Page 221 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Shock had rendered Jassyn’s face bloodless, leaving the amber of his eyes unnaturally bright. His gaze swept the fliers still holding the sky, as if scanning for the next wound that would need his hands.

Then Jassyn went still, his focus sharpening with dragonsight.

“Fenn,” he breathed.

A dark shape broke through the rain of light above the lake, dropping too fast.

Fenn plummeted with Vesryn locked against him, wings half-spread and shuddering under the prince’s weight. Vesryn hung limp in his arms, his own wings trailing loose behind him, head fallen back at an angle that made Aesar go deathly still inside Lykor’s skull.

Fenn warped.

He emerged lower, streaking toward another body tumbling through the drifting power.

Serenna.

She fell toward the lake, already too close to the water, her wings open and catching no lift as she turned slowly through the broken stars.

Lykor’s next breath jammed in his lungs as Fenn vanished again.

He reappeared beneath her, barely a span above the water. One arm braced Vesryn against his chest. The other shot upward, talons catching Serenna’s armor as her weight slammed into his shoulder.

His wings wrenched wide under the impact as he pulled her against him, Vesryn on one side, Serenna on the other.

Too much weight. Too little sky.

Fenn dropped, warping again before the lake could claim them.

He crashed on the far shore hard enough to bury his knees in the mud, water exploding around all three of them. Serenna sagged across one arm as Vesryn started to slide from the other. Fenn hauled them tighter, his wings dragging through the earth as he fought to hold them both.

Jassyn inhaled sharply, and Lykor decided whatever remained of the war could wait. Even if Galaeryn’s soldiers remembered their weapons with no king left to aim them, Fenn knelt alone in the mud with Lykor’s people motionless under his wings.

He tore open a portal.

“Come on,” he snapped, hauling Jassyn with him before despair made them useless.

Mud swallowed Lykor’s boots on the other side. Fenn knelt ahead of them, wings mantled over Vesryn and Serenna.

Around them, the king’s fallen talents drifted through the fog, bright globes trailing shards of color through the gray. One crimson orb veered toward Jassyn’s shoulder.

Lykor moved to strike Galaeryn’s stolen power aside.

Jassyn caught it first. “Mending.”

Lykor’s lip curled, but the talent had already flared in Jassyn’s palm. Essence branched through his skin as he used its power to augment his own. His knees dipped under the strain, but Lykor caught him by the arm and helped him forward.

Fenn’s wings vanished as a sound broke from him, ruined before it could form a word. He folded over the still bodies, one claw trembling against Serenna’s throat. The other found Vesryn’s, talons barely grazing skin as he hunted for a pulse.

Lykor knew he wouldn’t find one.

“No,” Fenn growled, the word low and rough. “You don’t get to do this.”

Jassyn stumbled the last few paces and dropped to the ground beside him. He placed one hand over Serenna’s chest, the other over Vesryn’s. Crimson light spilled from his fingers, weaving in lattices across their bodies.

Roots burst through the ground, climbing over their armor. Leaves unfurled in a rush of green as Jassyn dragged the earth’s living pulse up through stem and vine and into their flesh.

Neither Serenna nor Vesryn stirred.

Jassyn’s jaw clenched.