Page 111 of The Reckoning of Starlight

She cast her senses wide, listening for a Starshard’s shriek and watching for a shadow of something worse.

Wind curled beneath her wings as hundreds of floating isles hung at staggered heights, ruined towers rising from them like stony thorns. Narrow bridges wound between the larger masses, the abandoned remains of a druid city strewn through the clouds.

Vesryn pointed at Starshards embedded in the island roots as they flew past, but none of them broke course to claim them. They coasted onward, riding currents woven between the isles.

At first, their pattern barely brushed Serenna’s awareness. But when she reached through her connection to the earth, rivers of air ignited behind her eyes, braiding through the Aetherveil in paths invisible to ordinary sight.

“I think the druids shaped the wind for flight,” Serenna said, tracing a current only she could see.

Vesryn squinted as he drifted to her side. “Does it lead anywhere?”

Serenna studied the lattice of roads crisscrossing through the air. One by one, they bent upward, joining a single ascending route.

Far above, nearly lost to cloud and light, an island floated over the Aetherveil. It rose higher than she’d ever flown—even astride Naru with the prince. Wind churned below its tapered base in a vast funnel, drawing every channel toward it.

Fenn followed her gaze. “Where else would they chain him but where the sky runs out?”

“We don’t know what’s waiting above. We should—”

“Warp us closer,” Vesryn said to Fenn.

Fenn looped around to face Vesryn. “Didn’t quite catch that, princeling. Was that a request?”

Vesryn’s nostrils flared. “You heard me. It saves us the climb.”

Amusement kindled in Fenn’s eyes as he extended a claw. “Then by all means.”

One wing swept wide for Serenna. She angled into it, clasped his forearm, and braced against his side.

Vesryn held himself beyond Fenn’s reach. His gaze dropped to the sliver of space at Fenn’s other side, and his jaw locked.

Fenn let his offered palm fall. “Suit yourself. Since portals are too risky around the Starshards, we’ll get a head start.”

Vesryn snarled and lunged. His hand closed around Fenn’s wrist, and Fenn cackled as he warped.

The world cinched shut. Pressure punched the breath from Serenna’s lungs as the jump wrenched them upward.

They burst back into open sky with a crack that jarred her teeth, wings snapping wide as they scattered below the island. Its underside eclipsed the sky, vast enough to dwarf Centarya itself.

Something unseen sliced across Serenna’s cheek. She hissed and reached up, blood slicking her fingertips.

Vesryn cursed and twisted midair, searching behind himself. A thin cut opened along the shaved side of his head, blood welling bright against his scalp.

The wind moved wrong.

Blade-thin currents writhed through the sky, invisible until they bent the light. One grazed Fenn’s arm. He warped aside, but a black seam opened across his skin before scales plated over it.

The false winds Skylash had warned of.

Serenna folded one wing and spun, breath hitching as another sliver of sharpened air sheared past her shoulder.

Her connection to the earth drew the hidden currents into focus, each one a faint distortion in the light. But Vesryn and Fenn flew blind with no way to see them.

“Behind you!”

One strand clipped Fenn’s ear.

“Needle gales,” he growled, fingers finding blood at the point. “They’re skewering us.”