Page 169 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Narrow. Slick. Choked with sludge.

But passable.

They came through, shivering and stumbling. Hauling one another across exposed rock while the river hammered at the passage.

Saundyl’s sapphire eyes never left him.

Lykor held the river open and hated him for it.

Rimeclaw’s power tore through him, strength he’d need when the army crossed. Strength meant for killing. He spent it anyway, holding back the river for people he’d looked at minutes ago and judged too useless for war.

“Strange amount of effort for the useless ones.”

Lykor ground his molars until his jaw ached.

Upstream, another island struck the river hard enough to roll the impact through his boots.

Then another.

Blossom’s roots and vines burrowed into the broken earth and hauled the wreckage into line. Island by island, the bridge widened, each new ruin consuming another stretch of open water. Soon, the army would march shoulder to shoulder in a broad front.

Saundyl reached the shore drenched and shaking, his son crushed against his chest. He passed the infant to his wife, then took a place at Lykor’s side and faced the army across the river.

Water streamed from his clothes. Mud dulled the gold at his throat. But he lifted his chin the same way his sister did, with that insufferable defiance.

Saundyl raised one trembling hand. Water peeled from the survivors gathered along the shore, drawing free of hair and clothes before spilling into the muck at their feet.

Good. Now they could all die dry when the first blade found them.

Aesar huffed. “Like Essence won’t reach us first.”

Lykor rolled his eyes.

Skylash hauled herself upright. Her hind legs carved trenches through the sodden earth while her wing talons gouged the bank for purchase. For one precarious instant, she wrestled her weight underneath her.

Then her damaged wing crumpled.

She crashed back into the mud with a snarl that scattered sparks across the shore.

Lykor stared at her. Grounded. Wounded. But still perhaps the most dangerous thing on their side.

Lykor pinned his attention to the southern bank. “When that army crosses, everyone standing here—”

Blossom ripped another island from the sky, roots streaming behind it like torn veins. It struck beside the other isles and punched a geyser of riverwater upward.

Saundyl kept his gaze on the army. “We know.”

Two words. Lykor wanted to hit him for making idiocy sound like conviction.

“Took you long enough to grow a spine.” He tore the ring of keys from his armor and hurled it into Saundyl’s chest. “Do something useful. Get those tethers off.”

Saundyl caught the keys and crossed immediately to his wife. His fingers shook against the mud-caked gold at her throat until the key caught and the lock gave. The tether dropped into the muck.

Lykor ripped open a portal to the abandoned Everfrost Caverns, because apparently one stupid mercy deserved another. He jerked his chin toward the rift.

“Go.”

Those without collars stumbled through first. The wounded followed, limping and bleeding, shoulders wedged under arms while the stronger dragged what remained of the weaker toward safety. Saundyl returned to Lykor’s side as his wife crossed the shore.