Chapter 47
SERENNA
The sea crushed Serenna the instant Fenn tried to warp them upward. The motion halted too soon—his grip torn from her wrist as the ocean seized her.
They didn’t reach the surface.
Salt scalded her eyes as she forced them open, vision splintering into broken bands of light and formless dark. No sign of Fenn or anyone else. Only absence so complete it felt as though the water had already claimed them.
Her thoughts snagged on the sea warden—an ancient guardian armed with a Starshard—still circling somewhere out of sight. Panic surged, her limbs and wings thrashing before she forced it down.
Hurling her awareness outward, Serenna reached through the crush of sea, trying to find where pressure eased and promised light. If she could reach it, she could rise. If she could rise, she could search for the others before the water closed like a tomb—or something worse reached her first.
Her lungs burned, shrieking for air that wasn’t there. She homed in on the first whisper of wind above the surface and drove her body toward it. Muscles drew to breaking as she fought the sea’s hold, every stroke stolen and returned heavier.
Up.
Serenna kicked again. Arms and wings strained together, the sky just beyond reach.
Then the sea relented.
She broke through the surf with a gasp so sharp it tasted of blood.
Sun struck her eyes and she coughed, salted air scraping her throat.
She dragged a forearm across her lashes and beat her wings harder.
Water clung, her tendons screaming beneath the weight, but she wrenched free from the sea and rose.
For a heartbeat, she caught her breath and scanned the surface. Nothing broke the waves.
The Maelstrom had collapsed, but motion caught her eye across the horizon. Terror pressed in as a line of white sails sliced the haze, close enough now that she could see figures pointing from the decks.
Find them first.
Serenna locked the command in place and skimmed low above the chop, refusing to look at the approaching ships. Her wings sheared spray as she searched the churn until a shape split the waves.
Jassyn burst free from the foam, water cascading down his wings as he fought for sky. Behind him, Cinderax flailed to the surface, scrambling in ragged flaps before heaving himself into the air with a snarl.
Serenna breathed reprieve.
Until Fenn didn’t follow.
A pulse of Essence hauled her gaze back to the ships. The armada had sailed closer, a score of decks alive with shouts and motion as magic streaked along the hulls. The earth answered too—currents bending, the ocean parting beneath the command of shamans driving the fleet forward.
She and Jassyn were silhouetted against the cloudless sky, the vessels’ bows angling toward them. Serenna’s wingbeats faltered. If those on the ships struck now…
Refusing to finish the thought, she forced her attention back to the water, frantically scanning the waves until it hurt to breathe.
“Here!” Jassyn’s voice cracked as he pointed toward a fading trail of froth, Cinderax circling his shoulder.
A shape drifted beneath the surface, limp and unmoving.
Fenn.
Twisting in the air, Serenna tucked her wings tight and dove, Jassyn racing beside her. She hauled in one desperate breath before plunging back into the sea.
The water struck like a wall. It lashed her down, pressure stripping every movement to necessity.
Serenna flung her arms forward and hit something solid—armor—fingers skidding before they caught. She seized Fenn’s shoulder, his wrist, clamping hard as she turned, heels kicking against the undertow.
A blur shot past—Jassyn slicing through the dark. He hooked an arm around Fenn’s other side, and together they hauled him to the surface.
They shattered into daylight in a violent spray of sea and foam, Fenn sagging between them. Cinderax screeched overhead as he wheeled low, but before Serenna could fill her lungs, another wave hammered them back under.
Her grip tore loose, then found purchase again. She locked an arm over Fenn’s chest, refusing to let go. Legs and wings lashing in the churn, she and Jassyn dragged him upward again until at last they broke the waterline, barely clear of the sea.
Fenn’s head fell against her shoulder, water spilling from his mouth, his body gone frighteningly still.
The horizon offered no refuge—no shore in sight, only the oncoming fleet adjusting its course as it advanced, and the beast waiting in the depths below.
Another swell yanked them under and released them again. Jassyn hauled Fenn higher and drove his palm into his chest. Power burst from him in an elemental pulse, brutal enough that Serenna felt it rip through the water and slam into her own ribs.
The sea tore from Fenn’s throat in a torrent as Jassyn swept his hand outward, channeling the release. Water geysered skyward and Cinderax banked aside to avoid the spray.
