Seven years ago…

The foils whistled and clinked. Two combatants with faces hid by meshed helmets—one left-handed and dressed in a black jacket and breeches and the other right-handed and dressed in white—danced as they thrust and parried their weapons. The white fighter huffed, his loud panting muffled by his helmet. His opponent moved with grace and ease, as if toying with him. The black fighter’s weapon stabbed with almost murderous intent and parried attacks with the attitude of a man brushing dust from his shoulder. He charged his white-clad opponent, thrusting and stabbing, and forced him to run backward down the fifty-foot dueling strip under their feet. Five of the six young people watching the duel cheered.

With his back to the proverbial wall, the white duelist parried his opponent’s attack and instantly thrust his own weapon at his opponent’s chest. But the black duelist sidestepped the stab with almost supernatural reflexes and casually tripped his opponent. The white fighter rolled over on the ground to desperately defend himself, only to find the tip of the foil pressed against his neck.

“Ha-ha!” exclaimed the black duelist as he raised his ungloved hand overhead. A fireball shot from his hand, flew into the air, and exploded into a cloud of colorful flames. The spectators cheered louder, all except one.

“Enjoy yourself now, Shar,” said the white duelist, using a quick gesture to summon a gust of wind that threw him to his feet. Now standing, he pulled off his helmet, revealing his sweat-drenched dark blonde hair and cobalt eyes. “But someday I’ll blow you out like a candle!”

Shar removed his helmet, tucking it under his right arm, and ran his fingers through his dry golden hair. His gray eyes flared as he smirked at the wind manipulator. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, Talynn. Wind only fans a fire’s flames, brother.” He snapped his fingers, and a small flame appeared on his pointer finger, making it look like a candle. “You’ll never do this to me.” He then pressed his finger to his lips and kissed it, blowing a tongue of fire at his brother and singeing his hair. Shar snickered.

Talynn harrumphed and walked to the bench halfway down the dueling strip’s sideline. There he was joined by their hefty, blond-haired brother, Bulon, while their three blonde sisters intercepted Shar and showered him with praise. This left a brown-haired boy clad in a white tanktop and white athletic pants with silver stripes. He stood alone with his arms crossed, glaring.

Thinks he’s such a “wildfire,” he thought. I’ll show him!

The boy ran toward the bench and grabbed Talynn’s foil. “Jaysynn!” exclaimed Talynn, but the boy ignored his older brother’s objections. He strode up to Shar and declared, “You’re not leaving until you fight me!”

Shar raised an eyebrow. Then he laughed. “I haven’t time for this, little brother. Father demands that I be on time for more lessons in kingship.” He sighed, whimsically adding, “I do look forward to having the throne someday.”

“Since when did you start refusing challenges?” asked Jaysynn, holding the foil up and pointing it at his brother’s smirking face.

“He has a point, Shar,” interjected Chel, the oldest of their sisters. “You didn’t even refuse the challenge of that Examiner from Jalseion who thought he’d reduced fencing to a science.”

Shar nodded. “Poor fool. He was so easy to predict.”

“And do you really think it’ll take you long to beat our little brother?” said Casseo, firing her own smirk at Jaysynn, who replied with a glare.

“I’m the one who can burn holes in people’s heads with a look, little Jaysynn, not you,” said Jilla, their youngest sister.

Jaysynn only glanced at her. He knew doing more than that would only earn him more condescension from her.

“That’s enough, girls,” said Shar. “I see your point.” He turned to his brother. Jaysynn wanted so much to wipe that smug smile off his face. “I accept your challenge.”

Only then did Jaysynn crack a small grin.

“Bulon should have some gear in his locker that will fit you,” Shar continued.

“Let’s duel now,” insisted Jaysynn.

“You’ve always been impetuous,” said Shar, shaking his head.

The two brothers stepped onto the dueling strip. Their sisters joined Bulon and Talynn over by the bench. Jaysynn felt their curious yet disapproving eyes pricking the back of his neck. Even so, Jaysynn always kept his foil pointed at his oldest brother and remained in a fencing pose.

Shar pressed the blade of his foil between his arm and side, holding his mask with both hands. “Do you honestly think you, a boy of thirteen, can defeat the heir to Thyrion’s throne?”

“Yes!” replied Jaysynn, almost yelling.

“Too bad,” Shar said, putting his mask on, “your stance is weak.”

