Page 108 of The Reckoning of Starlight

He counted tents and searched the perimeter for weaknesses, yet his gaze kept returning to Lykor’s mouth. His lower lip still tingled where Lykor’s fangs had caught it.

A low drone gathered beneath the camp’s murmur. At first, Jassyn mistook it for the blood still rushing in his ears.

Then it grew louder.

The patrolling soldier’s complaint surfaced through Jassyn’s thoughts—the buzzing noise keeping them awake. He flared his dragonsight, stripping darkness from distance.

Razorwings.

Rending restraints pinned them in row after row, glassy wings folded tight against scaled flanks. Scores of them—more than Jassyn had seen attacking in the Maw. Their wings shivered in brief, blurred bursts, stirring the air before falling still.

“They must be capturing them from somewhere nearby,” Jassyn said as Lykor followed his gaze.

Once airborne, the swarm could hunt every flier they sent searching for Veyrix. The sky around the Aetherveil would become another perimeter the enemy controlled.

“We need to free them,” Jassyn said.

“Figured you’d say that.”

“Can we get closer?”

Lykor gripped Jassyn’s arm. He warped them to a branch overlooking the clustered razorwings, eyes glowing as he adjusted his cloaking around them.

Up close, Jassyn could see that the shadow restraints had bitten into the seams at the base of all four wings, stripping the softer membranes raw. Barbed limbs had scraped trenches through the earth in their struggle. A few heads lifted and sank in a sluggish rhythm, multifaceted eyes breaking the campfires into fractured points.

Jassyn’s fingers dug into the bark, recognizing the stillness that followed when refusal changed nothing.

Lykor’s rending streamed toward the restraints. Jassyn sent his magic after it, braiding an inversion of illumination around the dark currents until they vanished from sight.

The hum of power remained. If an Essence-wielder drew close enough to distinguish it from the bindings, they’d be discovered.

With their intertwined weave, Lykor guided the magic between barbed limbs and folded wings. The tendril narrowed into a blade and sheared through the first restraint.

The bindings unraveled.

Lykor struck again, working down the nearest row.

The first razorwing lurched, forelegs tearing furrows through the earth. Translucent wings blurred, breaking the firelight into iridescent shivers. Its head snapped up, multifaceted eyes locking on the darkness above.

The creature shot straight upward, legs tucking tight beneath its thorax. Another tore loose behind it, then another, their wings shrieking against the air.

More than twenty razorwings surged into the canopy in staggered bursts, their ascent jagged and erratic. Wings clipped branches as they careened through the leaves, each frantic correction knocking them farther from open sky.

The air churned from overlapping wingbeats, the vibration boring into the space behind Jassyn’s eyes.

He’d expected them to flee into the morning light. But one of the freed razorwings folded its wings and plunged.

Shouts erupted from the camp. Torches spun from startled hands as razorwings crashed through canvas and sleeping ranks, forelegs tearing soldiers from their bedrolls before the creatures beat skyward again.

Lykor snarled under his breath, his shadows slicing faster now, severing one restraint after another. For every razorwing that took flight, a dozen more still thrashed against their bindings, wings buzzing uselessly against the Essence holding them down.

Horns blared. Magic ignited around the command tents—too scattered to contain what had already escaped or form a defense.

A razorwing wheeled above them, its head tilting toward Lykor’s cloaking, multifaceted eyes locking on their position.

Its wings canted before it plunged.

Apparently gratitude wasn’t among its instincts.