Page 74 of The Reckoning of Starlight

With Skylash’s spark thrashing in her chest, Serenna threw herself across Ayla’s hips. Teeth bared, ankle forgotten, she crushed her sister’s shoulder into the sand with one hand while the other dragged the gold toward Ayla’s throat.

Ayla’s eyes flew open. Her hand shot to her neck, fingers scraping the empty place where Serenna’s Starshard had been. Panic flashed across her face. Then rage. She shrieked and bucked hard enough to throw Serenna sideways against a rock.

They grappled in the narrow space between the slabs—no room for skill, just fists and elbows—stone biting through torn leathers.

Serenna whipped the collar across Ayla’s temple. Gold cracked against bone, splitting the skin above her ear, and her sister’s head snapped sideways.

Serenna dove back on top and lashed a current of sparks across Ayla’s chest. Ayla flailed beneath her, muscles seizing, spine bowing, a strangled curse ripping from her throat. Her boot crashed into Serenna’s ankle.

Pain detonated behind Serenna’s eyes. A scream tore through her teeth, and the tether slid halfway from her hand before she clenched down hard enough to grind gold into her palm.

Essence whirled around Ayla’s hands, starlight darkening into shadows. They raced toward Serenna’s face—Ayla’s magic unleashed, half-formed but vicious.

Serenna shoved the gold around her sister’s throat and forced the ends together. Metal bit into metal and locked.

The shadows vanished.

Ayla’s hand shot toward her belt.

Serenna flung lightning in a crackling web. Sparks whipped around Ayla’s wrist, cinched tight, and pinned her twitching arms to the sand.

Ayla writhed beneath her, fingers still stretching.

The key.

Serenna ripped it from Ayla’s belt and shoved it into her armor beside the Starshards.

Ayla shrieked against the collar, the sound choked thin.

Serenna rolled off her and collapsed in the sand, waiting for the white bursts behind her eyes to fade and her ankle to become pain she could breathe through again.

Only then, with Ayla stripped of command and clawing at the gold at her throat, did Serenna truly see what the king’s magic had done to her.

The swell of her belly strained against torn leathers—months along, not weeks—visibly pronounced in just hours. Her cheekbones stood too sharp against skin drawn thin over her face, every spare ounce of her feeding the king’s heir she’d been forced to carry.

Light glinted from Ayla’s brow.

Serenna’s stomach dropped.

The diadem’s Starshard.

The tether had smothered Ayla’s magic, but the gem still held her reserves. She could draw from it, tethered or not.

Ayla’s fingers stilled on the collar.

They both moved at once.

Serenna threw herself at the crown. She caught herself on her palms, lurching forward until her hands closed around the silver. Ayla’s fingers locked onto the gem, but Serenna ripped the diadem free, taking hair along with it.

Serenna panted and looked at the Starshard.

Then at her sister.

Ayla bared her teeth, reading the decision on her face. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Serenna seized Ayla’s wrist.

Ayla twisted and slammed her knee upward, punching the breath from Serenna’s lungs. Serenna held on and wrenched her sister’s hand flat against the sand. Shadows writhed from Serenna’s fingertips, slicing a dark line across Ayla’s palm.