Chapter 59 #3
Serenna followed the prince’s line of sight down the slope.
The last of Vaelyn’s survivors had disappeared through the rift.
Magister Thalaesyn and Mara had gone with them to begin cleansing whatever traces of Elashor’s coercion still clung to the castle’s halls.
Saundyl remained alone, his wife and son having already crossed.
Fenn nudged Serenna with his elbow. “Go on, she-elf.”
Vesryn’s hand brushed the small of her back, warm through her leathers. “We’ll wait.”
Serenna shifted into her wings and glided down the hill before she could change her mind.
Saundyl turned as she landed, her wings rustling closed behind her.
His sapphire eyes searched her face, tentative instead of familiar.
But Serenna saw her brother clearly—the boy she’d chased through the waves along Vaelyn’s beaches, both of them laughing when the surf stole their footing, before war taught them to stand on opposite shores.
Saundyl reached for her, then hesitated when he looked past her to the hill where Vesryn and Fenn waited. His hand faltered and fell to his side, that small surrender hurting worse than if he’d never reached at all.
Serenna closed the distance before he could retreat any further.
His arms closed around her carefully, leaving room for her wings, his hold loose enough that she could’ve pulled free without effort. For a moment, she stood rigid in the embrace.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Serenna’s wing claws clenched tight.
The apology came too late to unmake the choices that had delivered her into Ayla’s hands. Too late for the children in the Coliseum. Too late for Asharyn’s breached walls. Too late for the brother and sister who might’ve learned to forgive each other before it cost them blood.
But as his arms trembled around her, Serenna wound her own against his back.
“I know.”
They held each other until Saundyl finally drew away. “Visit Vaelyn when you can.” His smile nearly found warmth before sorrow pulled it thin. “Mother will want to see you. And by the lunar solstice, you won’t be the youngest anymore.”
Serenna stared at him until the meaning sharpened. She’d forgotten, somehow, that their mother had spent most of her life trapped under Elashor’s coercion, forced to bear his children for a realm that had never given her a choice.
And now another child was coming into the ruined world.
Saundyl’s gaze dropped. “The magister will undo the magic on her mind. Perhaps we’ll be able to meet her properly.”
Properly.
The word scraped against every year Serenna had believed their mother’s cold distance was chosen.
Only now did she understand how thoroughly Elashor’s coercion had shaped that rift, keeping the queen beyond reach so Serenna would grow up starving for affection and looking to him to decide when she deserved it.
“I’ll visit,” she promised.
Saundyl nodded. “Good.”
He glanced toward the portal, then back at her. His mouth parted before closing again. Whatever remained unsaid, he carried back to Vaelyn.
The portal sealed shut, leaving Serenna alone with lake wind and sunlight flashing across the water. Footsteps approached behind her.
Serenna drew a steadying breath and turned from the shore. “Jassyn is probably waiting for us.”
Vesryn lifted one hand, Essence gathering at his fingertips. “Then we should catch up before he has to keep Lykor from solving the Accord’s diplomacy with violence.”
Serenna caught his arm before the portal opened. “Wait.”
Above them, the sky stretched impossibly wide, blue and empty enough to make something in her ache.
They’d spent so long fleeing from one danger to the next that distance had become a wound magic tore open rather than a path they traveled. Rift after rift, always with a threat at their backs or another fight waiting on the other side.
Serenna unfurled her wings, amethyst membranes stretching wide as sunlight spilled across their veins, her wing claws flexing into the warmth.
“I want to take the long way.”
Fenn looked pointedly down at Sharyne, sleeping in her sling. “With her in tow?”
Serenna’s resolve faltered. “I…”
Violet light spilled from the Starshard at Fenn’s throat and closed around Sharyne like a second swaddle. Her nose crinkled, arms pushing against the cloth before sleep claimed her again.
Fenn inspected his shield, giving an approving nod. “She won’t even notice.”
Vesryn’s pupils narrowed to draconic slits. Obsidian scales plated down his arms, glinting in the sun as his wings opened wide. “Then we take the long way.”
“One small shortcut,” Fenn said, seizing both their arms.
The hillside vanished before Serenna could object. Wind tore across her skin as Fenn warped them high.
For one suspended heartbeat, she hung weightless in open blue, the lake flashing like broken glass below.
Then her wings caught, a current snapping through the membranes.
Vesryn swept in beside her, silver hair streaming, while Fenn emerged on her other side with Sharyne bound against his heart.
The world opened before them. Lake. Shore. Spires. Fields scarred by war.
Wounded still, but now theirs to mend.
Serenna beat her wings once, rising into a current. This time, she didn’t fall into the sky.
She claimed it.