Chapter 28 #2
Beyond Lykor’s veil of darkness, one soldier finally ordered the patrol onward.
Lykor didn’t break the kiss until their footsteps had faded into the trees. Even then, he withdrew only far enough to track their retreat, his mouth hovering near Jassyn’s while crimson burned through the dark.
“Now who’s the reckless one?” Lykor murmured, his voice low and rough beside Jassyn’s ear.
As Jassyn dragged air back into his lungs, Lykor’s touch remained imprinted across his body. A patrol had stood only paces away, and Jassyn had kissed him anyway. Lykor had earned the last word.
Lykor rolled his shoulders, indigo skin shimmering dark with the motion. “Probably better if I stay wraith for this anyway.” His gaze cut toward the retreating patrol, then back to Jassyn. “In the event you’re inspired to compromise our position again.”
Jassyn released a quiet huff then steered himself back to the reason they were here. “Can you warp us to the canopy? The light’s still low enough for your cloaking. Their camp must be close.”
Lykor nodded, already scanning the distant crowns, and offered his claw. “Speak into my mind once we’re in position.”
Jassyn closed his fingers around Lykor’s, and darkness engulfed them.
Bark met Jassyn’s boots for an instant before the world vanished again. Lykor warped them from crown to crown, the low murmur of the waking army swelling with every jump. On the final one, Jassyn’s boots struck a high branch above the outer ranks, open air on every side.
Lykor guided him into the crook where the trunk met the branch and recloaked them. Jassyn braced both palms against the tree until everything stopped spinning, then turned his attention toward the army below.
The rainforest opened around a vast clearing, its edges ragged with felled trees. Firelight mapped the rigid formation. Tents occupied the center in disciplined rows, while bedrolls spread outward in concentric rings.
Most of the soldiers still slept, but those along the perimeter had begun to stir—figures sitting up, feeding low fires, and fastening armor in the dimness. Bodies filled every space between—tens of thousands, the farthest disappearing into the gray of early morning.
“They’re more organized than the humans who laid siege to your fortress,” Jassyn said into Lykor’s mind.
Lykor’s fingers tightened around the branch. “The tents likely belong to the Essence-wielders. We could strike.” His gaze cut to a large tent. “Kill them one by one.”
“I want a solution with less blood.”
Lykor shot him a scowl. “That is less blood. Killing their leaders would fracture their command and buy us time.”
Jassyn shook his head. Even Lykor couldn’t end enough of them before the first alarm roused the camp. “Another officer would take their place. We’d gain a night at most.”
He counted tents and searched the perimeter for weaknesses, yet his gaze kept returning to Lykor’s mouth. His lower lip still tingled where Lykor’s fangs had caught it.
A low drone gathered beneath the camp’s murmur. At first, Jassyn mistook it for the blood still rushing in his ears.
Then it grew louder.
The patrolling soldier’s complaint surfaced through Jassyn’s thoughts—the buzzing noise keeping them awake. He flared his dragonsight, stripping darkness from distance.
Razorwings.
Rending restraints pinned them in row after row, glassy wings folded tight against scaled flanks. Scores of them—more than Jassyn had seen attacking in the Maw. Their wings shivered in brief, blurred bursts, stirring the air before falling still.
“They must be capturing them from somewhere nearby,” Jassyn said as Lykor followed his gaze.
Once airborne, the swarm could hunt every flier they sent searching for Veyrix. The sky around the Aetherveil would become another perimeter the enemy controlled.
“We need to free them,” Jassyn said.
“Figured you’d say that.”
“Can we get closer?”
Lykor gripped Jassyn’s arm. He warped them to a branch overlooking the clustered razorwings, eyes glowing as he adjusted his cloaking around them.
Up close, Jassyn could see that the shadow restraints had bitten into the seams at the base of all four wings, stripping the softer membranes raw.
Barbed limbs had scraped trenches through the earth in their struggle.
A few heads lifted and sank in a sluggish rhythm, multifaceted eyes breaking the campfires into fractured points.
Jassyn’s fingers dug into the bark, recognizing the stillness that followed when refusal changed nothing.
Lykor’s rending streamed toward the restraints. Jassyn sent his magic after it, braiding an inversion of illumination around the dark currents until they vanished from sight.
The hum of power remained. If an Essence-wielder drew close enough to distinguish it from the bindings, they’d be discovered.
With their intertwined weave, Lykor guided the magic between barbed limbs and folded wings. The tendril narrowed into a blade and sheared through the first restraint.
The bindings unraveled.
Lykor struck again, working down the nearest row.
The first razorwing lurched, forelegs tearing furrows through the earth. Translucent wings blurred, breaking the firelight into iridescent shivers. Its head snapped up, multifaceted eyes locking on the darkness above.
The creature shot straight upward, legs tucking tight beneath its thorax. Another tore loose behind it, then another, their wings shrieking against the air.
More than twenty razorwings surged into the canopy in staggered bursts, their ascent jagged and erratic. Wings clipped branches as they careened through the leaves, each frantic correction knocking them farther from open sky.
The air churned from overlapping wingbeats, the vibration boring into the space behind Jassyn’s eyes.
He’d expected them to flee into the morning light. But one of the freed razorwings folded its wings and plunged.
Shouts erupted from the camp. Torches spun from startled hands as razorwings crashed through canvas and sleeping ranks, forelegs tearing soldiers from their bedrolls before the creatures beat skyward again.
Lykor snarled under his breath, his shadows slicing faster now, severing one restraint after another. For every razorwing that took flight, a dozen more still thrashed against their bindings, wings buzzing uselessly against the Essence holding them down.
Horns blared. Magic ignited around the command tents—too scattered to contain what had already escaped or form a defense.
A razorwing wheeled above them, its head tilting toward Lykor’s cloaking, multifaceted eyes locking on their position.
Its wings canted before it plunged.
Apparently gratitude wasn’t among its instincts.
“Lykor—”
Needle-like forelegs scythed through the canopy before the name finished leaving him, close enough for the displaced air to rake across Jassyn’s face.
He tore open a portal and seized Lykor’s arm, wrenching him through as the razorwing’s second strike shredded the branch beneath them.
The portal snapped shut on splintering wood and the shriek of wings.