Chapter 46
JASSYN
Jassyn surfaced to the smell of jasmine.
Dry heat pressed against his skin like stone surrendering the day’s warmth after dusk. Silence occupied the place where the Aetherveil’s wind should’ve raged, so complete he could hear his pulse thud inside his skull.
He dragged his eyes open to a ceiling swimming out of focus, sandstone and carved arches resolving slowly until memory found purchase.
Asharyn.
The city they’d abandoned once Centarya learned its location, where a portal could split the air and spill an army into the streets.
Linen brushed his thighs, a loose sleep tunic cooling against his chest, while his shoulders still burned where flight leathers had bitten deepest. The grit that had darkened every crease of his palms was gone.
Someone had stripped the battle from him while he slept and dressed him in clothes carrying the faint scent of cedar soap and sun-dried cloth.
Jassyn’s fingers sank into the sheets as the missing hours crowded in. Cloying perfume caught at the back of his throat, memory arriving first as nausea—the old terror of waking to choices made for his body while he was gone.
A clay mug steamed on the nightstand beside dried figs and flatbread. Mistpetals lay scattered near it, their white leaves jeweled with dew. At the table’s edge, a small painted pot held a cluster of squat desert cacti, their spineless crowns swollen with stored sap.
Jassyn pushed himself upright, arms shaking under his weight, his Well scraped almost dry. The room lurched sideways. He caught himself with one palm braced against the mattress as the sandstone walls spun, then slowly steadied.
Framed against the night sky, Lykor stood at the open balcony door, so still he could’ve been carved from the same stones as the city.
Jassyn’s grip loosened on the sheets. Lykor had been there when the world went dark, and the memory of arms catching him in open sky quieted the old terror enough for him to recognize the evidence of care.
Arms crossed, Lykor stared across the desert, gilded by twin crescent moons hanging low. Only the tension across his shoulders betrayed that he’d heard Jassyn move.
Jassyn’s voice rasped, barely forming the words. “How long?”
A muscle twitched in Lykor’s cheek, his attention riveted beyond the balcony. “Twelve hours.”
Twelve hours was long enough for the battle to have ended without him, long enough for the dead to have become a number someone else already knew.
“What happened? Who’s alive? Is the Aetherveil—”
“Still floating. Mostly.” Lykor’s shoulder pressed into the doorframe, the small surrender exposing the fatigue his stillness had hidden. “A handful of islands fell. Kaedryn pulled the wounded to the upper chain. Vesryn has the rangers flying the perimeter.”
The report met the ragged edge of Jassyn’s memory. Veyrix flying away at Rimeclaw’s flank. Blossom’s power reaching into the sky. The razorwing swarm. Open air dropping beneath him. The hard line of Lykor’s jaw under Jassyn’s palm.
Then nothing.
“The army at the river?” Jassyn asked. “Blossom?”
“Gone. Fenn said the elves opened portals, and every last human vanished through them.”
Lykor hesitated for the first time since Jassyn started questioning him before adding, “They took Blossom.”
An ache settled in Jassyn’s ribs, deeper than exhaustion could explain.
“They withdrew?” He swung his legs over the side of the mattress.
“Galaeryn got what he came for.” Lykor was already crossing the room, pressing the mug into Jassyn’s hands before he could refuse it. His palms stayed on the cup until Jassyn’s trembling fingers closed around it, their hands overlapping for a moment until Lykor let go.
“He had the numbers to end us,” Jassyn said. “Why leave any of us alive?”
Lykor stood close enough that his shadow reached across the bed.
“Because we didn’t cost him anything. We threw everything at him and didn’t leave a mark that mattered.
He has every dragon he needs for the Aelfyn, whatever remains of Centarya’s magus, the northern shamans, and a human army large enough to drown the continent.
” His expression hardened. “Whatever he’s planning, finishing us off wasn’t worth the detour. ”
The battle rearranged itself around that truth, every decision sharpening against the cruelty of hindsight.
The tea scalded Jassyn’s tongue as he sipped it, but he swallowed through the burn.
“He sent the army into the Aetherveil instead of searching for Veyrix himself. But sunfire lit the sky and showed him exactly where the dragon was.”
“And then he came to claim him personally,” Lykor finished.
Steam curled over Jassyn’s hands and vanished. “How many did we lose?”
Lykor’s mouth tightened. “I don’t know.”
Beyond Lykor, the familiar walls rose, arched windows Jassyn had stood under weeks ago when this city had still pretended to be a sanctuary. “Centarya?”
