Leafy tendrils erupted through throats, splitting skin like overripe fruit. Elves toppled forward, choking on gurgled screams that bubbled through gaping mouths. Fingers shredded eyes, desperate to purge the parasitic infestation bursting toobscene life. Lichens branched rapidly in necrotic lines, crawling across cheeks and throats, rotting flesh into putrid pulp.
The stench hit next. Death, taking root. It slammed into Lykor like a fist, colliding with his gut. His stomach churned at the sourness of decay, yet…the revulsion never came.
He couldn’t tear his gaze away. The glowing spores, beautiful as starlight, twisted into something monstrous. Something so insidiously creative. A deadly elegance.
Lykor felt outside of himself, unmoored and floating, his stupid eyes latched onto Jassyn. Seeing him in a different light. The elf moved with unsettling precision. But there was grace, too—an art in the way he painted death with his fingertips.
Lykor’s knuckles tightened around the glaives dangling uselessly at his sides, his pulse hammering loud enough to shatter thought. A foreign heat simmered in his chest. He strangled the traitorous surge of his blood—the way it roared when Jassyn turned, amber eyes blazing.
Impressed or not, it didn’t matter. Jassyn was a weapon. An asset, just as Aesar had claimed.
Essence thundered at Lykor’s side.
He blinked, instincts snapping back just in time. Whipping his glaive up, steel squealed against steel as he intercepted a sword that had nearly split his idiotic skull. The impact jolted through his arms, teeth grinding together from the force of the blow.
Snarling, Lykor shoved the brazen elf back.
Shadows converged and erupted into a spray of blood and bone. Lykor whirled, hunting for the source of the rending.
And then he saw it.
The elves were fighting each other.
Blades and magic clashed as ally turned into foe, the Essence-wielders tearing each other apart. Before Lykor could even comprehend what was happening, the elves startedopening portals. The attackers bolted for the rifts, their retreat a blur of white armor.
Mind stalling, Lykor stood frozen, stunned and disoriented as the fight disintegrated before his eyes, the army unraveling. A few dozen elves remained behind, but they stood down, sheathing weapons before their magic winked out.
Silence settled around the bodies littering the cavern floor—twisted, broken, most overgrown with fungal blooms. Lykor nudged one fallen warrior with his boot. A puff of glowing lichen stirred, exposing pieces of brain with mushrooms clinging to the folds.
The surreal haze cracked, and loss hit him like a blow. The Heart of Stars was gone—ripped from his grasp. Its absence hollowed him out, an ache so deep that it carved into his bones. He’d failed. Delivered the relic that was meant to be their salvation straight into the king’s hands. There was no telling what Galaeryn could do with it, what he could twist out of the dragons if he found the slumbering beasts first.
Tearing away from the ruin of his thoughts, Lykor crossed his arms, glaring at the lingering elves. When he turned to demand an explanation, he found Jassyn hunched with a small female standing at his side. Hands braced on his knees, his shoulders shuddered with each ragged breath.
Slowly, Jassyn straightened, passing murmured words to the elf. He blew out a sigh, dragging his fingers through his curls before finding Lykor.
“This is Nelya,” he said, nodding to the female. “And this…” He paused, the faintest glow of pride showing before he gestured to the other elves. “This is our ring of rebel magus.”
CHAPTER 22
SERENNA
“You don’t remember?” Serenna’s voice wavered as she wiped her tears and untangled herself from her friend.
Jassyn had warned her that Velinya was one of the former initiates transformed into a wraith, but the reality hadn’t settled until Velinya had warped across the clearing, colliding into her arms in a crushing embrace.
Velinya, nearly unrecognizable, shook her head, a black curl slipping free from her braid. “I remember the attack on Centarya and then…” Her crimson eyes glowed softly, unfocusing. “Then I woke up in the dracovae stables.”
She cleared her throat and leaned over the apple cart Serenna had been unloading. Her claws hovered, nicking the fruit before she dropped the apples clumsily into the basket at their feet.
Under Mara’s direction, most of the camp’s occupants were processing supplies. Gentle sunlight filtered into the glade through the surrounding canopy, the perfume of blooming flowers hanging sweet in the air.
“Forgetting is a mercy,” Velinya whispered, her expression vacant as she stared at portals opening across the clearing. “All Iknow is that I feel…empty without my magic. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do now.” Her eyes landed on Serenna before she shrugged. “Survive, I guess. Like everyone else.”
Survive.The word hung between them, thick as the jungle air.
With the fortress fallen, survival was the only thread left to grasp. Serenna didn’t need Aesar’s tally to know the cost of their escape—blood had been the currency, countless lives spent like coin.
The previous evening, Vesryn’s rangers and their dracovae had limped into the jungle, their ranks cleaved in half. But they’d managed to evacuate nearly a hundred turned wraith like Velinya. Jassyn and Nelya’s magus were a surprising addition, but their numbers barely reached a few dozen.
