Page 98 of The Reckoning of Starlight

More mercy than her brother had granted her.

Serenna’s nails bit into her palms. “You stood over me on that deck and bound my wings in shadow while I screamed.”

Behind her, Vesryn stood motionless, but a wave of anger rippled down the bond.

Serenna stepped closer. “I want to know which part of that was duty and which part was you.”

Saundyl’s gaze flicked toward his wife and son, offering them as his defense once more. When he looked at Serenna again, his eyes gave her nothing.

“You were going to die on that ship,” he said as a dark bead of red welled at the dagger’s tip. “Every soldier wanted your wings mounted on the mast. I made certain they delivered you alive.”

For a moment, the memory of salt in her eyes and her blood on timber crowded out the cavern walls.

“So you kept me breathing only for Ayla to torture me instead?”

A muscle jumped in his jaw, but he said nothing.

“We could’ve helped each other.” Asharyn might still stand. Five hatchlings might’ve never been taken. “But you have your family again. What is it like, getting everything you wanted without losing anything that mattered?”

“You think I lost nothing?” His answer rasped past Fenn’s blade. “Every day I kept silent stripped something from me. Every order I obeyed. Every time I held my son before Elashor took him, knowing he might forget me if I died before the next dawn.”

Serenna uncurled her hands, crescent marks throbbing across her palms. “Don’t offer me your guilt as a wound. You watched them drag me away and never moved.”

His gaze dropped to the roots at his feet. “Let us return to Vaelyn,” he said at last. “Please.”

Serenna laughed, the sound brief and disbelieving. “So you can trade our location for the king’s favor? Sail more ships under his banner? No.”

Saundyl’s head snapped up. “You think I want his favor? Mother remains compelled and alone. She obeys whatever commands Elashor left with her and carries another of his children while the court pretends either was her choice.”

Serenna went still. Saundyl had told her in Vaelyn weeks ago, and she’d set the truth aside for the ruthless work of surviving.

Elashor had tried to force the same on her with Jassyn. She’d been spared only because Ayla regarded her as property. But no one had stepped between Elashor and her mother.

Serenna had narrowed the war to those standing beside her. Guilt lodged in her chest, but any attempt to reach her mother in Vaelyn now could expose all those hidden in the caverns.

Saundyl had seen their numbers, their refuge, the families sheltered within it. She wouldn’t let that knowledge reach the elves.

She laid her fingers over Fenn’s wrist. The tendons in his forearm remained taut, his pulse striking hard against her touch. The dagger stayed at Saundyl’s throat.

Then Fenn drew it away, leaving a shallow score beneath Saundyl’s jaw. Her brother stumbled back, one hand closing over the cut.

“You’ll stay here under guard and answer every question we ask.” Serenna’s anger had run cold enough to steady her voice. “You’ve seen too much to walk out of this mountain free.”

CHAPTER 26

LYKOR

Some vengeance demanded solitude.

Lykor set two squads of wraith on Jassyn’s heels while the magus joined him in tending to the remaining wounded. Only then did Lykor slip away, opening a portal into a chamber blacker than the space between stars.

The stench struck first—urine, dried blood, and the sour reek of flesh kept two days in filth. A chill leeched from the stone, biting through his leathers.

Lykor closed the rift behind him, his breath cutting white through the dark. He flared his sight, clawing the nearest shapes from the gloom.

Red eyes burned from the base of the wall. The general of Alari crouched there, reduced to the beast he’d always claimed wraith were.

Once, it had been Lykor and his people buried where the mountain ground every hour to dust, Elashor smirking from the far side of freedom. Now the walls caged Elashor alone with Lykor, stone thick enough to devour every scream.