Page 140 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Serenna dropped into a canyon below the Aetherveil’s chain of floating islands, solid ground finally firm under her boots once more. They’d stripped the Starshard from the last glider, and it soared toward the crown island, its body briefly gilded by the setting sun.

Serenna shifted, her wings disappearing as Fenn and Vesryn landed beside her.

High above, a waterfall spilled from the rim of a drifting island and plunged a thousand feet into a basin farther down the canyon floor. Reeds and grass crowded the basin’s edge, bowing in the mist. Sheer cliffs climbed around them, tiered by narrow ledges that vanished into shadows.

Sunset smoldered along the canyon rim. By now, the dracovae would be roosting on the upper isles. Zaeryn’s report had left Vesryn grim—the riders had failed to reach the peak where Veyrix might be chained. Gales vicious enough to strip feathers had driven the dracovae into the lower currents. At dawn, the rangers would climb on their own wings with the children of earth and starlight flying among them to bend the winds aside.

The day still clung to all three of them with the copper stink of blood and wet hide. Serenna’s tunic stuck to her ribs where one glider had thrashed against her hold. Vesryn had sealed the wounds in the gliders’ flesh with hurried mending before they released them, but each creature had fought. Blood banded his forearms, packed beneath Fenn’s talons, and glazed Serenna’s palms until every flex pulled at her skin.

She needed it gone.

“Here,” Vesryn said, leading them across the canyon floor toward the basin. He pushed through the reeds and rounded a shoulder of stone that broke the worst of the spray. A shallow pool lay cupped in the recess, fed by a narrow stream slipping down the canyon walls.

Vesryn peeled off his vambraces. Fire kindled in his palms before he plunged both hands under the water. The pool hissed around his wrists, steam unfurling in ribbons as it warmed.

Fenn’s claws slipped twice at the knot of his bootlace before he untied it. “File my fangs. One more minute with blood crusted under my talons and I’ll lose my mind.” He rolled his trousers to the knees, waded in, and crouched in the shallows to gouge the residue from beneath his claws. “Still cold.”

“Maybe the chill will spare us from seeing you strip,” Vesryn muttered, rinsing blood from his skin.

Fenn swept a hotter flame through the pool. “Curious that’s where your mind went.”

Vesryn’s nostrils flared, the water nearly boiling around his skin.

Serenna knelt beside him and thrust her hands into the water. She scrubbed until the blood on her nails loosened into rust-red threads and the gliders’ shrieks faded from her skull.

The prismatic current had gone dark between them, but its rhythm still beat in her chest. Fenn’s restlessness prowled along one bond, the hunt alive in every taut muscle. Vesryn’s satisfaction struck through the other—the Starshards claimed, every glider returned alive. Beneath it, the strain of his near-depleted Well dragged at Serenna’s awareness as his fingers trembled in the water.

“Let me.”

Vesryn held her gaze, then turned his wrist over and offered his palm.

She worked the dark crust from his knuckles, then followed the lines of his hand, rubbing warmth into fingers stiff from hours in the sky.

He stilled beneath her touch, his pulse beating hard against her thumb.

From the water, Fenn caught one of his lip rings between his teeth and watched her trace the lines of Vesryn’s hand, his stare nearly feeling indecent.

Vesryn’s fingers closed around hers. He lifted his head and pinned Fenn with a glare.

“We’ve been tangled in each other’s magics for hours,” Fenn said, his eyes molten in the failing light. “My body still thinks I’m inside both of yours.”

Vesryn’s hand twitched. “Do you have to say it like that?”

“Would you rather I whisper it, princeling?”

“You’re assuming this is going anywhere.”

Fenn’s grin sharpened. “No. I’m watching you decide whether it does.”

Serenna’s heart kicked against her ribs. Or maybe she was sensing Vesryn’s. He withdrew his hand from hers and scoured the clean skin between his knuckles until it flushed raw.

The waterfall thundered in the lull.

Serenna rose on unsteady legs and crossed beyond the reeds, sinking into grass softened by mist. The earth yielded, a mercy after spending the day in the punishing wind.

But she couldn’t relax, her heartbeat refusing to slow, awareness of Vesryn and Fenn thrumming through her with every breath. The Starshard at her throat hummed warm against her skin, as if it hadn’t yet accepted that they’d stopped channeling together.

Fenn warped from the shallows and lowered himself beside her, his thigh brushing hers. Vesryn joined her on the other side more slowly, his palm closing over her knee.