Page 163 of The Reckoning of Starlight

He was cargo, prey clamped to its abdomen.

His mind lunged like a hand reaching for stone in freefall, thrusting into the razorwing’s skull.

Coercion already lurked, a crude loop lashed around the creature’s instincts.

Jassyn crushed it.

The razorwing convulsed. All four wings locked, and the sky let them go.

They dropped.

Jassyn’s stomach lurched into his throat. The fall streamed tears from his eyes as he snared his own command around the creature’s awareness.

“Hover.”

Wings whipped back into motion. The fall broke against the air, driving the barbed legs deeper into Jassyn’s armor and slamming his head against chitin.

A shout cracked above the carapace. Shadow spilled under the creature’s flank and struck Jassyn’s shield.

Jassyn braced both palms against the armored underside and drove his vines upward. Thorns bit into the seams between plates. Rootlets hooked each ridge and dragged the vines over the creature’s flank until they reached the harness bolted across its spine and the rider strapped to the saddle.

Jassyn clenched his fists, sending thorned coils around the rider’s restraints. Leather split as they wrenched her from the saddle and whipped her body into open sky. She spun end over end, arms wheeling, no wings to arrest her fall.

The empty saddle became his next target.

The creature’s legs opened when Jassyn sent the thought. His weight dropped into the vines anchored across its carapace, the sudden strain jarring through his shoulders as he hauled himself over the creature’s side. His boots skidded across the glassy armor until he hooked an arm over the saddle and dragged himself upright. Tendrils cinched around his waist and thighs, lashing him to the creature’s spine.

Jassyn’s breath came ragged, hands trembling around the living harness. Wings thrashed in a blur while the rest of the razorwing held rigid, every hooked limb locked to his control.

The coercion had taken less effort than mending a wound.

Sharp, illicit exhilaration flooded him at the ease of it, the same treacherous rush Stardust had once poured through his veins.

A dracovae’s screech from below yanked Jassyn back to the battle.

Their retreating ranks had drawn most of the razorwings toward the lower islands. But one turned from the chase. Another followed. Then more peeled from the swarm, faceted eyes locked on the light burning in Vesryn’s fist.

Jassyn’s fear narrowed to the three figures climbing toward the king and the razorwings closing behind them.

He sank his awareness into the creature below him. Its mind bore the breach where he’d torn the coercion free and anchored his own in its place. The design had been brutally simple, cruelty stripped of craft. One order cinched around instinct until obedience became reflex.

The other razorwings snagged in his awareness, matching knots of coercion scattered through the sky. Their riders channeled nothing, merely holding the reins someone else had tied.

Jassyn knew where to slice.

His own wings would never overtake them. But beneath him, four translucent blades tore through frost and crosscurrents at a speed his body could never match.

He sent his razorwing after the others closing on Vesryn, Serenna, and Fenn. The intent crossed into its mind before Jassyn formed it into full command, its wings scissoring faster as it accelerated into the chase.

The first rider saw him coming. Shadows whipped from their hands.

All four wings of Jassyn’s mount canted at once, and the razorwing flung itself sideways. His stomach pitched after it, the horizon shearing across his vision.

He hadn’t ordered the razorwing to dodge. His instinct to live had crossed through the coercion and emerged as motion.

Jassyn closed the distance before the rider could turn for another strike. In passing, he pierced the adjacent razorwing’s consciousness and found the crude knot of coercion exactly where he expected. He severed it, sank his own command into the break, and rolled the creature hard beneath her.

The rider tore sideways against the harness. Jassyn whipped his vines across the gap, snagged the straps, and ripped them apart.