He would never steal Lykor’s choice. Not even to save him.
Jassyn’s gaze drifted past Lykor’s shoulder, already knowing the truth. That none of them had trained enough for what waited inside the Maw. The storm could kill them. Or Skylash might.
But readiness was a luxury the doomed didn’t get to bargain for. If he could spare Lykor from that fate, he’d carve the logic however he had to.
He couldn’t tell Lykor the truth—that he wasn’t afraid to die, only to watch Lykor die for him first.
So Jassyn gave the only reason he could.
“If you fall beside me, there’s no one left to save the others.” He swallowed, the words razoring up his throat. “You know what it means to be the reason others survive.”
Lykor’s jaw flexed. He stepped in, chest brushing Jassyn’s, wind whipping hair around his face. “I don’t care about anyone else,” he growled, eyes igniting. “If you’re hurt—”
Jassyn didn’t let him finish.
Trembling, his hands rose, uncertain for a single heartbeat before cupping Lykor’s jaw. He swept his thumbs over the sharp planes of his cheeks, holding him still.
Then he kissed him.
Not to sway him or to steal surrender from his mouth. But because the seams were already splitting, and one more word from Lykor would tear him open and take the decision from him.
The wind rushed around them, the world beyond blurring to nothing. A hundred eyes might have been watching. It didn’t matter.
Lykor seized Jassyn’s armor and kissed him back like the choice could be rewritten through sheer force. Like if he just held him hard enough, Jassyn would break and let him follow.
The cruelty was that Jassynwantedto have Lykor beside him when the world split open. In the sky. In the storm.
But wanting wouldn’t save the realm. Leadership demanded more—necessity over desire, command honed into sacrifice. This duty gutted him, the obedience he’d stolen instead of earned.
He needed Lykor guarding Asharyn, even if that simple truth offered no comfort. Sending him away still felt like betrayal. Yet that was the cost.
So Jassyn didn’t take it back.
Wrecked and reluctant, Lykor’s lips grazed his one last time before he stepped away.
“I’m not forgiving you for this,” Lykor breathed.
“I know,” Jassyn whispered, every word a thread unraveling from his chest. “But you have to let me go.”
He didn’t say the rest.So I still have you to return to.
CHAPTER 31
SERENNA
Serenna flew toward the Cracking Maw’s highest mountain, its shattered summit bleeding lightning from the storm-gray clouds. Wind clawed at her wings, each stroke a battle against the sky’s unyielding wall.
The flight across the broken range had stretched on. As the air thinned, the battering currents had morphed from lift to resistance. Wingbeats growing heavy, Serenna gritted her teeth and flew through the burn, every muscle in her back throbbing.
Mist clung to her scales and armor, dampening her vision in a stinging haze. She blinked hard, sweeping her inner eyelids sideways to clear the blur.
Fenn and Jassyn held formation beside her—all of them tethered—their wings steady as they flew beneath the lightning. Ahead, Cinderax cleaved through the lower clouds, racing toward the monolith crowned in fury.
The Blackreach stretched wide below, a bottomless mirror waiting to swallow the world. Lightning reflected across its surface, but no thunder followed—only the hush of a storm holding its breath to strike.
They banked toward the towering mountain, its summit sheared flat like a broken fang. Serenna’s gaze caught on anunnatural sheen, a flawless disc of crystal spanning the plateau. Beneath the quartz-like surface, lightning pulsed through the faceted glass, an imprisoned storm.
A narrow ledge of stone ringed the crystal, barely wide enough to stand on. Cinderax dropped first, a flash of scale spiraling down. He landed in a whisper of claws, talons scraping as he slid to a halt.
