Chapter 21 #2
Serenna’s arms twitched against the restrictive shadows as she battled for her freedom. His words prompted a scathing remark, her chest constricting with a panicked storm. “We wouldn’t even have a military academy if it wasn’t for you monsters attacking Kyansari!”
The muscles in his jaw flexed as he gritted his fangs. “We have never attacked Kyansari.”
“You’re lying,” Serenna seethed.
“Read the bond,” he sarcastically taunted, sneering. “You’ll find I’m not.”
“I don’t want to touch your filthy mind.” Rage bubbled up in her throat. “Dissolve this connection and you’ll never see me again.”
“Oh, you’re not returning to your elven kin.” He straightened, cracking his neck.
The blood drained from Serenna’s face. He can’t keep me here…
“Now, I am going to ask a final time.” His eyes burned with an unnatural glow. “Why do you have a Heart of Stars?”
His persistence regarding the relic left Serenna bewildered. Heartbeats stretched in the silence between them. To avoid being on the receiving end of rending again, her stubbornness fractured.
Serenna swallowed and quietly admitted, “It was given to me.”
“And who so freely bestowed an Aelfyn artifact to a half-elf grunt?” The male’s eyes pinned on her. “The king?”
Serenna lifted her chin. “Prince Vesr—”
With no warning, the male ripped off his gauntlet. He shoved a grotesquely clawed hand to her chest, sundering her words. Talons shredded her leathers, gouging into flesh, splitting into skin.
A scream ravaged Serenna’s throat when pain like nothing she’d ever known detonated within her Well as he started flaying her power.
Agony radiated from the depths of her body as he plucked, slashed, and unraveled the fibers of her magic.
White-hot anguish thieved Serenna’s sight as her mind caved in on itself, Essence threatening to rip her apart.
Something inside of her shattered and snapped.
Knees buckling, reality disintegrated into splinters as Serenna crashed to the ground. Like a wounded animal whose limb had been cleaved by a trap, she lay panting, unable to process the injury. Unable to comprehend the loss.
The male had taken something. Something that was hers. Mind racing, Serenna frantically dove inward, assessing her power.
There was a hole. A gaping hole in her Well.
Portaling.
Her ability was gone. Serenna’s heart careened in fear at the incomprehensible emptiness. Disbelieving, she looked up in horror. The male’s concentration focused on a globe of white light hovering above his claw.
Devastated by a thousand warring thoughts, each one more terrifying than the last, Serenna’s mind howled, processing that he’d somehow stolen her talent.
“NO!” she screamed as he shoved her ability into his chest. Through the bond, she sensed his exhilaration at the surge of power. “NO!” She stumbled to her feet.
Serenna shook loose hair out of her eyes. Black hair. Trembling, she held up her hands and nearly vomited. The impossible truth pulverized her, crashing into her like a boulder. She didn’t have claws, but her fingers had elongated. Gruesomely so.
Her panicked voice rang around the chambers. “What did you do to me?”
With a snarl, he lunged and snatched her leathers. A cloud of rending reared behind him, spreading like dark wings. “Now you will know what it means to be wraith.”
Serenna’s vision went white when he started plundering the rest of her Well.
Thoughts fragmenting, all she knew was pain.
Her body convulsed through the endless wave of agony, sanity unraveling.
Every nerve on fire, she screamed, calling out for help.
For the prince. For Jassyn. For anyone to stop the butchering of her magic.
She distantly heard other voices in the chamber.
“Lykor!” a male yelled. Boots pounded into the room.
Sight blurring, Serenna blinked to see a golden-haired half-wraith dragging the claw away from her chest. He shoved back the male who was raiding her magic.
Blinking again, Serenna discovered she was curled on the ground, having collapsed at some point. She gasped for air as the waves of agony subsided.
“I’ve got your she-elf,” a male voice said behind her.
Serenna flinched when a warm hand touched her shoulder. Gently lifting her under the arms, he hauled her to her feet.
Disoriented, Serenna staggered as a wave of dizziness rocked the ground beneath her boots.
