Page 77 of The Reckoning of Starlight

“Keep talking about my tongue, and I’ll start thinking you missed me.”

Fenn shifted into his wings. They snapped wide for balance as he hitched Ayla higher against his side.

Vesryn rolled his eyes and finished braiding the mending lattice, threading Essence through Serenna’s boot with more urgency than finesse.

“Just stabilize it,” she said. “We can finish the healing later.”

Vesryn nodded and thinned the strands to a simpler weave, warmth settling deep around the swollen joint, bracing bone to bear weight.

When he extinguished his power, he rose and pulled Serenna to her feet. Her ankle held, numb and precarious beneath her.

She turned toward the view she’d been avoiding.

Asharyn smoldered below the cliff. Black smoke rolled thick above the streets, split by bursts of Essence and wild streaks of flame. Stone buildings she’d memorized from a hundred flights jutted broken against a sky stained red by fire.

Serenna stared at the city she’d begun to think of as home, guilt choking her throat along with the smoke. She’d led Ayla to this haven. A thousand years of hidden sanctuary, destroyed in a single night.

She couldn’t count the lives lost from here. Her mind reached for the number anyway, then recoiled before it could become real.

“Mara and Thalaesyn should have the evacuation portals open by now,” Vesryn said. His hand hadn’t left her arm. “Lykor planned for this.”

Some of the pressure loosened behind her ribs. Not all their people would be lost.

But the hatchlings…

She didn’t know how many had been stolen before the cavern collapsed, or how many had escaped into a city already burning.

Serenna’s gaze whipped toward Ayla, hatred crawling through every nerve. Ayla sagged against Fenn’s side, eyes unfocused on the city she’d invaded. Close enough to punish.

Ayla’s Starshard hummed in Serenna’s leathers, and for one vicious moment, Serenna’s fingers twitched toward it. She could seize her sister’s power and turn it on Centarya’s soldiers. Make their queen strike as her weapon.

The thought sent a scorch of remembered fire down Serenna’s arms. Her fingers curled away from the shard.

Gaze locked on the siege below, Serenna’s voice came barely above a whisper. “We need to get down there.”

Vesryn didn’t argue. His fingers slipped through hers as he opened a portal. Serenna stepped through at his side with Fenn close behind.

Heat struck first. Smoke followed, thick and acrid, clogging her lungs.

Sound hit next—metal clanging against metal, Starshards shrieking as they discharged. Somewhere through the haze, a child wailed, loud enough to pierce through the clamor.

Centarya’s forces clashed with wraith and druids in the cramped streets, steel and Essence spilling blood between market stalls.

Families poured through the evacuation portals, arms full of whatever they could carry. Sandstriders bellowed as handlers drove them forward, eyes rolling white, carts jolting and screeching over the cobblestones. Above, wings beat gales into the melee—druids and wraith diving through the smoke, raining fire and shadows onto Centarya’s advancing lines.

Fenn’s whistle split through the square, a sharp two-note command. A squad coalesced from the shadows, then faltered when they found an elf standing where their captain should’ve been.

“It’s me,” Fenn growled, shoving Ayla to the nearest wraith. “Full guard. She stays tethered. Secure her on the other side.”

The wraith blinked, but Vesryn didn’t give them time to hesitate. “You heard him.”

The warriors closed ranks around Ayla and ushered her toward the portals, cutting past families clutching children.

Mara’s gaze caught on the collar and the wraith guarding Ayla. Her mouth flattened, but she waved them through without a word.

The queen who’d invaded their city and made Serenna kill children for sport went through the portal before the mother holding a screaming infant three paces behind her.

The Coliseum rose behind Serenna’s eyes again—sand, ash, small bodies, Ayla watching from above. She understood why her sister had to be secured first. That only made the choice curdle on her tongue.