Fucking wind!She gritted her teeth. The monster used it better than even Fenn.
“Hey, you!” Bran roared, charging in again.
The earth rumbled and cracked with each step before surging upward to form a jagged pillar straight at the enemy. The impact sent a deep grumble through the stone, but Kaelith only laughed as it crumbled at his feet.
“Seems like you haven’t quite mastered the Source yet, have you?” With a casual backhand, he sent Bran sprawling back across the sand.
“Come now,” Kaelith taunted. “Surely you can do better than this? Has your Vessel taught you nothing?” He looked at her. “Have you taught them nothing, dear Rynna?”
What?!
Rynna growled in frustration, pushing herself to her feet just in time to see Kaelith extend both arms toward her, each one splitting into a mass of writhing, hissing snakes. Before she could react, they wrapped around her torso, constricting tightly and pulling her off the ground, dragging her toward him.
“Rynna!” Taren called, struggling in the grasp of his own serpent.
Kaelith’s grip tightened as he pulled her against him, his voice a low, dangerous hiss in her ear. “Is this a game to you?”
“What?!” Rynna gasped, struggling to free herself.
She had no idea what he was talking about.
But before she could respond, Bran’s voice rang out from behind them. “Let her go, you monster!” Then, his hair ignited, flames of every color licking up from his scalp as his eyes blazed with the raw power of fire coursing through him.
Oh fuck. He was releasing whatever it was inside him.
Bran’s hands moved rapidly through the air, forming a series of symbols, and a beam of heat erupted from his palms, aimed directly at Kaelith and Rynna.
Shit! Rynna thought as the searing heat bore down on them.A little blinking probably won’t break the Rules. She closed her eyes, twisting reality, and teleported just a foot out of Kaelith’s grasp, dropping to the ground and gasping for air.
The heat beam struck Kaelith across the face just as he jerked away. Hissing in pain, his once smug expression twisted into one of pure rage as he clutched the scorched side of his head, smoke rising from the burn.
Bran sprinted to her side, and with a grunt, he dragged her away from Kaelith’s looming figure, sand kicking up beneath their heels.
“You okay?” His voice was tight with concern.
“I’ll live,” she gasped as Kaelith turned to face them, her mouth falling open at the sight.
The melted flesh of Renji’s face peeled away, dripping like molten wax from a cursed candle, revealing the pale, smooth skin underneath, as if sculpted from polished bone. His dark, serpentine eyes glowed with flecks of purple, the slitted pupils narrowing as his lips curled back, revealing fangs far too long for a human mouth.
“I’ll kill you, boy!” he shrieked, stepping toward them as more of the flesh mask fell away in chunks, revealing the true face beneath.
Rynna flinched, her hand flying to her chest, and for a moment, the world tilted.
Kae.The name tore through her mind.
Whaaat have I done? Her heart slammed against her ribs as memory tore through her—snatches of another life that had been stolen from her. His laughter in the dark. His steady hand in battle. The heat of his mouth when she let herself forget the Mission. A man she had loved—and left—without a word when the Weavingripped her away.
And now here he stood before her, twisted, monstrous. Yet beneath the ruin, it was impossibly, unbearably, still him.
“Kae?” Her voice was barely audible.
Her knees weakened as a sob rose in her throat, threatening to choke her. Panic surged, her heart breaking as the memories of their past together and the reality of what he had become collided in her mind.
“Kae?” she repeated, but he didn’t hear her.
“I will kill you all!” He took another step forward, completely oblivious to the woman before him.
He raised his hands, and the air heaved upward, pressure coiling into a vortex that spun around his fingertips before bursting into a roaring cyclone. It was stronger than anything Rynna had ever encountered, more powerful than any elemental attack she had seen in this world, save for Bran’s fiery outburst just moments ago.
