Chapter 49
SERENNA
Serenna wasn’t drowning anymore. That would have been a mercy. Even the sea, with its churning weight and crushing silence, offered a swifter ending.
A coil of force ripped her from the surf and slammed her onto the deck of a ship.
Her boots struck the boards with a crack that jolted her spine.
The vessel pitched beneath her as white-armored figures blurred along the railings, surrounded by streaks of Essence.
Salt scored her throat, each inhale a flayed rasp.
Her vision strobed as her knees threatened to buckle, but the magic clamped her upright. Shadows bled to take over the binding cords, cinching her wings until the taloned tips twitched helplessly.
Serenna bit down on a whimper, her thigh throbbing where the harpoon still jutted through muscle. The rope attached to it snaked across the prow, slick with her blood. Each roll of the deck tugged the sunken spike, sending agony lancing up her side.
As water streamed down her face, Serenna clenched her teeth, blinking through the sting of salt. Her muscles spasmed for freedom, but every struggle only tugged the tangle of rending tighter.
Between the harpoon and the tether she’d bound on her finger for the Maelstrom, Essence lay just out of reach. Her mind spun—grasping for wind, for sea, for the storm—but pain kept disintegrating the shape of every thought.
Breath became the only rebellion. The sky mocked her with its serenity as a gull wheeled lazily overhead, as if the world weren’t ending beneath its wings. Below the prow, blood spread across the water, darkening the ship’s wake.
Essence flared from the surrounding vessels, magic converging on the leviathan that had risen from the deep. The Starshard in the creature’s skull shrieked with every pulse of unleashed power, shattering hulls and shredding sails.
The gem’s incessant keening ripped through Serenna’s ears, more piercing than the sea warden’s screams. But through that jagged rupture, she thought—no, she knew—she heard Fenn calling her name.
Straining against the rending, Serenna dragged her eyes over the wreckage of battle. No sign of Jassyn either, but perhaps he’d already been hauled aboard another ship.
The leviathan reared from the waves, jaws splitting in a wail, its spine impaled with countless harpoons.
A lead vessel fired a spear straight through its skull.
The beast convulsed back into the surf, crimson foam erupting skyward. It thrashed once, then stilled, sinking into the current as blood fanned outward.
Silence followed, worse than the Starshard’s shriek.
Around her, cheers rose as the fleet claimed victory, soldiers crowding every railing. Serenna felt the moment tightening, the instant when every gaze aboard would turn to her.
Measured steps rang against the planks.
Through the wall of soldiers, a figure emerged. White armor flared in the sun, a cape dragging behind him.
Serenna’s vision swam. Light and metal smeared together, the world reduced to glare and motion. She blinked hard, forcing the outlines to resolve. Recognition struck. For a heartbeat, hope surged so sharp it shoved breath back into her lungs.
“Serenna.”
But the name landed cold. Not a brother’s relief. A commander’s report. Formal and flattened, stripped of warmth.
Serenna went still. Wind snapped soaked hair across her face as her skin chilled.
Saundyl didn’t move toward her or even glance at the harpoon skewering her thigh. He lifted a hand in wordless command, and a soldier obeyed at once.
A streak of rending slashed from the warrior, severing the rope. Metal wrenched free. Serenna’s scream tore loose as pain scorched her vision white. Blood streamed down her armor, spattering the deck red.
Before she could even draw air, the soldier’s power tore through her thigh, yanking flesh and muscle closed. When the warrior stepped back, Saundyl remained unmoved. Azure eyes blank as ice, his silence stung more than the wound.
Essence shimmered around his shoulders in a mantle of starlight, but through it, darker threads unspooled.
Understanding snapped into place. The rending didn’t belong to a random soldier. It was her brother’s, held like a blade at her throat.
Serenna tensed as Saundyl began to circle her, his boots clipping against blood-slick boards. At last he halted in front of her, his gaze pinned on the wings cinched tight at her spine.
“What…are you?”
The question came flat, almost bored. But Serenna heard the tension beneath it, the strain of someone forced into detachment.
Dread clamped her ribs. She knew what coiled at his throat—the leash of duty, the choke of command. The capital’s noose drawn tight around his tongue.
The last time they’d spoken—back in Vaelyn, when Lykor had razed the previous fleet before it could sail—Saundyl had confessed that Elashor held his family hostage. Then, her brother had spoken in fury and fear. Now, he stood surrounded by his captors, his words honed with calculation.
