“There’s no clear record of what they could do,” Vesryn said, fingers flexing around hers. “We only have the scraps Kaedryn’s ancestors passed down. But these…” His jaw drew tight as his gaze swept over the corpses and the gems they clutched like brittle stars. “I have to believe they’re inert now without a life force—or something else—to anchor them.”
A breath slipped free from Serenna’s lungs, ragged but more steady than before. Relief drifted through her, enough to let her loosen her grip on the prince’s hand and stand straighter.
Until Vesryn spoke again.
“We should gather the shards,” he said, voice even but too quiet. “There may be more chambers below.”
The silence pressed close once more, heavier than before. And Serenna feared that somewhere, deeper in the earth, more dead were still waiting to be answered.
CHAPTER 10
JASSYN
Jassyn stepped out of Lykor’s portal and onto a ledge deep in the Dreadspire Range. The air seethed with menace, static threading through his curls.
Beyond the precipice, peaks rippled outward, surrounding the hollow bowl of the Crackling Maw. Each cliff rose sharper and higher, stones frozen in waves, straining toward the storm’s open jaws.
When the rift winked shut, Jassyn’s gut registered the drop before his mind. Altitude clawed at him, cold fingers raking his ribs. Lightning veined the sky in silence, each strike pulsing in time with his heart.
Nausea surged, but he clenched his jaw and forced himself onward. One step. Then another toward Lykor’s next portal, as if moving faster might keep fear from catching up.
They crossed ridge after ridge, each void spilling them onto narrower stone, footing fraying beneath their boots, the air thinning until breath itself cut. Lightning drew nearer with every leap, no longer watching from above but prowling just beyond.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jassyn felt Lykor tracking the way his steps staggered. He didn’t speak or try to explain because words would’ve split open the bitter truth.
So he let silence stretch. Somehow being seen like this was worse than naming the weakness. Yet with a clarity that left no refuge, Jassyn knew that if he fell, Lykor would catch him. And the thought peeled him open in ways the drop never could.
The next rift carried them onto a ledge that sheared into emptiness. Below lay a vast lake, a mirror to the storm. Like a starless night, its dark surface swallowed light—the Blackreach, he’d heard the rangers name it.
“Is this close enough?” Lykor asked, boots grinding against stone. “We should be near the threshold.”
The threshold. That invisible edge where lightning chose to lash down, hunting from the sky. Jassyn had seen what flying too close could cost—he’d mended the scorch marks branded into Zaeryn’s dracovae.
He exhaled and nodded, arms crossing tight as if pressure alone could cage the tremor in his ribs. Wind shrieked across the peaks as the sky fractured with lightning, every soundless flash skittering Jassyn’s pulse. The horizon spun, but he locked his gaze on the storm, studying how the lightning coiled and writhed yet didn’t strike.
But his focus slipped sideways.
Lykor stood too close.
Close enough that pine and leather drifted through the wind, scorched cedar curling through the cold. Whatever lived between restraint and ruin sank into Jassyn’s senses, breathing against his skin.
Jassyn wrenched his attention back toward the flickering veil of storm. Steadying his palm, he extended his hand and awareness outward, andreached.
A single bolt of lightning snapped down from the clouds. In the breath between heartbeats, Jassyn caught it.
Sparks coiled through his fingers, arcing across his skin in static threads. He twisted his wrists, spooling the chargebetween his palms. The energy shifted before every surge. Yet something in the frenzy tugged at him wrong, a rhythm just out of reach.
“There’s a…pattern,” Jassyn said slowly, winding the charge tighter. “The lightning feels…honed. Like it’s searching for something.”
Violet light caught in Lykor’s eyes. “Like offensive magic?”
“Maybe,” Jassyn said with a nod, turning his palms outward and letting the charge go. The lightning hissed, spiraling upward as it vanished into the clouds.
His hairs lifted, a shiver tracing along his spine as the air bent with purpose.Toomuch purpose. As if not belonging to the storm alone, but the mountains themselves.
Scanning the range around the Blackreach, one peak rose above the rest. Taller and broader than others, its summit leveled flat, black stone flashing with every strike. Clouds funneled and churned around that single point, pressure boiling to burst.
And from that wound, the lightning bled.
