Page 134 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Lykor stepped forward.

His breath locked when a voice slipped into his mind. Barely a whisper, less than a thought.

He knew it as surely as his own pulse.

“This place knows what we are.”

CHAPTER 36

LYKOR

Aesar materialized beside Lykor in the corridor, fully formed, silver hair catching the crystalline light, arms crossed as he studied the walls with a scholar’s focus.

As if he’d simply decided to show up. As if silence were a door he could walk back through whenever he chose.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Lykor said out loud.

But he already knew the answer. Kal’s death had given Aesar every right to vanish into grief. But while Aesar sank beyond reach, their people remained. Their war. Every decision paid for in bodies, every sleepless night spent waiting for the next catastrophe to find them. Aesar had left him to bear the weight of all of it.

Jassyn had stood beside Lykor, but Jassyn didn’t live inside his skull. He couldn’t sense the place Aesar had occupied, or how loud silence became after a lifetime of never being alone.

“Walking into this place by yourself was stupid,” Aesar said instead of acknowledging him. “Even for you.”

“You could have said anything before now.”

Aesar’s nostrils flared. “Jassyn is going to be furious.”

A muscle jumped in Lykor’s jaw. Predictable. The low blow. Aesar didn’t get to disappear for days and return with reprimands wrapped in Jassyn’s name.

“Jassyn doesn’t know I’m here,” Lykor shot back. “Which you’d be aware of if you’d bothered showing your face.”

Aesar stared at him, the silence holding judgment. His gaze dropped to the blood drying over Lykor’s skin, then lifted to the light pulsing down the corridor ahead.

“You have blood on your knuckles, and the walls are watching you.”

“Glad you finally came back to help.”

“And since we’re here, let’s see how far the miners got.”

Lykor rolled his eyes. “What do you think I was doing before you showed up?”

Aesar turned away, denying him even the satisfaction of an argument. He followed the corridor’s impossible geometry as he drifted ahead, curiosity pulling him deeper.

Light struck under Lykor’s boots when he followed, racing forward in pulses. Aesar slowed to watch the wave break ahead of him.

At the end of the passage, crystal rose unbroken from floor to ceiling. Lykor lifted his claw to the wall, searching for a weakness, a mechanism, anything his talons could pry. The surface warmed beneath his palm, the resonance in his skull sharpening until his ears rang.

Then the wall moved.

With a hiss of released air, seams opened across the flawless surface. Angular sections withdrew into the surrounding crystal with a precision that made Lykor’s skin crawl.

The passage opened into darkness, bands of light racing across the walls.

Aesar’s attention caught on boot scuffs scored into the otherwise flawless floor.

“Someone came through here. They may still be ahead.”

Lykor stepped forward without waiting, the crystal sealing behind him with a whisper. Aesar materialized farther down the corridor.