The armory air pressed in close, stale with oil and worn steel. Asharyn’s wind clawed through the open windows, dry and choked with dust and distant shouts. Outside, wraith, druids, and rangers fell into ranks as Bhreena barked orders. Perhaps forty in all. The best they had, and yet too many boots. Too much noise. Too much risk. But Aesar was right—no one knew what horrors waited in the mountains, what shape Galaeryn’s torments might’ve taken over the years.
Lykor knew the bowels of those dungeons better than anyone, having endured two decades rotting there with the wraith while the realms forgot them. He remembered the stone answering his screams, the silence fraying his mind.
But the only way forward was to portal back in. Better him than Jassyn trying to fulfill the agreement with Daeryn’s people himself.
As much as Lykor loathed to admit it, they needed Daeryn. And that Bhreena too. Their aid might spread like contagion, bringing others into their fight, peeling soldiers from the king’s clutches one by one until the tide turned.
Kal’s voice cut through the murk of his thoughts. “You sure about this?” Then more carefully he added, “Is Aesar?”
Lykor’s teeth locked as Aesar cinched a strap on their vambrace. “We’re going.”
Kal stepped closer, breathing into his space. “That place didn’t break you. It brokehim.”
Their fingers stilled over the final buckle.
“And if you walk back in there,” Kal pressed, “you’re dragging him with you. Whether he’s ready or not.”
Aesar’s grip on the leather faltered, tension rippling down their spine. Lykor seized control, crushing the flinch before it could rise.
“He’ll be safe,” Lykor hissed, rounding on Kal. “I can lock him so deep in our mind he won’t even remember he exists.”
“Don’t,”Aesar whispered, the single word landing sharp.“Let me do this with you. You’re not the only one who wants vengeance.”
“THE SECOND YOUR LEGS TWITCH TO RUN, I’LL WALL YOU OFF. YOU WON’T EVEN HEAR YOUR OWN THOUGHTS.”
“I won’t break again,”Aesar said, voice quieter but bolstered.“You made sure we survived. Don’t take this from me.”
A low breath eased through Lykor’s lungs as he rolled his shoulders, testing the distribution of steel across his body. Then he shoved past Kal and slammed his palm against the heavy door, forcing it open.
Heat struck like a furnace. Asharyn’s dry breeze swept grit into his lungs, whipping through the streets where ranks gathered before the palace walls.
Vesryn was already waiting, arms folded, gaze fixed on the southern sky.
The direction Jassyn had flown.
Lykor halted beside him, snapping his fingers in front of the prince’s face.
Vesryn flinched, eyes jerking toward him.
“Are you ready?” Lykor demanded.
Vesryn’s jaw tightened. “I’m fine.”
“That’s…” Lykor scowled, the word trailing off. “That’s not what I asked.”
He studied Vesryn’s absurd hair, shaved on one side and braided over his ear on the other. Half the rangers and even a few of the wraith had taken up the cut, wearing it as if the prince’s style had become their banner.
A snide remark rose to Lykor’s tongue, but the sight—paraded as a symbol—stripped the words from his throat. Symbols had teeth. Carried weight. Vesryn’s defiance, worn now by others. And Jassyn, who’d become a living emblem of a rebellion Lykor had never believed could endure, was what he found himself beginning to hope for.
Lykor hated himself for asking the next question, but he needed to know. “Do you still sense them?”
Vesryn shook his head slowly. “They tethered themselves this morning. It’s the first time I’ve felt alone in my own head since…” His voice thinned, eyes flicking to Lykor before he forced out the rest. “They’re alive. I’d know otherwise. Even muted like this, I’d know if something happened.”
Lykor flexed his claw as a cold pressure coiled beneath his sternum. Delving his awareness into his chest, he seized thecurrent coursing there. Frost surged over his knuckles until ice hardened into a gauntlet that hissed against the desert heat.
If Jassyn fell, Vesryn might feel the severance first.
But Lykor’s heart would be the one to stop.