Jassyn struck again, snatching a current of wind. Air coiled and surged, driven into Fenn’s chest.
Fenn convulsed between them—limbs jerking, ribs bowing—then gasped, eyes flying open. He choked, claws scrabbling at the waves, wings flailing beneath the surface, talon tips grasping for sky.
“We have you,” Serenna said, the words breaking loose on a sob.
Together, she and Jassyn forced one last push and broke clear of the sea.
The fleet loomed in the sun’s glare, hulls cutting forward to close the distance as their wings thrashed to climb.
Heavy and sodden, Fenn lurched between them, his breath hitching in ragged bursts as he blinked against the light.
His own wings strummed in broken beats, threatening collapse more than rise.
But the sea didn’t claim him. The thought had barely begun to steady Serenna when the sky screamed.
A metallic shriek raked through her teeth and down her spine, dread seizing her so hard her flight faltered.
She knew that sound.
A breath later, the explosion came. Across the water, a lance of shadows speared from the sea. The blast tore through a ship, hurling splinters of wood and rigging into the air.
Cinderax hissed and veered as debris rained past them.
Serenna’s gaze snapped to where the Starshard had struck. The sea bucked as breakers surged, serrated fins slicing foam before the creature disappeared back into the deep.
It wasn’t hunting them. Not while the fleet blazed Essence across the waves like baited lines.
“We need to portal,” Jassyn said, tracking the armada before Serenna could say the words herself.
“Fenn,” she rasped, wings burning under his weight. “Can you open one?”
Fenn coughed and nodded, chest rattling as he steadied his wings. He stripped the tether from his finger, only for it to slip from his weakened grip and vanish beneath the waves. Essence flickered around him, but before he could raise a trembling claw, the sea erupted again close to the fleet.
The creature breached with volcanic violence. Waves heaved skyward as lightning cracked down its spine. The Starshard embedded in its skull flared, then shrieked, unleashing a cataclysm of shadows so complete it devoured sound.
Serenna’s vision fractured as another ship detonated, the blast knocking her wings off balance and launching shattered timber and canvas into the air.
Jassyn cursed, his voice rising as he shouted for Fenn to hurry. Before Serenna could rip the tether from her finger and use her Starshard to tear open a portal herself, a flash of gold split the sky.
A barbed harpoon streaked toward the sea warden, its rope snapping taut. She didn’t look to see which ship fired it, only watched the impact, metal punching into scaled flesh.
A keening wail tore from the beast. Fins battered the sea as the creature writhed, sparks scattering from its body. The Starshard blazed bright and discharged a merciless shockwave of force.
The burst of Essence sheared between them, ripping Serenna’s grip from Fenn and pitching the world sideways.
She spun. Her vision spiraled, all breath crushed from her lungs.
As her wings fought to remember the sky, a ship’s mast and rigging rushed up beneath her.
Across the gap between another vessel, she barely registered the gold before it struck.
The harpoon lanced through the air and punctured Jassyn’s wing, membrane shredding beneath the impact. Blood sprayed as the line yanked him back so violently his wings folded at impossible angles. He twisted out of the sky, swallowed by a forest of sails.
Serenna’s mouth opened, but the cry never made it past her throat. Jassyn’s blood still misted the air as she whirled, frantic now, searching for Fenn.
She found him staggering through the sky, fangs bared, his gaze fixed on Cinderax soaring above him. He thrust out an arm, the Heart of Stars burning in his palm like a captive sun.
“Go!” he roared at the dragon, ripping open a portal. “Take it and go!”
Cinderax dove, jaws clamping shut around the relic’s glow. Fenn unleashed one final burst of force, hurling the dragon into the void before the rift collapsed shut behind him.
Serenna’s attention wrenched back to the armada below, searching the decks and the churning waves between ships.
She never found where Jassyn fell.
Another harpoon whipped through the air and slammed into her thigh. Muscle split around the metal, blinding agony vaulting up her spine. Her wings spasmed as the rope jerked taut, lightning erupting wild from her fingertips.
Her scream tore loose as the line ripped her from the air. The world tipped—sky gone, sea rushing up—until the impact of water knocked the air from her lungs and silence slammed cold around her.