Chapter 57 #2
His hand passed through Vesryn’s chest. Aesar stared at the place where his palm should’ve met armor, then left it there anyway.
A phantom pressure spread across Lykor’s own skin, his fist clenching around it.
Inside the shared space of their mind, Aesar’s calculations had stopped. Lykor had no fury left pacing behind his thoughts. His throat tightened around everything neither of them could make themselves say.
Jassyn sent another breath into Serenna. Then Vesryn.
Fenn stared at Serenna’s face, lips twisted back from his fangs. “Serenna,” he hissed, voice breaking on her name. “Open your eyes.”
Jassyn’s hands shook as the crimson lattices flared. Another wave of roots ripped from the mud, green light flooding through flesh already repaired. He drove wind into Serenna and Vesryn again, desperate now, harsh enough to wrench their spines off the ground.
Vesryn’s head tipped back under the current, Serenna’s lips parting around the borrowed breath.
Their chests rose and fell.
Then stayed still.
Lykor softened his voice. “Jassyn.”
Jassyn didn’t stop. “I can heal them.”
Lykor gripped his shoulder. “Not from this.”
Fenn jerked toward him. Fire burned in his eyes, nearly bright enough to incinerate Lykor where he knelt.
Beside Vesryn, Aesar bowed his head.
“They’re gone,” Lykor said.
Jassyn went still, and the wind died.
Roots unwound from Serenna and Vesryn, sinking back into the mud. Across their chests, the crimson lattices dimmed thread by thread.
Fenn’s shoulders buckled. A ragged sound tore loose from his chest, breaking against his teeth until only a snarl remained. His fingers fell away from the places their pulses should’ve been and settled against the dark Starshards at their throats.
His gaze lifted past them, past the lake, past the silent ranks along the shore and the fliers hovering in the sky.
“No.” Fenn’s stare climbed through the rain of Essence toward the distant stars. “You don’t get to fly where I can’t follow.”
The gem at Fenn’s throat flickered.
Then again.
Then faster, every pulse brighter than the last until radiance flooded the chain at his neck. He clutched Serenna’s Starshard in one claw and seized Vesryn’s with the other.
Essence ignited in a sudden burst, spilling down his arms in prismatic veins. Light speared through his knuckles, bright enough to show every bone. Serenna’s Starshard kindled in his fist, and Vesryn’s blazed awake beside it.
Both currents rushed through Fenn in a violent jolt, but he bared his fangs and held on.
Magic prickled over Lykor’s skin until every hair on his arms lifted. A sound struck him in the skull, a ringing too sharp for hearing.
He shoved to his boots and followed the line of Fenn’s focus into the distant sky above the Drowned Spires, where the blast had sundered the night.
Two small motes of light flickered against the backdrop of stars. Faint. Wandering.
Fenn snarled. “There you are.”
Power tore upward from him in a prismatic lance, racing toward the fading glimmers. It struck them high above the lake, and radiance burst across the dark.
The two motes hung suspended, snared in his power.
Then the sky hurled them down.
Twin currents plunged toward the lake, cutting past the fliers and through the aimless fall of Galaeryn’s stolen talents.
The pillars of light struck the Starshards at Serenna’s and Vesryn’s throats.
Serenna’s spine arched, radiance driving into her collarbones.
Vesryn jolted beside her as silver light forked across his chest and every vein shone through his skin.
Their slack wings convulsed against the mud, then vanished along with their scattered scales.
Fenn growled and kept both gems pinned with his claws as if wrestling the sky for them.
Steam hissed from Serenna’s armor. Vesryn’s fingers seized against the ground, gouging furrows through the mud.
Their mouths parted in the same soundless shock, and Serenna coughed on the first rush of air.
Vesryn’s chest hitched once, then again, before a ruined gasp dragged air back into his lungs.
Aesar rose beside Vesryn, staring as the next breath came without Jassyn’s power.
Fenn tore his claws from the Starshards and hauled them both upright against him.
Serenna sagged into Fenn’s chest, shaking too hard to hold herself upright. Vesryn slumped into his other side, one hand clamped around Fenn’s forearm. He managed half a shove before his elbow gave out, his fingers tightening instead.
Fenn buried his mouth against Serenna’s.
The kiss was vicious and brief, teeth catching, breath breaking between them. Serenna tore her lips from his with a broken sob, clutched his shoulder, then twisted in his arms and reached blindly across him.
Vesryn caught her wrist.
Serenna dragged him toward her and kissed him next. Vesryn’s hand slid into her hair, every gasp shuddering against her lips. The three of them stayed tangled on the ground, alive and breathing where Lykor had already counted them gone.
Jassyn pushed to his feet, the last crimson Essence fading from his fingers.
Aesar returned to Lykor’s side, relief moving silently between them.
Fenn’s claw closed around Serenna’s jaw, careful despite the tremor in his arm as he tipped her face toward him.
Vesryn’s hand slipped from Fenn’s forearm as he pushed himself upright. Serenna reached for the prince again, but his gaze had already lifted past her.
To Lykor.
Aesar flinched hard enough that his form blurred, then withdrew into the shared dark of their mind.
Silver consumed Vesryn’s eyes where emerald belonged, luminous and depthless, starlight staring out from a face Aesar knew as well as his own.
Serenna turned in the same moment.
Her eyes matched the prince’s.
Lykor warped before he realized he’d moved.
His knees struck the ground beside Fenn hard enough to send muddy water flying. One hand clamped around Serenna’s throat, the other around Vesryn’s, wrenching their faces toward the falling light.
Fenn snarled as shadows burst from Lykor’s fists and locked the three of them in place.
Lykor stared from one silver gaze to the other, into that starlit wrongness, and saw only Galaeryn peering back through bodies that had already died.