Page 240 of The Reckoning of Starlight

“What would you have me do?” Lykor demanded. “Let them rot in this marsh while you teach them to rhyme about begging for death?”

Rimeclaw’s snarl rolled like thunder through the swamp. Frost spread from him in widening rings, freezing each ripple as it formed.

Lykor’s voice dropped. “I wanted you to see that you’re not the last. I won’t leave the Tidecrashers’ future up to Cinderax unless you make me.”

Lykor placed the hatchling into the shallows. It twisted free with a splash, then spun to snap at his boot.

He released the Essence binding the others. The harnesses of force uncoiled from their bodies and vanished.

None of the hatchlings moved, all three pairs of eyes riveted on Rimeclaw.

The one at Lykor’s feet stepped forward first.

Then the other two followed, scuttling after it through the muck. Rimeclaw lowered his head as they approached, his snout hovering above the water.

His jaws parted.

Lykor’s body recognized the threat before thought caught up, shadows detonating around his fists.

Of course. He’d been fool enough to hand the dragon leverage and pronounce it strategy.

Rimeclaw had bided his time until the whelps stood between them, their small bodies close enough for those fangs to spear through scale, hide, and bone. He’d threaten them, force Lykor to strike him down or watch the whelps break between his jaws.

“Leave them out of this,” Lykor snarled.

Rimeclaw waited with the patience of ice, jaws open around a darkness deep as a cavern. The first hatchling splashed through the shallows toward him, planted its foreclaws on his lower jaw, and hauled itself between fangs taller than its body.

What the fuck was it doing?

The second followed. Shadows lashed tighter around Lykor’s fists. His gaze cut to Aesar. Some answer would be useful before the whelps finished crawling into their graves.

The third hatchling paused before that maw, glanced back at Lykor, then scrambled into Rimeclaw’s mouth.

Then his jaws began to close.

Lykor’s heart slammed against his ribs, rending surging outward.

Shadows to rupture the eyes. Ice to cleave the skull. Either might slow the dragon. Perhaps kill him. Neither could stop a dying spasm from crushing the whelps to blood and splintered bone.

A small snout poked between Rimeclaw’s teeth, its chin resting on the ridge of his lower jaw.

The hatchling trilled.

Air tore from Lykor’s lungs. He ripped the shadows apart before they could strike. Beside him, Aesar only chuckled.

Rimeclaw turned, water sheeting from his spine as he moved through the marsh, his tail cutting a channel through the reeds.

Lykor stalked after him. “Where are you going?”

Rimeclaw waded on, the swamp parting around his chest.

“To clear streams,

where silver fish grow fat and slow.

To sun-warmed shoals,

where little tides will learn to flow.”