Page 205 of The Reckoning of Starlight

A bolt of force struck Lykor’s shoulders and launched him face-first into the crystal. His teeth snapped together on his tongue, blood flooding his mouth.

“You can’t protect him if you get us killed,” Aesar snarled.

Lykor warped again. Back to Jassyn. Always back to Jassyn.

A vine snared his wrist. Another wrapped his ankle. Lykor yielded his hands to Aesar, who severed both before either could wrench them down.

Lykor locked the roots in ice and split them apart, frozen sap bursting through broken bark. New growth thrust through the fissures before he could carve a path.

Then all the earth around Blossom went still.

Vines stopped mid-strike, leaves quivering before settling. Across the platform, Centarya’s wielders hesitated, blades suspended while Essence wavered around their fingers.

Blossom’s massive head lowered toward Jassyn.

Her eyes flickered, crystalline glass fracturing from within, the false gleam breaking apart until viridian burned through. Her pupils narrowed to draconic slits, awareness sharpening behind them.

Blossom blinked through her own eyes again. Then she roared.

The sound struck the lake, sending the surface shivering outward in rings. Soldiers dropped to their knees, hands clamped over their ears.

The Heart shattered in Jassyn’s fist, starlit shards sifting through his fingers like sand. His knees buckled.

“Take him,” Aesar said, already relinquishing control.

Lykor unraveled the shield and caught Jassyn before he struck the crystal, one arm locking around his ribs. He warped them off the platform and into the air, beyond the Starshard circles still waiting for the king.

He shifted, wings snapping wide to catch the churning air, Jassyn held tight against his chest. The first downdraft shoved them sideways. Lykor beat hard against it, tightening his arm around Jassyn as he flew clear of the lake.

Rimeclaw and Veyrix had driven Skylash toward the shore, hemming her between ice and wind. Veyrix flashed ahead of every ascent, his speed cutting her off before she could reach open sky. Lightning still cracked from Skylash’s jaws, but longer silences opened between each strike, every burst further from the fury that had split the night open at the start.

Dracovae wheeled in staggered formations while druids and wraith fought in splintered pockets above the shore. Prismatic light flared through the fighting as Serenna opened rifts, Fenn and Vesryn flying at her side.

Below, Blossom stampeded through Centarya’s forces. The roots that had hunted Lykor moments ago now ripped through the king’s ranks instead. Soldiers fled through portals as vines speared through those too slow to escape. One body vanished between Blossom’s jaws. Another screamed as a tendril dragged him across the crystal toward her fangs.

Lykor banked through an opening between two strike groups. Jassyn’s weight shifted against his chest with the turn, and Lykor hauled him tighter. The air detonated behind them—a shaman’s strike or one of Skylash’s stray bolts. He didn’t turn to see which.

Jassyn stirred against him as Lykor reached for a portal. “The ridge,” he rasped. “Take us down. Blossom will follow.”

Lykor tightened his hold. “I’m getting you out of here.”

“No.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine.” Jassyn caught a fistful of Lykor’s armor, his hand shaking hard. “It wasn’t like with the razorwings.”

Lykor hunted his face for the lie. The last time coercion had pushed Jassyn that far, blood had flooded the whites of his eyes. Now the bleeding from his nose had stopped, his gaze clear amber.

“The ridge,” Jassyn gritted out again. “We’re not leaving until this is over.”

The caverns were a portal away. Lykor could throw Jassyn through a rift before another protest left his mouth, just as he had the hatchlings.

“He’ll come back,” Aesar said.

Lykor ground his fangs. Of course he would. To keep Jassyn safe, Lykor would have to make him stay.

Jassyn’s gaze held his, clear and steady despite the tremor in his hand.