Chapter 60 #2
Lykor scoffed. “No, you don’t.”
Jassyn let him have the final word. The topmost dispatch caught his attention anyway. His unfinished letter to Centarya waited there, addressed to whatever authority claimed the island.
“Don’t.” Lykor’s claw came down over the page, talons splaying until the letter vanished. “It’ll still be waiting tomorrow.”
Jassyn pushed away from the table. “Then let’s get out of here. I want to see where Blossom is.”
Lykor studied him, distrustful of surrender in any form. Then he stepped aside and gestured toward a narrow archway leading to an outer balcony.
“Your manners are improving,” Jassyn said as he passed.
“I’ve been making an effort.”
“Threatening a guildmaster hardly qualifies.”
“He kept his tongue.”
Jassyn shook his head and stepped through the arch onto a balcony curving around the trunk.
They climbed the spiral higher above the city.
Below, people from every corner of the world moved along tiers of platforms and bridges, half-lit by illumination drifting between the boughs.
Dwellings occupied every level, from hollows in roots to high terraces cradled in the canopy—a living city raised through ruins the jungle had swallowed centuries ago. A place people trusted enough to sleep.
Moonflowers opened along the railings as Jassyn and Lykor passed, their dewy centers spilling luminescence over braided vines.
Jassyn skimmed his fingers along the wood, and the earth pulsed back, warm beneath his touch.
Lykor scanned balconies, sentries, open arches, portal platforms, every shadow that could hide a blade.
He stayed half a step behind Jassyn, close enough to catch him, strike first, or shove him behind cover if the night turned hostile.
The trees dropped away through layers of leaves, and somewhere above, birds traded calls in the dusk. A warble answered from the east, from land that had lain silent for centuries beneath the frost.
Globes of Essence shone among the lower branches, circling a squad of wraith as they patrolled the city.
“They’re keeping the talents on hand?” Jassyn asked.
Lykor followed his gaze. “Most chose to stay wraith, but they wanted the abilities within reach.”
“And the king’s power?” Jassyn asked, his attention settling on the orbs glowing below. After Galaeryn fell, Jassyn had watched stolen talents scatter across the night in thousands of streaks, vanishing beyond the lake and into the dark. “How much do the scouts think remains unaccounted for?”
“Enough to be a problem.”
Jassyn glanced at him. “That’s not a report.”
“The council is adjourned.”
“Lykor.”
“Fine.” He released a long-suffering breath through his nose. “I thought most of it would’ve fallen around the Drowned Spires, but the rangers already found talents as far as the Crackling Maw.”
Jassyn’s stomach pitched. “Then power could be spread anywhere.”
“Aesar believes so,” Lykor muttered. “We’re collecting what we can before Kyansari’s scavengers start picking through their king’s remains.”
Jassyn drew quiet at Aesar’s name, the danger of scattered Essence receding under another concern.
Since the battle, Lykor had hardly left his side. Aesar remained somewhere behind his eyes, surfacing in the pauses before Lykor answered, in turns of thought too measured to belong to Lykor alone. Jassyn couldn’t remember the last time Aesar had stepped fully into the world.
The absence had begun to trouble him, but he’d address that soon enough.
Lykor glanced over, seeming to catch that the conversation had moved deeper than unclaimed Essence. His eyes lingered on Jassyn for a moment, the set of his mouth tightening as they climbed the final curve of the trunk in silence.
The stairs broadened, opening into a high platform woven through the crown of the great tree. Beyond it, the jungle rolled to every horizon, its canopy rippling like an ocean of leaves. No white scar of the Hibernal Wastes broke the landscape, the old boundary buried in green.
Jassyn crossed to the railing and flared his dragonsight.
Distance sharpened as twilight peeled back in layers. Roots gripped newly thawed earth, sap climbed young trunks, and life moved under leaves where frost had held the soil barren for centuries.
Beyond the range of ordinary sight, Blossom strode through the restored wilds, immense in the falling dusk. Viridian light coursed through her scales and sank into the earth with every step. Trees rose in her wake, growth returning in waves where frozen barrens had once divided east from west.