The prince dashed toward the burning Palace while Dracon yelled for him to come back. It was a rare show of begging.

Flames climbed the tower in the center of the Palace, transforming it into a giant torch and licking at the smoke-darkened sky. Many windows—most of them shattered—glowed bright, but others were black. The fire was spreading, slowly. The heat intensified with Jaysynn’s every stride as he approached the Palace. As he reached the portico, he felt like he crashed into an invisible burning wall. His hands shielded his face. He clenched his fists and steeled his resolve.

Lowering his arms, he charged at the once-grand doors and kicked them open. The heat smacked his face, but Jaysynn grit his teeth and ran inside. He entered the grand hall. Burning debris littered the room. More fell from the high ceiling. The half-circle staircase leading to the tower’s elevator was collapsing. Fire consumed the royal trappings.

“Talynn! Chel! Mother!” Jaysynn shouted over the roar of the flames. He wandered through room. “Jilla!” The next name tasted bitter, but he spat out, “Shar!” No answer. He came to the center of the room where the ornate crystal and gold chandelier had fallen, the flames reflecting and refracting in a kaleidoscopic flurry of light. “Bulon! Casseo!” Jaysynn saw that the floor around the chandelier was crimson. He peered through the blinding light—and gasped.

Buried underneath the chandelier were two of his dead siblings, burning.

Guilt stabbed Jaysynn’s heart. His stomach turned and bile filled his mouth. Blood roared in his ears and drenched the back of his head. If only…

Suddenly, he heard a shout—a warrior’s battle cry—emanate from the open door under the half-circle staircase. He recognized it. “Father!”

Jaysynn ran for the door, jumping over burning piles of debris. He ignored the flames licking at his heels. Inside the door was a descending staircase. No fires. White light flashed in the corridor, accompanied by deafening thunderclaps. Jaysynn raced down the stairs. The farther down he went, the more ionized the air felt. His hair started standing on end.

He came to the basement. Before him was the thick containment door, opened, and inside the room beyond lay the Palace’s source of power, its magic generator. Agonized wails mingled with thunder shot from the room. Jaysynn ran inside.

Lightning bolts danced amid a shower of sparks. The massive magic generator sputtered, glowed, quaked. At the heart of this storm was a man—a man wearing a ripped king’s robe and a purple cape riddled with holes. His long golden hair and beard, though singed by sparks, shone like the sun. Rippling and bulging, his muscles desperately summoned the lightning that shot from his fingertips. The man’s eyes, glowing eerily on his charred face, turned a murky white.

“Father, you must stop!”

“I will when the generator stabilizes!”

“Please! We must go! The Palace is burning!”

“No!”

Jaysynn glanced at the console displaying the generator’s status. The hands on the generator spun chaotically. The screens and readouts flashed on and off, displaying gibberish-like numbers and letters Jaysynn knew were warnings.

“You’re trying to stop the inevitable!” the prince shouted. “You can’t save the generator!”

“I am Thorynn, God-Emperor of Thyrion! My kingdom is sustained by my hand! So long as I draw breath, the House of Kyzer will stand!”

The man’s eyes glowed brighter, hotter. More lightning bolts flared, flashed. The console monitoring the generator sparked, then exploded.

Jaysynn shielded his face with his arms. Sucking in air through gritted teeth, he lowered his arms and marched toward his father, clenching his fists. A courage—no, defiance—unlike any he had ever felt swelled within him and burst through his teeth like a dam. “Your kingdom? Your kingdom needs you out there in the streets! The generator is nothing!”

“Silence, boy!” shouted the Emperor, straining more lightning from his shriveling hands.

“This is madness! Please come—”

“Away with you!” thundered Thorynn, firing a thunderbolt from his palm at Jaysynn.

The bolt struck Jaysynn in the chest and launched him like a ragdoll. Dazed, he flew back fifteen feet, landing outside the containment door. His back hit the floor with a thud, his head bouncing off the cement. More blood gushed from his head wound. Shock. Enervation. His muscles twitched. Smoke rose from his blackened chest. He smelled burnt clothing and flesh. Grunting painfully, he mustered his every last fiber of resolve and forced himself to sit up.

He watched as his father’s lightning bolts vanished. The emperor flicked his fingers in desperation, but nothing sparked. He shouted curses that seemed to echo through the room. Suddenly, a bright light consumed the generator and burst forth.

“Father, no!” screamed Jaysynn, stretching out with a trembling hand.

