Page 188 of The Reckoning of Starlight

The clasp broke open and Ayla shuddered.

Essence surged through her, sudden enough to press against Serenna’s skin. Serenna’s hand flew to Ayla’s Starshard in her leathers.

Galaeryn’s magic had wasted Ayla to bone, yet her power had suffered none of it. Essence crowded the chamber with the same terrible magnitude Serenna remembered from Centarya, and for an instant the dying female before her became inseparable from the one who’d once made Serenna flinch with a glance.

The first talent tore free, a globe of light ripping from Ayla’s chest. Another followed. Then another.

Serenna’s grip eased around the Starshard as she drew it from her leathers and laid it in Ayla’s palm.

Ashen gray spread from Ayla’s fingertips, swallowing the pallor of her hands as her nails darkened and lengthened into talons. It crept over her wasted arms and up the fragile column of her throat. What little softness remained in her face disappeared, leaving her cheekbones stark.

The Starshard brightened in her grasp as abilities vanished into it, a lifetime of power compacting into radiance at its core.

Black bled through her hair from root to tip. Ayla endured the transformation with her jaw locked and her eyes open, Sharyne held steady against her chest.

When the final talent wrenched free, Ayla shoved the gem back at Serenna.

Crimson eyes lifted.

The female who’d once sneered at half-breeds now wore the body of a wraith—a body she’d been taught to revile.

“Get out,” she hissed. “Your face isn’t the last thing I want to see.”

CHAPTER 49

SERENNA

Ayla died before nightfall.

Serenna used her Starshard and portaled Sharyne to the Everfrost Caverns herself, down into tunnels they’d abandoned after Bhreena betrayed them. Galaeryn knew where every refuge lay, but his attention was focused elsewhere. By now, every place left to them came with its own way to die.

Not all the civilians crowded on the islands across the Aetherveil could fly, and if the coming battle killed those who could open portals, the floating isles would become a prison in the sky. So the young, the old, the wounded, and those who’d never held a weapon filled the cold tunnels again.

Saundyl’s wife took Sharyne without question, settling the infant beside the son already tucked against her breast. Two tiny bodies rested among frightened civilians, everyone pretending stone could keep the end from finding them.

For now, Sharyne was as safe as anyone else.

If Serenna survived the night the moons went dark, she’d decide what came next.

By the time she returned to the Aetherveil, darkness had settled into an unnatural hush. Even the wind had abandoned the islands, leaving only the creak of ancient stone under two moons pared to silver hooks.

Beyond them, the blue spiral galaxy blazed in silence, its arms curled wide above a world with only two days left before the king’s portal opened.

Following the bonds, Serenna flew toward an island, where Fenn’s druid flame burned low and gold against the night.

She descended at the edge of the gathering, wings shifting back into skin as she crossed into the warmth. Cold still clung to her shoulders as she lowered herself beside Vesryn on a moss-soft ridge Jassyn had coaxed from the ground.

Vesryn adjusted the longsword across his lap to make room, his thigh pressing against hers. A loose strand of silver hair slipped over his shoulder toward the blade, and Serenna swept it behind the point of his ear, fingertips grazing skin before she withdrew.

The whetstone stopped.

Then he drew it down the steel again, slower this time, over an edge that had been sharp long before she’d arrived.

Next to Jassyn, the druids’ Starshards lay in a row, their reserves depleted from the battle. Essence spiraled from Jassyn’s fingers into a gem while his other palm opened to the sky, drawing threads of starlight to replenish his Well.

Serenna took a crystal and ignited Essence. Magic bled from her fingertips, pulse by measured pulse. Her Well dwindled with it, leaving a hollow beneath her ribs. Across the scattered islands, glimmers rose and faded as other survivors did the same.

On the other side of the fire, Fenn sat behind Koln, weaving dark hair with an ease that belonged to another life. Fenn talked steadily as his talons worked through the braid, and Serenna caught more rhythm than words, punctuated by a flash of fang whenever Koln grunted at whatever insult or endearment Fenn murmured.