Page 63 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Lykor didn’t reach for Aesar’s memories of this place. Ripping through that mourning for directions would only split his focus. He let Vesryn lead as they passed through forgotten halls and crystal domes open to the star-swept sky.

He registered the corridors the way he registered any space that might turn lethal—exits, angles, distance to the next door. Marble pillars veined with captive Essence shuddered with a stolen pulse. Carpets muffled every step, thick enough to bury sound.

While his people had survived on roots and fungus, on hunted game in forests the realms had forgotten, the palace had fed until even its stone looked swollen with gluttony.

Patrols still moved in pairs through the halls, eyes empty. No threat. Only bodies in the way.

Vesryn bound them with shadows, and Lykor carved through their Wells, the plundered talents joining the rest. The rhythm of it came too easily. Snare. Drain. Discard. Whatever hit the marble after, dead or alive, didn’t matter.

Through the open windows, smoke began choking the skyline. Dark shapes flew between spires and towers, and somewhere below, screams echoed as glass shattered. Streaks of illumination pulsed above the rooftops, district alarms flaring one after another.

Inside the palace, no panic spilled through the polished halls. No commanders shouted orders. No hidden force raised Essence or arms. The soldiers continued obediently on their routes, seemingly unaware of the attack on the city.

“Stardust,” Vesryn muttered as another empty corridor stretched before them. “I watched this city die, poisoned by it.”

“Easier to rule when no one’s thinking.”

Lykor’s attention pinned on an archway ahead. The smell hit before the sight—braised meat and honeyed fruit, spiced wine steaming in a room that didn’t care if the city burned.

Inside it, crystal chandeliers hummed overhead, caged illumination trembling through each prism. Marble columns climbed toward skylights ribbed in white stone. Twelve nobles lounged around the feast, draped in silks and drunk on their own safety. A few blinked toward the entryway, the intrusion reaching them too late.

One male shoved back from his chair, shouting for guards.

Shadows exploded from Lykor and the prince, a black tide ripping through the chamber in every direction. The nobles’ Essence flickered in answer, thin and panicked, and extinguished just as fast.

Writhing shadows pinned all twelve before the wine stopped sloshing in their goblets.

Lykor and Vesryn moved down opposite sides of the table.

These were the jeweled leeches who’d grown fat while starving the realms. Who’d bartered Jassyn’s bloodline and called it governance.

“Elashor,” Lykor demanded, claw hovering over the nearest noble.

“N–not here,” the female gasped, eyes darting to the others. “But he has holdings in the new lands. I have influence, I can—”

Lykor drove his talons into her chest and seized the molten core of her Well. Her scream rang off the vaulted ceiling as he ripped power loose. Talents tore free, spiraling upward to join the growing constellation.

Across the table, Vesryn snarled, “Where is the general?”

One noble sagged against the rending, sobbing. Another hacked free of the shadows with her own, wrenching a portal open before her hips cleared the chair.

Lykor’s ice punched through her chest as she left the table.

The others just stared, stunned by the first true lesson of their lives. That their power could be stripped.

Lykor and the prince drained them one by one. After the fourth, the screams became part of the room.

Breath hissing between his fangs, Lykor turned from the toppled chairs and the feast growing cold beside the bodies. He strode to an outdoor balcony, stolen Essence circling him.

Below, the city burned.

Wraith flew low over streets on wings of fire, Essence erupting in bursts of shadow and force. Pure-bloods fled through alleys they’d never learned to fear, scattering before the monsters their kingdom had created.

Vesryn joined him, shadows still churning. “That was most of the council.”

“And we’re no closer to finding Elashor.” Lykor tracked the flames spreading over a bridge. “No trail to Jassyn. No whisper of the others.”

Vesryn studied the streets below, gripping the railing. His jaw tightened. “We should—”