Page 222 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Wind struck hard enough to drive pressure into Lykor’s ears. The current whipped around Jassyn’s hands, and poured down Serenna’s throat.

Her chest rose, and Fenn’s talons twitched at her neck, hope flaring in his irises so violently it looked like pain.

Her ribs fell again.

Jassyn sent a current into Vesryn, forcing air between the prince’s parted lips. His chest rose through leaves and crimson light, then sank with the retreating air and didn’t move.

Jassyn shook his head, vicious enough to toss curls across his face.

The vines responded in a frenzy, racing over Serenna’s leathers, tunneling under torn armor and winding along the slack joints of her wings. Tendrils climbed over Vesryn’s shoulders and curled into the hollow beneath his jaw.

Mending light branched over them both in multiplying arrays, spilling across limp wings to knit rents in their membranes. Essence and earth sutured scorched flesh where scales had receded, repaired ruptured vessels, and sent blood coursing through limbs already cooling.

Their bodies obeyed everything except life.

Lykor made himself cross the last few paces. Every step landed heavy. Too loud. Too alive.

He lowered himself next to them, while Jassyn’s magic continued to work through flesh that refused to stir. Serenna and Vesryn remained still under his hands, close enough to touch, but already somewhere out of reach.

Aesar appeared beside Vesryn, a silhouette as pale as smoke. He knelt beside the prince, a drifting talent passing through him in a brief scatter of light.

Only Lykor saw Aesar reach for his twin.

His hand passed through Vesryn’s chest. Aesar stared at the place where his palm should’ve met armor, then left it there anyway.

A phantom pressure spread across Lykor’s own skin, his fist clenching around it.

Inside the shared space of their mind, Aesar’s calculations had stopped. Lykor had no fury left pacing behind his thoughts. His throat tightened around everything neither of them could make themselves say.

Jassyn sent another breath into Serenna. Then Vesryn.

Fenn stared at Serenna’s face, lips twisted back from his fangs. “Serenna,” he hissed, voice breaking on her name. “Open your eyes.”

Jassyn’s hands shook as the crimson lattices flared. Another wave of roots ripped from the mud, green light flooding through flesh already repaired. He drove wind into Serenna and Vesryn again, desperate now, harsh enough to wrench their spines off the ground.

Vesryn’s head tipped back under the current, Serenna’s lips parting around the borrowed breath.

Their chests rose and fell.

Then stayed still.

Lykor softened his voice. “Jassyn.”

Jassyn didn’t stop. “I can heal them.”

Lykor gripped his shoulder. “Not from this.”

Fenn jerked toward him. Fire burned in his eyes, nearly bright enough to incinerate Lykor where he knelt.

Beside Vesryn, Aesar bowed his head.

“They’re gone,” Lykor said.

Jassyn went still, and the wind died.

Roots unwound from Serenna and Vesryn, sinking back into the mud. Across their chests, the crimson lattices dimmed thread by thread.

Fenn’s shoulders buckled. A ragged sound tore loose from his chest, breaking against his teeth until only a snarl remained. His fingers fell away from the places their pulses should’ve been and settled against the dark Starshards at their throats.