“No sign of them. I swept the palace and flew over the city.” His claw flexed against his thigh. “But I had to leave you here alone for ten minutes.”
Jassyn suspected Lykor could’ve accounted for every one.
“Aesar all but forced me back to the Aetherveil once you stabilized.” Lykor’s lip curled. “Said I didn’t get to carry you out and walk away without knowing if the others survived. Fenn briefed me. I brought Koln and his squad back to keep an eye on the palace.”
“Why here?”
Lykor crossed to the open-air balcony, turning his back on the question. Silence lengthened until Jassyn thought he would leave it unanswered.
“You needed rest. Asharyn has the only real comforts we’ve ever found.” He stared at the desert glowing under the dying moons. “And I didn’t know if we’d see another dawn in the Aetherveil.”
Jassyn shook his head. “I shouldn’t be comfortable in a palace while Kaedryn is keeping the wounded alive and Vesryn is holding a perimeter with whoever we have left.”
“You collapsed midair.” Lykor turned, his gaze flaring. “Your eyes were bleeding. Whatever that coercion cost you, your body paid the debt before you hit the ground.”
His attention dropped to Jassyn’s bare feet, then caught on the faint quiver of the mug between his hands. When his gaze returned to Jassyn’s face, he tipped his chin toward the room.
“You want to lead them? Show me you can cross the chamber without falling.”
Jassyn set the cup on the nightstand.
Then he stood.
His knees wavered before his weight fully settled, the stone floor releasing the day’s trapped heat into the soles of his feet. He crossed the room on legs claimed by exhaustion, each step forced forward by pride.
Lykor stayed where he was, but Jassyn knew one stumble would have him warping across the room before Jassyn hit the floor. He stopped close enough to see what the long vigil had left behind, fatigue bruising the skin under Lykor’s eyes.
“Satisfied?”
Lykor faced the gardens below without answering.
“We could go.” The words came so low that Jassyn barely heard them. “We could forget the war. The dragons. Whatever Galaeryn is planning.” Lykor stayed turned, his shoulders a rigid line against the stars. “I can keep you alive. Not forever. But longer than going back will.”
Jassyn’s breath stalled somewhere in his chest.
In all the time he’d known Lykor—through battlefields, impossible stands, and every ruin they’d mistaken for a road—retreat had always meant drawing another blade, finding another angle from which to strike.
Lykor had never spoken of a life without the fight. Now he was offering Jassyn one beyond its reach.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t.” Lykor still didn’t look at him. “I’ve watched you bleed for the realms since the day we met. I’m telling you there’s a door.” His voice roughened. “And I’m willing to walk through it with you.”
“And the wraith?” The challenge sharpened before Jassyn could stop it, honed by the part of him that couldn’t consider escape without counting who it would leave behind.
“Our friends? Kaedryn’s druids? Cinderax and the Tidecrasher hatchlings you claimed as your own?
Everyone who followed us this far because we promised them a world worth surviving?
” Jassyn stared at the side of his face.
“What about Aesar? Have you even asked him what he wants?”
Lykor pivoted and snatched the front of Jassyn’s nightshirt, yanking him close. Linen bunched in his fingers, the grip shaking with all the force he hadn’t put into his voice.
“None of it matters if you’re dead.”
Jassyn didn’t pull away. Lykor’s knuckles pressed hard against his sternum, frost spreading over his fist.
For one unguarded moment, Jassyn let himself see where Lykor’s door led.
A desert with no war darkening the horizon.
Lykor’s wings cutting thermals over an ocean neither of them had mapped.
Mornings measured by sunlight instead of casualty reports.
Sleeping past dawn while every life continued without needing his hands.
Lykor’s weight beside him in a bed that belonged to them, not borrowed from a city they’d already lost once.
Wanting it hurt.
“You know we can’t.” Jassyn’s voice came out hoarse. His hand closed over Lykor’s fist, holding him there even as he refused what Lykor offered. “We can’t buy our freedom with everyone else’s.”
Lykor went utterly still, the glow of his eyes burning into Jassyn’s face.
“You told me you were fighting for a world where loving me didn’t feel like building something you knew would collapse.
” Jassyn shook his head. “If we run, it collapses anyway. Maybe slowly enough that we could pretend the walls were holding.” His fingers tightened over Lykor’s.
“But every day I’d know we abandoned everyone who trusted us to fight. ”
The glow in Lykor’s eyes dimmed. His fist loosened under Jassyn’s hand, releasing the fabric until his palm settled over Jassyn’s heartbeat.
“Then we go back.” Weariness roughened Lykor’s voice. “And decide what comes next.”