Cinderax bared his fangs, but the snarl didn’t land. The leathery fringes on his crown fanned out, yet the heat in his gaze cooled, measured and smoldering.
“You still speak with fire for one touched by frost,”he said at last.“That alone makes you dangerous. Perhaps even worthy of a rekindled flame, should you ever come to regret the chill in your bones. But don’t mistake fire for favor.”
He paused, claws flexing and leaving shallow grooves in the sand.“I won’t trust a dragon unraveling at the seams—who let the stars brand his scales and watched the sky burn. He allowed himself to be used. And didn’t fight.”
Lykor had no words left. He wondered if Rimeclaw had stood the same way once—accused, and too tired to defend himself. The quiet cracked open around them, before Jassyn shifted his weight beside him.
“Rimeclaw isn’t mad,” Jassyn said. “He’s haunted. None of us can truly understand the shape his sorrow takes.”
He adjusted one of his bracers and something in Lykor pulled taut at the sight. That he still wore them.
“He begged to die because he knows he’ll be used again,” Jassyn finished softly.
Cinderax was silent for a long moment. His gaze drifted between them. First to Jassyn. Then to Lykor. Then back again.
“His regret won’t stop what’s coming.”A thread of steam curled from Cinderax’s nostrils.“Still…”he murmured, voice edged with something almost like amusement.“If the two of you keep standing like this—one righteous, one glowering, but side by side—then maybe what lies ahead isn’t hopeless after all.”
Cinderax glanced toward the tent, where they’d be among the last to arrive if they lingered any longer.“When the world fractures again,”he added,“fight like this. Back to back. Flame to frost. It may be the only thing that survives.”
With a flick of his tail and a rustle of wings, he launched into the air and glided down the pier.
CHAPTER 27
LYKOR
Lykor halted beneath the stretched canvas, the pier creaking faintly. Bleached bones—stripped clean by those flayers they’d met in Asharyn’s sandpit, no doubt—anchored the fabric to the dock’s corners, as if the dead themselves were holding this uneasy peace in place.
Whatever the druids had arranged here offered no comfort, only a ring of woven rugs and low cushions placed with unsettling symmetry across the weathered planks.
Thirteen representatives were gathering. Fourteen, if he counted Cinderax, who sat coiled next to Kaedryn with smoldering and unblinking eyes.
Wings dismissed, Jassyn had already taken a place beside Serenna, hands loose on his knees as he murmured something low to her.
Crossing his arms, Lykor lingered at the fringe, noting that the cushion beside Jassyn remained conspicuously unclaimed. He felt the press of eyes on him, measuring and waiting to see if he’d even sit at all.
But to sit might read as surrender. To stand too long, defiance.
“Stars, just take a seat,”Aesar muttered, materializing at his shoulder in that barely-there way only Lykor could see—insubstantial as a shadow but twice as irritating.
“WHY SHOULD I, WHEN YOU’RE GOING TO BE PACING?”Lykor snapped, shoulders twitching as he dispelled his wings.
Aesar arched a brow, already drifting across the pier.“Sit. Unless you want Zaeryn to claim the spot beside Jassyn again. Like the one you brooded over last night.”
Movement caught Lykor’s eye farther down the dock.
Zaeryn strode forward with Kal, every step landing with a confidence that demanded attention before she even spoke a word.
Snarling under his breath, Lykor crossed under the canvas and dropped onto the vacant cushion beside Jassyn. His knees protested the angle as he folded into the same posture, palms braced on his legs.
Across the pier, Kaedryn and the four other guildmasters—whose names Lykor hadn’t bothered to learn—sat partially shifted with wings tight against their spines.
Bhreena glared at everyone before leaning over to mutter something into Daeryn’s ear. His mouth thinned, a silent concession. Or a swallowed response. Lykor couldn’t tell.
This alliance was unity only in name. One cliff, different hands clinging, slick with doubt as the world began to crumble.
“We gather to share what we know,” Kaedryn began once everyone settled into place. “To name what we risk. And by nightfall, we will depart with one accord. Or not at all.”
Nightfall.
