Chapter 16
SERENNA
Serenna watched the war burn through Fenn with every portal Taryn forced him to open, his hands shaking harder each time. Rift after rift sundered the air, spilling Centarya’s forces across the realms.
Every jump started with just one. Then a dozen magus would surge through, turn, and tear open their own passages—scores of portals multiplying from the first. In waves, Centarya’s army poured through the voids, the island bleeding dry behind them.
Ayla kept Serenna tethered beside her with wings and scales buried. Her sister said nothing as the lines advanced, her gaze never settling on one place. More than once, her hand drifted to her middle, then jerked away, fingers curling into a fist at her side.
The portals carried them westward—through the Hibernal Wastes, through the druid jungle—each rift resetting the bruised sky.
The same fading light stretched longer than it should’ve, until the sun drowned in rising stars.
By the time Fenn tore open the last portal to a high dune ridge overlooking Asharyn, nausea had bored through Serenna’s gut.
Vesryn should’ve sensed Fenn untethered, crossing realm after realm through whatever bond the Starshards had formed between them.
He should’ve come searching, thrown himself into danger without a plan.
But she hadn’t seen so much as a shadow of the prince.
And she supposed that might be for the best—if Centarya’s forces got their hands on his Starshard, they would chain him beside her and Fenn.
The city gleamed under dying twin moons, and Ayla’s control coiled through Serenna’s limbs, drawing every tendon taut.
Her sister’s voice carried the calm of a decision already made. “This dragon nursery you spoke of…” Her eyes slid to Serenna’s. “We’ll portal directly to it.”
Every instinct screamed to argue, to stall for one more minute before Ayla flooded her ranks into Asharyn.
But resistance would only make Ayla tighten her grip. Her sister had already pried most of the details from her and Fenn—the entrance, the guards, the hatchlings. Ayla had inventoried every threat she could count, but there was one question she’d never thought to ask.
Clinging to their only advantage, Serenna remained silent. From this far, there was nothing she could do to warn Cinderax and the twenty-two hatchlings who didn’t know what was coming.
Behind them, the stream of fighters didn’t cease. Magus and initiates poured through rifts until the dunes bristled with Centarya’s ranks.
Someone in the city had to see this. Some scout, some winged wraith cloaked in shadows…
“Taryn,” Ayla called over her shoulder, voice never rising. “Send the first wave into the city. I want Asharyn fighting before it realizes where we’re truly striking.”
Taryn turned and relayed the order down the ranks. Below the ridge, streets and towers gleamed under the moons—bright enough for any magus to mark a landing. Rifts opened across the sand, swallowing Centarya’s numbers before spilling them into the city below.
Ayla’s attention returned to Serenna. “You and I will take the dragons first. Consider it a kindness—they’ll be claimed for Centarya before the walls fall around them.” Her gaze slid to Taryn. “The nursery. Now. Bring your reavers.”
Taryn’s fist closed around Fenn’s Starshard. His whole body jerked—spine locking, teeth bared, a sound scraping through his throat that wasn’t a word. Another rift split the air in front of his hands.
His eyes found Serenna’s for one fleeting moment. Then Ayla’s control wrenched her forward, and the portal engulfed her.
Sand ground under her boots. Heat hit like a furnace, surrounding them with a sharp mineral bite. Braziers ringed the salt cavern, their glow carving long shadows up the walls. High above, hexagonal windows cut through the stone, open to the stars.
Reavers crowded in behind her, boots and armor filling the chamber with echoes, shrinking the nursery with every footfall.
The hatchlings wouldn’t understand speech. But Cinderax would.
Fear tore outward before Serenna could shape anything else, her mind screaming one desperate word through the scalebond.
“RUN!”
Scattered through the shadows, pairs of eyes peeled open. Icy blue. Amethyst. Ember gold.
“Secure them,” Ayla snapped.
The reavers spread wide, forming a ring around the chamber’s edge. Serenna’s focus flew upward, measuring the narrow windows. The hatchlings might fit if they fled.
A growl split the dark, and Vasharax pounced into the firelight. Her snout lifted, testing the air, and Serenna nearly cried out when she bounded straight for Fenn, the way she always did, all legs and momentum.
Fenn didn’t move, forced motionless at Taryn’s side.
Vasharax skidded to a halt in the sand, a low rumble replacing the growl as she searched his unfamiliar face for the grin that always meant pounce again.
