Page 130 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Fenn’s grin had vanished as he wheeled closer and closed the gap between them. “She’s right. The druids left them here as wardens. They’re doing exactly what they were made to do.”

Vesryn never looked away from the lead creature, emerald eyes narrowing to draconic slits. “So we fly in circles, let them live, and return with nothing?”

“We take the gems,” Serenna said. “Without harming them.”

“More dangerous,” Fenn murmured.

“I know.”

A downdraft buckled Vesryn’s membranes. He caught himself with a growl, gaze still fixed on the gliders. “We’ll try. But only if we’re all in. I can’t do this without you.” His attention shifted to Fenn. “Both of you.”

Fenn’s fangs flashed. “So we pluck Starshards from gliders while they devour the sky around us. In flight. While their gems attempt to detonate us.”

“Yes,” Vesryn said through his teeth.

Fenn cracked his knuckles, wings flaring wide. “Well, what are you waiting for, princeling?”

It was almost a plan.

The lead glider tipped forward. Its Starshard flared, a metallic whine rising from the gem.

Serenna tensed. She knew what came next—Essence erupting, the world breaking open around their bodies. Then only light, and the question of who would still be breathing when it faded.

“Vesryn.” The idea came together fast enough to frighten her. “Can you snare one with force and portal it far enough where the others can’t reach us?”

His gaze snapped to hers, sharpening as he followed. “How long can you hold the air around us once it starts devouring it?”

Serenna reached for the wind and drew a current around them. “Long enough.”

She turned to Fenn, pulse hammering at her throat. “You warp us out as soon as we grab one—wherever Vesryn opens a portal.”

Fenn nodded.

The keening of the Starshards climbed past hearing, piercing deep into her skull. Her vision blurred, pressure swelling behind her eyes until she thought they’d rupture.

“Now,” Vesryn ordered.

Force lashed from his palms and snared the lead glider. It bucked against the bindings, mouth splitting wider as it shrieked and thrashed.

A portal tore open by the creature. Vesryn flung it through as Fenn seized both their arms.

The world inverted.

They snapped back into the sky beyond the lower isles, the crown island reduced to a distant smear of stone and shadow above them.

The glider tumbled through the portal beside them, thrashing to reclaim its flight. Vesryn’s magic whipped out and caught it again. He reeled the creature against his chest, bands of force ratcheting tight.

The glider writhed against the bindings. The Starshard set into its skull flared brighter, pulsing with darkness as it fed on the prismatic current linking the three of them.

Its mouth gaped wide.

The air hissed, then vanished.

Serenna’s breath slammed short, her chest locking as it swallowed the sky. Beside her, Fenn’s wings strained against the collapsing air. She reached past the creature’s pull and dragged the distant wind toward them. A gale rushed in torn sheets, battering their wings and wrenching them out of the fall.

She hauled in one lungful of air. Then another.

The glider convulsed in Vesryn’s arms, its Starshard keening as the charge wound toward detonation. His force bindings bit deep across its broad body, and the pearly flesh under them split, dark fluid welling through the tears.