Page 64 of The Reckoning of Starlight

The prince flinched, eyes slicing draconic. His whole body seized—spine snapping straight, head whipping south.

“Fenn’s untethered.” His brows drew tight. For the first time in days, uncertainty cut through the prince’s fury. “He’s on the move.”

“Jassyn could be with him.” Hope struck against Lykor’s ribs, but he crushed it before it could spread. “Saundyl sent all three to Elashor.” He seized Vesryn’s arm. “Where?”

“I don’t know. I can only sense…” Vesryn’s hands shook as he ripped open a portal. “I’ll have to jump blind. Follow the bond.”

“Then I’m coming with you.”

“No.” Vesryn was already half-gone, eyes unfocusing toward something Lykor couldn’t see. “Elashor could still be in the palace. You need to find him or the records. Otherwise, this is all for nothing.”

Lykor’s talons bit into Vesryn’s arm until blood slicked beneath them. Every instinct in him screamed to follow. To tear through whatever distance stood between him and Jassyn.

But Vesryn pulled free.

“Bring him back,” Lykor growled. It came out like a threat. He meant it as one.

Vesryn vanished and the rift sealed shut.

Lykor stood alone with the stolen power whirling around him.

The prince had the bond to chase. Lykor had the palace to search.

Elashor. The documents Saundyl had sworn would point to Jassyn—portal schedules and prisoner manifests, all the cowardly little signatures that moved bodies with orders and dressed abduction as procedure.

Lykor turned back into the palace.

An itch crawled between his shoulders, whispering that he wasn’t the only thing still breathing within these walls.

He stalked through the upper levels, kicking open doors, raking through chambers that had been sealed for decades. Council rooms clogged with dust. Maps curled on tables, ink bleeding deep into the grain. Private quarters stood untouched behind open doors, cups waiting on tables, beds unmade, wardrobes full—rooms preserved around absences the king had ordered.

Nothing useful remained. No Elashor. No ledgers. No manifests. No trace of authority left in these halls. If Saundyl had lied, Lykor would leave him alive just long enough to regret it.

Below, portals flared and snapped shut across the city, too many to count. Pure-bloods fleeing, if the raid still held. His wraith retreating, if it didn’t.

His warriors had done their part, cutting the capital by the throat. He should’ve descended into the city, hunted quarter by quarter, ripped answers from every pure-blood until one of them choked out Elashor’s location.

Instead, a pull came from Aesar’s silence. Muscle memory that didn’t belong to Lykor.

His boots found turns he’d never taken, fingers reaching for doors he’d never opened. The corridors gathered around him like a path walked ten thousand times by someone who wasn’t him.

He shoved through the double doors and the library opened before him, mosaic marble smooth under his boots. Aisles of books wound in deliberate rows, scrolls sealed in crystal casings. No dust gathered between the spines, preservation magic keeping pristine what no one had bothered to read in decades.

Here, Aesar had spent countless hours alone with the kingdom’s oldest lies. From his memories, Lykor recognized the worn dip in the marble in front of the western shelves. The table where Aesar had first read of dragons reduced from legend to resource, marked in the king’s hand for reclamation. The shelves where forgotten texts had assembled Galaeryn’s ambition one horror at a time.

Lykor let Aesar’s imprint guide him through the atrium until his feet stopped at a floor-to-ceiling window where Aesar would pace.

Lykor pressed his palm to the cool glass. Flames engulfed the city beyond it, and for a moment, Aesar’s old grief aligned with Lykor’s sight. A kingdom worth saving once. Before it rotted from the inside out.

A pulse of Essence split the air behind him.

Lykor’s spine seized before thought became motion. His beastblood cowered, then snarled awake.

Skin prickling, he turned, every hair lifting. Deep in the marrow, where Aesar had been silent for days, something flinched.

Still as marble, Galaeryn stood at the center of the atrium, a portal sealing shut behind him. His silver eyes glinted with the fires he’d let burn. Power rolled off him in waves, the weight of a thousand Wells crushed into a single star.

The stolen talents orbiting Lykor dimmed. Paltry. Laughable. Every scrap of Essence he’d stripped from nobles, guards, and councilors turned insignificant before the one who’d made him.