Chapter 25 #2
Hulls had been lashed together into platforms, stripped of masts for scaffolds, planks repurposed into bridges. Movement rippled across them, an army already at work before the sun. Specks from this height, the figures drifted along the decks, their outlines orbited by globes of illumination.
The marsh seemed to aid their labor. Roots coiled upward to brace the timber, vines knitting across the hulls until wood and living matter fused into walls.
Even from above, Serenna felt the pulse of the earth—veins of green light weaving from ship to ship, a city born from a graveyard of vessels, rising from the mire.
“Do you think they’re building a foothold here before they push into the desert?” Serenna asked, lifting her voice to the others.
Vesryn’s eyes narrowed, wings strumming the air as he hovered. “Looks like it could become some type of fortress. And I don’t think the human legions have been portaled in yet. Their numbers are too few.”
Fenn tilted his head as he studied the area below. “Does a flower mean anything to you two?”
Serenna squinted toward where he pointed. Banners waved faintly through the haze, but the distance was too great to make out the sigil on them even with more light spilling across the ground.
“Can you be more specific?” Vesryn muttered. “Some of us weren’t blessed with whatever infernal eyesight lets you read embroidery at this height. There are dozens of noble houses. Any one of them could be funding this campaign.”
Fenn’s eyes flared as he focused. “Three petals, white as bone. The points curve like a star folding out. Probably has some tragic name, knowing elves—mourning star, or doom lily.”
Vesryn’s voice flattened. “Trillium.”
Serenna’s wings faltered, and she dropped several feet before catching herself. Cold dread sluiced through her veins. The same white petals had been tattooed across Jassyn’s brow before he’d had it magically removed. A mark that had once branded him Vallende property.
“Elashor’s here?” she whispered, words going hoarse.
Vesryn drew closer, the edge of his wing brushing hers, steadying the air between them.
“That’s not all,” Fenn said, scanning the east. “If you want a closer look, I can keep us cloaked until the sun pries the shadows off.”
Vesryn met Serenna’s eyes before giving Fenn a single nod. Wordlessly, the three of them angled downward, wings tilting in unison.
The air thickened as they descended, mist rising to meet them as the marsh stirred awake. Motion flickered between scaffold and ship, Essence burning brighter the lower they flew.
Beyond the grounded fleet, darker shapes began to coalesce.
At first, Serenna thought they were more banners catching the wind.
But the shadows shifted, revealing monstrous insect-like beasts, their compound eyes mirroring streaks of sun.
Two pairs of wings stemmed from each, veined like stained glass and scattering mist in rippling halos.
Their segmented bodies, armored in chitin, stretched as long as horses.
There were at least ten, scaled in dark cobalt, that Serenna could detect from above. When one beat its wings, the air droned in a heavy whir.
She soon saw why the creatures didn’t take flight. Chains of shadow coiled around their thoraxes, shackling them to the earth.
One quivered, its carapace changing from cobalt to viridian as a soldier vaulted into its saddle. With a piercing chitter, shadows unraveled and the beast burst upward in a blur. Serenna shuddered as six legs tucked in tight, each joint as long as her own.
“Princeling,” Fenn said, tracking the beast. “Please tell me my infernal eyes are lying and that razorwing isn’t actually airborne.”
It was. The creature climbed rapidly, wings vibrating so fast they shredded the fog. Its path cut west—away from them—but the truth it left behind had her wing talons twitching.
“We aren’t the only ones in the sky anymore,” Vesryn said quietly.
“How long until their scouts reach Asharyn?” Serenna asked. If those “razorwings” could survive a desert crossing, nothing would stop them from finding the city.
“Days, maybe,” the prince said. “If they head straight north. But they’ll spot the training flights in the canyons long before that.”
“Something’s moving,” Fenn murmured. He angled his wings south, pupils constricting against the sun rising over the Dreadspire Range. “There. Where the widest river forks.”
Serenna followed his line of sight. Through the mist, a gleam of white caught the dawn—small at first, then multiplying as her eyes adjusted. A fleet slid along the river’s curve, sails taut against the pallid water.
