Scowling now, Lykor turned fully to him, no longer caring to keep his voice low. “And what if death is right for him?” Hiswords roughened, bitterness scraping up through his throat like rust. “What if enduring this”—he gestured toward the dragon—“this endless puppetry is worse?”
He leaned closer, unblinking, his stare a knife pressed to the truth. “You never thought about ending it?Beforethey finished grinding your will to dust?”
Regret struck the moment the words left him.
Heat seared across Jassyn’s face, his pupils constricting to draconic slits. When they fixed on Lykor, the amber flared hot enough to burn.
“You think Iwantedto live through that?” he hissed. “I swallowed poisons just to stay numb while they defiled me. Then smiled when they did.” His wing talons clacked, words spilling between clenched teeth. “Don’t act like suffering makes you unique. Some of us just learned how to survive differently.”
“Enough.”Rimeclaw’s chuff thundered through the clearing, a sound halfway between breath and avalanche.“Right. Wrong. You speak as if the world still bothers to choose between them.”He stamped a claw, snow pluming outward in a halo.“I grow weary of this.”
His massive bulk swung wide as he turned toward the trees, each trudging step blackening the moss beneath his talons. His sinuous, fin-crested tail followed, dragging through the ferns.
“To the lake I go.
I’ll wait beneath the surface.
When he calls, I’ll rise.
But until then…
Let the waters pretend I died.”
CHAPTER 19
LYKOR
Lykor watched Rimeclaw prowl away through the jungle, each heavy step pressing deep into the earth. Wood gone brittle from frost, trees groaned as the dragon moved, bark splintering.
Beside him, Jassyn said nothing, but the glance they exchanged struck like a flash of heat in the wintry air—a silent reprimand carrying more than words. Lykor could still feel the scorch of the question he’d hurled, that cruel demand about why Jassyn hadn’t chosen an ending of his own.
Whatever had passed between them hadn’t settled. Jassyn stood with wings braced, but his pupils relaxed back to round. Anger banked, not extinguished. Rain gathered in his curls, sliding along the sharp plane of his jaw.
Lykor didn’t expect forgiveness. Wouldn’t ask for it, even though some part of him still burned in its absence. Yet beneath the heat of their clash a colder feeling stirred, a painful knowing.
Maybe Jassyn didn’t see it yet, still tangled in mercy’s snare, mistaking compassion for salvation. But Lykor already knew what was at stake and the question wasn’t about mercy at all.
If they let Rimeclaw vanish now, they’d lose an edge. The kind forged in ice, not flame.
Letting the world fall away, he turned inward and slipped into the quiet space shared with Aesar. Pacing through his library, Aesar’s boots echoed through vaulted silence. He didn’t look up when Lykor appeared, simply halted mid-stride, the weight of understanding passing between them.
“It makes sense to try,”he said, meeting Lykor’s thought halfway.“We’re of one mind on this.”He flicked a hand toward the double doors, a gesture of consent and dismissal in one.“Focus on the dragon.”
The hush of the inner world dissolved as the jungle’s rain rushed back in, Rimeclaw’s massive form fading between the trees.
“You want to free him,” Lykor muttered. “Fine. But I’m not letting him vanish while there’s still an advantage buried under all that ruin—something he withheld from the king.”
Jassyn brushed damp curls from his lashes, eyes bright in the frosty mist as he met Lykor’s stare. He exhaled through his nose, the sound hovering between annoyance and reluctant acceptance. “If he withheld it from the king, what makes you think he’ll hand it to you?”
Lykor grunted, knowing Jassyn wouldn’t agree if he fully voiced the reason aloud. “Because I can offer him what Galaeryn never would.”
He flexed his wings, shaking water from the membranes as he studied the path Rimeclaw’s bulk had cleared through the jungle. “Could use someone watching my back,” he said, glancing at Jassyn. “If you’re ready to fly.”
A muscle feathered in Jassyn’s jaw before he dipped his head, pupils narrowing to slits for flight.
With a stroke so forceful it cracked, Lykor drove the air downward as the ground fell away. The cold snagged under his wings like a blow, spinning him half-sideways before he righted, muscles locking hard against the drag. The jungle tilted beneathhim, white and green blurring past as he angled for Rimeclaw’s trail.
Jassyn followed close, a rush of heat at his side, wings snapping wide with more grace but equal force. Their wingbeats skimmed only a few paces above the ground as they swept under the frozen canopy, ducking low branches and threading between trunks split by ice.
