My uncle is a master of elemental magic, but I’ve rarely seen him go to full power. If he ever will, it’s now.
The ground beneath my feet trembles as Edwin draws on the ley line running north of our coven, the air near him thickening with raw power. The dragon lunges forward, her massive jaws snapping at Edwin with terrifying speed.
The ground erupts in a violent upheaval, jagged spears of broken mausoleum rock shooting upward to impale the dragon's underbelly. She twists midair, the stone spikes grazing her scales. She retaliates with a shriek that splits the air and a torrent of flame.
“Dive!” my uncle bellows at me.
I throw myself behind the nearest grave, barely escaping the scorching wave. Edwin doesn't waste a breath from behind his headstone. A concussive fireball detonates inches from the dragon’s snout, the heat so intense I can feel it from where I crouch.
The dragon rears back, momentarily blinded, her wings creating hurricane-force winds that bend small trees. Edwin uses this moment to advance—always further away from Jax—his hands weaving intricate patterns that pull moisture from the environment. Water condenses around his fingers, hardening instantly into ice spears that he launches with lethal precision at the dragon's eyes.
Two spears shatter against her armored face, but a third finds its mark in the soft tissue beside her left eye. She roars, a sound so primal and furious that I feel it reverberate through my bones.
I watch my uncle in stunned awe, grasping for the first time just how beautiful—and how lethal—true elemental magic can be. That’s the thing about mastery. It makes believers of everyone, even someone like me, who was never built for battle. Watching this—the raw, terrifying beauty of it—makes my fingers itch, and for just a second, I forget I'm hiding behind a gravestone in the middle of a dragon attack. I forget I'm me.
Edwin stands his ground, drawing more power from the earth beneath him. I can see it flowing into him—veins of energy pulsing up through his legs, illuminating him from within. The raw elemental magic makes his hair stand on end, crackling with static electricity.
“Your kind should have learned by now: this ground is forbidden to you,” he growls, voice deeper, altered by the power coursing through him.
The ground beneath the dragon suddenly erupts in a geyser of silver-blue flames, forcing her to leap backward. Edwin advances, his steps sure and powerful, each one leaving scorched prints in the cemetery grass.
“You will not desecrate this ground,” he shouts, and I swear I can sense the cold presence of an ancestral spirit or two rising around him, lending their strength, their fury.
The silver dragon hisses, amethyst eyes narrowing to slits. She feints left, then right, testing Edwin's defenses. My uncle responds with walls of elemental force, blocking her at every turn.
As I watch my uncle's battle with the silver dragon, a memory strikes me with such force my throat tightens.
Dad used to do that exact move—that specific pattern with his left hand, the subtle twist of his wrist before releasing elemental energy. It's been thirteen years since I've seen it, but I still remember sitting cross-legged in our family garden, watching him and Edwin practice their elemental work together. They were so different—Dad all precision and calculation, Edwin with his wild, instinctual flourishes—but they moved in perfect sync, like dancers who'd rehearsed for decades.
“Pay attention, Starhead,”Dad would say, catching me drifting.“One day you might need this.”But he never pushed me toward combat the way he pushed Esme. He saw where my strengths lived. He let me have my books. My quiet. My safety.
Edwinlooks exactly like him right now—the same set to his jaw, the same lethal focus in his eyes that only ever surfaced when family was on the line. And the resemblance hits harder than it should.
After Dad disappeared, Edwin lost more than a piece of himself. He lost his older brother. His mirror. The only person who used to meet his magic blow for blow and laugh about it after. The only one who knew the stupid childhood stories. The convoluted rivalries. The shared shortcuts through spells they’d grown into together over decades. And, like the rest of us, he never got to say goodbye.
He moved his family right next door to us afterwards—almost moved in. He was the one who taught Jax how to shave, who sat through every one of my academic presentations when Mom couldn’t be there, who channeled all Esme’s sharp angles and grief into a fighter. He'd ruffle Jax’s hair the same way Dad used to, and I'd catch Mom watching with that complicated expression: gratitude and grief tangled together.
My throat tightens watching him now, standing between a dragon and Jax's resting place. The way he positions himself—it's not just tactical. It’s personal, down to the marrow. He's defending the nephew who became a son to him.
The lash of the dragon’s tail strikes in frustration, demolishing another row of headstones, and I snap fully back to attention.
I should move. Should find better cover. But I'm still transfixed by my uncle’s advance, by this deadly dance, this clash of powers so far beyond my own.
Then it happens.
In the briefest flash of distraction—a massive explosion rocking the foundations of the main building—the dragon feints, then abruptly twists her massive body, using her momentum to swing her armored tail in a devastating arc thatno one sees coming. The bladed tip catches Edwin directly across his torso.
Time stops. I watch my uncle's face transform from fierce concentration to blank surprise as his power instantly collapses. His elemental magic disintegrates around him, the blue flames sputtering out as his body crumples to the ground.
“DAD!” Nyv's scream tears through the chaos, a sound so raw and primal it doesn't even sound human. She abandons her position, streaking across the cemetery in desperate bounds.
Ridge's bellow follows, a thunderous, guttural roar that makes even the dragon hesitate. His face contorts into something feral, unrecognizable, as he charges forward, heedless of the danger, weapon forgotten as his hands glow with barely contained power.
I'm already running, my feet stumbling over broken headstones, my lungs burning. “No, no, no,” I chant, a desperate mantra as I skid to my knees beside my uncle's body. Blood pools beneath him, spreading across earth, soaking into my pants. So much blood.
His eyes are open, staring at the burning sky, but they don’t see it. A wet, gurgling sound escapes his lips with every shallow breath. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely unbuckle my satchel, the leather slick with his blood.
“Hold on,” I whisper, the words a useless prayer. My fingers find it—a small, dark vial, cool against my frantic skin. Crimson Salve. My strongest coagulant and tissue regenerator, brewed with ground phoenix feather and my own blood. I made it for missions. For emergencies.
