Chapter 30 #2
Fenn gave a terse shake of his head, water flicking from his woven hair.
“The fleet’s moving. Fast.” He crouched beside Serenna, tapping the illusion map where the broad river fed into the Crackling Maw.
“They’re using magics—air and water together—to sail faster than should be possible.
” He raked a claw through his damp braids, tightening the binding as he glanced back at Jassyn.
“At this pace, they’ll sail into the Blackreach before nightfall. ”
Jassyn’s pulse knocked hard out of rhythm.
Beside him, Lykor stood unmoved, as if the news hadn’t touched him at all.
“Elashor’s ground force?” Lykor prompted. “The razorwings?”
Fenn shook his head again. “Still holding position in the marshes. We couldn’t get an updated count and lost sight of the swarm when they vanished into thin air.”
Jassyn’s gaze swept the circle, landing last on Lykor. That look held. Long enough for heat to rise between them, the weight of everything unspoken closing in. He forced a slow breath into his nose, willing his heart to steady with the exhale.
Jassyn already knew what he’d have to ask of him.
Lykor might obey when the time came, but he’d never forgive him for it.
Jassyn didn’t want to make this call alone, not with the lives he was about to gamble pressing against his thoughts. But hesitation wouldn’t save any of them. So he straightened, voice quiet but steady.
“Then it’s time to fly.”
A ripple of murmurs slid through the circle, but no one challenged it. Vesryn dispersed the illusion with a wave of his hand, and they moved as one out of the tent toward the waiting storm.
As Bhreena and Daeryn split off with Kaedryn, Jassyn’s steps slowed near the ridge—the place where he would lift and fly straight into the Maw. Silent as a shadow, Lykor matched his pace at his shoulder.
Wind snapped from every direction, withheld rain in its breath. But the cold tightening in Jassyn’s chest had nothing to do with weather.
Only the next command.
He’d made every other call but this one, hoping that delay might dull the cost.
It hadn’t.
Ahead, Serenna and Fenn stood on the lip of the cliff next to Cinderax, silhouettes outlined against the flickering sky. Vesryn lingered beside them, though he wouldn’t follow. None of them looked back.
Jassyn stopped, boots grinding against scoured stone.
“Lykor,” he said quietly, the name catching halfway up his throat.
Lykor halted, turning with that level, waiting gaze.
Jassyn nearly recoiled from it. He’d felt this moment stalking him for hours, pacing closer with every minute. Foresight hadn’t softened the strike. It had only shown him where it would cut.
“I need you to return to Asharyn.”
Lykor blinked once. “Asharyn,” he repeated flatly.
The wind seemed to stall, or maybe it was only Jassyn’s heart slipping down his ribs.
“If we fall—or if we fail,” he said, the words scraping raw on their way out, “the city’s next.” He didn’t look at Lykor, only at the storm flashing across the horizon. “You’re the only one who can open enough portals to evacuate if the king turns his gaze there.”
“Mara and Thalaesyn can handle an evacuation.” Leather creaked as Lykor crossed his arms. “They’ve done it before. That’s not where I’m needed.”
“It is,” Jassyn answered, meeting his eyes. “Even bonded, they don’t have your reach. Or your strength. You know that.”
Lykor’s jaw ticked. “Then send Vesryn.”
Jassyn shook his head. “We’ll need his sunfire.”
Lykor didn’t move. He held his silence like a bared weapon, steady and unblinking, dangerous in its calm.
“So now we’re strategizing fallback plans for the end of the world?” Lykor said at last, voice low and cold. “A few portals won’t make any difference.”
“It will for the city.” Jassyn exhaled, the breath dragging in his chest. “If the king moves while we’re inside the Maw—if those razorwings strike—you’ll do what’s needed without waiting for orders. I’m trusting you to carry the others forward if we don’t return.”
He stepped in closer before Lykor could answer, cutting the argument off at the throat. “If we fail, someone has to protect what’s left. The eggs. The hatchlings. The civilians. The future.”
Defiance flashed in Lykor’s eyes. “Give someone else that order.”
Jassyn didn’t look away. He knew what this was—Lykor trying to command him. To force the burden back into his hands. To make him choose anything but this.
“The king won’t stop,” Jassyn said. “He’ll burn through every last sanctuary until there’s nothing left but ash. Our stand can’t end here.”
Lykor’s arms tightened across his chest, knuckles cracking. “You think this war will be won by hiding survivors in rubble? By buying a few days while Galaeryn takes more sky? If that storm claims you, none of this matters.”