Regaining her balance, she went rigid upon seeing the hulking warrior—the only full wraith in the room—restraining her arm with a wicked claw.
Torchlight glinting off of the shining rings pierced into his face only intensified his utterly barbaric look.
Eyes swiveling back across the chamber, Serenna watched the half-wraith clench the arms of the one who’d stripped portaling from her. He restrained the one he’d called Lykor, their boots scraping against the floor in a scuffle.
Sensing his frenzy to kill her for reasons she couldn’t comprehend, Lykor’s gaze was fastened on her. When Serenna instinctively angled her perception toward him, she met a void where she expected his presence to be. He’d gone wild casting out an explosion of Essence, shadows snaking up the walls.
Fear erupted, stealing Serenna’s breath as some of that darkness streaked toward her.
Forced to include the wraith gripping her arm, Serenna wrenched another shield into place.
She channeled her entire strength into the ward, knowing that the rending battering her barrier would obliterate her to blood and bone.
The male wrestling with Lykor gritted his teeth, fangs elongating. “Aesar, now would be the time to take over.”
A lance of shock nearly jolted Serenna’s power out of her grasp. What did he say? Her gaze volleyed between everyone in the room as her confusion compounded.
Serenna’s eyes locked for a fraction of a second with the wraith holding her arm. He appeared to be nervously spinning one of the rings in his brow, attention bouncing between her and the surrounding shield.
An icy chill suddenly trickled down Serenna’s spine as she sensed a shift through the bond. Another entity taking over, a calm that was distinct from Lykor’s rage, as different as the moons were from the sun. He can’t be Vesryn’s brother. It’s impossible.
Rapidly blinking at the male holding him, Lykor’s fangs retracted as the shadows receded. Chest heaving, he slumped, disheveled midnight hair slipping over his face. The elf-wraith helped steady him on his feet, brushing away the strands in front of his eyes.
Lykor trembled as he touched the male’s cheek with a tenderness Serenna didn’t expect these…
beings to possess. His eyes traveled over to her, going round.
Serenna sensed his startlement spinning through the bond.
His attention whipped to the wraith restraining her.
“Fenn, get her out of here. I can’t—” he doubled over.
The other male lowered Lykor to the ground as he jerked in a fit.
Serenna couldn’t begin to guess what was unfolding, but she knew she needed to escape—flee to somewhere safe. If there was anywhere safe. But it wasn’t going to be around Lykor, or whatever bedlam she’d foolishly wandered into.
How am I supposed to leave without portaling? She’d have to rely on the prince sensing her location to retrieve her.
Gathering Essence in a rush, Serenna dropped her shield and slammed her palm against the monstrous male holding her.
A shock wave of force punched the wraith across the war room.
She didn’t wait to see if he crashed into the table or a wall.
Eyes latching onto the double doors the warriors had entered from, Serenna sensed freedom and ran.
She almost made it.
A shadow unfolded in the entryway, materializing in front of her. Serenna collided with the leviathan’s chest. Seizing her, the brute caught her before she fell on her back. As soon as Serenna tried to extricate herself out of his talons, cold metal snapped around her arm.
Essence fled.
A single golden manacle clamped around Serenna’s wrist, tethering her magic. A renewed surge of terror at the defenselessness capsized her gut. Writhing against this Fenn creature’s hold, Serenna shrieked, resorting to fighting with her fists and feet.
The warrior’s claw tightened on her arm, holding her at a distance. “File my fangs,” he yelped, dancing out of range of her flailing.
Dashing forward, Serenna snatched the hilt of a long knife at his belt, ripping the dagger out of its sheath. With all of her strength, she lunged with the weapon pointed at his ribs.
“That,” the wraith growled, snagging her hand before the blow landed, “was uncalled for.” He twisted her wrist, sending the blade clattering to the floor. “I’m not going to harm you.”
“Says the red-eyed cretin who tethered me!” Serenna aimed an ineffective kick at his knee.
Fenn spun her around. Serenna’s back slammed into his chest, arms pinned to her sides by his.