Her nostrils flared. Whatever she scented made her leathery frills snap wide. She backed up, one claw at a time, planting herself in front of the nearest cluster of hatchlings.
Serenna’s legs wrenched toward Vasharax against her will. The cavern guards should’ve been between the hatchlings and the reavers by now. Unless the raid in the city had pulled them from their posts.
She grasped for Cinderax’s mind, reaching through the scalebond. “We’re compromised. The city—the hatchlings. Get them out.”
A low chuff answered from the dark.
Obsidian scales glinted as Cinderax stepped from the shadows—fangs bared, steam hissing from his throat. Around him, the hatchlings closed into a rough crescent, claws gouging the sand, wings rustling as every small body turned to face the reavers.
Taryn laughed. “These runts are what the king’s in a frenzy to seize?”
“We have our orders,” Ayla bit out. “Send them to Centarya under guard. Then return to the siege—”
Roars thundered from every direction.
Wings unfurled, fangs catching the firelight. Jaws opened, and a storm broke loose inside the cavern.
All twenty-three dragons charged, hitting the reavers like a breaking tide.
Fire and frost collided—heat searing one side of Serenna’s face while cold cracked through the stone under her boots. Sparks lanced through the air, slamming into reavers in bursts that threw bodies backward.
The entrance darkened behind the reavers.
Shadows spilled over the sand, and wraith and druid defenders burst into the cavern, flames crawling over their claws.
Fire leapt from fists. At the tip of a druid’s staff, a Starshard shrieked.
The nearest reaver burst apart before they could raise a shield, gore slapping against the ground.
Serenna tried to join them—tried to throw herself into that defensive wall—but Ayla’s command crushed the impulse before it became motion.
The ring around the hatchlings buckled as reavers turned from the dragons to meet the defenders flooding in behind them.
Wraith struck from shadows and vanished before reavers could strike with Essence. Druids drove flame low across the sand, fire curling around boots and climbing armor until Centarya’s forces screamed inside smoking armor.
The nursery became a battlefield built around its hatchlings, every defender closing ranks until each path to them had to break through flames or claws.
More Starshards screeched through the smoke and dust as they discharged waves of shadows.
Ayla hesitated. Her grip on Serenna’s spine slackened for one precious second, command thinning to a thread.
Serenna’s fingers twitched, answering her own will, but Ayla’s hold clamped back down.
“Seize their relics!” Ayla snarled to the reavers.
Magic ignited around Ayla as she withdrew a key from her armor. She plunged the metal into Serenna’s collar and twisted. The lock cracked open, and the gold fell away, the thud of it striking sand swallowed by the battle’s roar.
She was free from the tether, but the cage had only changed shape. Ayla needed Essence to win this fight.
Serenna’s Well erupted like a mountain splitting open. Power surged, racing through every limb until her bones felt ready to shatter.
And Fenn—Fenn—his presence finally blazed in her mind so bright she nearly buckled.
Vesryn. Serenna dove down the bridge of his bond. He had to be close. He had to be—
Ayla wrenched her forward.
Serenna grappled for the flood of power.
Ayla seized it first.
Her sister’s magic spliced into the molten starlight, a blue band of force cinching around Serenna’s Essence before she could claim a single current.
Shadows detonated from Serenna’s hands—rending braided through Ayla’s force, the lash held in her sister’s grip.
The hatchlings took wing.
Her palms snapped left. A web of rending forked toward a cluster of dragons scrambling for height. Serenna threw herself against Ayla’s control from the inside.
Nothing yielded.
The hatchlings scattered. The strike sheared past them and slammed into the cavern wall above, stone exploding, grit and broken salt raining over their wings.
A sheet of fire scoured the chamber. Ayla yanked Serenna between herself and the flames, plating scales over Serenna’s skin.
The blaze slammed into her side. Serenna staggered, the world ringing white as burning heat scorched her armor.
Her hands were already rising before her vision cleared—fingers locked, rending coiling between them. The strike released before she could scream. It missed a hatchling by inches, skimming past its wings and gouging a trench into the wall.
Across the cavern, Fenn moved in the same wrong way—snare after snare of force tearing from his palms. An Emberhart hit the sand thrashing, magic cinching its wings tight as flames spat wildly between its fangs.
A reaver hauled it toward a portal. Fenn bared his teeth, but his hands never stopped, already forming the next binding.
Vasharax shrieked from somewhere in the smoke. Fenn lurched toward the sound, but Taryn’s fist tightened around his Starshard, hauling him back by his spine.