Page 48 of The Reckoning of Starlight

The reavers and magus were no longer the worst the training rings could throw at them. Sometimes their Starshards changed hands, and Serenna and Fenn were pitted against each other—fire and storm turned loose in a cage, made to clash while others pulled the strings.

It wasn’t her. And it wasn’t Fenn. But her power obeyed every time, lightning ripping from her palms before she could clench them shut.

Afterward, all she wanted was to reach for him. But she never could. By night, her hands shook from the day’s damage, every tremor remembering his fire, her lightning, and the distance neither of them was permitted to close.

“You’ve been summoned,” Taryn clipped.

Serenna stared, the word taking a moment to make sense. “Summoned…where?”

“General Elashor requires you in Ayla’s chambers.”

The Infirmary contracted around her. Even the training ring sounded safer. “Elashor is here?”

Taryn’s lip curled as she hauled Serenna to her feet. “Don’t keep the general waiting. Fly to Ayla’s balcony. Go inside. When he’s finished with you, return to the training rings.” She lifted Fenn’s Starshard a fraction, and Fenn’s wings snapped out. “And don’t make me fetch you.”

The threat still hung in the air as Taryn shouldered past Serenna, weaving between the rows of cots before shoving through the Infirmary’s doors.

Fenn followed slower. But as he passed, his fingers brushed hers.

Brief. Barely there.

Then gone.

Serenna forced her legs into motion. Sunlight struck hard as she stepped outside, Taryn and Fenn already angling toward the practice rings.

She measured the distance without thinking, from the Infirmary to the Spire’s crown.

The Starshard’s reach had followed her through training rings, the dining hall, and half the campus. Far enough, perhaps, to lay its claim anywhere in Centarya. A balcony, a roof, or some blind corner behind a building would only buy her a different place to be caught.

Escape lived beyond the island.

The impulse to run flared, wild and reckless, but Serenna crushed it as she launched into the air. She wouldn’t leave Fenn behind.

And Taryn would be watching. Two days had taught her what disobedience cost. If she fled and failed, Fenn would be dragged before her, and Taryn would force Serenna’s lightning to detonate through his body until escape became another wound with her name on it.

So Serenna angled toward the Spire and flew.

The last time she’d seen Elashor, she’d still been an initiate, still mistaking Centarya’s walls for protection instead of the first outline of a prison.

She dredged up their last conversation, and it came back sour in her thoughts. Elashor had held Jassyn’s freedom just beyond reach, a promise meant to bend Serenna into compliance. Her body. Jassyn’s bloodline. A child Elashor meant to claim through her.

Serenna’s wings faltered, and the sky lurched. Her stomach dropped before she caught the next current and forced herself steady, circling wide around the waterfall spilling from the portal above. Spray needled cold across her membranes as she passed, the cascade roaring behind her as she landed on Ayla’s balcony.

Instinct fired, and Serenna shifted without waiting for permission. Her wings folded and vanished, and the relief that followed—the simple proof that her body had obeyed her—unlatched the breath trapped behind her ribs.

Then she stepped through the glass door and dread locked it there again.

Elashor stood at Ayla’s lacquered desk, rifling through her parchments with the casual trespass of a male who’d never asked before taking.

But it wasn’t the general who stopped Serenna in her tracks.

It was Jassyn.

His wings were shifted, but no trace of Cinderax’s maroon remained. Viridian shimmered through the membranes now, another dragon’s gift rooted in him.

Or forced there.

He stood across the room with his hands loose at his sides, scales stippling his forehead in the shape of a flower, his expression empty.