Chapter 4
LYKOR
Lykor shadowed Jassyn, masking the impulse as unscheduled perimeter security—guarding their most important asset.
At least, that was the lie he sold himself. That following at a distance wasn’t about knowing where Jassyn went after the night soured into something indecent. The moons bled silver across the sleeping city, and Jassyn, of all people, shouldn’t have been wandering Asharyn’s streets alone.
Lykor had only learned of it through Fenn’s newest assignment—organizing a protective detail.
That evening, the newly promoted captain had handpicked a fresh squad of wraith with some measure of Essence talents, specifically telepathy.
Discreet enough to report on their charges. Loyal enough not to question the order.
They watched Serenna too. A necessity rather than surveillance. Precaution.
Once, Lykor might’ve called it meddling. But now it proved Fenn could think ahead, and that Lykor didn’t have to grind every burden to ash alone.
Fuck, at this rate, he’d have to promote him again.
The alert had impaled his mind the instant Jassyn had slipped from the palace, carrying with it the nauseating reminder that Aesar had fallen asleep in Kal’s bed.
Surfacing from sleep with a muttered curse, Lykor had gently eased a purring Aiko from his chest before wrenching himself free from Kal and informing the sentry that he’d handle this one personally.
The streets lay empty under a scattering of stars as Jassyn’s silhouette cut through the city with irritating precision. Subtle as a beacon. He even nodded to a druid sentinel, as if this midnight stroll was perfectly normal.
Lykor’s jaw ticked as he trailed behind, fire sparking at the thought that Jassyn might be meeting someone. And if it happened to be Zaeryn, casting those honeyed glances at Jassyn again, he’d pluck her eyes from her skull and return them in a chalice.
FOCUS.
Jassyn veered off the main street, angling toward the lake, where reeds hissed in the wind. Where privacy beckoned, every step reeking of purpose.
Lykor told himself it didn’t matter. If Jassyn sought solace elsewhere, that was his right. His choice.
They hadn’t avoided each other entirely, no matter what Aesar thought.
Jassyn had drowned himself in attending councils with the druids and training their shamans with a ferocity that bordered on desperation.
Discipline as deflection. And Lykor had kept his distance because silence was easier than conversation.
Ahead, Jassyn broke into a jog, boots scraping gravel at the lake’s edge, picking up speed like he meant to outrun the night itself.
Lykor didn’t sprint after him, warping short bursts along the curve of the lake instead.
Jassyn angled toward sandstone spires jutting into the night sky that marked the city’s outskirts, the desert unraveling beyond. And then—of course—he began to climb.
Lykor exhaled through his teeth as Jassyn disappeared into a narrow cleft spiraling up the cliff. The staircase scored from ancient stone wound toward a ledge perched above the lake.
Lykor kept to a spire’s shadow, waiting until Jassyn emerged again—high above, a lone figure carved from starlight on the ridge.
He counted five heartbeats. Then warped.
His boots scuffed too loudly in the stillness as he reappeared behind Jassyn. Ahead, Jassyn stood with shoulders knotted, his curls thrashing in the wind. His wings appeared and flared wide, then snapped shut, pinioned tight to his body.
Half-veiled in shadow, Lykor lingered and watched.
Jassyn didn’t turn, the claws on his wing tips flexing then clenching.
Below, the city’s lake sprawled, light from the moons rippling silver across its surface.
Leather membranes quivering, Jassyn edged toward the brink, where the rock sheared away into a drop that should’ve made a newer flier balk.
Heights meant to steal breath, not train wings.
Lykor read the tension in every rigid line of Jassyn’s stance—each stiff breath chased by a tremor, a resolve pretending at courage. He knew that posture, the way Jassyn always approached ledges like they might crumble beneath him.
Jassyn swayed, knees buckling as he pitched forward.
Lykor didn’t hesitate.
He warped, seized Jassyn’s leathers between the wings, and yanked him back.
Jassyn gasped as Lykor spun him away from the drop, skidding for purchase.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Lykor snarled—the first words he’d spoken to Jassyn in days. Fear flashed but rage trampled it, breaking free before Lykor could contain it.
He shoved Jassyn hard in the shoulder, and Jassyn staggered, boots scraping stone. Without thinking, Lykor’s claw locked in Jassyn’s leathers.
“You were going to jump,” he growled, talons sinking into the armor. “And I haven’t even seen you fly.”
Jassyn’s eyes widened, then narrowed. Amber pinned to molten slits, the draconic gleam of beastblood rearing to the challenge. He knocked Lykor’s arm aside. “What are you doing up here?”
“What am I—” Lykor cut himself off, fury burning his tongue. “You left without telling anyone. If you’d fallen, no one would’ve known.”
