Page 97 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Ayla’s eyes snapped up from the tray. “This child is all I have left of Mishryn—she’ll carry a fragment of her Essence.” Her voice caught, the break swallowed with the next mouthful. “I refuse to let him take the last piece of her.”

Conviction burned too fiercely in Ayla’s gaunt face for Serenna to tell where certainty ended and desperation began. Perhaps her daughter would inherit Mishryn’s power. Perhaps Ayla had forged the belief because nothing else could keep her standing. Either way, the child already belonged to a bloodline she’d never chosen—a fate Serenna knew from the inside.

“Let’s move her,” she said to Fenn and Vesryn. “To the cavern Daeryn set aside for the families.” They could keep her alive without trusting her.

Vesryn nodded, already tearing a portal open.

Fenn stepped forward to help Ayla rise, but she scowled and braced a hand against the wall, forcing herself upright before he reached her. She pinned the tray against her middle and swept past him through the rift.

Serenna followed. Warmth chased away the cell’s damp chill as she emerged, moss yielding beneath her boots. Trees climbed toward the cavern’s vaulted roof, hammocks of woven vine strung between their branches. A small pool steamed at the center, its depths luminous with glittering light. Families had made a refuge inside the earth, and Serenna delivered venom into its heart.

Ayla carried what remained of her meal deeper into the chamber, winding between the scattered children as though they were only stones in her path.

Serenna glanced toward the tunnel’s mouth, where a silent line of wraith and druids stood watch, weapons at rest while crimson eyes tracked every movement.

“She’ll be secure here,” Vesryn murmured.

“I’ll set my sisters to shadow her,” Fenn said. “Discreetly.”

Ayla crossed the chamber and claimed a cradle of braided roots. She settled into it, arranged the tray across her lap, and resumed eating.

“I won’t be long,” Serenna muttered to Vesryn and Fenn. “There’s one more thing I need from her.”

Ayla’s Starshard was in Serenna’s fist before she’d fully chosen to draw it. The gem hummed against her palm as she crossed the cavern. Ayla froze mid-bite, a strip of meat suspended before her mouth, her attention fixed on the crystal.

“There are a hundred things I could force you to do. Each worse than the last.” Serenna tightened her grip until facets bit into her skin. “But I won’t. Because I’m not you.” Her stomach twisted, but her voice held. “Your pregnancy doesn’t erase what you did. Not after you made me slaughter those children in the Coliseum and taught me exactly how disposable lives can be.”

She lifted the shard, its fractured light passing over Ayla’s face. “Tell me what happened to the five hatchlings your army stole. Are they alive?”

Ayla met her stare, then lowered the tray beside her and leaned back into the roots. “The king has no use for dead dragons.”

Relief hooked through Serenna, barbed and cruel. So the hatchlings lived because Galaeryn meant to chain them. But every Heart already had a fate. Three had shattered when Cinderax, Skylash, and Blossom were freed. One still held Rimeclaw. The last remained in Kaedryn’s keeping for Veyrix.

“How?” Serenna demanded. “He has no relics left.”

Ayla’s mouth tightened, irritation piercing her composure. “Elashor’s forces were excavating a crater—the Falling Star Crater. The king believes it holds more Hearts.”

Serenna’s grip locked around the gem. Before she could ask what Ayla meant by more, Vesryn’s voice broke through the bond, sharp enough to scatter her thoughts. “Serenna. We might have a…situation.”

Across the cavern, Fenn had a male pinned by a tree, his wings spread to cage him. A female stood a few paces off to one side, an infant clutched to her chest. Vesryn lingered nearby, watching with his arms crossed.

The gold at the male’s throat drew Serenna’s eyes before his face did.

Saundyl.

Serenna’s blood went cold. Vesryn had told her that Lykor had pulled her brother from the sea and his family from the prisons. But knowing hadn’t prepared her for seeing him whole and unscathed, his wife and son with him.

Serenna cursed under her breath and left Ayla, sliding her sister’s Starshard back into her leathers as she crossed the cavern.

Fenn didn’t turn as she approached, but his wings folded and vanished, making space for her the way he always did. His blade dug under Saundyl’s chin, forcing her brother’s head back until his heels lifted from the ground.

“Do you know how the wraith settle a debt?” Fenn growled, his pupils narrowed to draconic slits. “You turned her over to the elves. I haven’t forgotten how many times I watched her bleed because of you.”

Fenn angled the weapon, turning Saundyl’s face toward her.

“I see you at least got what you wanted,” Serenna said.

Beyond Saundyl, his wife tightened both arms around their son. Borrowed clothes hung loose from shoulders sharpened since Serenna had last seen her. Even so, Saundyl and his wife had been fed and sheltered, allowed to move through the caverns under watch.