykor growled in disgust. With a flick of force, he wiped away the sticky mess sullying his armor. He crushed his claw into a fist, letting the squeal of the steel soothe him as he started pacing the room.
Like a bolt of lightning, a violent thought collided with him. His head whipped back to the elf. During his imprisonment, he’d learned of dark magic that the king and his general had meddled with. Lykor had no reservations about exploiting those same techniques against their own.
He could take her power.
Like the king had done to him—to all the wraith—pilfering Essence from the elves they used to be. Not anticipating an escape, Galaeryn had returned a handful of talents to Lykor to see if he’d retain strength over his abilities. The wraith wouldn’t have survived this long without the Essence Lykor possessed, but he was far from the arch elf that Aesar used to be.
Ripping off his gauntlet and flinging it aside, Lykor exposed his dominant right hand, the claw that belonged to some beast. Skin to skin contact worked best. How many times had Galaeryn extracted and inserted abilities while experimenting on him? Hundreds? Half hadn’t survived the siphoning process, perishing from the unbearable agony of talents cleaved from the Well.
Dissolving the horrors of the past, Lykor prowled forward as shadows spilled from his claw like noxious fog. He yanked the golden blade out of the elf’s shoulder, sheathing it back at his side before shredding her leathers with a slash of rending. Lykor plunged his talons into the slumped warrior’s chest.
And pillaged everything.
CHAPTER 4
JASSYN
Jassyn shifted his feet at the edge of an outdoor training yard a quarter mile from the massive dracovae stables. The midmorning sun glinted off various weapons arranged on multiple racks. Perched in a mountainous plateau near Alari’s northern border, the Ranger Station towered over the far end of the practice fields.
“This isn’t necessary,” Jassyn said. One last attempt at a futile protest.
Standing in the center of one of the sandy circles, Vesryn tied back his hair with a leather strap. “My face begs to differ.” The prince gestured to his unmarred jaw, where an hour ago, Jassyn had healed the bruises he’d apparently bestowed upon Vesryn in his previous incapacitated state. “I need to teach you to throw a punch properly so you don’t fuck up your hand again.”
Jassyn had awakened that morning feeling resurrected. Most of the Stardust had vacated his system after two long days locked away in the prince’s chambers.
Wary of Vesryn’s notorious lack of skill, Jassyn rubbed his bruised knuckles, unwilling to allow the prince to mend him in return. Scattered bits and pieces were all that Jassyn could remember—yielding his stomach, attempting to escape, and even brawling with his cousin.
“And I’m not forgetting that you stabbed me!” Voice pitched high with scandalization, Vesryn pointed to his shoulder’s unblemished skin, another spot Jassyn had healed. “Seven concealed daggers is rather excessive, but if you insist on carrying so many, then you’re going to learn how to use them.”
"Shredding my leathers to recover the blades was completely uncalled for,” Jassyn grumbled. “I had that armor broken in.”
He vaguely recalled the confrontation that had occurred in the middle of the first night when he’d attempted to sneak out of Vesryn’s chambers, intending to retrieve his supply of Stardust. Instead of slipping out of the prince’s apartment undetected, Jassyn had tripped over his cousin, who’d been sleeping on the floor like a guard dog.
While in his deranged state, knifing the prince had been the only reasonable course of action. In a mad dash toward freedom, Jassyn had made it halfway down the hallway before Vesryn had tackled him, dragging him back into his lair.
Enduring his crazed assaults, the prince had dutifully played caretaker. Vesryn’s dedication tilled up a twinge of guilt. I suppose I should be thanking him.
As he inhaled the crisp mountain air, a breath of relief cleansed Jassyn’s lungs. Now freed from the clutches of Stardust, the world sharpened around him.
Jassyn studied the stable hands in the distance, too busy seeing to their morning chores to bother looking over at the practice yards. No one else remained at the Ranger Station—the warriors had departed at dawn to patrol on their dracovae, hunting for signs of the wraith. Jassyn surveyed the scattered clouds, but nothing more than an empty sky stared back.
“Relax,” Vesryn said, shaking out his wrists. “Nobody is watching. I knew you wouldn’t want an audience—that’s why I brought us here instead of staying on campus.”
