Page 168 of The Reckoning of Starlight

“FIND ME ONE THAT IS.”

“We can portal.”

“AND LEAVE HER FOR GALAERYN?”

“Then bring her.”

“I HAVE A FEELING SHE’D RATHER DIE IN THE MUCK THAN SUFFER US SHOVING HER THROUGH A RIFT.”

Every instinct pulled Lykor up to where he’d left Jassyn.

But Jassyn had made it clear what he thought of being guarded like something breakable, so Lykor planted his boots deeper in the mud. He sheathed his forearms in frost and yanked shadows over his fists.

He had enough magic for one hard fight. Enough to make the first ranks pay for crossing.

Lykor focused on the river, where he could bleed their numbers. Every soldier he dropped here was one that would never reach Jassyn on a different front. And if this shore was to become his grave, he’d make it large enough for an army.

The spray thinned over the newly crashed island, and bodies sharpened into faces, tethers glinting at their throats. At the island’s lower edge, Saundyl stood knee-deep in the river while others clawed for higher ground.

His wife pressed against his side, their infant son locked to her chest, mud streaking them from temple to waist. The current battered Saundyl’s legs, whipping soaked fabric around them, yet his gaze landed on Lykor.

A thousand paces behind him, Galaeryn’s army blackened the bank. Blossom had already chained Saundyl’s fallen isle into the growing bridge. He only had to face south to find Elashor’s banners, and return to the side that would use his blood and perhaps let his wife and son live to see another dawn.

Lykor waited for him to turn.

Saundyl took the infant from his wife, then stepped into the river with her.

Toward Lykor. Toward a wounded Stormstrike with lightning fraying between her fangs. Toward a shoreline Lykor had already measured for the dead.

“What the fuck are you doing?” The words ripped out of him as he strode toward the waterline, shadows writhing over his fists. “Go back, you stupid bastard. You’ll die on this shore.”

Saundyl waded deeper.

The river struck him across the chest, his footing slipping before he caught himself. Spray broke against his ribs as he clambered over submerged stones, his son held above the water and his other arm locked around his wife.

Lykor sensed Saundyl seize the current. The prince fought against its pull with his connection to the earth, forcing just enough water aside to keep all three of them upright.

Others followed.

One of Daeryn’s loyal shamans slid from the island’s edge and gasped when the cold river climbed her thighs. Two prisoners they’d freed from the king’s dungeons plunged in after her, fighting through the churn.

A handful broke south, swimming for the bank Galaeryn’s army held, survivors from the Maw choosing the side whose chains they already knew.

Then the rest began stepping into the river.

Scores of them.

Some with tethers. Some with wounded draped across their shoulders or children held above the water. Saundyl fought ahead of them, wrenching the current aside as they abandoned the island one by one and followed him north.

Apparently whatever waited beneath Elashor’s banners frightened them more than the river or Lykor.

“You’re going to drown!” Lykor snarled, pacing the shallows. “Every last one of you is going to—”

“They’re not going to listen,” Aesar said, far too amused.

Lykor wanted to strangle it out of him. Instead, he bared his fangs, hauled on Rimeclaw’s gift, and tore the river apart.

The current bucked against his hold. Water reared on either side, its weight shuddering through his arms as he drove it outward. Mud surfaced first. Then broken stone. Then the riverbed emerged in a ragged strip, walls of water towering on either side and bowing inward against his grip.