Page 67 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Shadows detonated from Serenna’s hands—rending braided through Ayla’s force, the lash held in her sister’s grip.

The hatchlings took wing.

Her palms snapped left. A web of rending forked toward a cluster of dragons scrambling for height. Serenna threw herself against Ayla’s control from the inside.

Nothing yielded.

The hatchlings scattered. The strike sheared past them and slammed into the cavern wall above, stone exploding, grit and broken salt raining over their wings.

A sheet of fire scoured the chamber. Ayla yanked Serenna between herself and the flames, plating scales over Serenna’s skin.

The blaze slammed into her side. Serenna staggered, the world ringing white as burning heat scorched her armor.

Her hands were already rising before her vision cleared—fingers locked, rending coiling between them. The strike released before she could scream. It missed a hatchling by inches, skimming past its wings and gouging a trench into the wall.

Across the cavern, Fenn moved in the same wrong way—snare after snare of force tearing from his palms. An Emberhart hit the sand thrashing, magic cinching its wings tight as flames spat wildly between its fangs.

A reaver hauled it toward a portal. Fenn bared his teeth, but his hands never stopped, already forming the next binding.

Vasharax shrieked from somewhere in the smoke. Fenn lurched toward the sound, but Taryn’s fist tightened around his Starshard, hauling him back by his spine.

Ayla jerked Serenna to the side, a burst of Tidecrasher ice screaming past her ear before it splintered against a reaver’s chest behind her.

Above them, claws scraped stone at the lowest window. A Stormstrike forced itself through first, wings folding tight to clear the opening. A Tidecrasher followed. Then an Emberhart.

Three more.

Then eight.

Gone into the dark.

Ayla stopped chasing the dragons.

She hurled Serenna into the defenders instead. Across the chamber, Taryn did the same with Fenn, the two of them attacking their allies from opposite ends.

Fenn’s horror slammed into hers through the bond. Every strike against their own people rang between them, grief and fury crossing faster than blood could darken the sand.

A druid spun toward her, staff leveled, the Starshard at its tip shrieking with Essence. Then his eyes flared crimson as they found her face.

The staff dipped.

Serenna tried to scream a warning.

Ayla’s command locked her throat shut and snapped her hands open. Rending burst from Serenna’s fingertips as the druid lowered his arm.

He detonated in a spray of blood and bone before her memory could give him a name. Warmth spattered her cheek, and Ayla kept Serenna’s face turned toward the ruin she’d made of him.

A flash cut across the dust and smoke.

Fenn’s Starshard, glinting in Taryn’s fist.

Force shot from Fenn’s hands and hooked Vasharax out of the air. She crashed into him in a tangle of wings and flame, and his arms locked around her. Fire streamed from her jaws, breaking against the Essence binding her as he hauled her toward a portal.

Not Vasharax. Not through a rift.

Serenna couldn’t break Ayla’s hold. Fenn couldn’t fight Taryn’s.

But Cinderax was still free.