Page 225 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Fenn hauled Serenna and Vesryn to their feet.

Serenna sagged into his side. Vesryn straightened long enough to lose the support of Fenn’s arm, then buckled. Fenn caught him before the mud did and locked them both against his body.

Beyond the lake, Galaeryn’s ranks were shedding everyone privileged enough to save themselves. Portals opened and snapped shut in quick bursts, each rift taking an elven officer, a shaman, any coward with enough magic left to flee.

The humans remained.

Thousands stood stranded around shore, weapons hanging loose in blood-slick hands. A few stumbled after the portals but were met with empty air.

Lykor’s lip curled. This was Galaeryn’s legacy. Power fleeing first. The humans stolen from their realms left with no order telling them where to die.

Wingbeats battered the smoke overhead. Kaedryn and Koln descended while wraith and druids hovered above the shallows. Kaedryn landed first, then Koln struck down beside her, blood running from an arrow puncture in one wing.

Kaedryn’s attention found Jassyn before she spoke. Lykor knew that posture and what followed. Questions. Decisions. Every fresh disaster laid at Jassyn’s feet, responsibility returning like a collar latched around his throat.

Lykor wanted to tear open a portal far from the shore and shove Jassyn through it. Somewhere beyond the reach of everyone who looked at him and saw a future to follow instead of a male whose knees were barely holding him upright.

If Galaeryn was truly gone, peace would only bring another kind of war. Slower. Politer. Councils instead of battles. Pardons instead of slaughter. Rebuilding instead of revenge.

And Jassyn would stand at the center of it all, bleeding usefulness into every grasping hand.

“We found where Skylash and Veyrix fell,” Kaedryn said. “Cinderax is with them.”

Lykor’s mouth opened around an order, but Aesar stirred with a rebuke. Lykor ground the words back behind his teeth. Not his command to give.

If the dragons still lived, their wounds would become Jassyn’s to mend. If Galaeryn still controlled Veyrix, they would expect Jassyn to break those chains too.

But whatever Jassyn decided came next, Lykor would make the world obey it.

“Koln,” Jassyn said, his voice steady. “Set a perimeter around the army. Don’t engage unless they advance.”

He turned toward the ruined formations sprawled around the shore, thousands of humans stranded where their commanders had abandoned them.

“It’ll take days,” Jassyn murmured, and Lykor heard the weariness in the words. “But we need to sort through their forces and send them home. If soldiers run, let them. If a company leaves together, put scouts on it. I want to know whether they’re fleeing or regrouping.”

Of course Jassyn looked at an army that had tried to kill them and saw a problem to solve instead of a threat to destroy.

Koln’s single eye didn’t even flick toward Lykor for permission before he nodded, and Lykor didn’t know whether to take offense or promote him.

Koln released a sharp whistle and cut two talons toward the sky. “You heard him.”

Above the shallows, wraith and druids peeled away in pairs, wings carving toward the foothills beyond the army.

A ragged volley rose to meet them, arrows scattering wide through the smoke, some falling short while others crossed paths overhead. Fire and shadows sheared from claws, shredding through the arrows before they struck flesh or wings.

The fliers wheeled on without returning the strikes, spreading along the fringes of the army.

Jassyn turned back to Kaedryn. “Skylash and Veyrix. Did they survive?”

“They live. For now.” Kaedryn’s wings furled tight to her spine. “But the winds around them still writhe with battle.”

Lykor locked his jaw hard enough to ache before his patience finally snapped. “Then stop dressing uncertainty as prophecy and take us to them.”

Kaedryn’s nostrils flared. Her Starshard flashed in her palm, and she tore open a portal rather than responding.

Fenn hauled Serenna and Vesryn closer and started for the threshold with both.

Koln intercepted him and hooked an arm around Vesryn’s waist, bracing half the prince’s weight against his side. “I’ll take the pretty one if you’re sharing.”