Chapter 4 #2
Shadows darkened the courtyard as wraith began dropping from the sky.
Lykor didn’t know who’d summoned them. Word had no doubt spread faster than flame over pitch—their return from the prisons, the prince of Vaelyn on his knees, Kyansari named in the dust.
Scores dropped from every direction in silence, one after another, maroon wings cutting through the bruising dusk. Boots struck sand, stirring plumes of grit around them. Armor creaked as wings folded tight.
They formed ranks without his order.
Lykor scanned them, faces and names blurring into leather, steel, and scars. The front held two empty places.
Kal would’ve known who to put in command.
Fenn would’ve had them moving before Lykor asked.
A warrior stepped forward, talons striking together in greeting.
Koln. One of his lieutenants.
Lykor’s attention snagged on the eye patch—a trophy from one of his and Fenn’s countless collisions. Fenn bore Koln’s retaliation across his ribs, scars trenched deep where talons had split him open.
The two of them had always run that way. Tearing each other apart and fucking before the wounds closed.
Koln’s eye flicked to Vesryn at Lykor’s shoulder, then to the space where Kal should’ve stood.
“Those who went with you into the prisons?” Koln asked.
Lykor’s throat tightened. “They fell.”
Koln absorbed that in silence. The muscle under his patch jumped once, the only breach in his disciplined face.
His voice dropped, quieter now. “Any word on Fenn from the Maelstrom?”
“Taken.”
Koln’s wings went rigid. Fire sparked at his talons, then died in a thin wisp of smoke. His iris flared, but he didn’t press.
“What are your orders?”
Lykor exhaled, fatigue grinding behind his eyes. “Defer to Kaedryn. Help her keep the peace. Watch Daeryn’s faction. Keep the Maw prisoners separated. The king’s forces—”
“No.”
A ripple passed through the ranks as the wraith shifted into stillness. Every warrior in the courtyard waited to see whether Lykor would let the refusal stand or drive Koln’s fangs into the sand for the insolence.
Lykor’s gaze narrowed. “That wasn’t a request, Lieutenant.”
“The wraith are done playing nursemaid.” Koln’s voice struck like flint on steel. “You’re going somewhere again. And we’re going with you.”
Lykor held his stare.
Of course it would be Koln. The one who’d lost an eye to Fenn and grinned through the blood. The one half the ranks would follow if he gave them a reason. Irritation scraped through Lykor’s exhaustion, rousing the commander in him to bare his fangs.
He’d taught Koln better than this.
Or perhaps exactly this well.
Lykor shook his head, the last of his strength wearing thin. “Numbers won’t matter where we’re going.”
“And where is that?”
“Kyansari,” he snapped. “And you’re not coming. A legion that doesn’t know the capital will slow us down or die in the streets.”
Koln folded his arms. “And why return there after all these years? You’ve kept us from the elf lands, barred us from raiding their realm. Told us vengeance across that border would cost our lives. And now you’re flying in with only a prince at your side?”
The accusation struck where Lykor had no armor.
“We’re hunting Elashor,” Vesryn said. “He’s the only lead we have on Serenna, Jassyn, and Fenn. Either he knows where they are, or Kyansari’s records do.”
Koln’s eye flared, Fenn’s name hanging between them like a lit fuse. “Then let us do what you trained us to do. Raiding. Sabotage. Stealth.” His talons flexed at his sides. “Let us be of use.”
“No,” Vesryn said before Lykor could answer. “Not stealth. Not this time.”
Lykor dragged a hand down his face. Every minute they wasted talking was another minute Jassyn spent bleeding in a cell he couldn’t yet find. “Then what?”
“A diversion,” Vesryn said. “Loud enough to pull attention away from the palace.” He studied the assembled wraith, the vacant emerald of his stare beginning to sharpen.
“The elves always claimed the wraith were monsters. That they struck the first blow.” The stolen talents circling him drew closer, their light rippling against his skin.
“This time, we give them the war they lied about.”
Aesar’s memories surged without warning, flashes from a night a century gone.
Elashor’s illusions sent wraith spilling through Kyansari’s streets, claws and crimson eyes sowing panic while Galaeryn moved behind the terror he’d staged.
Councilors. Families. Citizens chosen at random.
The king plundered Essence from their Wells until their magic guttered out and their bodies warped around the theft.
Siphoned until they became proof of the lie, born from the violence invented to condemn them.
And through it all, fear spread until it became rot. Power hoarded behind bloodlines. Magic made currency. A kingdom built on the bodies of its own.
Lykor ripped himself out of Aesar’s past. For a moment, Kyansari’s screams still rang through the desert’s hush.
Then armor creaked. Wings rustled. Dusk settled back over the courtyard.
Koln waited.
So did the wraith—the survivors, the descendants, the living proof Galaeryn had failed to bury in the dark.
“I won’t send more of our own into a slaughter.” Lykor measured the warriors assembled before him. “We won’t win a war in the king’s domain just because you want one.”
Fire sparked at Koln’s fingertips, arcing talon to talon.
“Like we can’t defend ourselves? We have Cinderax’s gift.
We survived the Wastes. Bled at that academy raid.
Scorched the capital’s soldiers in the Maw.
” Essence ignited around him, shadows winding into the flame.
“Most of us carry at least one of the elf talents now.” He flashed his fangs, nodding toward Vesryn.
“Let us fly. We’ll set the streets burning while you slip into the palace. ”
Lykor didn’t answer.
He tracked the talents circling Vesryn, abilities wrenched from the fleet and drifting between them like unmoored stars. He reached out, and one came to heel in his palm.
The talent flared, its stolen pulse hammering against his skin. He held it between himself and Koln.
An offering.
A dare.
“How far are you willing to go?” Lykor asked. “Would you drain Kyansari’s elves the way Galaeryn drained your elders? Fuel our war with stolen power and call it justice?”
Koln met his stare.
The denial never came.
The wraith had chosen. Lykor had spent decades teaching them to survive with their fangs bared and claws out, and he wouldn’t be the commander who yanked a leash because his people had become exactly what he made them.
“We’re not going to win by hiding behind dunes and hope,” Koln said. “That elf king will come for us. Whether we strike his city or not.”
Lykor hated the delay already.
They’d need strategy. Division of ranks. Knives striking the city’s pressure points.
“Three nights,” he said. “We plan and strike in three nights.”
Koln nodded.
“We take Elashor or the records that lead to our people,” Lykor said. “We leave wreckage. We get out.”
He scanned the ranks, then turned, frost blooming beneath his boots with every step.
Let Kyansari say the wraith brought war.
Let the elves remember who made them monsters.