Page 220 of The Reckoning of Starlight

PROTECT HIM.

Aesar reached for their Well in the same instant. Violet light snapped under the ice, curving so close that Lykor felt the shield hum against his spine.

The shockwave struck.

Mud peeled from the shore in sheets and slapped the barrier, rattling Lykor’s teeth. Pressure crushed in from every side, Essence grinding against ice and violet light until his ribs shuddered with it.

This was the end.

Fear arrived too late to matter. Too late for a portal. No strategy left to spend. Only Jassyn breathing, and Lykor braced over his body as if flesh could survive a sky tearing itself apart.

His claw dug into the earth beside Jassyn’s shoulder, talons buried to keep the blast from ripping them away.

Jassyn caught his hand and Lykor held on too hard. He knew it. Didn’t care. Essence had devoured the sky, and he’d hold on until it scorched the last beat from his heart.

As radiance erased everything beyond the ice, Lykor waited for the shield to disintegrate. For magic to tear through ice and skin. The world narrowed to the scrape of their breathing, their hands locked between them.

But the burn never came. Light and pressure battered the shield without searing through it.

Lykor blinked as the brightness dwindled, bleeding out of the sky. Color returned in fragments—the mud splattered over his arms, scattered fires burning red through smoke, starlight silvering the lake.

The battle had stopped.

He expected ash. Or bodies branded into the mud.

Instead, soldiers lay sprawled across the ruined shoreline or crouched behind shattered shields, while others stood where the blast had caught them, weapons hanging useless at their sides as they stared into the night.

Wraith and druids hovered above the water, some listing low, flame flickering out around their claws. Dracovae circled overhead while riders sagged in their saddles. Armor steamed. Scales smoldered. Blood leaked from noses and ears where the pressure had struck too deep.

But they were alive.

The blast had rolled over them, leaving earth, water, and bodies shaking in its wake.

Sound returned in pieces. A dracovae’s distant screech. Armor clattering as someone collapsed to their knees. The low, broken murmur of thousands who’d watched the sky rip itself open and found themselves still standing.

Then the stars began to fall.

Thousands descended in a silent shower, crimson and turquoise, yellow and blue, each bright globe scoring a line across Lykor’s ruined sight. Some struck the lake and vanished into the water. Others caught the wind and sailed beyond the battlefield, scattering toward the dark horizon.

A violet orb spiraled past Lykor’s shield, humming with the unmistakable pulse of a talent.

Essence.

Galaeryn’s hoard spilling out of the sky.

Lykor let the ice fracture and slough into the mud. He unraveled Aesar’s shield and shoved upright, one hand locked around Jassyn until they both found their balance.

Only then did Lykor release him and search above the lake for the king. For a shape rising from the wreckage, silver eyes already hunting for more power to seize.

But only falling talents burned against the night where Galaeryn should’ve been.

Lykor trusted that absence less than a corpse.

Above them, Cinderax hovered with smoke curling from his nostrils. His frills lay flat to his skull, and for once, the ancient little bastard had nothing clever to say.

Beyond the far shore, lightning flashed behind a broken ridgeline, Skylash and Veyrix gone from the sky.

Jassyn’s hand found Lykor’s again, and Lykor hated the trembling in his own fingers more than the treacherous relief clawing through his ribs.