Free Storm and Steel by Jon Sprunk Page A

picked up, shaking the leaves.
    He told himself he wouldn't think about Alyra, but his thoughts crept back to her like a beaten dog slinking back home. This wasn't how he had imagined her homecoming. Now everything was ruined. Shattered.
    Perhaps he couldn't have everything he wanted, but he refused to quit just because things were becoming more complicated. He had his title and his power. And he also had the queen's trust, for now. They would be enough. And if not, then I'll cross those waters when I come to them.
    The alcohol spread through his body in a warm wave that washed away the hurt. He sat and rode that wave as the stars wheeled above the villa, thinking of all the endless possibilities before him.

He soared high above the shadow-dappled ground. Stars sparkled in the deep-black sky above him. Scattered moonbeams stabbed through him yet left no mark in his ethereal flesh. With a gusty laugh, Horace shot into a bank of gathering thunderheads.
    His vision dimmed for a few seconds, and then he was flying over a rippling desert plain. A powerful energy burgeoned inside him, growing as the clouds stirred around him. They moved in a circle with him at the epicenter, slowly at first but with increasing velocity. The air cooled. The power inside him flared, building in waves until it exploded in a satisfying crackle of thunder.
    He was the storm. The driving wind. The pouring rain. His voice was a hurricane.
    Far below among the dunes and barren rocks, a town huddled behind scarred stone walls. Lights shone within, waving feebly in the rising wind. More lights twinkled outside the walls, but his wrath was focused on the stone towers and slanted rooftops inside. He did not know where this ire for the town came from, nor did he care. All that mattered was the power inside him, surging to be unleashed.
    With a thrust of his hand, a jagged bolt of lightning flashed down at the town. Its green glow illuminated a maze of streets and hovels huddled around the larger structures. Flames erupted from inside the building he'd struck. Thunder boomed in his ears, drowning out every sound except the howling winds. Again and again his incandescent fury rained down, and with each attack he felt his strength flowing through him like a burning river, scorching away the tribulations of a mundane life that had haunted him for too long. Tired of being weak and at the mercy of others, he reveled in this newfound supremacy. But a voice in the back of his mind whispered it wasn't new. No, he'd always had this potential, buried so deep it might never have come to light if not for…
    Lightning flashed, blinding him, and in that moment he was back aboard the Bantu Ray as the converted merchant carrack struggled in the grip of a nightmare storm. Verdant light flashed in the sky, and something opened inside him, like a hidden inner doorway opening for the first time. Dark energy seethed within. Then a wave of cold water crashed over him, carrying him away, and the moment was lost.
    He watched the fires roar below and the tiny figures scurrying to escape the destruction he had wrought. He wanted to be free from the restraints that bound him, free to roam the earth, doing as he pleased, destroying all that stood in his way. Yet some force held him in this place. He strained against it, ceasing his rampage on the town to direct his strength in this new direction, to breaking free. Yet the power holding him resisted. He struggled harder, until something started to change inside him. Bits of energy drifted away from him, charging the air with their power, while at the same time a weird sensation akin to vertigo twisted his core. His view of the vista below grew dim and distant, as if the entire world were fading from his sight. Or perhaps he was the one who was fading. The last sound he heard was a peal of thunder, growing louder.
    Coming closer.
    Horace bolted upright with a sharp pain in his chest. For a heartbeat he didn't know where he was. Was he