Just then, the containment door was slammed shut. Dracon stood over Jaysynn.

“Get up!” the general ordered.

Jaysynn was paralyzed, but now by shock and fear.

“Get up!” Dracon barked, grabbing the prince’s shoulders and forcing him to his feet. “If you can stand, you can run! Move!”

Dracon grabbed Jaysynn’s wrist and all but dragged him away from the door and up the stairs. Only when they reached the burning grand hall did Jaysynn break out of his trance. The heat was fiercer. The floor quaked and rumbled. Fiery debris rained from the ceiling like burning hailstones. Smoke threatened to choke him.

A moment later, Jaysynn found himself outside. Flames now filled every window of the Palace and rose higher on the tower. A sudden quake tripped Jaysynn as they reached the Palace gates.

The prince watched as white energy exploded from below the Palace, the ground underneath it erupting like a volcano. For a half-second, the tower seemed to float. Then it fell, it crumbled, and with it, the entire Palace.

Only a pile of burning rubble remained.

The screams, the explosions—they jolted Jaysynn awake. Slowly, the black veil lifted from his vision as his heavy eyelids opened. The ringing in his ears was drowned out by the cacophony. He stared groggily at a pile of rubble that was once the wall of the restaurant across the street. Panicking crowds trampled drywall and glass—and sometimes each other—underfoot. The stench of smoke invaded his nostrils. The young man found himself slouched against a brick wall, his head throbbing. The back of it was wet, so he touched it. Blood. Had he been thrown against the wall? Yes, he thought. By a blinding white light.

Jaysynn shook his head to regain his bearings and forced himself to stand. He quickly and reflexively pulled the hood of his dark green shirt over his scratched face and earthen hair. With his hand resting on the hilt of the knife on his belt, he looked up and down the street, seeing a river of people running around overturned or burning cars. Smoke rose in black plumes, coalescing into ominous clouds above the city of Thyrion.

Fighting the pain in his stiffened muscles, Jaysynn ran against the oncoming crowd for half a block and slipped down the alleyway. The three- or four-story building was a hotel, so it had a radio antenna tower in the corner. He climbed the triangular rungs of the antenna with desperate speed, his gloved hands gripping each rung tightly to keep his seemingly heavy body from falling. He never took his eyes off of the top of the structure. Halfway up the antenna tower, he jumped onto the hotel’s roof. He ran to the edge of the building and surveyed the scene.

Everything he’d seen on the street below stretched for miles in every direction. Skyscrapers burned and crumbled. Towers of flames rose above the cityscape. People screamed, glass shattered, sirens blared. The sweet and acrid smell of exhausted magic filled his nose.

Jaysynn looked down at the crowds. They were lost and terrified sheep without a shepherd. I have to do something! I have to help them! A young woman’s face suddenly appeared in his mind’s eye. What about Kyrie?

Immediately, he turned to run toward the antenna.

An explosion thundered in the distance.

Jaysynn looked toward it and saw a plume of fire shoot from the spire at the center of the Emperor’s Palace one mile away.

Jaysynn’s heart quickened; his throat tightened. Mother, Father, my siblings. Did they make it out?

The screams in the street ripped through the sooty air. Jaysynn glanced down at the death and panic below him. But they need their prince. Those people down there actually care about me.

For an eternal minute, Jaysynn’s agonized mind argued back and forth. Finally, with a sigh, he whispered, “Blood is thicker…”

Jaysynn jogged fifteen feet away from the hotel’s edge and then sprinted toward it. He leaped off the roof, feeling like a bird. He whipped through the rising smoke, which stung his eyes. Blinking to clear his vision, he nearly lost sight of the roof of the shorter building across from the hotel. He landed, instinctively tucking and rolling on impact. Without stopping, he kept running. A crumbled chimney obstructed his path, but Jaysynn leap-frogged over it. Reaching the next ledge, he jumped across the street and clutched the edge of the next building, pulling himself onto the roof in one quick stroke.

Jaysynn accelerated. Suddenly, an explosion ripped through the seventh floor of the taller building next door. Glass shards and debris rained down. Jaysynn covered his exposed face with his arms. He sensed something big falling toward him and spun sideways like a dancer. Crash! Jaysynn caught a glimpse of a desk out of the corner of his eye as he kept running. Glass crunched under his running shoes with every stride. He prayed the shards wouldn’t pierce their soles.

