Walking beside him, Jassyn’s curls caught the sun, a black so deep they shimmered with a hint of blue. They’d grown longer these past few weeks, nearly brushing his jaw, tangling loose around his throat. Lykor remembered the feel of them, soft against his fingers when he’d pulled him close.
Jassyn turned, only slightly, but enough to catch him watching. Their eyes locked, and heat flushed through Lykor’s veins, hot and helpless.
He couldn’t pretend his body had forgotten that kiss. Not when the claws on his wings betrayed him, reaching toward Jassyn. Lykor clenched his jaw and nearly dispelled them out of spite, if only to erase evidence of the wanting.
“Do you feel different with Rimeclaw’s gift?” Jassyn asked, gaze drifting to the azure leather of Lykor’s wings.
“No,” he said automatically. Then paused, letting himself sense the change, the tidal pressure in his chest.
“But water feels…” Lykor exhaled through his nose, staring at the lake. “Still. Not burning like Cinderax’s flame. More like the world’s gone quiet.”
Feeling ridiculous for voicing it, he couldn’t meet Jassyn’s eyes.
They both kept their wings shifted—a quiet ritual of discipline, conditioning for strength and balance, keeping flight muscles accustomed to the weight.
Sun struck the membranes, kindling warmth through the tension in his shoulders. Even the talons at their tips unfurled in slow surrender to the heat.
Aesar snorted in his head.“You call the druids lizards, yet you might as well be basking like one.”
Lykor kept the eye roll to himself, scowling down the pier to the gathering people. “What do you think Bhreena will do first?” he muttered to Jassyn. “Draw a blade or shove fire down someone’s throat?”
Jassyn followed his gaze to where Daeryn and Bhreena angled toward the tent, their silhouettes stark against the sunlit lake.
“I can understand why she’s nervous,” Jassyn murmured. “They’ve abandoned the king. Now they’re surrounded by us and outnumbered. All they have are promises we haven’t proven we’ll keep. And if we fail to free their kin, that trust could die with those in the prisons.”
Lykor grunted. “Well, I don’ttrusther.”
He bit his tongue before the rest could slip out. Jassyn’s reasoning always sounded so scorching calm, as if peace were something to summon instead of bleed for.
And if that was true, then what the fuck was he, except a weapon no one reached for once the fighting stopped?
They passed a pair of younger druids. One dipped his head to Jassyn, tense and awkward, as if reverence and fear had tangled on the way down.
If Jassyn noticed, he gave no sign. A few quiet words passed between them—Jassyn asking after the druid’s wings, an injury from the canyon drills, Lykor assumed.
The exchange didn’t strike him, but the looks on their faces did. Awe, bright and unguarded, eyes glowing as if they’d just met a legend made flesh.
And they weren’t the first. He’d seen it again and again during their stay in Asharyn. Too many eyes turning toward Jassyn with that same dangerous faith.
He hated it.
Not because they respected Jassyn, or believed in him. Because it made Jassyn vulnerable. A target.
Lykor had already pulled Fenn aside the night before. Doubled the guard around Jassyn and Serenna. Set wraith to shadow Daeryn’s people the moment they stepped into the city. Precautions stacked like shields.
Yet if Daeryn shared what he knew—information that might split the king’s agenda wide open—they might still have a chance to strike Galaeryn first. But if Bhreena had any say, Lykor had no doubt the knowledge would come wrapped with hidden barbs.
Even so, they neededanyadvantage.
Whether he trusted Daeryn’s people or not.
They left the pair of druids behind, resuming the sandy trek toward the pier. Lykor tracked those gathering ahead. Jassyn hadn’t spoken a word about Daeryn since that male had looked him in the eye and called him sire.
Aesar’s voice curled in the back of Lykor’s mind.“You’re really not going to ask how he’s handling it?”
Lykor wanted to. But part of him refused to scrape at wounds that hadn’t even begun to close.“NOT MY BUSINESS.”
“Stars, just do it.”Aesar threw an arm over his eyes.“The world won’t end if you care, you know. Lie to yourself and call itstrategyif that helps.”
