Chapter 42
JASSYN
Abreeze skimmed Asharyn’s lake, silver ripples shivering beneath the hush of stars. Jassyn had meant this night to be their final meal before dawn sent him across the realms, but below the lantern glow on the pier, the food lay untouched.
Kaedryn had arranged the table with care—baked fish wrapped in fig leaves, bowls of wild rice, peach pastries still warm from the brick ovens. Yet Jassyn sensed everyone’s nerves were wound too tightly to reach for anything but the silence.
Selecting a pastry, he made himself bite through the sugared crust. But the sweetness curdled bitter on his tongue and he set it aside.
It was past time to stop lingering in the city, past time to stop shoving each day’s burdens into the next. Every squandered hour surrendered ground, another inch for the king’s forces to march closer to Asharyn from their foothold in the marshes.
A week. That was all the reprieve he’d granted the factions after the Maw. But the days trickling by had left him feeling as though he stood beneath a waiting gallows, its shadow stretching long over his decisions.
At least the uneasy week had given them time to lay their paths forward.
They’d charted the flight toward the Aetherveil to search for Skylash’s mate and mapped the direction toward the sea, where she claimed a Heart waited in the Maelstrom’s depths.
At dawn, he and Serenna would leave the city behind, flying toward the Shattered Reef with Cinderax and Fenn.
A faint clink drew his attention—Fenn, leaning over a teapot on the table, steam curling in ribbons from its spout. The chestnut brew he poured carried a sharp earthen spice.
“What’s in that?” Jassyn asked, grasping for any excuse to break the quiet.
“Cardamom and sage,” Fenn said, filling Serenna’s mug. “Effective for calming nerves.” He leaned past her, his grin all fangs as he caught Vesryn sipping his own. “And—if you steep it long enough—seduction.”
“Seduction?” Vesryn rolled his eyes. The remaining half of his hair spilled loose over one shoulder, sharpening his profile into something feral. Nearly an echo of the untamed edge Fenn wore so easily, but Jassyn would never tell him.
“If that’s your attempt,” Vesryn muttered, “it’s as weak as your brew.”
Even Fenn’s chuckle thinned, drifting off into the night.
A splash cracked along the shoreline, where Cinderax stood sentinel among the reeds, molten eyes glowing in the twilight.
Nearby, four hatchlings raced through the shallows—two Emberharts, a Stormstrike, and a Tidecrasher—trilling as they snapped at minnows, sparks and frost and flame bursting from their throats.
Jassyn’s gaze lingered on the dragons loping along the shore, already sketching the shape of what they would become. They’d grow into weapons yet remain targets, their obsidian scales gleaming with a promise that would one day draw the king’s attention.
“How many eggs remain?” he asked, turning back to Serenna.
“Eight Emberharts, seven Stormstrikes, and three Tidecrashers,” she counted. “And Cinderax swears they’ll all be free from the shell before the moons are full.”
Fenn released a theatrical groan. “I’ll have to assign two more squads just to keep them fed.”
Jassyn’s mouth twitched and even Lykor grunted beside him.
“Any updates on the front?” Jassyn asked the prince, the question falling into its familiar groove after days of councils.
“Kal and I have kept patrols in the air,” Vesryn answered, rubbing a hand over the shaved portion of his scalp. “Elashor’s forces are still in the marshes, but they’ve begun portaling in the human army.”
“And if the king has wrung Veyrix’s location from Rimeclaw,” Lykor muttered from beside him, “that legion and their razorwings could be mobilizing to claim him.”
Lykor adjusted in his seat, tension coiled tight, gathering since the moment Jassyn had admitted he was flying to the Maelstrom.
He hadn’t barred Lykor from joining him this time—he wouldn’t inflict that wound again—but the plan still left Lykor bristling.
He wanted the full force of their shamans at Jassyn’s back, there to bend the Maelstrom.
Jassyn had argued otherwise. Stealth mattered more than strength and a smaller force might slip unnoticed through the skies. And with Daeryn and Bhreena’s warning of the fleet mustering on the open sea, no one knew what other dangers waited in the waters.
Jassyn drew in a slow breath. Even just thinking about it felt like dragging dawn closer. “Tomorrow,” he said quietly, turning toward Daeryn and Bhreena, “I leave for the Maelstrom.”
Bhreena gripped her fork like a dagger, the untouched fish cooling on her plate, oil bleeding into the rice.
“I’ve assembled a scouting party for the mountain prisons,” Jassyn continued, forcing himself to hold Daeryn’s gaze.
Eyes so close to his own stared back unblinking, as if demanding proof he hadn’t forsaken the promise between them.
“Kal will open a portal inside. He’s chosen a seasoned band of wraith who know the prisons to slip in and—”
Bhreena hurled her fork, the clatter ringing across the table. “Our people drowned in the Maw, and yet you hauled the king’s soldiers out. You gave them breath while our families still wait in the dark.”
Her fury wasn’t new or undeserved. She’d chased him through every council and courtyard, demanding action with Daeryn at her shoulder.
“I promised freedom for your people,” Jassyn said calmly, holding her glare while Lykor’s low snarl vibrated in warning beside him.
“But if we don’t claim the Heart from the Maelstrom, we lose our only chance at freeing Skylash’s mate.
And if we fail in the Aetherveil, then storming those dungeons means nothing.
We’d be delivering your people into a world already lost.”
Bhreena’s nostrils flared, her voice rising into accusation “So your plan is to fly off to the sea and have others simply scout the prisons? When are you—”
“No.” Lykor’s growl cleaved her words apart. “We’ll strike fully. No one knows those dungeons better than I do. I’ll get them out.”
