Page 21 of The Reckoning of Starlight

None of it told him where Jassyn was.

Once, he would’ve painted the courtyard red for less.

A slice of shadows for a name. A fist for a direction. One scrap of truth torn bloody from a tongue.

But Saundyl had given him all he had. Useless or not, the male had offered every answer at Lykor’s feet, and slaughter wouldn’t change the truth.

Violence waited behind his ribs, cold and useless.

There was nothing left here to break that would bring Jassyn back.

Kaedryn cut through the crowd, wings half-fanned, and planted herself between Lykor and the female, a barricade of scales and crimson eyes. “That’s enough.”

Lykor’s lip curled. “So now you want to play ‘First Peacekeeper’? Where was that restraint when you strung us up as a welcome to your city?” His shadows writhed around him. “Move.”

“Cinderax is recovering,” Kaedryn said, her voice honed smooth. “The guildmasters are assembling. You and Vesryn are needed to speak in Jassyn’s stead.”

“I won’t rot in another one of your endless conclaves while our people are missing.” The words left Lykor before he’d made the decision. But once spoken, they burned too hot to take back. “Talk all you want. We’ll be razing the capital to find them.”

Vesryn drew up to his side, the silence between them saying more than any oath.

Kaedryn’s attention snapped to the prince, eyes flaring. “Surely you don’t agree with this. If we don’t free Veyrix in the Aetherveil—”

“Then organize yourselves.” Vesryn’s voice had gone flat. Emptied out. “You’ve survived a thousand years without us. You’ll endure a few days more.”

Kaedryn squared her shoulders, wings locked rigid. “We can’t afford to fracture.”

“There is no fracture,” Lykor growled, conscious of the druids pressed to the edges of the courtyard, tracking every word. “You carry on as before. I’ll find someone to speak for the wraith.”

“Zaeryn can represent the rangers,” Vesryn added. “Thalaesyn will speak for the magus. We’ll return when we reclaim our own.”

Kaedryn’s stare swept across Saundyl at Lykor’s feet, then the female and child bound in his shadows. Anger still burned in her eyes, but she flung her claws skyward and turned, silver hair snapping behind her as she stormed across the courtyard.

Finally.

One less problem between him and the capital.

“You.” Lykor’s voice cut across the square.

One of the magus halted. Nelya. Or Neyla. Lykor never remembered which way her name went. Didn’t care. Jassyn trusted her.

“Put this lot with the other prisoners from the Maw.” He jerked his chin toward Saundyl and his family. “Keep them tethered. Guarded. If we come back empty-handed, he’ll regret not drowning.”

Lykor released his magic, the shadows unraveling from the female’s throat.

Saundyl rushed to his family, gathering them against his chest as if Lykor’s rending might return.

But Lykor was already turning away, mind churning forward. Vesryn matched his stride, the spheres of Essence orbiting behind him. The plundered talents could be sorted and distributed later.

“We’ll need to regenerate,” Vesryn said. “Infiltrate the palace under cover of night. Find Elashor, or someone who knows where he is—if the stars are on our side.”

Lykor glanced at the sun bleeding low on the horizon. Only that morning, they’d raided the prisons.

The thought struck harder than the exhaustion. A lifetime had passed since Kal’s body had been crushed in the dark.

Black crowded the edges of his sight. The day’s cost hit him all at once, sinking teeth into muscle, tendon, and bone. The courtyard lurched under his feet, but Lykor stayed upright by sheer will alone.

“I don’t want to wait.”