“Time mattered in your fortress,” Jassyn said, softer now. “You bought lives with it. I’m asking you to be ready to do it again.”
Lykor’s chest rose and fell faster with every breath, like he’d taken a blow straight to the sternum.
“No,” he said finally. Firmly. “I’m flying with you.”
“You can’t. You traded your fire.” The guilt struck as soon as Jassyn said it, twisting through his ribs. “You can’t redirect lightning now.”
“I can shield you from the strikes,” Lykor growled. “I’ve done it before.”
Jassyn closed the distance and set a hand to Lykor’s shoulder, anchoring himself before the ground shifted beneath them both.
“You’re not doing that again,” he said, fingers tightening in the leather. “You’re not expendable. And I won’t pretend you are.”
Lykor’s lip curled, but he stayed silent, tensing under Jassyn’s touch.
“You helped forge this alliance,” Jassyn continued, each word unsteadier than the last. “You’re the reason I’m standing here at all. You could’ve stopped it. But you didn’t.”
Lykor flinched, and the motion hit harder than when his gauntlet had struck Jassyn across the face.
“I’m telling you where I need you,” Jassyn said, voice growing hoarse. “Will you follow that order or not?”
Lykor’s nostrils flared. “If you go, and—”
He choked on the rest, jaw tightening, the snarl dying half formed. His fangs caught a flash of distant light, but there was no threat in them now.
“Don’t give me an order I can’t follow,” Lykor hissed.
He searched Jassyn’s face as if trying to find a fracture, some weakness to wedge the plea into before the command could set like stone.
“Don’t make me stay behind while you fly into that storm.
Give me one reason—one real reason—why I can’t be at your side. ”
Jassyn’s chest cinched, breath lost before it ever reached his lungs. The words didn’t eviscerate him nearly as much as the way Lykor looked when he said them. For the first time, there was no fury or fire. He just looked lost.
And something in that unraveling dismantled Jassyn completely.
For one heartbeat, he wished he could rewrite the moment—help Lykor understand. Nudge his choice with nothing more than a breath of power.
The urge to coerce flickered through him, a spark landing where it had no right to burn. He smothered it instantly, sickened by the shape of it.
He would never steal Lykor’s choice. Not even to save him.
Jassyn’s gaze drifted past Lykor’s shoulder, already knowing the truth. That none of them had trained enough for what waited inside the Maw. The storm could kill them. Or Skylash might.
But readiness was a luxury the doomed didn’t get to bargain for. If he could spare Lykor from that fate, he’d carve the logic however he had to.
He couldn’t tell Lykor the truth—that he wasn’t afraid to die, only to watch Lykor die for him first.
So Jassyn gave the only reason he could.
“If you fall beside me, there’s no one left to save the others.” He swallowed, the words razoring up his throat. “You know what it means to be the reason others survive.”
Lykor’s jaw flexed. He stepped in, chest brushing Jassyn’s, wind whipping hair around his face. “I don’t care about anyone else,” he growled, eyes igniting. “If you’re hurt—”
Jassyn didn’t let him finish.
Trembling, his hands rose, uncertain for a single heartbeat before cupping Lykor’s jaw. He swept his thumbs over the sharp planes of his cheeks, holding him still.
Then he kissed him.
Not to sway him or to steal surrender from his mouth. But because the seams were already splitting, and one more word from Lykor would tear him open and take the decision from him.
The wind rushed around them, the world beyond blurring to nothing. A hundred eyes might have been watching. It didn’t matter.
Lykor seized Jassyn’s armor and kissed him back like the choice could be rewritten through sheer force. Like if he just held him hard enough, Jassyn would break and let him follow.
The cruelty was that Jassyn wanted to have Lykor beside him when the world split open. In the sky. In the storm.
But wanting wouldn’t save the realm. Leadership demanded more—necessity over desire, command honed into sacrifice. This duty gutted him, the obedience he’d stolen instead of earned.
He needed Lykor guarding Asharyn, even if that simple truth offered no comfort. Sending him away still felt like betrayal. Yet that was the cost.
So Jassyn didn’t take it back.
Wrecked and reluctant, Lykor’s lips grazed his one last time before he stepped away.
“I’m not forgiving you for this,” Lykor breathed.
“I know,” Jassyn whispered, every word a thread unraveling from his chest. “But you have to let me go.”
He didn’t say the rest. So I still have you to return to.