Chapter 33
SERENNA
Serenna’s boots struck stone, the landing driving a dull shock through knees already stiff from the sleepless evacuation.
Noon burned white over the Aetherveil, the wind slipping through her leathers and stripping the warmth from her skin. She dismissed her wings, flexed feeling back into her hands, and faced the tower piercing the island’s heart.
Moss veined the pale spiral, faint green light pulsing against the stone. Narrow windows open to the sky staggered toward the clouds, their edges worn down by centuries of wind. Beyond the tower, a bridge of twisted vines swayed toward the next isle, binding the two across open air.
Two wraith guarded the entrance, one on either side. Both inclined their heads as Serenna approached.
“She’s on the second level.”
Serenna nodded, though her legs didn’t carry her farther.
She’d chosen this lower island to keep Ayla away from the main camp, where thousands of refugees were still claiming space among the scattered towers.
Their scouts had uncovered Starshards only in the upper tiers, near the immense island patrolled by the wind gliders.
The bonds brightened with Vesryn’s and Fenn’s proximity, each presence shining like light beneath a closed door.
Serenna spun toward them as they landed, their wings vanishing almost in unison. “Do you two have nothing better to do than follow me around?”
“Plenty.” Wind whipped Fenn’s braids across his shoulders as he tilted his head. “But not more pressing than preventing you from confronting your sister without us.”
Her fingers twitched toward Ayla’s Starshard, hidden in her leathers. “Ayla is tethered. I have her gem blood-bound, and she can barely stand.”
Serenna glanced between them, but neither so much as budged.
“Kaedryn said she went into labor during the evacuation,” she explained. “I need to see what she brought into this world.”
Vesryn frowned at the guarded tower. “Then lead the way.”
“Fine.” She turned back toward the entrance. Arguing would only postpone seeing what Ayla had delivered.
They entered the spire and followed the path upward. At the second level, the stairwell opened into an airy gallery where arches framed narrow platforms above the clouds, nothing beyond them but open sky.
Two of Fenn’s sisters guarded a recessed doorway, one facing the stairs, the other watching the horizon beyond the arches. Their crimson eyes flicked to Fenn before they stepped aside.
The chamber beyond was small enough that Vesryn and Fenn filled the doorway behind Serenna, their presence settling against her back like a second wall.
Ayla sat on a pallet against the stone, her body curved around the bundle in her arms. Thin blankets lay twisted across the floor, blood dried where the fabric bunched.
Since yesterday, her face had sharpened to gaunt angles, pallid skin drawn tight over bone. Her crimson hair hung dull over one shoulder, tangled into brittle ropes.
Ayla’s fingers trembled over the baby’s scalp, smoothing wisps of pale copper. Serenna had never seen her sister touch anything so gently. The child slept against her, swaddled in linen cut from some larger garment.
Serenna stepped further inside the room, and Ayla’s head whipped up, eyes bloodshot but full of threat.
Neither moved.
“Is she…well?” Serenna asked.
“As well as any infant can be,” Ayla snapped, “rotting in your rebels’ ruins.” A cough racked through her, one hand clamping over her ribs until she could breathe again.
“And if you were back on Centarya, the king would already have her.”
Serenna crossed to the pallet and sank onto her heels. Up close, the child’s nose was delicate, her mouth bowed in sleep. Her face held a peace the war had tried to steal before her first breath.
The baby stirred, tiny fists opening and closing. Ayla murmured something against her hair.
The infant’s lashes fluttered.
Every muscle along Serenna’s spine locked.
Silver shone beneath them—the exact shade burning in Galaeryn’s gaze.
The room seemed to tilt. Serenna surged to her feet, pulse hammering in her throat. “Her eyes—”
“What did you expect?” Ayla hissed. “She shares his blood.”
The child blinked, slow and unfocused, her attention sliding past Serenna.
“Is she…” The question splintered on Serenna’s tongue. Please be innocent.
Vesryn stepped forward. “Is an Aelfyn already wearing her skin?”
“She’s mine.” Ayla bared her teeth. “Even the king’s reach can’t touch her this far.”
Serenna met Vesryn’s emerald eyes, the same color Galaeryn’s had been before power turned them silver. Whatever watched from behind the infant’s gaze—newborn innocence or something far older—gave them no sign.
“What are you going to do?” Ayla demanded. “Kill her?”
“No.” The answer left Serenna too fast. “She’s a child.”
“So was he,” Vesryn said beside her. “Once.”
The infant’s attention drifted toward the window where light spilled in, eyes reflecting the sky as though she’d already learned to look past the walls of her cage.
Ayla lifted her chin, the tremor in her arms never reaching her voice. “So what comes next?” She hooked a finger under the golden collar at her throat. “You’ve stolen my freedom and the king’s heir. What’s your plan now, rebel?”
Serenna pursed her lips, recognizing Ayla steering the conversation somewhere she’d already decided to go.
“Jassyn heard Elashor boasting about the Falling Star Crater. He confirmed what you told us—that the king believes more Hearts of Stars are buried there.” Serenna straightened. “We’re going. This time, you’ll tell us what you held back.”
A ragged laugh broke from Ayla and died.
“Oh.” She shook her head slowly. “You’re serious.”
Fenn crossed to the open window and set one shoulder against the frame, his attention divided between Ayla and the islands floating beyond.
