Page 93 of The Reckoning of Starlight

The portal he opened on the ground stretched no more than two handspans, just wide enough for Aiko. Even that scraped the bottom of his Well. Lykor’s vision pulsed as he swayed, knees locking to keep himself upright. The sensible thing would’ve been to regenerate, but his body had already chosen sleep over strategy.

Aiko burst through the rift in a flurry of wings and fur, landing in a crouch with a screech that bounced off every wall. Her oversized ears pinned flat, scruff bristling. She chirred at Lykor in indignant bursts, releasing every grievance she’d stored since he’d left her, ignoring the sleeping dragon entirely.

Then she spotted Jassyn.

Her ears flicked forward, fur smoothing. She sprang into a glide, leathery wings flaring, and coasted to his shoulders. She curled around his neck, tail draping across his chest, purring loud enough to rattle the air.

Lykor grunted. “Seems I’m replaced easily with you around.”

Jassyn smiled—the first real one Lykor had seen all day—as he scratched behind her ear. Aiko’s purring deepened, and his shoulders dropped a fraction.

Lykor looked away before Jassyn saw what the smile had done to him.

He cleared his throat and opened another portal, this one tall enough to step through despite the warning throb behind his eyes. “I’ll grab what you need from your quarters.”

He didn’t wait for protest before crossing into Asharyn, collecting items from his own room before slipping into Jassyn’s chambers.

The palace already carried the hush of vacancy. Lykor gathered what he could. Blankets. Pillows. An armful of druid-woven sleepwear. Practical things. Simple comforts.

He shoved everything through the portal, then followed, sealing Asharyn behind him.

“You probably shouldn’t risk going to the city like that,” Jassyn murmured, kneeling to sort through the pile. Aiko had already claimed a corner of the moss, coiled and purring.

Lykor shrugged. “Probably shouldn’t do a lot of the things I do.”

Jassyn huffed and turned away to slip into sleep trousers. Lykor changed after him, the silence between them stretching.

Aiko’s ears flicked as Lykor and Jassyn settled beside each other. Vines pulsed with a faint glow overhead, and Blossom’s breathing rumbled around them.

Lykor kept his body angled slightly away, giving space to Jassyn. Or himself. His pulse kept a hard, restless rhythm, the chamber too quiet now, the privacy Jassyn had made pressing close.

Every instinct still screamed for a wall at his back and his eyes on the entrance. But the threshold wasn’t the only thing he was trying not to watch.

“Promise me something,” Jassyn whispered.

Lykor stopped breathing. He turned, but Jassyn wasn’t looking at him. One hand rested in Aiko’s fur, stroking absently.

“Don’t start treating me like I’ll break,” Jassyn said. “I survived. And maybe I had to change to do it, but…I’m still me.”

Lykor tensed, his fangs extending until he wrestled them back. A snarl crowded his throat, vicious with the promise that anyone who treated Jassyn as less wouldn’t survive the mistake.

Then the words struck where he had no armor. Jassyn was asking him not to become another cage.

Lykor shifted closer until his shoulder rested against Jassyn’s.

Jassyn eased against him, the length of his back settling against Lykor’s chest. The weight of him came willingly, and Lykor held still beneath that trust.

He wrapped an arm around Jassyn’s waist, loose enough to be refused, steady enough to hold. An anchor rather than a shield. Under his palm, Jassyn’s breathing slowed.

“I promise.”

CHAPTER 24

SERENNA

Serenna tore awake gasping, her spine arching off the ground, one hand clamping over her sternum. A white-hot grief seared beneath her ribs, flooding her pulse with pain her body claimed as its own.

Then the bond went mute.