Chapter 1 #2
Lykor veered away, circling wide. Nine ships remained around the fleeing vessel, scattered across the water like teeth knocked loose from a jaw.
Not nearly enough lives to sate him.
He wanted to flay answers from every scream. Crack ribs apart with ice and flood their marrow with the sea. Freeze blood in their veins slow enough that they felt the crystals form.
But time was the one thing he couldn’t bleed.
Jassyn waited. Somewhere. Still breathing.
He had to be.
Lykor halted above the fleet, wings thrashing hard enough to jar his spine. Essence rushed up from the vessels, rending and force, bands of power meant to skin him from the sky. He punched shadows outward in a choking surge, veiling himself in darkness.
The attacks disintegrated against his magic before they touched him.
His Well ran deep enough to sustain this for hours.
But he wouldn’t need hours.
Only minutes with Rimeclaw’s gift.
Lykor reached for the sea, past the glittering surface and down into the undertow, where pressure slept in the trenches. He drove his awareness into the ocean floor and wrenched.
The deep groaned as the waves buckled, their crests tipping inward as the sea began to surrender its shape.
He kept the lead ship at the edge of his sight, untouched by the pull. Wreathed in shadow, Vesryn landed on its deck, darkness lashing from his hands to force the crew to their knees.
Across the rest of the fleet, the current tightened slowly at first, snagging the remaining vessels by their keels. Sails snapped taut. Hulls tilted. A splintering crack tore across the fleet as one ship bucked sideways, then another, seized by the churn.
Lykor closed his fist.
The sea ruptured.
A whirlpool ripped wide into a circling funnel that snatched the closest vessel and yanked it down by the stern. Boards shrieked. Rigging toppled. Another ship slammed into it, hulls grinding, wood splitting, both dragged into the pull.
Crew threw themselves overboard as the water climbed.
Lykor raised his hand and slashed it sideways. The rising sea froze around them in jagged sheets, snaring them mid-leap. Limbs solidified in motion, screams breaking off.
Portals burst open on the decks.
Lykor flew closer, striking before they could widen. Spears of rime lanced downward, punching through those fleeing.
One by one, the ships vanished into the vortex, frost and foam seething over splintered wood. The sea folded over itself, devouring wreckage and bodies.
Lykor hovered above the waves and released the whirlpool, scanning for movement.
Nothing.
No survivors. No escape.
He focused on the last ship, tucked his wings, and dove.
Vesryn stood on the prow, shadows spilling from his hands. Around him, captured soldiers knelt in a broken ring, rending cinched around wrists and throats.
Lykor landed in a scythe of frost, ice spiraling off his shoulders as his wings vanished. He stalked across the deck with his fingers flexing, eager to tear answers from tongues.
His stare caught on the half-elf at the front.
Mahogany waves. Sapphire eyes that had glared at him before. A face Jassyn had once saved from Lykor’s vengeance, now delivered back to it.
Saundyl.
Serenna’s brother. Prince of Vaelyn, or whatever useless title he claimed.
Lykor’s lip curled as he lifted his chin.
“They don’t want to talk,” Vesryn clipped.
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
Lykor crossed the deck in a blur of fury and frost. His claw locked around Saundyl’s neck, Vesryn’s rending unraveling the instant Lykor touched him.
“Remember me?” Lykor snarled, hauling him upright. “I left you breathing once. Because of Jassyn.” His talons sank into skin. “He’s gone now. And I want to know where he is.”
Saundyl scrabbled at the crushing grip. “I–I don’t know—”
“Wrong answer.”
Lykor yanked on Rimeclaw’s tide in his chest.
Water raced up his arm and struck, punching down Saundyl’s throat, bursting through his nose. The elf convulsed as his shaman power battered too slowly against the torrent.
Lykor bore down until that fragile resistance buckled.
Saundyl’s eyes rolled white. He spasmed in Lykor’s grip, water spilling from his mouth while veins branched along his neck like roots trapped in flooded soil.
His whole body seized and thrashed as Lykor drove the torrent deeper and held him there.
Drowning suspended.
Only when Saundyl sagged did Lykor release him.
He collapsed at Lykor’s boots, sputtering water, every breath scraping wet.
Vesryn stood unmoved, shadows still binding the soldiers left kneeling. He knew whose brother lay choking on the deck. Knew exactly what mercy would cost.
But Vesryn’s expression had gone to stone.
The surviving crew didn’t fight. The remains of those who’d tried lay strewn across the planks at Vesryn’s feet.
Lykor crouched, hooked his talons beneath Saundyl’s breastplate, and wrenched him upright once more.
“One chance,” he snapped. “Use it.”
Saundyl’s mouth parted.
Hesitation flickered.
Lykor extended his free hand.
A lash of force seized a soldier and dragged her across the deck into his grip. She screamed before his fingers closed. Lykor drove his will beneath her ribs and latched onto her Well.
Magic ruptured, bright and pulsing.
Essence tore free in a blinding spiral, talents scattering in starlit globes. She flailed, fingers lengthening into claws, skin bruising dark with indigo as crimson burned through the brown of her eyes.
When Lykor released her, she crumpled to the deck as a wraith, her stolen abilities drifting above.
The talents stayed there.
Waiting.
Whispering.
This was the line. Power severed and passed through another hand could be borne without poisoning the Well. Power ripped loose and bound in the same act became an endless hunger.
That path wore the face of the king—silver eyes spinning with madness, ambition vast enough to make every Well an offering.
The talents still begged to be claimed, to sharpen the violence already crouched in Lykor’s blood. Even with Jassyn’s life hanging somewhere beyond reach, he refused to shape himself in Galaeryn’s image.
Because Jassyn—stars scorch him—had looked at the worst in Lykor and still believed there was something worth hauling back from the dark.
So Lykor left the stolen talents spinning, untouched.
Across the deck, Vesryn’s eyes met his. Cold. Hollowed down to the same need.
Answers first.
Lykor turned back to Saundyl, still clutched in his grip.
Saundyl stared at the wraith collapsed on the deck, then at the talents orbiting above her, then back to Lykor.
Lykor tilted his head. “You’re not scared enough.”
Saundyl went still, water dripping from his jaw to the planks.
“I remember your sister begging for your life the last time we met,” Lykor said. “Said you had a family.”
Saundyl’s pulse jumped against Lykor’s fingers.
“I broke into the king’s dungeons,” Lykor hissed, leaning close. “Walked out with those left to rot.”
He ripped open a portal to Asharyn. On the other side waited a courtyard full of freed prisoners, wounded families, and faces Saundyl might know.
“Let’s see how badly you want to keep them breathing.”
He flung Saundyl into the rift.
“Drain the rest,” he growled to Vesryn.
Whether the prince had the spine to obey was his own problem now.
Lykor cast the plundered talents through the void. Every stolen weapon would arm their own.
Saundyl would talk.
And if he didn’t, Lykor would teach him what silence cost.