It would be simple. Easy.
Necessary.
They were all threats. Challenges to his authority.
Yet the thought of breaking them brought no satisfaction, only a bitter taste he couldn’t swallow. They were still more useful to him alive.
Or perhaps it was weakness.
The pathetic truth curdled into disgust.
Lykor’s chest heaved on the brink of indecision, Essence crackling like molten iron in his veins. He’d already come this far. Why not a little further? The only way to defeat a foe like Galaeryn was to become as strong as him. Stronger even.
Become the king.
Become everything he loathed.
The thought nearly strangled him. He’d soon be raving about hearing the voices of the Aelfyn, just like Galaeryn.
Lykor wrenched his gaze away from Jassyn’s and back to the boy struggling in his gauntlet, gasping face turning blue.
Snarling, Lykor flung the elf to the sand and muttered to the girl, “Of course there’s fucking two of you.”
CHAPTER 33
LYKOR
Lykor stalked away from the group, sweeping his gaze over the wreckage littering the beach as Serenna rushed to her brother’s side. A few elves-turned-wraith stirred weakly in the sand, but he ignored them. Not his concern.
The fleet lay in ruins, splintered hulls sinking beneath the surf. Blood soaked the shoreline, the air reeking of salt and death. His work here was done.
The metallic toll of alarm bells erupted from the castle, slicing through the bay’s stillness. Each clang reverberated through Lykor’s chest, a warning knell. Reinforcements—perhaps a horde of humans—would descend in a swarm. It was past time to depart.
A piercing screech shattered the night as Trella landed on the shore, the ground quaking. Prancing toward him, her talons gouged deep furrows into the sand, feathers streaked with blood that wasn’t her own. White irises locked onto his, a wordless question rippling through their telepathic link—an animalistic need for approval.
As he extinguished the glow from her feathers, Lykor relayed a pulse of appreciation. Her destruction had proven crucial. When she headbutted his shoulder in a demand of furtheracknowledgment, he indulged her by scratching under the plumes on her cheek.
Lykor cast a cold glance at the group huddled around Serenna’s brother, their hushed murmurs a grating irritation. A crack snapped in his spine as he rolled his neck, the tension in his body refusing to relent.
Now that the fire of battle had cooled, something felt off. Wrong.
His muscles spasmed in erratic jolts, every fiber stretched too taut. Essence thrashed beneath his skin, as if the power he’d claimed carried its own savage intent to rip him apart.
An insidious hiss scraped against the fringes of his mind. It wasn’t Aesar stirring. And that unsettling fact sent a prickle down every bone in his spine.
With a snarl, Lykor crushed the intrusive thought before it could take shape, refusing to entertain such notions. The Aelfyn’s whispers didn’t linger among the stars. That was madness reserved for the king. What he needed now was control—to bleed off the seething magic like draining a festering wound.
The air around Lykor shifted as he ripped open a portal to the jungle. Rather than offering reprieve, the effort deepened the fissures in an already cracked foundation.
He gestured for Trella to go through but she hesitated, ruffling her wings as concern rolled down their link. Sending a wordless reassurance that he wouldn’t be too far behind seemed to placate her well enough and she stepped into the void without further protest.
Lykor exhaled as the portal snapped shut, leaving him alone with the tightening noose of power. The edges of his vision distorted, the world pitching beneath his feet as the pressure under his ribs swelled to a breaking point.
He’d taken too much, too fast. His Well hadn’t had time to adjust. Essence blistered through his bones, heart hammering as if it might burst free from its cage.
He couldn’t contain it. Couldn’t control it. Wild magic clawed at him, a feral force unyielding in its hunger. If he didn’t act, Essence would devour him from the inside out.
The ground rushed up to meet him as he collapsed, hands sinking into the gritty shore. He retched, choking on air that refused to fill his lungs.
