Chapter 51
SERENNA
Serenna woke on her back to silence and stone.
A chill gnawed through her flight leathers, colder than the damp seeping from the scrubbed white walls. The air held no reek of rot, only sterilized rock scoured so clean it carried no scent at all.
She tried to rise.
Pain lanced behind her eyes, vision fracturing into shards of white. Limbs sluggish, she heaved herself to sit upright. Her body answered too slowly, like it no longer recognized her urgency.
When the blur receded, the chamber resolved into three seamless walls. The fourth gaped open, a violet barrier shimmering across the gap, pulsing faintly. Beyond the shield, a tunnel curved toward blinding light.
A cage with a window, only there to remind her she couldn’t leave.
She remembered nothing of her arrival, or whether Fenn and Jassyn had been taken somewhere else. All she could recall was her brother’s haunted face—those cold, unreadable eyes—as he tore the Starshard from her throat.
Her hand flew to her neck, heart thrashing when metal met her touch.
Gold. She didn’t need to see it to know. Her wings—
She tried to shift. Agony fired down her spine, phantom joints jerking to answer a call already smothered. No rush of muscle or membrane followed. Someone had crammed her back into this form, like clay forced into a mold, and she couldn’t begin to fathom how.
Serenna swayed where she sat, palm pressing hard to her sternum. Skylash’s spark still coursed as a restless current, but when she reached for the static, the charge recoiled from her touch.
Her breath hitched, shallow and sharp. The next collapsed in her throat, air itself seeming to refuse her now. Her thoughts began to scatter until a sound swelled above her.
At first it was distant, reverberating through the stone like rolling thunder. Applause came next, drowning out a clash of steel, shaking the walls.
Just beyond the tunnel, the air shuddered with Essence. Magic pounded against Serenna’s senses, a faint residue of fire scorching close.
Someone was bleeding Essence and earth while a crowd roared for more.
Sweat prickled beneath her hair as the rhythm shifted—footsteps striking stone, each measured clip ratcheting her pulse. She peered toward the open wall, breath catching.
The barrier quivered as painted nails skimmed across its surface. The shield fractured, then shattered in strands of violet light.
Ayla stepped through.
Crimson leathers molded her half sister’s sinuous frame, every line honed and gleaming.
Ayla crossed her arms, regarding Serenna slumped on the floor like something foul scraped from her boot.
At her brow, a diadem framed a Starshard—the same jewelry she’d worn while leading the raid on Lykor’s fortress.
A smile razored across Ayla’s lips. But Serenna was already looking past it, drawn by a hum that vibrated wrong.
To the chain at Ayla’s throat.
Her Starshard, worn like a charm.
“There you are,” Ayla crooned. “Centarya’s fallen star, returned.”
Returned. As if she’d been granted a choice.
If her sister stood here, wielding her power like a crown, then this wasn’t some prison cobbled in a war camp. They’d dragged her back across the realms. And whatever waited for her at the end of the tunnel…
Ayla advanced a pace, unhurried. “You missed your moment to shine,” she said, her voice a velvet blade, “in the academy’s grand tournament with the whole realm watching.”
She flicked her wrist, conjuring a globe of light between them, its glow crawling across the stone.
“But instead, you ran. Straight into the teeth of treason. So I’m stepping in to sponsor you, as Alari’s queen, for this new tournament, with far more at stake.
” Her smile curved, indulgent with every word drawn.
“The capital is ravenous to see if you’re worth forgiving. ”
Serenna’s pulse lurched as she recalled a time when the initiates at Centarya had been eager to compete for Vesryn’s promised positions on the warfront.
Whatever waited beyond the tunnel would be no proving ground. It would be a fight. Always entertainment. Always for the capital. Even now, after everything, they still wanted a show.
And why wouldn’t they? It was never their blood soaking the earth.
Ayla’s fingers drifted to the chain at her throat, stroking the gem that wasn’t hers. The Starshard glimmered from within, light flaring as her nail scraped across its surface.
Serenna gasped.
A violent pull hooked through her chest and wrenched. Her body pitched forward from where she sat, knees cracking against stone as she collapsed at Ayla’s feet.
“Curious, isn’t it?” Ayla asked lightly. “We assumed you’d need to be broken with coercion. But instead…” Her eyes glittered with glacial malice. “You handed us the key to your compliance.”
Ayla flicked the Starshard.
Light seared behind Serenna’s eyes. A lock in her mind turned, a door swinging wide as something merciless slipped through and latched itself inside.