Jassyn readjusted his white magus leathers, dismayed that it would take weeks to get this new set pliable. But if a destroyed uniform and spending more time with the prince was the price of losing dependence on the dust, the bill came in much lower than he’d expected. Though Vesryn undoubtedly would collect interest on the debt with whatever “training” he had in store.
The sun skimmed the mountain peaks, warming Jassyn’s skin and frying his nerves. He took one hesitant step from the grass into the training field before obstinacy claimed him. “I was throwing up yesterday.” He crossed his arms. “I’m not sure this is the best idea.”
“You’ll be fine,” Vesryn said, waving off his concern, obviously determined to outmatch his stubbornness. The prince pulled an arm tight across his chest, stretching. “Sweating out the residual Stardust hardly compares to what you’ve already been through.” Tugging off his ragged boots and socks, the prince sent them sailing to the edge of the ring with a tendril of force. “Take off your shoes.”
Shoulders slumping in defeat, Jassyn let the argument drop. Bickering would only prolong the inevitable and he might as well get this over with. Judging from what he’d heard of Serenna’s “lessons” with the prince, he expected that his cousin would have something ludicrous planned.
Like a wolf greedily defending a kill, Vesryn wasn’t likely to slacken his hold now that Jassyn had consented to participating. How did I let him talk me into this?
After peeling off his footwear, Jassyn joined the prince in the ring, feet sinking into the gritty sand. Vesryn will probably throw me around and say it’s for my own good.
He hadn’t made a habit of setting foot in the practice yards at Centarya beyond the required magus training that Vesryn had implemented at the start of the spring term. Exercise wasn’t at the forefront of his mind—he was more comfortable diving into research.
Logically, Jassyn could recognize the practicality of honing skills and training for combat. He reflexively touched the scabs scored in his flesh by that elven wraith’s gauntlet. I was useless when I was pinned by my throat. Perhaps that was why he’d agreed—he’d had enough of being at the mercy of others.
“Since you’re not carrying any bulk around, I imagine you’ll be quick on your feet,” Vesryn said, stretching out his other arm behind his head. “But you’ll need to develop coordination for that. Find your balance,” he commanded, demonstrating by standing on one foot, kicking his other knee in front of him at an angle.
Jassyn copied the prince, wobbling shortly after holding the position. Teetering and shifting his weight, he found maintaining the pose only became more difficult as the seconds ticked by. Before Jassyn knew it, sweat plastered his curls to his forehead.
“How long are we going to do this?” Jassyn gritted out, muscles trembling in earnest.
Vesryn’s arched brow suggested his protest was dramatic.
The next half hour didn’t offer any respite while the prince ran him through a series of contorting stretches that appeared much simpler when performed by his cousin. Frustration spiked through Jassyn as he tried to copy the forms, his new set of stiff armor hindering his movements. If I would’ve changed into that cashmere he was waving around, my best leathers wouldn’t be dismantled. Anchoring his feet in the sand, Jassyn brought himself back to the moment, tracking time with his heartbeats.
“Summon your power and connect your magic to your body’s motion,” Vesryn instructed, circling him. He used his toes to nudge Jassyn’s foot back, correcting his stance. “Make your pretty lights dance or something.”
Legs shaking in protest from balancing, Jassyn channeled his awareness to his Well—replenished by the prince that morning. Tonight, he’d be able to regenerate on his own when the stars bloomed. For the first time in weeks, Jassyn effortlessly seized Essence while Vesryn drifted a few paces away.
A current of magic raced through his veins, saturating him with a clarity and harmony that he hadn’t realized Stardust had deprived him of while he’d spent the past few weeks living in a haze. Thoughts abruptly lurching back to the drug, Jassyn wrestled with his mind, dragging in a slow breath and releasing his desire for it on the exhale.
Refocusing on his magic and recentering his swaying body, Jassyn raised his palms. Power fountained from his Well, spinning as a glittering stream of Essence around his fingertips. Bending the power into his illumination talent, he summoned a dozen hovering orbs of white light. Flicking his wrist, the shimmering globes went whirling over Vesryn’s shoulder.
A shift in the breeze stirred his curls, offering some relief from his body heating with exertion. Senses tingling as his skin pebbled, Jassyn jerked his attention away from the wind. He blinked against the sunlight cresting the mountains, pointedly ignoring the unusual sensation.
I need to determine what that earthen power was before I accidentally call roots out of the ground again. Or do something worse that I can’t control.
