Chapter 36 #2
“I said bring her here,” Jassyn snapped at him, pulse pounding painfully behind his eyes. “If you keep disregarding orders, you can return to the city.” The words tasted like ash, crueler than he intended.
Lykor bared his fangs, the claws on his wings clenching.
A ripple of unease moved through the druids, their eyes darting to Lykor’s shadows. Waging a silent war of wills, Jassyn swallowed the words clawing up his throat. That he wanted Lykor on his side rather than crushed beneath a command he didn’t deserve.
Lykor’s jaw locked before he tore his gaze away and stepped back, the motion steeped in resentment rather than surrender.
The druids hurried past, lowering the unconscious magus onto the gravel.
“We’ll make room in Asharyn,” Jassyn said through gritted teeth as he began healing. “Others deserve the same chance of freedom that we gave Daeryn’s people.”
Lykor didn’t answer. But he moved closer, a dark pillar at Jassyn’s side, wings twitching as he glared up at Skylash hovering. Shadows continued to pour around him in restless currents, agitated enough that Jassyn felt the silent disapproval.
Still, Lykor didn’t move when the druids lifted the healed magus into a waiting portal and vanished.
Jassyn exhaled, an ache building behind his eyes. The world flickered at the edges. He swayed once, caught himself, and forced his attention toward the next broken warrior before him.
A boy. Or near enough. Limbs still too long for his body. Jaw shadowed with the scattering of a beard rather than the growth of one. More human than elf, but still in Kyansari armor, blood trickling down the side of his face.
Too young for war. Too young to have chosen any of this.
Wet gravel bit into Jassyn’s knees. His palms tingled with the beginning of numbness as a healing lattice unfurled, crimson light trembling across scorched armor. No mortal wound that he could sense, just a blow to the head that had stolen the boy’s consciousness.
The boy’s breath rattled as Jassyn eased the swelling from his skull. With a sudden shocked drag of air, his eyes snapped open and locked onto Jassyn.
For a flash, Jassyn saw himself at that age, innocent and terrified, before panic devoured the boy’s gaze. He bolted upright. Eyes wild, shadows leapt around him—raw panic, no skill behind it.
“Wait—” Jassyn barely managed. Raising his hands, a shield spread between his fingers.
The boy’s rending never reached him.
A concussive pressure split the air. Lykor’s shadows whipped forward faster than the lightning cracking above.
For one horrifying instant, there was a face full of fear in front of Jassyn as his shield snapped into place.
Then there wasn’t.
The boy didn’t fall so much as detonate. Blood and bone slammed against the ward with a wet, sickening sound, crimson smearing across the violet light. The rest of the gore slapped the gravel.
Jassyn choked on a strangled gasp. His shield’s recoil shuddered up his arms, the space before him violently devoid of life.
He forced himself to look up.
Lykor stood over him, shadows rolling in dark waves. His gaze remained fixed on the spot where the threat had been, not on what was left of the boy he’d erased.
No hesitation. No apology. Nothing at all.
Disbelief hit Jassyn first in a hollow, gutting blow before fury followed.
His ward shattered as he lurched to his feet so fast the world tilted. His heartbeat didn’t know where to go—up, down, anywhere but the cage of his ribs. Lykor grabbed his arm—to steady or restrain, Jassyn couldn’t tell—but he tore free, pulse a whirlwind hammering against his throat.
A growl twisted behind Jassyn’s teeth as heat flared in his palms. Reckless and rising, his beastblood surged, ravenous for retaliation instead of reason. He barely forced it back, locking the instinct down before fire could spill from his fists.
“I was healing him!” The words ripped out, copper stinging the back of his tongue.
Lykor didn’t even blink. “He reached for power.”
Indifferent. Immovable. As if that alone settled the matter.
“That doesn’t mean he deserved to die!”
Jassyn’s shout cracked across the shore, sharp enough that the nearest druid flinched. His hands still trembled, the image of the boy—first a face, then a burst of red—seared into his mind.
He didn’t realize he’d gotten close enough to feel the heat of Lykor’s breath—anger grinding against something feral that wanted to drag him closer, not push him away.
Jassyn’s fingers scraped hard through his curls. “Did you even look at him?” he rasped, hating the way his voice shook. “Stars, he was hardly even a soldier!”
Lykor’s eyes flared like twin furnaces, igniting with the brutal certainty of someone who’d already chosen the cost and would never apologize for it.
“No one touches you,” Lykor growled, the falling rain turning to snow around him. “Not again. Their life is forfeit if they try.”
Not again. Jassyn’s chest heaved as the words hit a place he refused to look at directly. Lykor never named that wound, yet he fought the past like he meant to strangle it out of existence.
Jassyn’s voice frayed. “That’s not the war I’m leading.” He swallowed hard, fighting to stay anchored in the present. “You don’t get to choose who lives.”
Lykor moved before the last word left his mouth. He snatched the front of Jassyn’s armor and yanked him close. Their chests collided, breaths crashing together—hot, furious, tangled.
“When it’s you,” Lykor snarled, “I choose.”
Jassyn’s heart lurched like it meant to climb into Lykor’s grip despite the gore steaming on the stones. Heat throbbed through the leather where Lykor held him, shadows shivering along his arms. No longer striking outward but coiling close, restless and protective.
