Chapter 7 #2
Her hand closed around Serenna’s Starshard.
At Fenn’s shoulder, Taryn drew out his gem.
Power surged without her permission. Scales rippled across Serenna’s skin in obsidian plates, sparks crackling between her fingers.
Beside her, Fenn went rigid. Fire spiraled up his arms in whirling arcs, wings snapping wide. Heat bled into the sand beneath his boots, glass forming where it scorched.
“They’re nothing like the shamans in the north,” Ayla continued, “who can only manipulate the surrounding elements. Druids can conjure their dragon magic themselves.”
From a hidden fold in her armor, Ayla drew two Starshards and held them high.
“A reward,” she said. “One artifact to whoever brings fire to heel in the ring. One to whoever brings lightning down.”
Murmurs stirred through the gathered ranks.
“You know how scarce these gems are,” Ayla continued. “Only the worthy will carry one. Use it to supplement your power. Store a reservoir of Essence.”
Ayla lifted her chin and tapped Serenna’s Starshard at her throat.
Serenna’s knees buckled. Sand rushed up to meet her as the shard’s command forced her head toward the ground.
Fenn snarled, then dropped beside her. His wings folded tight and fire banked along his arms, still burning, but useless.
Ayla kept them displayed until Serenna could feel every greedy eye looking past the golden collar locked around her bent neck to the gleaming Starshards promised to whoever broke them first.
“Take him to the east ring,” Ayla said to Taryn. “I’ll keep her here.”
The gem scattered Serenna’s scales, stripping away the only protection she had left before Ayla’s grip finally loosened.
Ayla withdrew to the yard’s edge, her guards closing around her flank in a wall of polished plate.
Taryn hauled Fenn upright and shoved him toward the adjacent training field.
Serenna pushed to her feet as a magus stepped forward, an instructor she didn’t recognize.
He lifted his hands, Essence coalescing in a bright, steady stream.
His weight settled at center, his stance too open—the poise of someone who’d practiced violence only when menders waited at the edge of the ring.
Serenna glanced at Ayla, but no command came. Ayla merely crossed her arms and nodded for the magus to begin.
A test, then. To see what Serenna would do off the leash.
The magus struck first, a slicing arc of shadows whipping the air.
Serenna tucked her wings and threw herself sideways. Sand grated against her skin as she rolled and shot to her feet. Lightning surged to her fists, writhing and wild.
She hurled it.
The magus staggered backward, snapping a shield into place just before the charge crashed into it. Violet sparks scattered across the sand.
Serenna twisted her wrist and drove the next strike behind his shield, lashing where he’d left his back exposed. Lightning raked across his armor and he pitched forward with a cry, Essence going dark as menders rushed in to drag him from the ring.
A reaver bearing Ayla’s shrike stepped in next.
Serenna didn’t wait for permission.
She launched skyward, joints screaming with every beat. Lightning lanced from her palms in bursts as she circled overhead, the scent of scorched air coiling behind her. Ropes of force lashed upward, reaching for her ankles, but she angled higher with a savage beat of her wings.
Serenna climbed, the figures tracking her from below. Fenn flew over the eastern ring, wreathed in fire, returning every strike a magus threw at him.
He angled higher, racing toward the open sky.
Taryn’s hand flashed with his Starshard. Fenn’s wings seized, yanked closer to the ground.
Serenna knew if she ventured any higher, Ayla would do the same.
She didn’t dare look longer.
Too late.
A burst of force slammed into her wing too fast to dodge.
Pain slashed through the membrane. Serenna spasmed midair, plummeting as the next stroke caught.
Lightning discharged before she could aim. A wild arc cratered the sand at the reaver’s feet, then leapt sideways, striking a spectating initiate square in the chest.
Serenna veered hard, wings dragging lift. The crowd recoiled below her, shouts rising in her wake.
Ayla only watched.
The reaver launched a cloud of shadows. Serenna tucked one wing and rolled under the strike, then drove her next bolt into the soft hollow below his ribs.
His body struck the ground.
After that, the fight blurred into motion and repetition.
Serenna flew low, keeping to the ring’s edge. Striking fast. Racing away. Lightning snapped from her hands—a reaver buckled, then a magus, the air singed with scorched leather and burned flesh.
But there were more. Always more. Each body that fell left space for another to enter the ring. Reaver. Magus. Reaver again. All of them ravenous for the Starshard Ayla dangled as a prize.
Serenna stayed airborne and kept attacking. Kept tearing herself out of reach before the next assault of Essence could strike. Fenn’s fire still lashed at the edge of her sight. If he remained flying, so would she.
By the time the sun climbed near its peak, the ground below shimmered with heat.
Serenna’s body gave out as the menders dragged another reaver from the ring. Lift slipped from her wings. Sand rushed up, and no strength remained to stop it.
Serenna’s wings flared just enough to spare her the full fall. She hit knees-first, palms slapping down, the impact cracking through her teeth. Breath scalded her throat. Her wings sagged behind her, stirring dust with every tremor.
No one had brought her down.
A hush rolled through the crowd.
Then Taryn stepped into the ring.