Page 159 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Vesryn hadn’t stopped. Sunfire streamed from the Heart into Veyrix’s prison while the battle collapsed around them. Starlight leaked in bright seams between the prince’s plated scales, burning outward from within.

His knees buckled, wings spasming behind him. Serenna and Fenn rushed to his sides, taking his weight while he forced the blaze deeper.

Skylash struck Rimeclaw again.

Lightning raked across the Tidecrasher’s spine in a scream of violet light, and the dragon thrashed under the charge. Galaeryn’s stillness broke, one hand dropping half an inch as his head turned.

Rimeclaw stirred.

Lykor felt a pulse of awareness move through the frozen dark, faint enough to die between one breath and the next.

“The stars scream. Make them stop.”

Rimeclaw had once begged Lykor to end him. Lykor had refused, fool enough to believe he could still break the dragon’s chains. The king had made Rimeclaw pay for that belief ever since.

The leash snapped taut, and Rimeclaw vanished into silence.

Veyrix roared, lurching forward. Crystal and ice burst from his flanks as he tore free from his prison.

Wheeling above the island, Skylash’s head whipped toward him. Her dive toward Rimeclaw faltered.

A heartbeat was all it cost.

But by the time she faced Rimeclaw again, he’d wheeled to meet her, a blizzard already gathering behind his fangs.

Lykor’s own frost withered, brittle and shallow beside the pressure mounting in the dragon’s maw. Every trace of moisture crystallized with the shriek of breaking glass.

Skylash streaked to meet Rimeclaw head-on, violet lightning wreathing every scale.

She was faster. She’d always been faster.

But inevitability lived in the slow beat of Rimeclaw’s wings.

Ice erupted from his jaws and struck her charge. Lightning drowned in the torrent, sparks dying along her scales. Skylash’s wings fought through one last stroke as frost locked over them.

Veyrix saw her fall.

His wings flared to their full span, blotting out the sky. Wind bowed under the vast membranes as he crouched, claws gouging trenches into the island. One ruinous downstroke shattered the ice beneath his talons and flung him over the rim.

He tucked into the dive, streaking for Skylash. Wind streamed from his wings and raced ahead of him, coiling around her frozen body. Her roll slowed, the rigid span of her wings tilting toward level.

A massive portal cleaved the sky around Rimeclaw, broad enough to swallow his wings. The other end of the rift flared open between Veyrix and Skylash.

Rimeclaw surged through, frost already seething behind his fangs. Ice thundered from his jaws and struck Veyrix’s gale, crystallizing into a white barricade. Veyrix wrenched one wing high and carved past its edge, frost splintering across his scales, but the wind around Skylash shattered.

She plunged through the island chain at a slant, Rimeclaw’s frost binding every joint into one unyielding shape.

Veyrix’s bellow stripped the wind from the sky. He charged toward the king, vengeance hammering through every wingbeat.

Mouth curving, Galaeryn steered Rimeclaw into Veyrix’s charge.

Jassyn tore the Heart of Stars from his leathers, grip tightening until his knuckles blanched. His gaze swept over Vesryn, Serenna, and Fenn before he thrust the relic into Vesryn’s palms.

“The king is focused on Veyrix. If you can get close enough to Rimeclaw…”

Vesryn swayed, sunfire fading from his scales, but Serenna and Fenn steadied him. His fingers closed around the Heart, radiance burning through the gaps. At his feet, the relic that had freed Veyrix lay in broken shards.

“We’ll reach him,” Serenna said.