Chapter 8
JASSYN
Jassyn left Asharyn through Fenn’s portal and stepped into a camp clinging to a broken ledge of the Dreadspire Range.
Static snapped through the air, peeling away the desert’s heat in a crackling rush.
Canvas whipped and iron pins rattled as a gale tore through the tents, a breath exhaled from the Crackling Maw itself.
To one side, Centarya’s former initiates—wraith Vesryn’s rangers had corralled from the wilds—stood braced against the breeze. Some, now awakened to shaman power, twisted the windy currents, but it wasn’t quite controlled.
Fenn, who’d shadowed Jassyn all morning, fell into step and sealed the portal shut with a flick of his claw. Glancing sideways at him, Jassyn didn’t need to ask who’d sent him to follow.
Lykor, most likely. Quiet control, a care he’d never admit.
Jassyn hadn’t shared the real reason for coming to this training ground high in the mountains. He told himself he needed to practice channeling lightning before the hunt for Skylash.
But the truth prickled up his arms, raising every hair.
It was about flying. Or the attempt, since he hadn’t dared the night before.
Not far. Just enough to see if he could stomach the height, if the air would catch beneath his wings.
And if he fell… Well, Fenn could warp him back to safety before his body broke on the rocks. But even that fallback felt flimsy this close to the cliff’s edge.
Fenn’s eyes flicked skyward, toward Cinderax gliding over the nearest peaks with wraith and Kaedryn’s druids. “Zaeryn and her scouts returned an hour ago from charting the strike threshold,” he said. “She asked if you’d join the forward advance tomorrow. As a mender. Just in case.”
Jassyn studied the area beyond the Dreadspire Range where lightning ripped across the sky. No thunder followed as the light tore itself apart, fractured and directionless.
Like his thoughts.
Like the beastblood pacing under his skin.
Jassyn shook his head. “No, after Vesryn returns from the north, we’ll portal to the jungle with Lykor.”
Fenn stared at him, thumbing the edge of a dragonscale earring. Jassyn had spoken only vaguely of the agreement with Lykor to return across the Wastes. He hadn’t explained what his plan entailed—or why he’d need Fenn’s help—but Fenn had agreed without question.
The silence between them stretched, expectant.
“So,” Fenn drawled, “should I tell Zaeryn her favorite mender is sending a backup in his place?”
Jassyn frowned. “I…could ask Magister Thalaesyn to send a few healers with the rangers instead.”
With a nod, Fenn glanced toward a pair of wraith Jassyn hadn’t noticed trailing them until now. When he tapped his temple, one warrior responded, and a shimmer of telepathy unfurled between them.
“I’ll have your order relayed to Thalaesyn and inform Zaeryn she’s free to proceed,” Fenn said, turning back.
Jassyn opened his mouth, ready to argue that it wasn’t an order, but then closed it. Somehow, whenever Fenn was around, he became the mouthpiece for everyone’s questions, leaving Jassyn to keep answering and deciding.
He couldn’t say exactly when it had begun, only that it had been this week. At first it made sense. He and Serenna had the most experience wielding elements, so of course they helped guide the others with the gift.
But lately, it had spread beyond training.
Vesryn and Kaedryn had drawn him into their councils, pressing for his opinion on where to scout and who to send.
The questions kept multiplying. And the worst part was that every faction began deferring to him as if he’d volunteered for command.
But he didn’t remember stepping forward.
Jassyn bit back a sigh and kept walking. No sense tugging at threads that only knotted tighter.
“Once the princeling’s rangers finish charting the threshold,” Fenn continued, outlining every spoke of the camp’s wheel as though Jassyn had asked, “those with your earth magics will start flying closer.”
Jassyn gave a distracted nod, his gaze snagging on a scorched ring of stone where druids, wraith, and elven-blooded circled a fire that writhed without fuel. Fully shifted, the warriors drove it higher, feeding the blaze with flames searing from their palms.
“And the wraith who received the talents Lykor…acquired from Vaelyn’s shores have been training with your magus,” Fenn reported, igniting a coil of fire and twining it lazily through his talons. “No one’s been idle in preparing for the Maw.”
Except for me.
If everyone else was ready for the storm, Jassyn couldn’t stand outside of it. But before he asked them to follow, he had to confront it. Serenna had already flown across the Splitfang with a confidence that made his stomach twist—wings cutting the air, making it all look effortless.
Faces blurred as they passed scattered groups in training, yet Jassyn felt their eyes clinging to him.
He tried not to wonder how many among them might carry his blood, assuming former initiates hailing from Alari did. Maybe that’s why he’d never asked the names of those from Centarya, unable to bear matching faces to contracts.
So Jassyn kept his gaze forward. But their stares burned into his back as he strode toward the cliff. Toward whatever waited with open jaws.
The stormfront loomed in the distance, a wall of black sky. Clouds boiled in place, endlessly churning but never advancing beyond the peaks. Lightning pulsed at its heart, the static ringing deep.
