Page 126 of The Reckoning of Starlight

“But between the Starshards the druids preserved and those we’ve recovered,” Serenna said, “we still don’t have near enough to arm the whole alliance.”

“And you need Hearts if you mean to free your dragons.” Ayla eased back against the wall, careful of the child in her arms. “Convenient, then, that more of both lie in the same crater. But you’ll want to hurry. If the king opens his portal and brings the Aelfyn through—”

“What portal?” Serenna cut in.

Ayla’s mouth curved. She’d saved that truth for precisely this reaction.

“The gateway he means to tear open to the stars. Once the Aelfyn cross, whatever resistance you’ve built ends.”

Serenna scoffed. “Forgive me if I find this sudden generosity difficult to trust, but what is it costing us?”

Ayla sneered. “I offer it because if Galaeryn takes my daughter, she’ll be gone before she gets to exist.” Her arms tightened around the infant, knuckles whitening against the linen. “An Aelfyn will look out through her eyes, and she’ll never know her own name.”

Her gaze dropped to the child, chin trembling before she stopped it. “I’ll give you everything I know. But only while my daughter sleeps somewhere safe. Otherwise, I bite through my tongue and it all dies with me.” Command returned to her voice though she sat on a pallet on the floor. “So use what I’ve told you. And if you’re going to fall, make sure he falls with you.”

Serenna studied the hard set of her sister’s jaw, the wasted flesh, the collar lying heavy against jutting bones. Ayla’s grip on the child never loosened. She meant every word.

Gratitude rose before Serenna crushed it. Her sister would never earn her thanks.

Yet Ayla’s body was still failing. Birth had taken more than blood. Every inhale seemed to cost her strength she could no longer replace. Whatever answers she still carried would die with her.

“Do you need more to eat?” Serenna asked. “Mending? We have magus who could—”

“I’m fine.”

The linen under Ayla had darkened since Serenna entered, the stain widening through the cloth. “You’re still bleeding.”

Ayla said nothing. She adjusted her daughter higher against her chest, but the effort set her coughing again.

“Fine. Send someone,” she said when the fit released her. She glared toward the corridor where Fenn’s sisters waited. “And not one of your winged beasts with their salves and poultices. I’ll need Essence.”

Serenna glanced at Vesryn. He nodded, then jerked his chin at Fenn to follow. The two males left to fetch a magus, their footsteps fading down the stairs.

“What’s her name?” Serenna asked quietly.

Ayla’s jaw worked, but no answer came. She traced the infant’s cheek, the tenderness so foreign it looked borrowed.

“Sharyne,” she whispered at last. “It was Mishryn’s middle name.”

Serenna’s gaze lingered on the pale copper hair under Ayla’s bloodless hand. The sister who’d tormented her now curved around Sharyne as though the child were the only sacred thing left in the realms.

Serenna turned for the door. “She deserves better than what the king has planned.”

Ayla’s mouth twisted, though she didn’t look up. “So did we.”

CHAPTER 34

SERENNA

Two days. That was all Jassyn and the council had given everyone before they would raid the Falling Star Crater. Two days for Serenna, Vesryn, and Fenn to master how their Starshards had linked in Asharyn. If they failed, they’d be walking into a cursed mine, hoping desperation would save them.

Serenna wasn’t counting on hope.

Thin air scraped her lungs as she folded her wings after landing on a desolate island in the Aetherveil’s lower chain. Vesryn and Fenn touched down beside her on wind-polished stone. Sparse grass clung to cracks in the rock, the island no more than fifty paces across—a splinter of earth suspended in open sky.

On the horizon, rangers coasted upward, their dracovae’s feathery wings catching thermals as they climbed. Starshards still studded the higher islands, and the rangers were dismantling them alongside wraith and druids.

Serenna’s own gem hung against her chest on a chain, its rhythm pulsing like a heartbeat she’d trained herself to ignore.