It never landed.
Jassyn shot his hand out, yanking the blaze mid-flight. It struck his palm with a hiss, heat slicing the rain before curling to smoke around his knuckles. Scales ripped up his arm, the shimmer of them cutting like molten glass.
His lip curled as the beastblood reared its head—furious, protective, feral. Power clawed at his ribs, a roar begging to be freed. It would be easy—too easy—to let the fire answer. To strike. To burn her to ash.
Lykor didn’t even blink. He held himself like a fortress as he had when lightning had carved its path down his spine, unyielding and utterly unmoved. As if fire itself weren’t worth acknowledgment.
Jassyn exhaled sharply through his nose. If Lykor could hold his silence, then Jassyn could drag his fury back into its cage. He drew in a breath, the air acrid with smoke, and wrestledback the surge of power before it answered for him—incinerating Bhreena on the spot.
The heat drained away, leaving only a tremor beneath his skin.
“Perhaps,” Jassyn said through his teeth, “we can find a way to help. If we work together, maybe we can retrieve your people from the prisons.”
“No.” Lykor’s answer was a low growl, final.
Their eyes locked, and Jassyn saw the war still burning there—alive in the restless twitch of Lykor’s wings, in the flex of their claws.
Lykor’s irises flared. “Returning is a death sentence.”
The last of Jassyn’s scales receded. He didn’t push, knowing even the mention of that place scraped too close to bone. He would never ask Lykor to descend back into that abyss again. He felt the line forming between them, but there were others who could go.
“Then why are we still talking?” Daeryn demanded, sharp now. “If we can’t free them, this ends here. You have nothing to offer us.”
Jassyn’s hands curled at his sides, the alliance slipping through his fingers. Only one promise could earn their trust, but to give it would mean speaking for lives that weren’t his to risk.
And even if he did, he wasn’t certain Asharyn could bear Daeryn’s numbers or survive the friction of so volatile a force. Or if he even had the right to offer these soldiers sanctuary at all.
But that was tomorrow’s fire.
He drew a breath. “We’ll go.”
Jassyn met Lykor’s eyes, an unspoken promise kindling between them—he wouldn’t drag Lykor back into that dark. He inclined his head to Vesryn and Fenn next, who both nodded, silent sentinels at his back.
“We don’t yet have the strength to topple Galaeryn,” Jassyn said, returning his attention to Daeryn. “But with your help we might just have enough hope to light the first spark.”
The quiet pooled like the rain before he spoke again. “I can’t offer certainty. Only a chance. We’ve endured the same tyranny and have been claimed by the same chains. We’ll bleed beside you to break them for others.”
Bhreena stepped closer before Daeryn could answer. “So you want us to stand against the king and risk everyone in those prisons to do it?”
Her words struck like a whip, but Jassyn didn’t retreat. He met her fury head-on. “You’ve seen that obedience buys you nothing.” His voice hardened. “Galaeryn has already murdered your own. What if the only way to save your families is to defy him? What if we stormed the prisons together and freed them?”
“I stand by what I said,” Lykor growled under his breath, wings rustling. “And we don’t have time for a rescue. Not for children. Elders. Those who’ve never held a blade. More mouths to feed. More lives we’ll be defending when Galaeryn comes forourheads.”
Jassyn folded his arms, angling toward him. He’d weathered Lykor’s storms before.
“You risked your life for a herd of goats,” he said quietly, low enough for only Lykor to hear. “So stop pretending you’re heartless and would let a child rot in those dungeons.”
Lykor’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Defiance flickered behind his eyes as he held Jassyn’s stare—long enough to make his irritation known—before scoffing and glancing away.
Jassyn waited until the echo of it faded, then found Daeryn still watching him. “We’re not offering salvation,” he admitted. “Only a chance to fight for what’s already yours.”
“Why would you help us?” Daeryn asked.
“Because Galaeryn is bringing war,” Jassyn answered. “But it doesn’t have to end in slaughter. Not if we can still choose and stop it before it begins.”
His gaze swept their ranks, reading the uncertainty etched into every face. “You’re not free. Not while the king harvests Essence from those like us. How many more must fall so he can chain every realm that breathes resistance?”
Bhreena lifted her chin. “And you want us to serveyourcause on the fringe of the wilderness? We don’t even know what you truly are now, only that you’re wanted by those who hold power.”
