Chapter 41
LYKOR
Dawn bled bronze across the Aetherveil, and Lykor hadn’t slept.
He lay in the moss-lined alcove Jassyn had formed the night before, vines veiling the open air while the earth’s slow pulse warmed him from below. Jassyn lay an arm’s length from him, silent and turned away.
Aiko had migrated between them twice before curling against Jassyn’s chest, tail tucked under his chin. Her purr thrummed through the moss while the floating island swayed.
Lykor stared at the ceiling of braided leaves and roots. His hand inched toward Jassyn, but he drew back before touching him.
Jassyn’s breathing stayed even, each inhale measured, too controlled to be sleep. Lykor wanted to fill the silence between them, but didn’t know how.
Aesar hadn’t offered any help. After Lykor had portaled them back to the Aetherveil, Aesar had surged fully awake in their awareness. He’d seized their body, and healed Jassyn’s throat while Lykor silently lingered behind their eyes.
The Aesar who’d returned from Kal’s death was different. Quieter. More watchful. Kal’s absence had sunk into him, grief fused to bone.
Lykor sensed him in the library of their shared mind, pacing the mosaic floor. Back and forth, his boots clipping through Lykor’s skull.
Jassyn’s breathing never changed. Aiko continued to purr. Aesar crossed the atrium again. Lykor bit the inside of his cheek until iron spread across his tongue.
He turned inward and shoved the library doors open, stopping at the threshold.
“YOU’RE NOT GOING TO SAY IT?”
“Say what?” Aesar turned, calm enough to make Lykor want to crack the tiles beneath his boots.
“WHATEVER YOU’VE BEEN CIRCLING SINCE WE GOT BACK.”
Aesar drew to a halt. “He isn’t keeping silent because you went alone.”
Lykor braced one shoulder against the doorframe. “COULD’VE FOOLED ME.”
“You almost didn’t come back. That’s what he can’t get past.”
Saying nothing, Lykor withdrew. The library fell away, leaving the screen of vines a dark blur above him.
Aesar didn’t press. Once, he would’ve needled Lykor until he conceded.
With Jassyn silent beside him and Aesar quiet within, Lykor knew sleep never stood a chance.
The crater, he didn’t regret. The risk had yielded five Hearts and a cache of Starshards to arm the next fight. What he regretted was the lie. Jassyn had given him trust, and Lykor had spent it without flinching.
He could’ve weathered Jassyn’s fury. He’d seen it surface in the crater, Jassyn’s voice shaking as he hauled Lykor back to himself, earth blooming and dying at his feet. Anger was a blow that Lykor knew how to take. But silence gave him nothing, keeping Jassyn beside him but beyond reach.
Aesar took their body as the sun brightened the horizon. Lykor let him.
He sank deep into their mind while Aesar flew across the scattered islands to find Vesryn.
Lykor didn’t ask what passed between them, but the grief Aesar carried back in his clenched jaw was answer enough.
Shortly after, Aesar retreated into the library, but he left the doors open as he disappeared among the books.
Lykor portaled near the council island to the east, where stone narrowed to a shelf above open sky. He flew the perimeter twice, traded words with his sentries stationed on a drifting isle, and found Jassyn already hunched over the stone table, his illusion map bright under his palms.
Of course he was.
Lykor’s attention snagged on Jassyn’s throat, smooth where his talons had bruised and torn. Aesar had healed the flesh, but Lykor still felt the heat of Jassyn’s blood. His gaze traveled to the scar cutting from Jassyn’s brow to cheek, the mark no magic could erase.
The map hovered below Jassyn’s hands, its threads of light reweaving as he drew each scout’s report into place. Faint markers climbed through the layered sky toward the crown island, tracing the ascent of their forces.
Lykor tipped his head back. The uppermost isle hung dark against the sky, its rim only beginning to catch the dawn. Somewhere in those heights, Vesryn, Serenna, and Fenn searched for Veyrix.
Jassyn’s fingers moved over the map, illumination bending below his touch. He didn’t look up as Lykor set a canteen of water and a handful of dried apricots at the table’s edge, close enough that ignoring them would take effort.
A coward’s offering laid down where another apology should’ve gone.
Jassyn’s hand paused. He glanced at the canteen, then resumed drawing with his magic.
Lykor’s fangs dug into his tongue. He leaned against a stone outcrop behind the table, arms crossed, wings tight to his spine.
If Jassyn meant to grind himself to dust over every front marked on the map, Lykor wouldn’t drag him away.
The morning churned forward, broken by wingbeats and reports.
