Page 106 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Jassyn closed his eyes and sank his awareness into the depths of the earth, the forest unfolding in his mind. Roots lay bruised and broken from the army’s passage, carrying every disturbance through the soil. He followed the damage north. The ground bore the disciplined weight of columns—iron-laden footfalls, thousands moving in the same direction.

The tendril loosened as he opened his eyes. The army remained impressed upon his senses, its numbers too vast for any precise count.

“They’re leagues to the north. We should get above the canopy. With a clear horizon, we can portal closer.”

Lykor nodded, and Jassyn drew on the bloom in his chest. The forest rippled above—branches bending apart, leaves drawing back until a strip of pale sky opened overhead. They shifted, their wings unfurling into the humid air.

Lykor extended a claw toward him. “Do you want to warp?”

Jassyn’s wings locked against his spine. His stomach clenched, vertigo already spinning through his skull while his feet remained planted in the mud.

“Not particularly.” But he swallowed and slid his hand into Lykor’s.

Lykor’s fingers closed around his with steady pressure, asking without words. Jassyn tightened his grip in answer.

Weight and direction vanished, darkness devouring light and sound.

Then the world slammed back in grey light and open air above the canopy.

Jassyn’s first wingbeat faltered as their hands parted. Below him, the rainforest stretched dark beneath the dimming moons. He steadied his flight, then angled north.

His first rift split the air ahead. They flew through, and Jassyn opened another, then a third, each jump swallowing a reach of sky.

Jassyn slowed into a hover. Dawn had begun to light the sky behind them, sharpening their silhouettes above the canopy. “Using Essence any closer could alert them. We should continue on foot from here.”

He parted the branches below, and they descended together, leaves whispering against their legs before folding back into place overhead.

They landed in trampled earth, and the damage throbbed through Jassyn’s awareness—roots hacked open, sap glazing their severed ends.

They followed the scar in silence.

Lykor moved beside him without making a sound, each step falling where the army had already crushed the undergrowth, his attention ranging ahead through the trees.

Jassyn’s focus should’ve remained buried in the earth. Instead, it kept sliding to Lykor—the precision of his movement, the severe line of his profile, the tension gathering along his jaw whenever Jassyn reached beneath the soil, beyond any place Lykor could follow.

A trace of fire rippled through Jassyn’s senses like the shimmer of heat above sun-baked stone.

He caught Lykor’s arm, fingers tightening before ember light flickered through the brush.

Lykor turned. His eyes ignited, gaze snapping past Jassyn’s shoulder.

Before Jassyn could draw breath, three talents ripped free from Lykor—mending, shielding, portaling. The globes flared around Lykor’s shoulders before his wraith cloaking folded over them, dimming the magic and shrouding them in darkness. He stood nearly level with Jassyn, now more wraith than elf.

Lykor warped them behind the nearest tree. Bark struck Jassyn’s spine. The rough trunk became cold marble, and the body crowding him belonged to one of Farine’s guests, eyes glazed with Stardust.

Jassyn’s palms struck Lykor’s chest hard enough to jar his wrists.

Leather under his fingertips. Heat through it. The solid rise of Lykor’s ribs.

Lykor.

Through the earth under his boots, Jassyn sensed the patrol before he saw it—measured impacts traveling through the roots. The vibration climbed his legs and lodged in teeth he’d clenched without realizing.

Lykor braced one claw against the trunk beside Jassyn’s head and angled his body across him, ready to take the first strike. Inside the darkness of his cloaking, torchlight thinned into wavering golden streaks.

The patrol halted a few paces away, underbrush cracking beneath their boots. Armor clinked as one soldier murmured to another.

A stopper creaked free from a flask, and a soldier complained about the buzzing keeping them up all night. Coarse laughter followed as the drink passed from hand to hand.