Page 99 of The Reckoning of Starlight

“Thirsty?” Lykor asked, hauling on Rimeclaw’s gift.

Frost armored his knuckles. He flicked his wrist and water coiled through the air between them, snaking past Elashor’s cracked lips.

Elashor’s throat worked, and Lykor ripped it back.

He snapped his fingers for the insult of it. The water froze before it struck the floor and burst into shards. “Shame.”

The general still carried troop movements, Galaeryn’s plans, and the names of everyone who’d touched Jassyn inside his skull. Lykor intended to break Elashor open until nothing remained to bleed from his bones.

Essence detonated through his veins, bleaching the cell in starlight. A cord of force snared Elashor’s torso and wrenched him upright. Lykor drove him to the chamber’s center. Rending cinched around the general’s wrists and speared into opposite walls, two more coils locking his ankles to the floor.

Lykor cranked the bindings taut, the shadows denting Elashor’s skin without flaying.

He prowled around Elashor, boots knocking echoes from the stone. Jassyn had managed only fragments when he spoke of the estate. What he couldn’t say supplied the rest.

Lykor had spent every sleepless hour since deciding how to dismantle Elashor.

“You’re going to die choking on the obedience you forced down his throat.”

No need to name Jassyn. Elashor would understand who every cut avenged.

Rending writhed in Lykor’s palm. He crushed his fist, dispelling the shadows for now. Elashor didn’t deserve a quick death. Farine had fallen to a single strike before Lykor could make her answer for what she’d done. Elashor would suffer what she’d escaped.

He continued his circuit, frost cracking across the rock with every step. Elashor tracked him, defiance still burning in eyes the elves had called cursed.

Lykor stopped before him. “A lifetime devoted to the king’s vision. Do you know what Galaeryn called you? A blunt instrument.”

Elashor bared his fangs. “You think I’m powerless here? You have no idea what waits beyond.”

Lykor tightened his shadows around Elashor’s wrists until the joints creaked.

“Your precious Aelfyn?” He scoffed. “What will they think of you now, wearing a wraith’s skin?”

“Galaeryn has seen what you cannot fathom.” Elashor leaned into the restraints. “The Aelfyn were wraith before they bent the power of the stars to their will.”

Lykor sneered. “Stories. That’s what you’re clinging to?”

He turned his back on Elashor. Ancient history could rot. Veyrix still lay entombed in Aelfyn crystal, and five of their hatchlings remained in enemy hands. The human army he and Kal had glimpsed weeks ago in the Wastes could already be tearing through these realms—tens of thousands carving a road toward Veyrix and the alliance buried beneath the stone.

“Where are they?” He kept his back to Elashor. “Galaeryn’s forces. That human army.”

Elashor’s laugh scraped across the stone. “If you think I’ll give you anything—”

Lykor pivoted and struck.

Shadows scythed Elashor’s first finger. Talon. Knuckle. Sheared in a wet burst. Flesh erupted into mist, striping the walls.

Elashor snarled and wrenched against the bindings.

Lykor cast a filament of mending to cinch the vessels shut, leaving the stump raw. Elashor didn’t get to bleed out before he was finished.

“I’ll take a knuckle for every deflection.” Lykor held up his own claw, spreading his fingers. “Then we’ll move to your feet.” He stepped closer. “Want to try again, General?”

Elashor flashed his fangs, greasy black hair sliding across his eyes.

Defiance still lived in him. Lykor would carve that out first.

Left to right, he moved from finger to finger, severing the first knuckle and counting every loss aloud. After each, he asked where Galaeryn had sent the army.