Page 229 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Serenna’s brows rose. “You…milked a pocket goat?”

“It’s not as easy as it sounds,” Fenn mumbled. “Especially with Lykor glaring over your shoulder.”

Serenna laughed again, and for the first time all morning, the tightness in her chest loosened. Then the basin caught her reflection and the sound died.

She recognized every exhausted line of the face staring back, yet the silver eyes still belonged to a stranger. As she touched her cheek, some worried part of her expected it to feel colder.

Just eye color, she told herself.

Just like Sharyne’s held only bright outrage, not the ancient depth Serenna feared she’d find there. She was simply a baby who screamed at cotton and milk and the indignity of being alive.

Serenna was only tired.

She nearly believed the lie.

But each night in the Drowned Spires chipped away a little more of her certainty. The crystal walls reflected too much light, splintering every reflection until the bedchamber crowded with watchful versions of herself. When lake wind wound through the corridors, the walls hissed with whispers.

Twice now in their tower, Serenna had woken barefoot at the window with Vesryn beside her, both of them staring up at the stars until the darkness between those distant lights seemed to beckon.

Both times, Fenn had marched them back to bed before either could argue, muttering that standing upright was no way to slumber.

Serenna lowered her hand from her cheek and turned away from the basin.

Fenn was watching her, concern flaring in his eyes. Bound against his chest, Sharyne had finally surrendered, her lashes fluttering with impending sleep.

“I’m tired.” Serenna glanced toward the crystal walls. “It’s this place.”

The words landed weakly between them, but Fenn let them pass. For now. He’d seen Vesryn drift into that same strange distance, and Serenna knew he’d only wait so long before making them face it together.

Fenn thumbed one of his piercings. “Just as well we won’t spend another night here. Your princeling sent word.”

Serenna frowned. “He did?”

“Twice. Just now.” Fenn shifted Sharyne higher against his chest. “Insistent, for him.”

Heat crept up Serenna’s neck. She’d been so lost in her own thoughts that both sendings had slipped past her notice.

Fenn studied her a moment longer before lifting a claw, a portal unfurling beside them. “Skylash is growing restless.”

He stepped through with her, and morning sun struck Serenna hard enough to sting her eyes.

She blinked against the brightness until the hillside sharpened, the lake glinting below. Along its muddy shore, the battlefield lay nearly empty, reduced to trampled grass, broken earth, and blackened scars burned deep into the ground.

The last of the human soldiers waited in dwindling lines to be returned with Saundyl to Vaelyn. Scattered tents listed half-submerged, the lake already creeping in to claim what the living had left behind. Farther out, the Drowned Spires rose from the water in glinting crystalline spears, beautiful enough to make the memory of what had happened above them feel stolen from another life.

At the crest of the hill, Skylash and Veyrix waited.

Skylash tracked two rangers circling overhead on their dracovae. Her injured wing pressed tight to her flank, though she’d already hissed that she required no more healing from their “wretched starlight.”

Veyrix loomed beside her, white eyes bright and clear, his head lowered toward Vesryn, who stood before him.

Four Stormstrike hatchlings tumbled through the grass close by, amethyst wings flaring as they chased one another through sprays of sparks. One launched itself at another’s neck. A second tripped over its own talons, screeching as it rolled halfway down the slope. The smallest had its jaws clamped around Veyrix’s tail, shaking its head from side to side.

Skylash snapped her fangs together.

All four hatchlings froze. One still hung upside down, wing talons hooked in its sibling’s jaws.

Veyrix’s low rumble stirred the grass, and Vesryn nodded as he listened.