The dragon’s.
And the perilous silence between.
Patience steeped behind Rimeclaw’s eyes as his gaze climbed from Lykor’s wings to his face, as if measuring what kind of creature dared to ask. Something ancient flickered in that crystalline stare. Doubt, perhaps. Or the first ripple of belief, stirring beneath silt and time.
Jassyn stepped forward, not quite interrupting, but breaking the stillness. “Lykor isn’t abandoning fire for the sake of it,” he said softly, though each word rang with conviction. “He’s choosing what the world needs. Balance.” He lifted a hand, anda flame flared above his palm. Rain slicked his skin, but the fire held, burning stubbornly against the cold. “Doesn’t the earth deserve that?”
For a moment, Lykor forgot the dragon. The sight of Jassyn standing there—defending a choice he didn’t believe in—pierced straight through his guard. As the flame flickered, Jassyn’s eyes found his, and gratitude flared through the cracks in Lykor’s ribs before he could tamp it down.
Rimeclaw exhaled, snowfall billowing between them.
Lykor waited. The offer had been made. The price already set.
When the dragon spoke again, his words no longer carried the bite of frost.
“I would not mourn that tyrant’s fall,
Nor would some who answered his call.
Promised riches, but wrapped in chains—
Their whelps, their lines, their legacies wane.”
He paused, steam rising in silvery tendrils.
“The mortals behind me march in dread.
Not out of faith, but fear instead.
If you would bear my boon, then wield it for them—
Change their course before my wrath is loosed again.”
A chill traced down Lykor’s spine as he folded his wings shut. “How are we supposed tohelpthem? We’ve already been overwhelmed by their numbers once,” he said bitterly, recallingthe fall of his keep. “Why tell us this? Of those who would turn against the king?”
Rimeclaw stared through the frosted trees.“Because I cannot fight him as I am. But those who follow me are few—conduits of earth and stars sent ahead to clear the way for the human army. The tyrant cages what they cherish most. Twist that thread, and their loyalty will fray.”
“Their children,” Jassyn murmured, barely louder than the falling rain. He turned toward Lykor, water slipping from his curls. “Remember what Serenna’s brother said in Vaelyn? Elashor took children from those with shaman blood to force compliance—Saundyl’s son among them.”
Lykor’s jaw tightened as the memory of the beach crashed through him—the roar of plundered Essence too vast to contain, the corrupting pull of wanting more. And Jassyn—always Jassyn—dragging him back from the brink.
He tried to look away, but those amber eyes snared him. Unguarded. Unrelenting. Seeing too much.
Lykor forced himself to return his attention to Rimeclaw. “And if they attack us on sight? If we even manage to cut their leash, what then? What keeps them from sinking their teeth into the hand that freed them?”
“I cannot say,”Rimeclaw rumbled, frost swirling through the trees like retreating surf.“Freedom is a sky I’ll never see. But you ask what comes after? Once the tyrant bends my will, I’ll move as he commands. I’ll freeze the seas and drown every vale.”
He paused, breath steaming in great plumes.“Until someone grants me silence instead.”
Lykor met his gaze. “I stand by what I said. When this is over, I’ll see it done.”
Rimeclaw growled.“Then tread carefully. The sea remembers what fire devours.”His talons flexed, frost crackingbeneath them.“My regrets run deep. But if some fragment of my legacy must endure…then let it serve. Let my boon matter. Through you.”
Lykor inclined his head.
Rimeclaw drew a breath so vast it seemed to hollow the air itself. The jungle bent with it—ferns shivering, branches groaning beneath the pull.
Then, at last, the dragon exhaled a salt-laced mist. The vapor rolled toward Lykor, engulfing him whole.
