Page 43 of The Reckoning of Starlight

He exhaled through his fangs.

Bhreena lifted her knee off the soldier’s spine. He sucked air through broken teeth as she wiped her knuckles across his torn tunic and rose.

“They’ll keep coming after us,” she said, voice scraped flat. “Loyal to the end. They would send my sister back to the prisons if Galaeryn ordered it. Every day we keep them alive is a day we’re not keeping our own people safe.”

“I’ll handle this,” Lykor said.

He didn’t tell her she was right.

Bhreena’s nostrils flared, but she stepped back, extinguishing Essence. Lykor’s shadows slid in where hers withdrew, pinning the three prisoners before any of them remembered how to move. She left without another scathing word, her fury quieter than it used to be.

Colder.

As she disappeared, Daeryn ducked through the doorway with a younger druid at his shoulder, a bruise darkening her throat. The girl’s wings trembled as her gaze darted to the prisoners, then away.

The soldier with the broken nose tracked the druid from the floor.

His smile spread slowly, a promise written in bloody teeth.

He’d be faster next time.

Citizens’ rations had been cut twice that week, and ten bodies loyal to Galaeryn were eating what Asharyn’s children would not. Tomorrow, Lykor’s wraith would deploy for Kyansari. Every fighter worth fearing would leave with them. These prisoners, tethered or not, would remain when the corridors emptied and the guards thinned.

Ten problems waiting to strike.

Lykor refused to hand Jassyn back a city that had eaten itself alive.

A lash of force cracked across the room, hooked the smiling soldier above his golden collar, and hauled him upright into Lykor’s waiting claw.

The smile died first.

Lykor closed his fingers around the soldier’s throat and drove into his Well.

The soldier screamed as Essence burst upward in a spiral of light. Bright globes tore free and spun above him while his body twisted into a wraith.

Then the shrieking stopped.

The room went still as spines locked. No one seemed to breathe. The remaining prisoners stared at him, each face realizing there were nine deaths left in the room.

Lykor moved to the next soldier still sprawled on the stone.

This one struggled in his shadows, fighting to stand. Ice punched into his sternum and drove him down. Lykor reached the Well before the male’s back hit stone, and talents spiraled upward to join the others.

The third had stirred awake but closed her eyes, mouth shaping a plea Lykor didn’t try to hear.

The fourth spat at his boots. Lykor didn’t pause.

By the sixth, the rest were clawing at the gold around their necks as stolen talents multiplied overhead.

Each prisoner the transformation left alive, he killed. Shadows across the throat. The same death he’d promised when Kaedryn asked what would happen to traitors.

No one was left to tell him to stop.

Dead soldiers needed no guards. No grain. No second chance to hurt a defenseless girl carrying their rations.

By the tenth, every breath scraped his throat. The room had gone from prison to graveyard, lit by stolen stars. Not enough power to win a war, but perhaps enough to buy someone a few more minutes when the king turned his gaze on Asharyn.

When he dropped the last wraith, Lykor found Vesryn waiting by the doorway, one shoulder against the frame, one boot kicked back against the stone. How long the prince had been there, Lykor couldn’t say.