“The crater is Elashor’s campaign,” Ayla said before letting the silence lengthen, no doubt measuring what the secret was worth before naming its price. “And his forces won’t be the most dangerous thing waiting there.”
Cold crept between Serenna’s ribs. “What is?”
“The crater is more than a mine.” Ayla lifted one wasted hand.
“No one knows what the Aelfyn left below.” Her voice lowered and the wind through the arches nearly carried it away.
“The soldiers who returned had blood packed under their nails from clawing at the walls. Some begged Elashor to kill them. Others never came back at all.”
Serenna held her breath, Vesryn and Fenn going still with her.
“If your alliance means to survive what’s coming…” Ayla tucked the fabric close to her daughter’s chin as if she had all the time in the world. “You’ll need more than the handful of artifacts you’ve been playing war with.”
“The Starshards?”
Ayla rolled her eyes. “Whatever you call those gems you blood-bound yourselves to like fools.”
Serenna’s fingers closed around the crystal in her leathers before she caught herself. One yank would turn Ayla’s careful bargaining into a scream.
She withdrew her hand.
“And how would more Starshards actually help us against the king?”
“Your gems can link.” Ayla studied her, calculation sharpening through the exhaustion. “Surely you’ve stumbled on that by now.”
Prismatic threads flashed through Serenna’s memory from their fight in Asharyn, braiding her Starshard to Vesryn’s and Fenn’s until their joined Essence flooded her body.
Serenna crossed her arms. “The magic amplified when we channeled it together.”
“Now imagine dozens locked in synchronization, each one compounding Essence.” A thin smile touched Ayla’s cracked lips. “Perhaps you wouldn’t have lost a dragon to half-trained shamans if you understood what you hold.”
Fenn shook his head. “But those on your floating island had dozens of Starshards. If linking them offers more magics, the king—”
“He knows,” Ayla cut in without looking at him. “But he would never place that much concentrated power in another’s hands. He scattered the gems across Elashor’s campaigns, punishing any who even dare to think about it.”
“Elashor is dead,” Vesryn said flatly.
Ayla blinked. The infant stirred against her chest, and she drew her closer.
By the time Ayla spoke, her face was unreadable. “Then the king has no one left but the voices in his head.”
Vesryn exhaled through his nose. “He’s always hoarded power and trusted no one to wield it beside him. That’s his weakness. Perhaps the only one.”
“But between the Starshards the druids preserved and those we’ve recovered,” Serenna said, “we still don’t have near enough to arm the whole alliance.”
“And you need Hearts if you mean to free your dragons.” Ayla eased back against the wall, careful of the child in her arms. “Convenient, then, that more of both lie in the same crater. But you’ll want to hurry. If the king opens his portal and brings the Aelfyn through—”
“What portal?” Serenna cut in.
Ayla’s mouth curved. She’d saved that truth for precisely this reaction.
“The gateway he means to tear open to the stars. Once the Aelfyn cross, whatever resistance you’ve built ends.”
Serenna scoffed. “Forgive me if I find this sudden generosity difficult to trust, but what is it costing us?”
Ayla sneered. “I offer it because if Galaeryn takes my daughter, she’ll be gone before she gets to exist.” Her arms tightened around the infant, knuckles whitening against the linen. “An Aelfyn will look out through her eyes, and she’ll never know her own name.”
Her gaze dropped to the child, chin trembling before she stopped it.
“I’ll give you everything I know. But only while my daughter sleeps somewhere safe.
Otherwise, I bite through my tongue and it all dies with me.
” Command returned to her voice though she sat on a pallet on the floor.
“So use what I’ve told you. And if you’re going to fall, make sure he falls with you. ”
Serenna studied the hard set of her sister’s jaw, the wasted flesh, the collar lying heavy against jutting bones. Ayla’s grip on the child never loosened. She meant every word.
Gratitude rose before Serenna crushed it. Her sister would never earn her thanks.
Yet Ayla’s body was still failing. Birth had taken more than blood. Every inhale seemed to cost her strength she could no longer replace. Whatever answers she still carried would die with her.
“Do you need more to eat?” Serenna asked. “Mending? We have magus who could—”
“I’m fine.”
The linen under Ayla had darkened since Serenna entered, the stain widening through the cloth. “You’re still bleeding.”
Ayla said nothing. She adjusted her daughter higher against her chest, but the effort set her coughing again.
“Fine. Send someone,” she said when the fit released her. She glared toward the corridor where Fenn’s sisters waited. “And not one of your winged beasts with their salves and poultices. I’ll need Essence.”
Serenna glanced at Vesryn. He nodded, then jerked his chin at Fenn to follow. The two males left to fetch a magus, their footsteps fading down the stairs.
“What’s her name?” Serenna asked quietly.
Ayla’s jaw worked, but no answer came. She traced the infant’s cheek, the tenderness so foreign it looked borrowed.
“Sharyne,” she whispered at last. “It was Mishryn’s middle name.”
Serenna’s gaze lingered on the pale copper hair under Ayla’s bloodless hand. The sister who’d tormented her now curved around Sharyne as though the child were the only sacred thing left in the realms.
Serenna turned for the door. “She deserves better than what the king has planned.”
Ayla’s mouth twisted, though she didn’t look up. “So did we.”