Serenna’s gaze flicked to the warriors flanking him, all alert with steady hands, ready to strike at the smallest slip. She couldn’t risk spilling the full truth with the capital’s eyes so close.
But if Saundyl’s composure was simply a mask… She had only one chance to test it.
“You’re aware some of the dragons are unchained?” Serenna asked carefully, refusing to let fear rule her voice.
Saundyl’s mouth thinned. He gave a single nod. “I received a report about that disaster at the lake.” He tilted his head, eyes narrowed and measuring. “But you already know something about that. Don’t you?”
The ship rocked, and Serenna would’ve staggered if the rending hadn’t locked her in place like a vise.
“Not all of the capital’s forces were wiped out,” she ventured. Her throat went dry, unspoken words scorching her tongue. But silence would win her nothing. “My people saved who we could.”
Saundyl’s brows lifted a fraction. “Your people.”
She held his gaze. “The druids.”
No flicker of surprise crossed his face. Only the composed stillness of a soldier who’d learned to wear restraint like armor.
He knew.
Of course he did. Maybe not everything, but enough to grasp what she’d become.
“How many of you are there?” he asked.
“Not enough,” she whispered, the truth falling between them like a lifeline, daring him to hear what she couldn’t say aloud. That they needed others willing to fight.
Saundyl’s gaze slid toward the warriors at the helm, then across the ship’s railings, eyes tracking the ranks as he seemed to weigh the shape of his own allegiance.
Serenna felt it then, as clearly as the pulse of rending gripping her. She and Saundyl were both performing—she was sure of it. Both trapped in the same grim play, reciting lines they hadn’t written, shackled to scripts inked by commands.
A soldier shifted behind her, the grind of plated armor breaking the brittle quiet.
Serenna’s lungs scraped for air. She thought of Jassyn and if he stood now on another deck, enduring his own interrogation. He’d turned Bhreena and Daeryn’s loyalties with steady conviction, in finding common ground. Maybe it would work for him again.
She could do the same. Saundyl was her brother. And if there was anything left in him unclaimed by orders, it lived in the shape of his family’s freedom from the elves.
She saw no other way forward and had to try. Even if it cost her.
“Your wife and son,” Serenna said softly, trying to aim the words for him alone. “My people have an idea of where they’re being kept.”
Saundyl’s gaze snapped to hers. In that instant she couldn’t tell if she’d offered him a spark of hope or struck the match that would burn them both. Shadows coiled tighter at her wrists, a reminder of who held her prisoner.
Serenna braced against the urge to flinch. By now, the raid was hopefully over, and sharing more wouldn’t put Lykor or Vesryn at risk.
“We think they’re held in a mountain prison,” she rasped. “And if they’re not, we’ll keep searching.” Her mouth dried, but she pushed further. “If you help us, Lykor—”
The name slipped free before she could think better of caging it. Saundyl’s eyes narrowed.
Serenna bit her tongue, nearly choking on the rest. “He’s leading the mission to free those imprisoned.”
A dangerous hush settled over the rolling deck, broken only by the distant hiss of wind tearing at the sails. Her heart hammered wildly with the certainty that she’d reminded her brother of the blood Lykor had spilled during his rampage.
And perhaps worse, that she’d placed herself beside Lykor. Her name cast in the same alloy. Stamped with the same treason.
“Help us,” Serenna whispered, the plea raw in her throat. “Please.”
Saundyl gave no reply, but his jaw clenched, bone shifting beneath skin.
“You can still choose,” she pressed, ignoring the ring of soldiers and her drying blood.
She looked at him. Really looked. At the fatigue bruised beneath his eyes as if every battle he’d fought in silence had hollowed them out. At shoulders braced by obligation. At the hard line of his mouth, tight around the words he wasn’t allowed to speak.
“You think we have a choice?” Saundyl murmured.
Serenna’s heart dropped as he stepped back. And in that decisive motion, the mask sealed, armor cinching tight until not even the faintest glimmer of her brother remained.
They were just pieces now, set against each other on the same board. He wasn’t pretending loyalty for the soldiers. He wasn’t pretending at all.
Serenna’s head snapped up as a flare of fire split the sky.
The blazing flame slammed into a nearby ship, tearing through the deck before the shamans could twist it aside. Another fireball screamed through the wind, scorching sailcloth as it rained down on a second vessel.
Smoke spiraled upward in a churning plume, and through the haze, a figure flew.
Fenn.
On molten wings flung wide, he streaked across the sky. Fire streamed from his fists as he skimmed low over the decks—wrath burning like the sun itself.
Searching.