Page 96 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Ayla’s cell stank of damp stone and the acrid musk of a body devouring its last reserves. Water seeped down the walls in mineral streaks, each drop loud enough to count.

By the time Serenna, Fenn, and Vesryn had returned from the meadow and settled the three hatchlings back into their makeshift nursery with the others, half the morning had slipped away. More of it had dissolved in the search for Lykor, who had buried Ayla in a chamber no corridor reached. When they’d finally found him with Jassyn, Lykor had torn open a portal to Ayla’s cell with a snarl and sent them through with a curse.

Ayla sat hunched on bare rock under Vesryn’s orbs of illumination, her face pared to bone. The torn hem of her tunic strained across the impossible swell of her belly while her ribs jutted sharp above it—her body withering away to sustain months of growth the king had compressed into days.

A flicker of compassion stirred, thin and unwelcome. Serenna smothered it. Ayla was dying, and Serenna needed what she knew before starvation finished its work.

“Can you get her something to eat?”

Fenn nodded. “I’ll see if Koln hunted anything from the deeper caverns.”

He opened a portal and slipped through, leaving Serenna with the steady drip of water, her sister’s ragged breathing, and Vesryn’s silence at her shoulder.

The prince’s alarm cinched through the bond, a cold knot of dread tightening with her own. His eyes flicked to her, waiting for her lead.

“We can’t keep her like this,” Serenna sent through the bond.

“If we keep her tethered,” Vesryn said, “she could be moved where a magus can monitor her.”

“I saw what the king did to you at Centarya,” Serenna said aloud, forcing her eyes to Ayla’s. “I need to know how he altered the child.”

Ayla bared her teeth and shoved herself to her feet, limbs trembling with the effort. “He didn’t touch my daughter.”

“He called her a vessel,” Serenna pressed. “He intends to give the Aelfyn bodies.”

Ayla’s nostrils flared, her stare pinning Serenna with all the violence she could no longer deliver. “He sped her growth. Nothing more.”

Serenna’s molars ground together. The king’s violation had carved Ayla to tendon and angles, yet she dismissed the indignity like it barely mattered.

Vesryn crossed his arms. “And if the Aelfyn arrive? What exactly is he expecting to happen?”

Ayla’s attention cut from Serenna to Vesryn, as if measuring what silence would cost before she spoke.

“The Aelfyn can’t cross the expanse in the flesh. What arrives will be power alone. They’ll need vessels to claim if they mean to become anything more than starlight.”

“But the host…” The word Galaeryn had used turned rancid on Serenna’s tongue. “What happens to a child born for that purpose?”

Ayla’s hand drifted to her belly. “They could inhabit her body before she ever has the chance to become herself.” Her fingers splayed across her middle, whitening at the knuckles. “That was the point.”

Serenna suppressed a shiver as she imagined an infant drawing her first breath, but when the child’s eyes opened, an Aelfyn regarded the world through them.

A portal unfurled beside Vesryn. Fenn stepped through with a tray braced across both forearms, steam lifting from roasted meat and wild mushrooms seared dark.

Ayla lunged before he’d crossed half the cell and wrenched the tray from him. Her fingers shook, hunger stripping her past pride. She collapsed against the wall and tore into the food, shoulders curved over the tray, appearing ready to bite any hand that reached for it.

“You’re cooperating too easily,” Serenna said as Fenn returned to her side. “What are you after?”

Ayla sneered between bites. “A few days.”

“Then you need us after all.”

Ayla straightened the golden collar at her throat, making an ornament out of it. “Your people dragged me into the safest place left in the realms. I see no reason to object.”

“So you get our protection from the king.”

Ayla’s mouth curved. “Captivity has its conveniences.”

Serenna stepped closer. “You stood beside him while he used everyone else.” Disgust heated her throat. “Why does it matter now that the body he means to take is your daughter’s?”