Vesryn swore. “They’re splitting their forces. That marsh encampment to scout the north and this fleet for the east. Toward the Maw.”
Serenna’s pulse hitched and even the wind seemed to recoil.
The king hadn’t merely reached their shores—he’d rooted himself, staking his claim into living earth.
Asharyn lay in one path, Skylash in the other, both already within his reach.
And once the human legions were portaled in to join Elashor’s banners, the land itself would close around them.
Serenna tried to steady her breath, but the horizon tilted beneath her, light trembling on the water. Then the wind shifted, tightening with pressure. The air pulsed with it, a low vibration resonating deep through her ribs.
That was all the warning she got.
A blast of blue Essence tore the sky open beside her, the impact striking like a fist. The punch of force slammed into her and hurled her sideways.
Pain detonated through her chest. Wind screamed past—up flipped into down, sky and marsh spinning in a blur of blue and green as she pitched forward end over end through the air.
Serenna wrenched one wing open, the joint catching like a sail snapping full. The jolt whipped through her frame as the wind seized her weight, a shockwave rattling to the bone.
She rolled hard, stomach plummeting fast, before the air caught again. Breath tore ragged from her throat as she steadied, heartbeat wild as she searched for the others.
Essence boiled from an empty sky. Wind sheared through haze, light bending inward until a distortion flickered at the edge of sight—something moving with impossible speed. As the sun crested fully over the Dreadspire Range, its flare pierced through the shimmer.
Serenna’s pulse lurched.
Wings like shattered mirrors refracted color until the air seemed to splinter. One of the razorwings from the marsh tore through the sky, its whir vibrating through her teeth.
A rider crouched low along its spine, harnessed tight like they were riding an arrow, Essence whipping behind them. The razorwing shrieked and pivoted midair, twisting its entire body on a single axis.
One moment it climbed. The next, it blurred sideways, slicing across Vesryn’s path.
Bolts of shadow erupted from the rider’s hands, slamming into the prince’s shield, scattering bursts of violet light. Vesryn banked, his ward flaring as the rending unraveled around him.
Fenn came from nowhere, warping behind the beast as he hurled a volley of force at its flank.
The razorwing veered mid-flight, two pairs of wings sheathing like blades before it plunged. Fenn’s blast tore through empty space, shredding only wind.
Snapping its wings open again, the creature spiraled upward. Air howled through its translucent membranes as it climbed, the insect whir swelling until the sky itself screamed.
Serenna didn’t think as she drew on the flame in her chest. Fire erupted from her palms, a concussive wave searing straight for the rider. But the creature darted to the left, a wave of scorched air rolling harmlessly through its wake.
It appeared nearly on top of her, eyes like monstrous mirrors, wings flashing like glass knives. A shriek split her skull as it passed, close enough for the gale to tear at her braid and buffet her wings.
Light rippled, the shimmer resolving into another razorwing.
Then another.
Dozens, the sky humming with the swarm’s rising drone.
Vesryn’s voice cracked through her mind, the telepathic sending urgent and commanding. “Serenna! We’re getting out of here!”
She banked hard, wings catching uneven air as she turned to find him—too slow. Something slammed into her side.
Vesryn’s shoulder hit hers as his arm locked around her waist, wings flaring to steady them both.
Essence ignited. The sky split open, an oval of gaping darkness.
Vesryn fought to keep their wings from tangling as he dragged her toward the portal. He flung a surge of force downward. Blue cords speared through the air, snaring Fenn streaking below.
Fenn’s curse was swallowed by wind as the tendrils hooked him, wrenching him upward. The horde closed in—wings, shrieks, and the crush of Essence converging from every direction.
Vesryn hauled hard on the magic and hurled Fenn through the rift first, Essence snapping free the instant he vanished.
Serenna clutched at the prince’s armor as his grip tightened. And then he dove.
The portal consumed them, the world compressing to a single heartbeat before silence claimed the sky.