Knowing she couldn’t fight a monster two feet taller than her without her magic, Serenna’s focus scurried around the chamber, searching for something else she could use.
The wall of windows overlooking the frozen expanse was her next best chance at freedom.
She just needed to break out of this restrictive ogre’s hold.
But how can I run away if he appears out of thin air?
Lykor was still on the ground having some type of seizure while the other male hovered over him.
Serenna didn’t think anymore of it, furiously weighing her options.
I need to get out of here before Lykor steals the rest of my magic.
She’d take her chances jumping out of the window to the snow drifts below and braving the cold.
I’d rather die out there than be torn apart by these wraith.
Panting out of her nose, reining in her fear, Serenna’s mind tumbled over how to escape Fenn’s grip. Her eyes latched onto the snow swirling outside the window, caught in a gusty draft. I know I saw something in the wind when we were flying today even though I don’t understand how.
A second stretched as Serenna caught her breath, stilling in the warrior’s hold.
She contemplated if she could wield the extinct magic of her shaman ancestors.
Without the presence of Essence, she could almost feel vibrations from the air rippling on the other side of the glass, waiting to be called.
Like a dracovae finding a warm current to soar on, she cast out her perception.
Serenna’s fingertips began to tingle as she reached out with her mind. Snow swirled faster and faster, whipping into a spiraling flurry.
The claws holding her tightened as the weather began to rage outside. “What are you doing, she-elf?” Fenn moved her arm, seeming to confirm that the tether was still touching her skin.
Serenna yanked the wind toward her through the window, bending it to her will.
Glass exploded in a spray of shards. A gale howled as a torrent of snow bombarded the room.
The broken slivers streaked at her like a thousand jagged arrows, propelled by the screaming wind. Serenna gasped, unable to assemble a shield without her magic. Unable to stop the shattered fragments racing toward her.
“Wind magics?” Fenn all but groaned behind her. “Stars, slay me.”
The mountains in Serenna’s vision swam out of view as the warrior whirled her around him.
The motion wrenched her feet out from under her legs.
Smashed to the ground, Serenna landed on her back, air bursting from her lungs.
Before she could draw in a breath, the wraith dove on top of her in a tangle of limbs.
Flogged by strands of his black hair, Serenna’s heart stopped as his fangs extended in front of her face. Her thoughts flashed back to the assault on Centarya, memories resurfacing of these creatures nearly ripping her to shreds. He’s going to tear out my throat!
Fenn’s arms wrapped above Serenna’s head, body imprisoning hers like a cage. The hailstorm of glass collided into his spiked armor, leathers absorbing the force of the blow. The barrage of razor shards crashed into the floor, sounding like a thousand crystals breaking.
Fenn snarled, sucking in what sounded like a hiss of pain as eddies of snow and the broken window settled around them. His expelled breath strung together a curse of colorful words, uttering exactly what he thought of “she-elves.”
Serenna’s senses came flooding back a moment after the slap of wind subsided. I summoned magic without Essence. With the elemental powers that Jassyn said ran through our bloodlines.
A small mote of hope rose in Serenna’s chest. If she could reach the open window, she could… What? Jump? Run through the snow? To where? She had no idea where she was and the prince wouldn’t either now that she was tethered. Serenna’s heart fell at the realization that she was stranded here.
Trapped under this mountain of a warrior’s chest, Serenna drew in ragged breaths. She battled to fill her lungs beneath his smothering bulk, assailed by scents of cedar and the frigid air. Fenn’s ember eyes burned into hers as the wind subsided, black blood welling from a slice on his cheek.
Serenna blinked, ripping her attention away from his unnerving stare. Why did he protect me? Before she untangled that thought, she thrashed wildly like a snake pinned by a spade. “Get off me!”
Fenn’s lip curled around his fangs despite his eyes not matching the scorn as they swept over her, like he was concerned. Clambering off of her, broken glass slid from the back of his armor, clinking to the stone.
Pushing herself to sit on the floor, Serenna jumped as a boot thudded next to her hand. A bolt of terror shot down her spine, impaling her to the ground.
Lykor.