Page 235 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Saundyl studied his hands with suspicious intensity. Zaeryn stared very hard at the table, though the corner of her mouth twitched. Along the open edge of the chamber, Koln choked down a chuckle and disguised it as a cough so poorly that the rest of his squad developed a sudden interest in the canopy.

Jassyn pinched the bridge of his nose, collecting himself. It wasn’t the first meeting Lykor had ended by threat.

Or the fifth.

Merely the first in which no furniture had been frozen solid.

Yet.

“Everyone out,” Lykor snarled. “This chamber stays empty until the sun clears the tree line tomorrow morning.”

The druids hesitated, and every head swung back to Jassyn. He nodded once.

Only then did they begin to file out.

Some of the emissaries left through the stairway woven into the trunk, descending toward the lower levels. Elven-blooded opened portals back to the realms they represented with the humans in tow, each rift spilling a different breath into the jungle—Vaelyn’s salty air, the dry winds from the north, the damp chill of the western forests.

The wraith vanished last, warping off the balconies.

Only Jassyn and Lykor remained.

The spike of ice embedded in the table melted slowly, dripping to the floor.

“I’m impressed,” Jassyn murmured, rising from his seat. “You lasted an hour longer than last night.”

Lykor’s lip curled. “And you let them take three more than you should’ve.” His glare cut over the abandoned plates, the cold tea, the stack of dispatches still waiting for answers. “All this talk of not stripping realms, and yet you sit here letting them carve pieces off you.”

“If you’re going to loom through these meetings,” Jassyn said instead of arguing, “we need to work on your diplomacy.”

“This is my diplomacy.” Lykor folded his arms across his armor, the last of the snow dissolving around him. “No one left bleeding.”

Jassyn released a sigh.

Somewhere below, roots shifted with a groan, deep enough to make the floor hum beneath his boots. He leaned forward, both palms braced against the table, his vision blurring until the rows of ink ran together.

Starved villages and broken courts. Trade routes arranged like healing lattices across a body that kept splitting under the hands trying to mend it. The old world kept laying its systems before him, leaving Jassyn to decide which could be repaired without preserving the damage built into them.

Lykor stepped closer. “You can’t fix every realm tonight.”

“I know.”

Lykor scoffed. “No, you don’t.”

Jassyn let him have the final word. The topmost dispatch caught his attention anyway. His unfinished letter to Centarya waited there, addressed to whatever authority claimed the island.

“Don’t.” Lykor’s claw came down over the page, talons splaying until the letter vanished. “It’ll still be waiting tomorrow.”

Jassyn pushed away from the table. “Then let’s get out of here. I want to see where Blossom is.”

Lykor studied him, distrustful of surrender in any form. Then he stepped aside and gestured toward a narrow archway leading to an outer balcony.

“Your manners are improving,” Jassyn said as he passed.

“I’ve been making an effort.”

“Threatening a guildmaster hardly qualifies.”

“He kept his tongue.”