He would have to fly into that, and the truth curdled uncomfortably in his gut. The height terrified him nearly as much as what might take wing if the shift took hold.
Yet the pull scraped at his chest anyway, louder each time he resisted. The feral hunger of beastblood promising relief if he would only surrender.
Still shaken from the cliff last night with Lykor, he hadn’t shifted today. Not after fury had seized him and the snarl in his throat hadn’t felt like his own.
But Lykor hadn’t flinched.
Jassyn still didn’t know what had startled him more—that he’d shoved Lykor, or that Lykor had simply absorbed it. Some dark part of him had risen, savoring that awful tilt of power. But when it had receded, it left him hollow with the memory of how close he’d come to losing control.
Just beyond the reach of the camp, a lone figure stood at the cliff’s edge. Arms folded across his armor, unmoving as the stone beneath him, hair a dark tangle whipped by the gale.
Lykor.
He scowled at the peaks leading into the Maw, into that storm tearing the sky apart. Then, as if he’d followed a shift in the air, he looked straight at Jassyn.
Their eyes locked across the outcrop, distance and everything unsaid humming between them.
Jassyn’s breath stalled in his throat.
Magnetic and inescapable, Lykor’s gaze snared him like a current. For a heartbeat, Jassyn forgot Fenn at his side. He didn’t hear the report, only felt the weight of that unblinking stare as the world fell away.
Jassyn stepped toward Lykor, murmuring a quiet, “Excuse me,” to Fenn. Over his shoulder, he added, almost tentatively, “The flight trials—have those from Centarya assist with Kal’s drills again tomorrow.”
He thought that must’ve been what Fenn was asking about.
It wasn’t meant to be a command, but Fenn inclined his head. His gaze flicked toward Lykor, then snapped away. Without a word, he pivoted toward the ledge and shifted, wings unfurling like maroon sails. He warped and was airborne. And in another jump, he vanished.
The wind engulfed Jassyn as he closed the distance to Lykor. Cold nipped his cheeks, stripping away the last trace of desert warmth.
At the cliff’s edge, where the gusts bit sharpest and the Maw loomed beyond, Lykor stood motionless, tracking Jassyn’s approach.
Jassyn doubted he had any reason to be here, save the one he’d never confess. Close enough to observe without interfering. Far enough to pretend he wasn’t watching at all.
Jassyn halted next to him, caught between speaking and letting silence pool. Lightning peeled across the horizon, jagged fractures splitting the sky. The storm seemed to hold its breath as though waiting for one of them to break the quiet.
He let the moment stretch, but under Lykor’s unrelenting gaze the words broke loose before he meant them to.
“I was thinking,” Jassyn blurted, “I should probably get a better feel for the lightning before we start searching for Skylash.”
He shifted his weight, the impulse thinning into hesitation. He’d meant to fly. Maybe. But this was faster. Sensible, even. And Kaedryn would likely be waiting to ambush him about the stormfront the moment he returned to Asharyn.
“Do you think we could portal beyond the peaks?” He gestured south, seizing the excuse to look away. “Closer to the threshold?”
Lykor turned to face him fully, and the horizon seemed to roll beneath Jassyn’s feet. While taller, Jassyn didn’t feel it now. Not when they stood so close the wind itself couldn’t slip between them.
“We?” Lykor echoed.
“Well, I can’t portal,” Jassyn began, heart thudding hard against his ribs. “I thought I might fly, but if you’re here…”
A frayed laugh slipped free, taut with nerves he hadn’t invited. He should’ve asked Fenn. Instead, he’d spent the morning bracing for flight only to find that this—standing before Lykor—was its own kind of freefall.
Lykor didn’t answer. Didn’t blink.
Words kept tumbling from Jassyn anyway. “I didn’t—” He broke off, raking a hand through his curls, the wind’s restlessness caught beneath his skin.
Lykor followed the motion, gaze dipping to the scar on Jassyn’s cheek before returning to collide with his eyes.
“Never mind.” Jassyn cleared his throat and angled slightly toward the camp. The rest hovered unsaid—he didn’t want to go without Lykor. But the words refused to cross the space between them. “If you’re busy, I’ll ask one of the rangers to take me instead.”
Lykor’s eyes burned through him until there was nowhere left to hide.
“Like Zaeryn?” he asked, the question low and dark.
Jassyn blinked. “Zaeryn?” The name felt dragged from nowhere, though Fenn had mentioned her earlier. “I could ask. But I’m not even sure if she has the portaling talent…”
He faltered as Lykor’s eyes flashed, certain he’d said something wrong.
Lykor rolled his shoulders, voice nearly a growl. “Did you want to go now?”
Jassyn hesitated, glancing back toward the sprawl of activity, all motion and purpose. Preparations would continue without him. Out here with Lykor, no voices pressed for decisions or orders.
Their eyes caught again. The silence asked nothing, and for the first time all morning, Jassyn let himself breathe. He started to nod, and Lykor opened the portal before he finished, as though he already knew what Jassyn hadn’t dared to say.
And together, they stepped closer toward the storm.