Jassyn’s breath hitched, some traitorous part of him recognizing safety even in Lykor’s fury. Stars help him, but he nearly leaned in. Instead, he shoved Lykor’s hand away before the moment could turn into something far more dangerous.
“I won’t watch you gamble your life trying to save every scorching enemy on this shore,” Lykor hissed, crowding back into his space.
Jassyn opened his mouth—to argue, to deny, to fling something sharp he didn’t truly mean—but movement flickered behind Lykor’s wings.
Three wraith warped past them, streaking to intercept a squad of Kyansari soldiers charging across the shore. Weapons bared, Essence whirled around the capital’s warriors.
Jassyn didn’t think.
He shoved Lykor aside—more strength than sense, more instinct than anything else—because he refused to watch anyone else die in front of him.
Not when he could stop it.
Jassyn flung out his hand. He dragged telepathy up from his Well until light burst behind his eyes. Essence surged from him in a torrent so abrupt his knees locked.
Magic raced down the shore, splintering into strands—two, then four, then eight—each one snapping outward in a frantic hunt for a mind to seize. He gritted his teeth and twisted the talent, honing it into something darker, a weapon he didn’t command so much as let slip its leash.
It shouldn’t have been that easy, and later he might confront how terrifying that ease truly was. But right now there was only the sickening simplicity of it, the way his magic lunged the instant he shaped it, eager with a hunger and will that felt too alive.
A tide of coercion slammed into place. Hooks buried into minds brittle from battle and exhaustion. Jassyn’s command detonated down every channel he’d forged, flooding ally and foe alike.
“STOP.”
The wraith froze, claws suspended in the air, fire dripping from talons until Jassyn forced the flames to gutter and die. The Kyansari soldiers halted with them before either side could collide, their eyes unfocusing the instant his magic struck.
Silence crashed down so suddenly that Jassyn’s ears rang. He could feel his pulse hammering against his skull, vision tunneling until white halos bled inward and he had to blink hard just to stay upright.
He’d stopped this sliver of the battle. Or he’d stepped onto a slope he wasn’t certain he knew how to climb back from.
Weapons stayed clenched in white-knuckle grips as Jassyn smothered their Essence with a thought. Those untouched by the magic stared at him too, studying him with a grim recognition of a power they’d never expected to see wielded on their side of the war.
And Lykor…
Fury carved harsh angles into his face, but beneath the taut shadows Jassyn caught the flash of fear. The betraying tremor ran down the curve of Lykor’s wings before he forced all emotion back behind discipline and rage.
The cords of coercion quivered in Jassyn’s hold as a burn raced through his veins. He didn’t know what horrified him more—how easily he’d wrenched control of their minds, or the dark thrill that coiled in his chest the moment he did.
Lykor’s voice scraped through the storm. “You’re bleeding.”
Jassyn lifted the back of his hand to his nose, smearing red across his knuckles.
“Stop using that magic,” Lykor growled, taking a step closer, wings clamping to his spine. “Before it takes you somewhere dark.”
Blood pooled bitter at the back of Jassyn’s throat. But he held Lykor’s gaze with the same iron grip that he kept on the minds down the shoreline.
“Stop them from killing each other,” he gritted out, “and I will.”
Lykor’s nostrils flared, shadows lashing around him. His eyes flicked to the snared warriors, then back to Jassyn. Something haunted and aching burned under the anger, a cinder that refused to die. He pivoted sharply, barking orders to their allies untouched by the coercion.
“Disarm them and escort them to Asharyn.”
Jassyn’s legs trembled as wraith secured the Kyansari squad. Only once they were contained did he release Essence, gasping on a broken breath.
Sound slammed back into him—screams thrashing through the surf, a razorwing droning overhead, a dracovae’s shriek splitting the clouds. He swayed before his eyes landed on another fallen elven-blooded twitching in the shallows and choking on water.
Jassyn staggered toward him, reaching for the lake to shove the waves aside. A healing lattice sputtered at his fingertips—threads collapsing, scattering like embers kicked from a dying hearth. His knees struck gravel before he realized they’d buckled.
“Jassyn.”
Breath tore through his clenched teeth as he dug his fingers into the stones, ribs refusing to expand. He tried summoning Essence again, but nothing stirred—his Well wrung dry, stripped of even the faintest spark. Strength slipped through trembling hands as the world tilted.
“Jassyn.”
“I’m not…finished,” he slurred. “There are…still wounded.”
Lykor’s hand clamped around his arm, hauling him upright with a force that brooked no argument. “You’re done.”
Jassyn jerked his head in refusal, though his body listed toward that anchoring grip. “I need more Essence. I can still—”
“No.”
A soft word. A harsh command, dismissing rank entirely.
Jassyn’s vision blurred. Shadows and snow wound around Lykor’s shoulders, his wings flaring in a protective arc. Jassyn blinked, the world narrowing to the fire in his eyes.
“Let me…just—”
With one last flicker of defiance, he reached for Lykor’s wrist. But his fingers slipped as his legs gave out again.
Lykor caught him instantly. One arm swept behind his knees, the other braced hard across his back—steady as stone, impossibly gentle for hands that had killed so ruthlessly.
“You’re going to rest,” Lykor growled, pitched for him alone.
Jassyn tried to lift his head to protest, but the world dimmed as Lykor’s fingers curled tighter around him.
Darkness swallowed him before the words could leave his mouth.