Page 152 of The Reckoning of Starlight

“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.

CHAPTER 42

SERENNA

Serenna flew over the Aetherveil, leading their flight forces with Vesryn and Fenn at her sides. The scattered isles fell away as they climbed toward the crown island, its heights lost in clouds. Bare spires narrowed to jagged teeth of stone, then vanished altogether, leaving only wind and the burn in her lungs.

Behind them, the cold morning sky thundered with wings.

Zaeryn held the rangers in formation, their dracovae laboring where the air thinned. Kaedryn flew beside Cinderax at the head of the druids and wraith, obsidian scales flashing in the golden tide of dawn. Daeryn’s surviving loyalists brought up the rear, their new wings less certain at this height. The children of earth and starlight threaded through the gaps, bending crosscurrents before they could fracture the column.

Nearly seventy Starshards glinted among their forces, pried from traps on the lower islands, inherited through generations of druids, or carried back by Lykor from the Falling Star Crater. Only those with ancestral gems remained bound by blood—Serenna had forbidden new wielders from taking up the practice until they understood it, denying the enemy another body to turn against them.

Across the column, clusters of five practiced joining their magic as they flew. Each exchange struck Serenna’s awareness like a match in the dark, prismatic light leaping from gem to gem as the wielders passed the current.