“She’s making faster progress putting the world back into place than your council,” Lykor muttered. “She does know not to turn every realm into a jungle, right?”
Jassyn huffed a laugh. “She knows. She communicated that the northern reaches will remain frozen. The ice belongs there for balance.”
Lykor’s jaw tightened, his focus slipping past Blossom’s distant glow toward the north, where night had already claimed the horizon.
Jassyn knew where his thoughts had gone.
Rimeclaw.
The Tidecrasher had vanished, leaving neither trail nor word nor parting riddle. Jassyn could hardly blame him if he meant to remain unfound. Even open sky could become another cage if Rimeclaw spent his freedom being searched for across the realms.
Jassyn watched the northern dark a moment longer. “I’ve been meaning to give you something.”
Lykor’s gaze cut back to him, suspicion arriving before anything else.
“But only if you want it.” Jassyn turned his hand upward and reached into his Well.
Turquoise light rose from his skin, faint at first, then brightening in a slow spiral. He coaxed the talent from his chest, gathering it into an orb above his palm.
Lykor went wraith-still, all the usual violence in him narrowing into calculation.
“You can keep it outside of your Well as your warriors do,” Jassyn said, “so you don’t have to transform unless you choose to use it.”
Lykor’s gaze flicked from the talent to Jassyn’s face. “Why would I need illusion?”
“I’m not entirely certain this will work,” Jassyn admitted. “But I’ve been thinking…” He stared at the orb shining between them. “If you had illusion, perhaps you and Aesar could both be present.”
Lykor’s eyes flared, curiosity sharper now.
“It would take power to hold a second form,” Jassyn said carefully. “Constantly, I suspect. I can’t promise the range or stability, but I know your Well could sustain the attempt.”
Lykor said nothing. His claw hung loose at his side, his attention fixed on the talent.
Jassyn stepped closer. “Aesar could sit at the council table while you stand guard. He could advise me openly instead of filtering every thought through you.” Amusement tugged at Jassyn’s mouth despite himself. “Your patience wasn’t made to endure trade disputes.”
Lykor’s lip curled away from a fang, almost a warning.
Jassyn continued before the growl could brew. “And when Aesar is out, perhaps you could have a form beside him too.”
His pulse beat hard at the base of his throat as he endured Lykor’s stare. The orb rippled, turquoise light glancing off the sharp planes of Lykor’s face and softening none of them.
“You’ve hardly left my side since the battle,” Jassyn said.
Lykor scowled. “Because you’re a walking target with no regard for self-preservation.”
“Maybe.” The humor faded from Jassyn’s voice. “But it’s not fair to Aesar. I don’t want protection that costs him.” He extended the talent further, offering again. “I think you both deserve a place in what we’re rebuilding.”
Lykor stared at him a long moment before lifting his claw, his talons hovering close enough for the glow to paint his knuckles.
At last, his fingers closed around the talent.
Turquoise light spilled through his fist, brightening the scars along his skin before he sent it drifting around his shoulders in a slow orbit.
“We’ll…” Lykor’s jaw worked. “We’ll attempt it later.”
Jassyn nodded. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Lykor’s eyes suddenly flashed. “And if this makes council meetings more unbearable, you’re taking it back.”
Jassyn smiled this time. “I expected nothing less.”
For a while, they watched Blossom work into the deepening twilight.
Then the wind changed.
Lykor turned first, his head snapping toward the west, gaze cutting through the last ribbon of dusk.
Serenna and Fenn flew beside Vesryn, Sharyne strapped to his chest in a sling.
Lykor growled under his breath. “Glad that lot took their time gallivanting along the scenic route.”
Jassyn reached beside him and found Lykor’s palm. Lykor’s claw closed around his hand, rough and warm, turquoise light wheeling around his shoulders.
Tomorrow, duty would return.
But tonight, familiar wings beat closer through the twilight. Lykor’s fingers held his, and for once, Jassyn wanted nothing from the moment except to remain inside it.