Page 211 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Essence erased the world.

Radiance burned through Serenna’s vision and burrowed behind her eyes. Pressure followed, hurling her backward through the air. Her wings snapped wide as the joints wrenched, pain spearing down the flight muscles along her spine.

Vesryn caught her wrist before the recoil spun her from the sky, his alarm cutting sharp through the bond. On her other side, Fenn snatched Vasharax against his chest, halting the hatchling’s fall.

Serenna fought for air as her wings caught again, stroke by brutal stroke, while Vesryn and Fenn recovered with her.

On the platform Blossom had abandoned, fresh ranks of soldiers stood in rigid lines, armor flashing white in the blinding flood. Their formation parted the blaze into a corridor.

Someone walked through it.

Galaeryn.

Even a hundred paces away, Serenna recognized the king by that terrible gravity of his presence, by the way the battlefield bowed around him. He crossed the platform without haste, his outline burning bright with rivers of Essence.

The opening they’d spent the battle buying.

Serenna banked toward the platform, Vesryn and Fenn close at her sides, Vasharax now flapping between them. Below, druids and wraith swept over the army, fire and shadows tearing through formations while dracovae wheeled higher, radiant wings drawing volleys of arrows and Essence into the sky.

Across the lake, twenty cloaked Starshard circles held around the Drowned Spires, silent above the king and invisible so long as the cloaking held.

Serenna cleared the shore for open water, passing over Blossom as the dragon thundered after fleeing shamans. Farther out, Rimeclaw thrashed in a churn of spray, jaws gnashing against a tangle of vines.

Frost tore across the lake toward the Tidecrasher, sealing the waves into a road of ice. Lykor warped down the frozen span in bursts with Jassyn at his side, a Heart of Stars blazing in Jassyn’s fist.

Cinderax broke from the ranks of druid fliers and arrowed toward them, wingbeats quickening as he dropped.

The shoreline fell away behind Serenna as Lykor and Jassyn reached Rimeclaw.

Ahead, the first soldier on the platform collapsed.

As Galaeryn passed between the rows, knees buckled one after another, armor striking crystal as Essence tore from their chests in radiant globes. Fingers lengthened into claws, limbs contorting out of shape as the soldiers convulsed into wraith.

One light joined another in Galaeryn’s orbit. Then another. He never broke stride as the power of his own soldiers gathered around him in a crown of stolen stars.

One soldier crumpled across his path, limbs still jerking through the transformation. Galaeryn stepped over him without lowering his gaze.

Lightning raked across the horizon. The flashes stripped the darkness from the lake, exposing twenty circles around the Drowned Spires before their cloaking swallowed them again. But Galaeryn didn’t so much as glance upward.

Beyond the far shore, Skylash soared over the hills in a crippled spiral, one wing buckling before she wrenched it back open.

Veyrix streaked after her so fast the air cracked around him. The shockwave flattened the grass below him and shook loose stones down the slopes. His crystalline eyes never left the mate the king had turned into prey.

Another surge of Essence from the spires jolted through Serenna’s bones. She tore her attention back to the platform as it drew nearer.

At last, Galaeryn stood within reach of the circles that had waited through the battle to strike. Serenna closed her hand around the Starshard at her throat and hauled on the prismatic current racing through her, Vesryn, and Fenn.

“Now!”

Fenn’s fire pulsed outward, a red ring cutting across the sky. Vesryn’s flames chased after it, carrying the signal through smoke and starlight.

One by one, the hidden circles flickered into sight above the water. Essence leapt from palm to palm, gem to gem, until the air vibrated against Serenna’s teeth.

She beat her wings harder toward the platform, Vesryn and Fenn keeping pace, Vasharax tucked between them. Their circle pressed inward, and the others followed, tightening around the Drowned Spires in a radiant noose.

Essence kindled through the links. Within the circles carrying hatchlings, small jaws opened, spilling flame, lightning, and frost. The children of earth and starlight bent each elemental gift into the current until the gathered power stung Serenna’s eyes.

Their last advantage lay in power the king didn’t possess—sunfire woven with elemental magic his hands could neither shape nor summon. One strike, all together.