Page 146 of The Reckoning of Starlight

“Five minutes,” Fenn murmured. “Then we can go again.”

Vesryn threw an arm over his eyes. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

Serenna bit back a grin. “Wait until he’s not tired.”

Vesryn groaned.

Serenna let her lashes fall closed. The bonds remained open between them, Vesryn’s pulse steady against hers, Fenn’s fingers loose at her waist. She let herself sink into the peace they made around her.

CHAPTER 40

JASSYN

Lykor’s swinging claw flung Jassyn off his feet, his spine striking the crystalline wall hard enough to ring the chamber. Pain detonated as a rib cracked, and his next inhale splintered in his chest.

Jassyn dropped to his knee, one palm splayed against the crystal floor, the other clamped over the talon punctures in his torn leathers. Blood beat between his fingers while he hauled on the earth, each gasp breaking short against the fracture.

Vines forced through hairline fissures under his palm and coiled up his wrist. Green radiance bled from leaves and stems, igniting in his veins. The growth withered and blackened, life sealing torn flesh and coaxing the bone back into place.

Enough to keep him breathing.

Lykor advanced, shadows unspooling from his frame in ribbons too smooth to belong to him. Jassyn’s stomach clenched when he registered turquoise irises where crimson should’ve burned.

At Lykor’s back, the illusion glided toward the raised platform and lifted one arm. Lykor’s claw mirrored the figure’s motion, the gesture passing from light into flesh.

Jassyn stumbled to his feet, the half-mended rib grinding as he stood. “Lykor.”

Shadows whipped before the name had finished leaving his mouth. Violet light fountained from Jassyn’s hands, climbing around him, but Lykor’s rending struck before the shield could close. Darkness sheared through the weave and hurled him sideways along the crystal wall, punching the air from his lungs.

Jassyn braced against the crystal, driving his will through the chamber floor and into the earth beyond. Vines burst through the cracks at Lykor’s feet, lashing around his wrists, ankles, and torso.

Without breaking stride, Lykor tore through the snares, shadows hacking the vines apart as each step forced Jassyn backward.

The figure brightened on the platform, its attention roving over Jassyn with acquisitive patience. A chill sluiced through him, his body recognizing the lingering regard that searched for what could be taken.

Jassyn locked a shield into place the instant Lykor unleashed another wave of rending. Violet light burst across the chamber as the ward disintegrated. The impact sent him skidding through dead leaves and splintered vines.

Lykor crossed the distance, crystal grinding under his boots, every movement stripped of fury, every step borrowed.

Neither Jassyn’s earth nor defensive magic could stop the hold the illusion had on Lykor.

There was one weapon left.

Jassyn had sworn never to breach Lykor’s mind again. But the next strike of shadows would tear through his flesh.

Telepathy flooded his fingertips the moment he reached for it, coercion gathering too readily. His stomach turned at the ease of it, at the wrongness of wielding that power on Lykor. Across the short span between them, shadows writhed around Lykor’s claw.

Jassyn drove coercion into the mind he’d once fought to free.

“STOP.”

The command sank into the scars Galaeryn had left behind. Lykor halted mid-strike, every muscle drawn taut, his claw suspended in front of Jassyn’s face as the shadows stilled around it.

The chamber fell silent, leaving only Jassyn’s rasping breath.

Jassyn hauled on the earth. Fresh growth surged through the shattered crystal, climbing Lykor in tightening coils. Thicker roots wound around his boots and pinned them to the ground.

Before revulsion could loosen his hold, Jassyn steered the coercion deeper, burying the command until even the smallest tremor left Lykor’s body. He reinforced it once, then again, then a third time, because the first two had been to hold Lykor, and the third was for the part of him that needed repetition to give the violation the excuse of craft.