Page 200 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Lykor sent frost racing ahead of every step, ice flashing under enemy boots and stealing purchase.

At the edge of their vision, a green tendril slipped past a fallen soldier. Aesar twisted back toward Blossom.

She remained crouched where they’d left her. Around her, vines spread over the crystal, winding between bodies as they reached.

Dread slid between Lykor’s ribs, colder than any frost he could summon. Galaeryn could already be looking through her eyes.

If Blossom snared him with the earth, she’d pin him to the crystal before he could warp. Lykor had learned what followed when fighting a Bramblemaw. Ice bursting harmlessly against her scales. Shadows vanishing into that armored hide. Then Kal, skewered through the chest with a vine, yanked toward waiting jaws.

Essence would buy Lykor nothing. Glaives, seconds. A wall of corpses, less. Once the earth wrapped around him, he’d be crushed between her fangs before he ever reached the hatchlings.

They needed to use every moment.

Aesar warped them beside the nearest Stormstrike. The hatchling thrashed against its bands of force, lightning snapping wild across its scales as it screeched. Lykor slashed rending through the restraints.

The Stormstrike tore free and scrambled against the bound dragons, sparks scattering from its wings.

Aesar whirled toward the soldier charging their flank. One glaive crashed against the descending sword a finger’s width from their ribs.

The impact rang down their arm.

A spear of force punched into their chest.

The blow hurled their body backward, boots sliding across crystal. Aesar’s grip on the glaives faltered. Pain bleached Lykor’s vision as Aesar reeled inward and Lykor surged forward.

They collided behind the eyes.

Their knees buckled, one arm jerking as they clashed for control. A glaive nearly slipped from their fingers as their shoulders wrenched one way and their hips another.

A root burst through the platform beside their feet.

Lykor slammed back into their body and caught their balance while Aesar released their legs and kept the blades moving.

Lykor drove a spike of frost through the next soldier. Ice burst outward from the wound, splitting flesh and armor in a storm of jagged shards. Aesar swept through the white eruption, one glaive scything through the back of another soldier’s knee and severing the leg in a spray of blood and shattered armor while Lykor slashed shadows through an Emberhart’s bindings.

The Emberhart shoved further into the huddle of hatchlings, fire spilling in frantic ribbons from its jaws.

Two freed.

The remaining three writhed in their restraints as soldiers closed in from every direction.

Aesar wheeled both glaives fast enough to blur the blades. A soldier lunged. Aesar sheared through his wrist, sword and severed hand skittering across the ground. He reversed the second glaive into the next soldier’s side, the blade punching him sideways. Steel rang through the crush while Lykor sent frost into every gap Aesar carved.

Aesar turned with the pressure of the soldiers, blades forcing the tightening circle back a step at a time. Lykor whipped out tendrils of shadows, striking the remaining restraints until blue light burst.

The hatchlings bolted.

Claws scrabbled over crystal, wings battering one another in panic. An Emberhart stumbled, a Stormstrike slamming into its side. A Tidecrasher slipped, nearly trampled by the tangle.

Lykor threw his awareness to the Everfrost Caverns and ripped the distance open.

Aesar kept the glaives whirling around the portal while Lykor lashed a pulse of force at the hatchlings. The blow caught all five in a single sweep and hurled them through the rift before they could scatter across the platform. When the final tail vanished, Lykor slammed the portal shut.

Five dragons the king wouldn’t claim tonight.

Frost crusted their armor, shedding in brittle flakes as the capital’s soldiers swarmed closer. Aesar swung both glaives through a vicious arc. Lykor poured Essence into the path the blades carved, a shield solidifying an instant before a volley of rending struck.

Lykor bared their fangs through the violet glare as fractures raced across the shield.