Page 156 of The Reckoning of Starlight

“Galaeryn.” Lykor’s voice scraped around the name.

Aesar went rigid in the back of his skull, the way he did whenever the king’s shadow crossed a threshold.

The chains around Rimeclaw’s mind rose through the silence, cinched tight as a garrote. The king rode between those wings. Lykor couldn’t see him, but he knew.

“He’s coming for Veyrix.”

Jassyn extinguished the illusion map with a sweep of his hands. Amber eyes flicked to Lykor’s face, reading what was already written there. “How long?”

High above, sunfire pulsed from the crown island’s peak, prismatic against the storm. Fenn, Vesryn, and Serenna were still freeing Veyrix while their forces hung exposed across the lower islands.

“If Galaeryn reaches the crown island,” Aesar said, “he’ll seize the dragon and butcher our forces.”

Lykor ground his fangs. Once Galaeryn claimed the Zephyrfang, he’d possess every elemental dragon he intended to offer the Aelfyn. Even free, Cinderax, Skylash, and a handful of hatchlings couldn’t stand against that might.

Their meager force would break against the king in open battle. Every plan had depended on Galaeryn remaining beyond reach, too certain of his supremacy to descend into the fighting himself.

Now they had minutes.

Lykor’s words tore out rough. “Let me take a Heart of Stars.”

“And what would you do with that?”

Lykor ignored him. Convenient that Aesar had found his voice only when there was something left to forbid.

“You can’t wield sunfire,” Jassyn said. The same words as before, but softer now, which made them worse.

Lykor exhaled through his teeth, his wings twitching behind him. Galaeryn was descending on their forces while he stood here asking.

Jassyn’s mouth tightened. A portal split open beside him, no wider than his forearm, and he reached through to draw out a Heart. Colors flashed between his knuckles before he secured the relic in his leathers.

“We’ll carry it to someone who can wield it.” Without looking away from Lykor, he shifted into wings and scales. “Together.”

Lykor’s jaw locked against every instinct rising in protest. This was his dragon. His debt. His death, if death was the only door left. Jassyn had no place flying toward a king who could gut the rebellion with its leader’s blood.

Resolve steeled behind Jassyn’s eyes, and Lykor recognized that look. The promise he’d made in the crater pinned the argument behind his teeth. Next time, I won’t go alone.

“We get our forces out,” Jassyn said. The words came fast, driven by a healer’s refusal to lose those still within reach. “If there’s an opening for Rimeclaw…”

He didn’t finish. There was nothing to finish. No plan survived what was coming.

Lykor nodded. He flared his dragonsight and ripped open a portal as high as his vision could reach.

Jassyn took his hand. Lykor closed his fingers around that warmth, steady where his own had gone numb.

They crossed into the void together.

The rift flung them into war.

Wind struck first, a gale that nearly buckled Lykor’s wings before he caught the current and wrenched himself upright. Jassyn’s hand tore from his grip as they angled apart, both banking hard into a sky already breaking.

Whatever shape the shamans had beaten into the wind had unraveled. Ancient currents thrashed free, paths splitting open and slamming shut around wings and bones.

Dracovae shrieked as they clawed beneath the falling fliers, riders hooking tumbling bodies with lashes of force and hauling them out of the snow-choked air. Starshard circles flared across the island chain and died.

Lykor flew higher beside Jassyn. Frost sawed across his wings, grinding into every joint. He sank his will into the cold and ripped it from Jassyn’s path, forcing winter to splinter around them.

Ice wreathed the crown island before them, white sheets spilling over its edges.