“Only around elven,” Syrena reminded her. “Now, do you see your shield in your mind? Do you feel it?”
Her nose wrinkled. “I do.”
“Good. Let it bend to your will. Mend itself to your mind, forming a barrier. No one gets through unless you let them.”
Her sister gritted her teeth but nodded.
“Now do it again,” Syrena ordered. “And again. Until it’s second nature. Until they can stand right before you, screaming into your mind, clawing their way into your deepest thoughts and fears, but are met with nothing but silence.”
Esmyra’s eyes flew open, a bit of mischief lingering within them. “I can do that.”
Syrena smoothed a hand through her sister’s hair, coiling a lock around her finger. “The next time that elven bitch tries to crawl into your mind… make her drown there.”
Esmyra’s answering smile was cold and vicious.
Syrena leaned down, lips brushing her sister’s ear. “Now tell me about those velsinyte bullets.”
She needed to find out where the mortals were getting it and how they discovered the use of its magic.
Esmyra blew out a breath and shrugged before flopping back down on the bed, her body bouncing with the movement before prying herself up on her elbows. “It’s impossible to say how much velsinyte Lephyrin has, but what I can tell you is that… it’s everywhere. To my knowledge, so far they’ve made bullets, I’m assuming blades, along with cages, and rings.”
Fuck.
Syrena snarled. “What do you meanrings? What do they work against?”
“Well compulsion for one. But honestly that might be the only thing. It responds to magic, but not physically.”
Double fuck.
“And how do you know this?” Syrena couldn’t help the snippiness in her tone.
Esmyra pursed her lips. “The night I captured Draevyn and threatened the king with his life, I tried to compel him then.”
“Draevyn or the king?”
“Well, both,” Esmyra admitted. “Draevyn was easily compelled. He can’t wear a velsinyte ring because it would suppress his own magic. The king, though, was powerless. The ring bore no consequences for him. Only protected him from certain things. He was likely wearing it because of the elven guests that night.”
“Well, isn’t that just extremely irritating,” Syrena hissed, talons biting into her palms.
“Aye,” Esmyra agreed in that odd way of hers.
“I need you to do something for me.”
Esmyra quickly sat up, brows furrowing as she stared at her. “And what might that be?”
“I need you to remain in Maerinys until this threat is dealt with,” she said.
Syrena needed Esmyra out of her way while she and Azarian waited for the next Moon of Malya in two months’ time, but she also needed her to stay out of trouble until then too. That was when the bonding could complete and Kaelypso would fall to her.
Esmyra scoffed. “Oh, I don’t think so.”
“I command it as your queen,” she challenged.
Syrena certainly preferred Esmyra when she was clueless and eager to please her.
Esmyra’s eyes flared, her spine straightening as her lip curled back. “I have no ruler. I am a god, just as you are.” Her chest began to rise and fall with heavy breaths, her anger radiating from her. “Why would I sit here and do nothing? I have unfinished business in Lephyrin.”
“Well, you can’t go back there. It’s not safe,” Syrena reminded her. “I know you think you need revenge in your little lover’s quarrel, but it will have to wait.”
