Chapter 11
SERENNA
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Ayla’s voice lashed from the doorway, and Serenna flinched before she registered the words.
Jassyn’s fingers spasmed away from the ties at her waistband. Elashor’s control over him seemed to tear loose, and he collapsed sideways with a broken gasp, catching himself on one hand before his shoulder struck the rug.
“On your feet,” Ayla snapped, her strides cutting across the room.
Serenna obeyed, relief striking so sharp it almost hurt. She staggered upright, hands shaking as she dragged her leathers back into place.
She reached for Jassyn as he struggled to his feet. His hand tensed against hers before his fingers closed, but he didn’t pull away.
Ayla planted herself in front of Elashor, arms folded across her crimson armor, chin lifted—somehow managing to look down her nose at a male who towered over her by a head.
“Explain,” Ayla clipped, not even sparing them a glance. “You have no business on Centarya. Your campaign is realms away.”
“My business,” Elashor replied without inflection, “was set in motion centuries before you were born.”
Ayla’s gaze flicked to the velvet rug. Then to Elashor.
“And yet you choose my chambers to rut your legacy into my thrall.” She sneered, and Serenna couldn’t tell who the disgust was for.
“If you want access to my assets, you will submit a request through the proper channels. Authorization will not be granted while the king’s expedition remains unfinished.
” Her gaze sharpened. “Or do you believe your ambitions carry more weight than Galaeryn’s orders? ”
Elashor stepped close enough to make her tilt her chin farther.
Ayla didn’t yield.
“You forget who placed you where you stand.” His gaze dropped to Serenna’s Starshard, reclasped at Ayla’s throat, then lifted to the diadem at her brow. “A half-breed queen. Commander of Centarya. A womb with a crown.” His eyes settled on her middle. “Do not mistake elevation for worth.”
“And yet,” Ayla said, “I can provide the king with something you cannot.” She smiled, though nothing behind it reached her eyes. “So by every measure that matters, General, I’m worth more than you.”
She pivoted on her heel and claimed the space behind her desk.
“I expect a formal missive before you set foot on this island again,” Ayla said, rearranging her papers as though the matter were already settled.
“Centarya remains under my command. Your campaign does not grant you leave to trespass here.” She didn’t look up.
“Next time, I will treat your presence as an incursion.”
Serenna’s fingers tightened around Jassyn’s. Elashor’s gaze skimmed over them before returning to Ayla.
“Perhaps it would be prudent,” he said, voice lowering, “to remember who this legacy is meant to serve. Try not to confuse position with power.”
He jerked his chin at the door.
Jassyn’s body went rigid before his hand slipped from hers. He followed Elashor into the hall without looking back.
There was nothing Serenna could do but watch him go. Back to the Vallende estate. Back to whatever waited there.
Ayla’s boots sliced across the marble toward her private quarters. The door snapped shut behind her.
Serenna didn’t move, her limbs refusing to steady.
She wouldn’t be grateful for Ayla’s intervention. Her sister hadn’t saved her, only defended a claim by forcing Elashor to step back from what she considered hers.
Serenna and Jassyn had only been the contested property between them. Nothing more.
A retch broke the silence from beyond Ayla’s door. Then another, wet and gagging around a cough.
For one cruel second, Serenna took satisfaction in Ayla’s body betraying her.
Then the feeling turned on her.
She could be the one behind the door, vomiting over a basin while the legacy Elashor had nearly forced into her took root. Still could be, if he came back with Jassyn to finish what Ayla had interrupted.
Serenna shoved into Ayla’s chambers before she could decide why she was going in at all.
The scent of mint and bile clashed in the air.
Ayla stood at the porcelain sink, bracing herself with one hand, rinsing her mouth with the other. Her crimson hair hung half-unbound, a single damp lock clinging to her cheek.
Serenna froze in the doorway. Whatever had driven her inside faltered when their eyes collided in the mirror.
The bitter thoughts she’d carried through the door withered at the sight. Her hands were still shaking.
So were Ayla’s.
“You stopped him,” Serenna said quietly.
Ayla spat into the sink. “It wasn’t for you.”
“I didn’t think it was.” Serenna’s gaze dropped to the hand Ayla had curled over her middle. The question tore loose before she could decide whether it was accusation or fear. “Did Elashor force this on you, too?”
Ayla’s hand fell back to her side.
Only then did Serenna hear what she’d asked.
“The crown,” Serenna continued, quieter now. “The king’s heir. Was any of it your choice?”
“You think I chose this?” Ayla barked a laugh, the kind reserved for questions too stupid to dignify. “That I begged to be mounted? I did what survival required.”
Serenna shook her head. “What if there’s a different way to survive?”
“Like what?” The question whipped between them.
“Running off with your wraith and rebel prince? Look where that got you. Wings and storm and treason at your back, and yet you still ended up on my floor.” Ayla turned and stalked toward Serenna.
“You’re a fool if you think I didn’t bleed for this crown. That I wasn’t broken first.”
She lifted her hand. Essence ignited around her fingertips, shimmering and lethal.
“I didn’t become an arch elf through some generous distribution of power,” she hissed. “Elashor made me take it. And not from a traitor to the realm like you. He forced me to drain Essence from the only person who ever mattered to me.”
For the first time, words seem to fail her. Ayla’s mouth tightened before she forced one more out.
“Mishryn.”
Serenna blinked, the name snagging somewhere in her memory, just out of reach.
Ayla scoffed. “You don’t even remember her, do you?”
Champagne hair surfaced first. A female always at Ayla’s side when Serenna had first come to Centarya, regarding her with the same contempt.
“She was injured when the wraith attacked the academy.” Ayla’s lip quivered, the magic around her flaring.
“Nothing that couldn’t have been mended.
Elashor told me we were going to visit her.
I thought he was taking me to the healers in Kyansari.
” Her laugh cracked at the edges. “Instead, he took me to the capital’s dungeon.
The place where they sent the injured before they made them disappear as wraith.
He said if I wanted power—if I ever wanted to be seen as more than a half-breed—I would have to tear it free myself. ”
Ayla swallowed hard, but the words kept pouring out. “It wasn’t only Mishryn’s life he put on the line. It was mine. My mother’s. Every scrap of standing she’d clawed from a council that never let us forget what we were.”
Ayla stared past her now, eyes unfocused.
“Mishryn trusted me,” she whispered. “She reached for me. And I…” Her fingers clenched, the Essence around her fading. “I drained her. I felt her magic unravel like a dying heartbeat.” Her chin trembled. “And I begged her not to scream.”
Serenna’s chest tightened around a phantom pain. She knew what it felt like to have a talent ripped away.
“She didn’t survive the transformation,” Ayla said. “And Elashor stood there, watching me learn the realm’s darkest truth. Then called my grief a weakness.”
Whatever she’d been seeing retreated behind her eyes. Ayla stepped closer, her stare gone glacial.
“Now I wake up every morning with her power inside me. With her screams in my skull. With the moment she reached for me waiting every time I blink. Every battle I win, she loses again. But I won’t let her death mean nothing.
” Her hand settled against her middle once more.
“I’ll survive. So will this child. So will what remains of Mishryn. ”