Wraith and druids landed in squads, boots striking stone as they gave Jassyn new positions before vanishing back into the sky.
The lights for Fenn, Vesryn, and Serenna climbed higher while Kaedryn’s formations fanned across the lower islands.
Jassyn kept reshaping the illusion, the canteen and apricots remaining untouched.
Koln stepped from a portal with his eye patch crooked and his mouth set hard. He’d taken on the reports, squads, and orders Kal once carried, though Lykor had yet to name him captain.
The lieutenant offered Lykor a nod before turning to Jassyn, his lone eye lingering on the measured space between them.
“Overnight reports from the Everglow.” Koln spread the contents of his satchel across the table—drawn patrol routes, tallies scratched on bark, a rough sketch of the army’s camp.
“The humans are moving north toward the Aetherveil. Faster than yesterday. Elven officers are still embedded in every company.”
He paused, one talon pinning the river to the table. “And I spotted Blossom myself.”
Jassyn closed his eyes, the map flickering beneath his fingers.
Inside Lykor’s skull, Aesar went still. He knew the king had made a weapon of the dragon, and still Kal broke against her fangs in memory, the crack of bone lodged too deep for either of them to claw free.
“She’s approaching the waterway below us,” Koln continued. “Scores of shamans are with her. They’ve peeled the rainforest back from the shore and cleared it for miles.”
Moss raced outward from Jassyn’s boots, unfurling across the stone before it withered. He drew one measured breath through his nose and raised his head, his face sealed behind the same control he’d worn since Blossom’s capture left him gasping on the cavern floor.
“Then we need to assume they know we’re up here.”
Lykor’s talons bit into his biceps. “I’ll go after her.”
The words escaped before he remembered the promise he’d made to Jassyn.
Jassyn kept his eyes on the map. Sun, wind, Lykor—all weather he’d chosen not to acknowledge.
“We have more Hearts now.” Lykor’s voice came rougher than he meant. “If a Heart can break the king’s control—”
“You can’t wield sunfire,” Jassyn said, quiet and final, his attention fixed on the illusion. “You’d need someone with illumination to channel through the relic.”
“Then let me borrow a talent. Or send one of your magus with me.” Lykor took a step forward. “I’ll portal us and—”
“And land straight in the middle an army with a dragon chained at the front.”
The logic held, though Jassyn delivered the objection to the map rather than Lykor.
“So we abandon her,” Lykor said flatly.
Jassyn’s nostrils flared, but his voice stayed level. “We focus on freeing Veyrix first.” His palms flexed against the stone table, the only thing he was willing to touch. “We can’t scatter our forces any further by going after Blossom now.”
Lykor’s wing claws twitched above his shoulders. He wanted to argue. Shred the map. Portal to the rainforest and bring Blossom back like a promise kept for once.
But Jassyn was right and Aesar didn’t even have to say it.
“Fine.”
At last, Jassyn lifted his gaze and met Lykor’s. Direct. Unflinching. The first time all morning.
Lykor’s fingers loosened against his armor. If he couldn’t return Blossom to Jassyn, he could still arm their forces for what was coming.
“The crater,” he said. “Koln has four squads on standby. I can portal them into the chamber where we found the Hearts. They can secure it, fight their way back through the tunnels, and strip anything of use.”
Jassyn studied him, reading the pivot for what it was—Lykor redirecting instead of snarling his disagreement. Choosing the next fight because the one he wanted had been denied.
Jassyn held his gaze a moment longer before inclining his head.
Lykor turned to Koln. “Back by sundown. No one ventures alone.”
Koln’s fangs flashed as he dipped his chin, acknowledgment and anticipation honed to the same edge.
Lykor tore a portal open just beyond the island’s rim, the rift suspended in open air.
Koln launched from the stone, wings snapping wide. He punched a fist skyward, sending a burst of fire above the island chain.
Wingbeats converged as wraith warped from the surrounding isles and locked into formation, moving with the speed of soldiers who’d been waiting for the signal.
Koln vanished through the portal. His squads followed in pairs, each swallowed by the void until the final wings passed and Lykor sealed the rift.
Wind rushed between the islands, carrying only the creak of stone. Jassyn’s guard flew by in slow arcs, and no further reports arrived.
Jassyn dragged his fingers through his curls before reaching for an apricot. “I would’ve gone with you.”
The pressure in Lykor’s ribs eased, but before he could respond, light cleaved the sky. Sunfire erupted at the crown island’s peak, prismatic and blinding.
They’d found the dragon.