Page 131 of The Reckoning of Starlight

“Siphon it.” The order ground out through his teeth, sweat beading his brow.

Fenn extended his claw, palm hovering inches from the glowing crystal.

Then he pulled.

Fenn bared his fangs as the charge hammered into his Starshard, the impact scorching across the bond. The glider’s gem began to dim as he drained its stores.

Vesryn’s magic surged, thin tendrils of rending slipping under the crystal’s edges, probing the seam where it met flesh. The glider screamed, heaving so violently that one band of force unraveled before Vesryn wrenched it taut again.

“Careful,” Serenna hissed—to which of them, she couldn’t say. The pocket of wind around them buckled as the glider’s mouth gaped, forcing her wings into punishing strokes.

Vesryn drove the shadows deeper. The Starshard lifted by a hair, and the glider’s shriek climbed beyond rage into agony.

Leathery skin tore. A thin line of blood, dark and viscous, trickled along the crystal’s edge.

Crimson light chased the rending, drawing torn flesh together to staunch the worst of the blood.

The glider thrashed. Its mouth gaped again—wider, more frantic—and the fragile sky around Serenna lurched toward it.

Her wings pounded through the failing air as she hauled the currents back into shape, stitching lift faster than the creature could unmake it. Each breath scraped her ribs as she held the three of them aloft on a narrow corridor of wind.

Vesryn’s shadows wrenched. The Starshard tore free with a sound fit for a butcher’s block. He snatched the gem before it fell.

The glider’s shriek fractured as it sagged in Vesryn’s arms, going still.

“Well,” Fenn said. “That was horrible.”

Then one wing jerked. The creature bucked weakly, clawing its way back through whatever pain had seized it.

Vesryn ripped open a portal beside them. His force bindings dissolved as he hurled the creature through the rift.

It reappeared near the crown island, wings flaring as it circled in a limping spiral.

Away from them.

Breath sawing through her lungs, Serenna watched it labor. Every few wingbeats, its body listed toward the open drop before forcing itself level again. They’d spared its life, but left it wounded. Still, it had worked.

And then she remembered the others.

Nine shadows streaked toward them, turning as one. The Starshards set into their skulls pulsed brighter as they locked onto the prismatic stream still whirling between the three of them.

Closer now. Faster.

Fenn’s laugh broke their silence. “Nine to go?”

Vesryn’s eyes snapped to him, glinting with grim amusement. “Next one’s yours.”

Vesryn released his hold, and control of the current slid to Fenn.

Fenn’s eyes flared. Essence crackled around his knuckles as he squared to face the approaching horde. “You want to keep score?”

Vesryn’s mouth twitched. “I already am.”

CHAPTER 35

LYKOR

Lykor crouched at the rim of the Falling Star Crater.