Page 199 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Jassyn’s jaw tightened, the scar over his brow pulling taut. “That platform is the most exposed it’s going to be. We could portal—”

“You’re not setting foot on it.”

“The king wanted all five elements,” Jassyn insisted. “He’s not there yet. If we reclaim the hatchlings—”

“Blossom is right fucking there.” Lykor’s talons bit deeper into Jassyn’s armor before he forced himself to let go. “Land next to her and she’ll devour you the way she did Kal.”

Aesar recoiled at Kal’s name, and Lykor ground his fangs until pain sparked through his skull.

Portals split the air across the platform.

Centarya’s forces poured through, fanning around the dragons with Essence already whirling. Twenty. Thirty. Fresh bodies. Fresh magic between them and the hatchlings.

Jassyn stayed angled toward the ledge, every line of him still aimed at the Drowned Spires. That posture meant only one thing. He’d found something else worth bleeding for.

Five hatchlings didn’t deserve to become whatever Galaeryn meant to make of them. Jassyn was right about stealing them back. But wrong about who would do it.

Aesar drifted closer in his awareness. “You promised him you wouldn’t go into danger alone.”

Lykor’s talons bit into his palm, blood sliding between his knuckles. “Stay here,” he growled. Aesar braced with the resignation of someone who already knew arguing was useless. “I’ll free them.”

Jassyn whirled toward him, one hand shooting out. “Lykor—”

He warped before Jassyn’s fingers could close around him, darkness devouring him.

Lykor reappeared at the edge of Kyansari’s ranks, boots striking crystal hard enough to jar his legs. Twenty soldiers wheeled toward him, armor flashing as Essence ignited around their palms. More crowded around the platform, magic surging until pressure pounded against Lykor’s skin.

Blossom stood vast and motionless, her crystalline eyes blank while the hatchlings strained in their bindings behind her.

“With you,” Aesar said as he pressed into their limbs.

Lykor’s jaw locked.

There. Not alone.

A lie he could see through, but he let it count.

This time, Lykor didn’t fight as Aesar seized control of their arms. Aesar reached over both shoulders and ripped the twin glaives from the sheaths crossed along their back in a single draw.

Steel for him. Shadows for Lykor.

Five wielders struck together. Their rending merged into a black wall and raced across the platform. Aesar warped before it reached them, folding sideways through the air and reappearing next to the nearest soldier with his glaives already slicing.

A blade opened one throat.

Lykor hauled on Rimeclaw’s current in his chest and claimed the rest.

Frost spun around them and sharpened into a ring of white daggers, their edges shedding vapor. Lykor snapped them outward. The daggers struck where armor surrendered flesh—throats, wrists, the gaps under raised arms.

Rime detonated from the wounds and raced inward, blood crystallizing vein by vein. Two soldiers locked mid-stride, eyes frosting white as ice sheathed their limbs and climbed toward their torsos.

Lykor seized them with a pulse of force before they could collapse. He wrenched them shoulder to shoulder, a wall of frozen flesh between the next volley. Aesar was already behind it, glaives spinning in the narrow shelter.

Force hammered into frozen flesh, breaking bones.

Shadows bored through after it, rupturing the corpses.

Lykor released the ruined wall as gore hurtled toward them. Aesar warped clear of the eruption and reappeared inside the next rank, both glaives cutting.