Jassyn tensed at the offer. They hadn’t discussed this. The lanterns wavered, shadows pressing closer than the silence.
Without thinking, Jassyn reached under the table for Lykor’s leg. Muscle bunched hard beneath his palm. He couldn’t bear this spoken aloud, not when he knew exactly what returning to the mountain would gouge open. He skimmed a faint thread of thought toward the fringes of Lykor’s mind.
“You don’t have to go. I would never ask it of you.”
Lykor didn’t flinch, his reply landing like hammered steel. “Kal doesn’t know that mountain like I do. I’m going. That’s where you need me most.”
Jassyn’s grip tightened. The truth strained against his teeth, that he needed Lykor’s fierce steadiness beside him. Not hurled back into the prisons that had nearly broken him.
The protest burned as Jassyn locked it in his chest until the ache scalded. He’d already wounded Lykor once by sending him away. Forcing him to stay now would carve a different scar, one born of stripping away his choice.
So Jassyn swallowed it down, loathing how silence made him complicit in a sacrifice he had the power to halt. One command from him could delay the operation until he returned from the Maelstrom.
But wielding that authority now would splinter what little trust still bound Bhreena and Daeryn to their cause. He needed their people’s Essence and earth in the war ahead, and he wouldn’t risk that fracture.
Even if the price of preserving that unity was sending Lykor back into the dark.
Daeryn’s gaze cut between Jassyn and Lykor, steady as a leveled blade. “Then no more delays. My people are ready and I expect to see the same resolve from yours.”
“If this is a raid,” Vesryn said, tipping his glass of wine toward Lykor, “then I’ll join you. I’ll bring the rangers. We’ve grievances of our own to settle with the king.”
Lykor’s eyes flicked to him in an unreadable stare before he gave the barest nod.
With Lykor vowing blood and Vesryn offering rangers, they might free the prisoners in a single, decisive stroke.
Bhreena had been right—Jassyn had intended the first stage to be nothing more than invisible scouting, a slip through the shadows, leaving behind no whispers for the king to follow.
But if Lykor’s plan freed their families, it could loosen the strain between their factions.
And perhaps grant this alliance a sliver of goodwill before everything buckled beneath them.
Relief slid through Jassyn, but it dispersed fast. Vesryn burned like wildfire and Lykor bore down like a stormfront. Thrown together, they’d only be spark to powder.
At the end of the table, Kaedryn cleared her throat. Her attention lingered on Bhreena’s untouched plate before drifting to Fenn, who leaned across Serenna’s setting to refill Vesryn’s wine—his wink met only with the prince’s withering glower.
Kaedryn eased her empty plate aside. “We have more prisoners from the Maw’s waters than we know what to do with. Let alone the numbers you’ll bring in from the prisons.”
She spoke to no one in particular, but the weight of it pressed squarely against Jassyn. He’d overseen most of the healing, he knew how thin their resources had been stretched.
“Some who surrendered have already turned violent,” Kaedryn continued. “Even those we’ve tethered. Keeping so many inside Asharyn’s walls is a risk the guildmasters may not tolerate for much longer.”
Jassyn didn’t answer at once. When he closed his eyes, he still saw hands clawing above the waves, smelled scorched flesh and charred hulls. And he’d never forget the burst of red when Lykor’s shadows struck the boy he’d been healing.
“They were drowning,” Jassyn said quietly. “Burning. I saw no other choice.”
He withdrew his hand from Lykor’s leg and leaned forward, folding his fingers on the table as he met every gaze in turn.
His eyes locked with Daeryn’s, a legacy neither of them had chosen, blood neither had asked for.
Something feral stirred in Jassyn’s chest, bright enough to burn a path through the entire capital before he let this world chain another life the way it had claimed them both.
That fire was what drove him forward.
“I didn’t drag the king’s soldiers from the Maw because I trusted them,” Jassyn said at last. “I did it because we should give every soul a chance to stand for a different world.” He reached for a goblet of water, fingers tightening until the stem dug into his skin.
“I won’t fight this war by becoming like the elves—stealing choice and calling it victory. ”
Daeryn studied the hatchlings moving through the reeds. “The elven-blooded who cling to the capital’s ideals will never join us. Many believe their magic gives them the right to rule over humans who don’t carry a spark. But others will. Once they see the world we’re building.”
Kaedryn pursed her lips, crimson eyes glowing as they drifted over Bhreena again. “And those who smile and swear loyalty only to knife our wings the moment we look away? What then?”
“We kill them,” Lykor growled.
Every gaze cut toward him, and he scowled back.
“We’ve already given the king’s forces a chance.
” His eyes flicked toward Jassyn, flaring in the dim light.
“We don’t grant them any quarter if they threaten any of our own.
” His voice dropped lower, iron ground to a killing edge.
“If they betray us, I’ll meet them like any enemy.
” He didn’t move or even blink, but shadows writhed around his shoulders in slow, restless waves.
“A streak of rending across the throat.”
Silence followed, settling like ash in the lungs. Lykor had spoken the violence Jassyn feared he’d one day be forced to choose. But admitting that would erode the vow he’d just sworn to be different from the elves.
So he said nothing.
Behind them, a hatchling trilled, the startled screech ending in a splash, sparks skittering against the water.
“Like Kaedryn said, some might betray us,” Serenna murmured, watching the dragons scatter in the reeds. “That doesn’t make mercy a mistake. It makes it a choice we keep choosing.”
Her words lingered, but another truth pressed deeper. Lykor’s conviction came from a loyalty fierce enough to kill for, a devotion Jassyn could never command outright.
When he lifted his eyes, every face at the table had already turned to him, waiting for the next call. And he knew that no matter what he chose, someone would bleed for it.