He didn’t realize he’d gotten close enough to feel the heat of Lykor’s breath—anger grinding against something feral that wanted to drag him closer, not push him away.
Jassyn’s fingers scraped hard through his curls. “Did you evenlookat him?” he rasped, hating the way his voice shook. “Stars, he was hardly even a soldier!”
Lykor’s eyes flared like twin furnaces, igniting with the brutal certainty of someone who’d already chosen the cost and would never apologize for it.
“No one touches you,” Lykor growled, the falling rain turning to snow around him. “Not again. Their life is forfeit if they try.”
Not again.Jassyn’s chest heaved as the words hit a place he refused to look at directly. Lykor never named that wound, yet he fought the past like he meant to strangle it out of existence.
Jassyn’s voice frayed. “That’s not the war I’m leading.” He swallowed hard, fighting to stay anchored in the present. “You don’t get to choose who lives.”
Lykor moved before the last word left his mouth. He snatched the front of Jassyn’s armor and yanked him close. Their chests collided, breaths crashing together—hot, furious, tangled.
“When it’syou,” Lykor snarled, “I choose.”
Jassyn’s heart lurched like it meant to climb into Lykor’s grip despite the gore steaming on the stones. Heat throbbed through the leather where Lykor held him, shadows shivering along his arms. No longer striking outward but coiling close, restless and protective.
Jassyn’s breath hitched, some traitorous part of him recognizing safety even in Lykor’s fury. Stars help him, but he nearly leaned in. Instead, he shoved Lykor’s hand away before the moment could turn into something far more dangerous.
“I won’t watch you gamble your life trying to save every scorching enemy on this shore,” Lykor hissed, crowding back into his space.
Jassyn opened his mouth—to argue, to deny, to fling something sharp he didn’t truly mean—but movement flickered behind Lykor’s wings.
Three wraith warped past them, streaking to intercept a squad of Kyansari soldiers charging across the shore. Weapons bared, Essence whirled around the capital’s warriors.
Jassyn didn’t think.
He shoved Lykor aside—more strength than sense, more instinct than anything else—because he refused to watch anyone else die in front of him.
Not when he could stop it.
Jassyn flung out his hand. He dragged telepathy up from his Well until light burst behind his eyes. Essence surged from him in a torrent so abrupt his knees locked.
Magic raced down the shore, splintering into strands—two, then four, then eight—each one snapping outward in a frantic hunt for a mind to seize. He gritted his teeth and twisted the talent, honing it into something darker, a weapon he didn’t command so much as let slip its leash.
It shouldn’t have been that easy, and later he might confront how terrifying that ease truly was. But right now there was only the sickening simplicity of it, the way his magic lunged the instant he shaped it, eager with a hunger and will that felt too alive.
A tide of coercion slammed into place. Hooks buried into minds brittle from battle and exhaustion. Jassyn’s command detonated down every channel he’d forged, flooding ally and foe alike.
“STOP.”
The wraith froze, claws suspended in the air, fire dripping from talons until Jassyn forced the flames to gutter and die. The Kyansari soldiers halted with them before either side could collide, their eyes unfocusing the instant his magic struck.
Silence crashed down so suddenly that Jassyn’s ears rang. He could feel his pulse hammering against his skull, vision tunneling until white halos bled inward and he had to blink hard just to stay upright.
He’d stopped this sliver of the battle. Or he’d stepped onto a slope he wasn’t certain he knew how to climb back from.
Weapons stayed clenched in white-knuckle grips as Jassyn smothered their Essence with a thought. Those untouched by the magic stared at him too, studying him with a grim recognition of a power they’d never expected to see wielded on their side of the war.
And Lykor…
Fury carved harsh angles into his face, but beneath the taut shadows Jassyn caught the flash of fear. The betraying tremor ran down the curve of Lykor’s wings before he forced all emotion back behind discipline and rage.
The cords of coercion quivered in Jassyn’s hold as a burn raced through his veins. He didn’t know what horrified him more—how easily he’d wrenched control of their minds, or the dark thrill that coiled in his chest the moment he did.
Lykor’s voice scraped through the storm. “You’re bleeding.”
Jassyn lifted the back of his hand to his nose, smearing red across his knuckles.