“But you followed,” Jassyn clipped, nostrils flaring.
Lykor ground his fangs, breath crowding his chest. He wouldn’t admit that he’d assigned cloaked wraith to shadow Jassyn’s movements. Jassyn would hate him for it. Probably rightfully so.
But stars, if he hadn’t seen him on that ledge…
“Have you even glided from a dune?” Lykor snapped, deflecting. He already knew Jassyn hadn’t, pathetic proof of how closely he’d kept watch. “Better to eat sand than shatter yourself on stone.”
Jassyn flinched, eyes shifting back into pools of amber. He stepped away, out of reach.
“I’ve been trying,” he mumbled, wings quivering as he avoided Lykor’s stare.
Lykor hadn’t meant to strike a nerve. His fingers twitched with the urge to steady him, a wretched reach he had no right to crave. He strangled the impulse instead, crushing it into a fist.
“It’s the height,” Jassyn murmured, gaze fixed over Lykor’s shoulder on the lake below. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
“You’re not even fully shifted,” Lykor said, folding his arms tight across his chest so his hands couldn’t betray him. “The druids insist you should start with the complete transformation to fly. Instincts aligning with bone. Or whatever nonsense they chant to sound like wisdom.”
“I know,” Jassyn admitted. “It’s just…” His breath shuddered, caught on the edge of the words. “When I’m fully shifted, it feels wrong. Like I don’t fit in my own skin.”
He turned his palm, and fire leapt to life. Lykor stilled as the glow struck the scar he’d carved into Jassyn’s face, loathing the brand he’d seared across cheek and brow.
“The beastblood…” Shoulders dropping, Jassyn sighed as scales rippled down his arm, fire reflecting off the plated obsidian. “It feels like something wild shoves me away while it takes the reins. And the part in control would tear through anyone. Because it doesn’t fear.”
Color burned Jassyn’s cheeks beneath the fractured starlight. His eyes snagged on Lykor’s before slipping away. “And I’m scared of how much I want that. The way it drowns my thoughts.”
The fire died as Jassyn’s scales withdrew. “It’s just another escape,” he whispered, eyes distant past the ridge. “Another way not to sit in my own head. Different edge. Same fall.”
Lykor’s throat cinched tight, his voice failing because he had nothing to offer. The beastblood didn’t blur him with the frenzy Jassyn spoke of. It brought stillness. Precision.
Cinderax had nearly choked on smoke laughing when Lykor dared to ask about it. He’d claimed Lykor didn’t need a dragon’s gift to be dangerous. He only needed half a reason, with rage already etched into his marrow.
Jassyn idly traced the stitching of his bracers—the pair Lykor had thrust at him after trading his gauntlet in Asharyn’s market.
He hadn’t expected Jassyn to keep them, much less wear them until the leather had shaped itself to his skin.
But seeing them snug on Jassyn’s wrists sparked a quiet, unwelcome satisfaction.
“You know,” Lykor said at last, grasping at anything to pull them back from this silent ledge. “You didn’t have to choose the highest stars-forsaken cliff in the city.”
Jassyn huffed a breath. “But if I can’t jump here, I won’t be able to anywhere. And if I fell…” He nodded toward the lake. “Not the worst place to land.”
Lykor meant for the tension to shift, to break. But the air only stretched taut as Jassyn’s gaze drifted back to him. Lingering too long.
“I haven’t seen you fly either,” Jassyn said suddenly. Pointedly. His wings flared a fraction before clamping tight again.
“You won’t,” Lykor said. Too fast.
He’d shadowed Jassyn for days, blind to the fact that the watched had been watching back. Now the fracture in his armor lay bare, and Jassyn drove it wider.
“Why not?” He tilted his head, curls spilling across his eyes. “You’re not afraid of the sky. You warp like the ground’s a suggestion. I’ve seen you on Trella. So what’s stopping you?”
The intensity in Jassyn’s gaze scorched away every deflection.
“I have…” Lykor began, feeling like he owed Jassyn something. “A limitation.”
Jassyn frowned, and Lykor could almost hear the questions scraping for shape.
“A limitation,” he echoed slowly. “Like an injury?”
“No.” The word snapped between them. “A defect.”
The claws on Jassyn’s wings twitched, and Lykor’s breath rasped sharp in his ribs. He could warp off the cliff. Or portal away. Slam the door shut before Jassyn forced the conversation open.
But some traitorous part of him refused to retreat and held Jassyn’s stare as he waited for the strike.
“I told you why I can’t fly,” Jassyn pressed. “Will you tell me why I’ve never seen you try?”
Lykor clenched his jaw. “I don’t want you to see me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Less.”