Page 170 of The Reckoning of Starlight

At the threshold, she turned. Saundyl gave her the smallest nod and she stepped through with their son, the void swallowing them both.

Only when they vanished did Saundyl fit the key into his own tether. Gold struck the mud, and Essence flared around him.

He tossed the keys to the next prisoner, and the ring began its passage down the line while Lykor held the portal open. Locks gave. Gold fell. Some went straight for the portal.

One prisoner stopped beside Saundyl. Another turned from the rift and joined him. The wounded who could still stand tightened their grips on salvaged weapons while Daeryn’s people filled the gaps between them.

A battle line took shape where the river had thrown them. Essence kindled in scattered bursts, gathering into a constellation along the shore.

Lykor looked from the open portal to the bodies closing ranks beside him.

The star-blind fools were staying.

Across the river, Blossom dragged another island into place. Stone and root closed the last gap to the northern bank, completing the bridge. More wreckage followed, broadening the span as Galaeryn’s army converged on the crossing by the thousands.

If they insisted on dying here, he could at least make the army earn every corpse. Lykor stalked up to Skylash.

“Provoking the wounded dragon might be unwise,” Aesar said.

Lykor ignored him.

“Are you planning to lie there while they cross?” he demanded. “Or do you have any lightning to arm us with?”

Skylash lifted her head toward the ragged collection of bodies who’d chosen the losing side.

“Death is all that’s left for you here,” she hissed.

“I didn’t ask for a useless prophecy.” Lykor bared his fangs at her. “If you’re staying, lend the shamans your lightning. Or lie on your belly and scorch whatever reaches this shore.” He pointed toward the portal still open behind them. “Unless you can slither through so we can leave.”

Skylash’s growl rolled through the mud. A spark lashed from her nostrils close enough to scour the frost from his forearms.

Lightning uncoiled from her jaws. The charge forked through the air, splitting again and again until dozens of crackling spheres hung around her. Violet sparks skittered across the bank as the orbs drifted toward those whose shaman blood could wield her element.

The line flinched, some stepping back.

Saundyl reached first. His fingers plunged into the nearest sphere, and the charge raced up his arm, coiling around his shoulders. His jaw locked as he wrestled the borrowed lightning under control and drew it around his fists.

“Forty-three,” Aesar counted as the shamans followed Saundyl’s lead, violet lightning flickering along the shore.

Forty-three bodies sinking into the mud, stubborn enough to stand in the path of an army. The soldiers already crossing outnumbered them a hundred to one, with thousands more massed behind.

Lykor snapped the portal shut and spread the ragged line across the bridge’s mouth, where drowned stone ground into the northern shore. Galaeryn’s first ranks would come straight through lightning and Essence.

The last orbs dimmed as the shamans claimed them. Skylash remained sprawled in the mud, her gaze pinned on the advancing army.

She struck before the first boots hit the shore.

Lightning scythed from her throat across the packed bridge. Elven plate flashed white. Flesh cooked inside armor as the blast flung bodies backward into the ranks or sent them spinning off the sides.

Humans and elves burned together. Leather smoked. Metal buckles spat sparks, weapons passing the charge from hand to hand until soldiers dropped twitching at the feet of those still being driven forward.

“Target the elves,” Lykor snarled, ice and shadow sheathing his fists as he paced the line.

Humans gave Galaeryn numbers, but the elves carried enough Essence to end this pathetic defense before the first blades ever reached them.

Blossom remained half-submerged in the water, roots sunk through the islands she’d chained together.

The army’s leading ranks reached the northern shore.