Page 27 of In Violent Waves

“What do you mean by ‘their kind’?”

Wilder strode around a particularly large fern and ran his fingertips over the fronds.

“Not all the elves look like me. Some resemble trees, the sun, or the night sky. There are also trolls, fairies, and pixies, although they are rarer to see. There are also,” he ticked off his long fingers, “sentient trees that are as old as the land, and wulvers.” He spoke of the last creature with a snarl.

“And the Mannereds?” Lyra prompted, trying to understand beyond what she had once read.

Wilder shrugged. “All the elves there resemble me, and the land is much different. It’s flat with manicured gardens and forests, hence the ‘manner’ part of their name.”

It took Lyra a moment to realize he had cracked a joke, but when she did, she giggled.

Her laugh brushed against the thread of power coiled around her heart. It wasn’t a complete tug on it, but enough that it stirred.

Wilder halted immediately and stared at her, enthralled. A gray fog clouded his blue eyes like heavy clouds in the sky.

That laugh, that sound. It was magic. Beautifully haunted, blessed magic.

He stared enraptured at her, willing to do or say anything she commanded.

Lyra clamped a hand over her mouth and stared at him with terror.

“I’m so sorry. I did not mean to.”

Wilder shook his head, and the power that had encircled his mind, controlling every part of him, vanished. His eyes returning to the clear, crystal blue.

It was terrifying. Utterly terrifying how all-consuming her power was.

He would have killed himself if she had commanded it—with merely a laugh, she had gripped him so completely.

Which is why she worked so hard never to use it. Even a mere brush against it was euphoric. Her blood hummed through her veins, her muscles relaxed, and the anxiety that usually coiled around her gut vanished. It was addictive.

That power could enthrall anyone or anything.

But more than that, it could destroy.

Slaughter and annihilate. As she had before. The image of that male flashed behind her closed eyes, evaporating the feeling of euphoria and leaving her feeling bereft of any feelings besides misery.

“What was that?” Wilder breathed, his brow furrowing over his rapidly darkening eyes.

She couldn’t—wouldn’t answer.

And Wilder didn’t speak to her again.

The sun rose high in the sky, its golden light shining down on Lyra. But even its appearance couldn’t bring her out of her despair. She had been a fool, a careless fool yet again.

The magic wasn’t safe; it was corruption. And although she hadn’t meant it to, it had happened, and their tenuous alliance had crumbled.

Wilder had barricaded himself behind a wall of silence to keep her at bay. To keep himself safe from her. The monster.

The memory of the sea witch in the cave sprang to her mind. What was it the witch had said?

“A monster—a monster that would destroy the entire world.”

No one would ever understand her. Not her father, and certainly not her friends if they ever learned the truth of what she hid.

Lyra walked in silence beside him, seeing past the wonder of the land and keeping her eyes on the path.

What good would it be to enjoy anything at all?