The next building was taller than the one he was on, but it had a fire escape. Coming to the roof’s edge, he leaped over the narrow street toward the fire escape. He grabbed the metal bar, but suddenly its metal frame groaned as it was ripped from the weakened building’s wall. Jaysynn looked over his shoulder and saw a crowd of people part as he and the fire escape tumbled toward them. The top of the fire escape hit the other building, lurching on impact and shaking Jaysynn loose. The young man tucked and rolled as he landed.

Catching his breath, Jaysynn glanced at the taller building’s entrance. The door was open. He ran inside the building—an old apartment complex—and found a staircase, which he bounded up. Five floors later, he shoved through the half-broken wooden door leading to the roof. His destination would be behind him, so he looked over his shoulder. Halfway to the Palace. Flames still rose from it.

BOOM! The roof shook under his feet. Jaysynn dashed toward the ledge. He fought to keep his balance on the quaking roof. A few strides from the ledge, he felt the building start to dip. It’s collapsing! He jumped from the roof as the building crumbled under another explosion. Below him were burning cars and screaming people. Nowhere to land! But as he fell, he saw a power line swing past him, freshly severed from the falling building but still securely attached to the other end. Reflexively, he grabbed it. He was surprised he felt no jolt. Clutching tightly, he swung over the destruction below. He hit the opposite wall, bending his knees to minimize the impact. His bones still jarred.

Jaysynn climbed up the dangling wire, which hung from a corner of the building. His muscles burned and screamed like his city. He reached the top and dragged himself onto the roof.

For one long minute, Jaysynn lay slumped on the floor, panting and sweating and bleeding. He licked the perspiration around his mouth in a desperate effort to soothe his bone-dry mouth. It only stung.

Just a few more blocks, he thought, wiping his burning forehead. The Palace loomed nearer.

Jaysynn forced himself to stand, shaking his bleeding, foggy head to clear it. He breathed deeply and ran. He knew this city. He’d created a map of it in his mind during all those nights of tracing across its rooftops and through its streets. The next few streets were narrower, making them easier to jump. He descended to shorter and shorter buildings until he came to one directly across from the Palace’s gates. He came to the ledge, then dangled himself from it, gripping the edge with his fingertips. He let himself drop to a window frame, which he gripped, and then he jumped. Spinning in mid-air, he landed on the ground ten feet below him, rolling.

His muscles burned as he straightened, not missing a stride. Sweat and blood stung his eyes. He wiped his forehead, clearing his vision. Dozens of Thyrian soldiers ran through the burning cars littering Imperial Avenue in front of the Palace. They were pushing back a panicked mob, but without using any magic-powered guns. Jaysynn could almost blend in with the dark green uniforms.

As he approached the four-lane street, cutting through the panicking crowd, he leaped onto the trunk of a car. He sprang to another car, barely avoiding the flames consuming it. Now people noticed him. Citizens cursed at him. Soldiers demanded he stop. Jaysynn ignored them all. Like a frog jumping from one lily pad to another, Jaysynn leaped to the next car, narrowly dodging soldiers’ hands. He jumped onto one more and then onto the sidewalk in front of the Palace’s steel gates. On either side of the twelve-foot gateway were bronze statues of the mighty Thyr preparing to throw a thunderbolt like a spear.

Jaysynn was surrounded by soldiers. He pulled off his blood-soaked hood and turned to face them. Their eyes widened. “Stop staring and protect the Palace!” he ordered, pointing at the crowd. They quickly obeyed.

“Prince Jaysynn!” called a familiar voice.

The young man looked to his right. A tall man wearing a tattered black Thyrian military uniform approached him. He was a general; only generals wore black. His chiseled face bore crimson dents. Slate-gray eyes commanded Jaysynn to stand still. White-speckled dark blonde hair hid under his glossy cap. His name—Gen. Xander Dracon—was stitched in white letters above his ribbons.

“I feared you were still inside,” Dracon said.

“Where is my family?” Jaysynn demanded.

“They’ve not come out.”

“Then get them out!”

“I can’t spare any men to send into the Palace,” replied Dracon, motioning toward the chaos before them.

Jaysynn closed his eyes and clenched his fists. Without thinking, he started climbing the Palace gates. Dracon tried to grab him, but the prince quickly climbed beyond his reach.

“What are you doing?” shouted Dracon.

Jaysynn reached the top of the gate and slid down the other side. He looked the general in the eye. “Saving my family.”