Page 104 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Its rising shriek vibrated through her skull as she tracked it toward the island’s underside, where rugged stone narrowed to a tapered point. There, embedded in the rock, the crystal flared to life.

Force erupted from the gem and ripped across their flight path.

Fenn warped back beside her. His arm locked around her waist, and space buckled, snatching the sky from her wings. They reappeared higher along the island’s edge as the blast sheared through the air below.

Vesryn didn’t dodge fast enough.

The blast struck him square in the chest. The impact ricocheted through the bond and stole the strength from Serenna’s next wingbeat. Vesryn’s membranes collapsed, his body folding around the blow as he dropped from the air.

He plummeted—spinning, limbs loose, wings trailing behind him. Below, open sky gaped all the way down to a world so distant it had gone green and featureless.

Before Serenna could fold into a dive—or Fenn could warp after him—Vesryn’s wings cracked open, wrenching him out of the fall.

He drove upward in a steep arc and drew level with them, glaring at the gem below. “I’m getting really tired of being attacked by Starshards.”

“A little caution might improve your odds,” Serenna muttered.

Vesryn scowled at her and yanked his own gem from beneath his leathers, its facets glinting in the sun.

Serenna’s attention dropped to the crystal at her throat, bracing for the prismatic light that had bound all three of them in Asharyn. But it remained dark. So did Fenn’s.

Ebon light burst from the Starshard in Vesryn’s fist and streaked downward, a vein of midnight distorting the daylight around it.

Serenna had seen that impossible darkness once before, inside a tree in the druid jungle, devouring every shred of Essence Vesryn had cast against it.

Now he drove the current into the embedded Starshard, black barbs hooking between its facets. Both gems screamed.

Essence ripped from the island’s shard in blazing ribbons and burned through the ebon light before Vesryn’s Starshard siphoned it. He flew around the tapered cone, draining the gem until the crystal dimmed and fell silent.

Then he lashed a cord of force around it and wrenched. Stone exploded from the island’s underside. The spent Starshard tore free and snapped into his palm.

He tucked it into his leathers and turned, already hunting for the next island. “How many Starshards do you think defend this chain?”

Serenna groaned.

Of course he wanted more. The gleam in his eyes had already sharpened into pursuit. They wouldn’t be leaving until he’d stripped the entire Aetherveil bare. He would argue that they needed every gem they could claim, and the worst of it was, he’d be right.

Before Serenna could even think about counting the islands, static lifted the hairs along her neck. Lightning stirred under her skin and tugged her awareness south, answering a storm that hadn’t been there a moment before.

She veered in a hard arc, a chill scraping over her wings. Along the southern horizon, a wall of clouds boiled in the sky, lightning fissuring in its depths.

Thunder reached them in a concussive blow, knocking Serenna’s wingbeats out of rhythm.

The cloudbank convulsed with flash after blinding flash, then ruptured.

Skylash burst into the open sky, amethyst wings cleaving vapor. Her roar shook mist loose from the islands as lightning crowned her skull and writhed along the length of her spine.

She lowered her head and flew straight at them.

Lightning forked from her jaws.

“Move!” Serenna shouted as the charge lashed in their direction.

She flung out a hand, seized the current before it struck, and wrenched it aside.

For one stunned instant, the betrayal landed faster than the strike. They had a bargain with the dragon, but Skylash fired anyway. The dragon’s violet gaze swept over Serenna while lightning gathered again behind her fangs.

Serenna twisted hard into a dive, wings burning with the turn. Another bolt chased her downward, splitting the air beside her, its heat scalding her membranes.