Page 236 of The Reckoning of Starlight

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.