Her spine snapped into motion, breath knocked loose in a scraping rush. Muscles moved without her consent, hauling her body upright to kneel in jerking obedience.
She might have screamed. If her voice still belonged to her.
“The moment you offered your blood to this pretty thing,” Ayla murmured, tapping the gem, “you bound yourself to the vessel. And vessels…” She raked her fingernail down the crystal. Serenna convulsed as the touch scored straight down her spine. “…can be claimed.”
Slow and prowling, Ayla glided around her in a silent sweep, while Serenna was forced motionless at the center of her orbit.
“You thought you understood these artifacts, didn’t you? That the gems only store Essence.” She leaned close, words a breath at Serenna’s ear. “But you never heard the whispers of those who forged them. You never stood a chance.”
Ayla snatched the Starshard in her fist. Serenna’s body flinched, lightning bursting across her skin in unsummoned arcs. Ayla smirked, watching the sparks scatter. She released the gem and crouched, one finger sliding beneath Serenna’s chin, forcing her face upward until their gazes locked.
“I have our dear brother to thank for delivering all of this lovely power, like an obedient little hound.” Ayla’s caress sharpened, nails digging into Serenna’s jaw. “And now it belongs to me.”
Serenna’s neck arched against her will, her body bending as her mind shrieked. Shame burned hot and vicious where fury should have risen.
Ayla released her chin and rose, smoothing her palms against her leathers. The Starshard’s grip slackened and Serenna lurched forward, barely catching herself on her hands before her face struck stone.
She drew a breath through her nose and forced her legs beneath her. They trembled, but she shoved herself upright. The golden collar dug into her pulse with every ragged beat. Still, Serenna lifted her chin, refusing to bow.
Ayla’s lips curved. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten your little beast form,” she purred, stepping closer until her shadow swallowed Serenna whole. “That power is mine too.”
Serenna clenched her jaw until it ached. She clawed inward, desperate to lash out with lightning. But no spark leapt to her call. No wings unfurled. Her power lay locked beneath her skin, strangled into silence.
Just like her.
Ayla skimmed a finger down the Starshard.
Serenna’s spine arched with a violent snap, scales flooding down her arms. Her shoulder blades wrenched apart as wings burst free, membranes ripping the air with a sound like tearing hide. She opened her mouth, air hitching on something between a cry and a snarl, but no sound came.
“You tied yourself to the artifact so sweetly,” Ayla chimed, stroking the shard. “Not as its master, but as its offering. Now you’re mine to wield.”
Serenna’s wings cracked shut and vanished on a wordless command.
“Mine to display.”
Her scales withdrew, every muscle locking. Unmoored inside her own skin, Serenna’s breath stuttered shallow as her body slipped away, leaving her mind stranded behind.
“And you’re up next,” Ayla said brightly. “If you survive…” Her teeth flashed, every word lacquered in venom. “The council will decide what scraps of you are worth keeping.”
Ayla turned on a heel, her stride smooth as a viper basking in the sun. “I won’t spoil what’s waiting for you in the Coliseum,” she called over her shoulder as she left the cell. “Fight or die?” She shrugged. “I don’t care which you do.”
At the archway where the arena’s light slanted in, Ayla paused, crowned in its glow.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked softly, glancing back.
“To be free in choosing the manner of your suffering?” Then, with the smile of someone who already knew how the story ended, she added, “But do hurry, sister. Your wraith won’t survive long without you. ”
Fenn.
Serenna’s pulse slammed in her throat as Ayla’s silhouette flared and then disappeared in the sun.
Finally released from the Starshard’s hold, she staggered, the echo of the binding clinging to her skin like scum. Her spine tensed, bracing for the next command.
But one never came. No guards did either. Just the tunnel loomed ahead, bleeding daylight toward her.
Serenna moved stiffly at first, dread pounding through her skull. Her boots scuffed the polished floor, each step swallowed by the hush of stone. Then she broke into a run. With Fenn already in the arena, every second she wasted here would cost him.
As she burst from the corridor, sunlight scalded her vision, blazing off pristine sand until her eyes watered. A roar of shouting followed, the sound striking her like a blow.
Above, white stone balconies climbed in tiered rings, pastel silks strung into shade. Hundreds of nobles sprawled on cushions, sipping from crystal flutes.
One male draped in emerald raiment flicked a human coin into the sand at Serenna’s feet, his laughter as putrid as rot. Beside him, a child clapped, shrieking for blood.