Page 228 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Serenna glared up at him, but the expression wouldn’t hold.

“I can’t do this.” The words escaped before she could stop them.

Her throat tightened as Sharyne cried between them, and Serenna stared down at her, terrified by how little it took to fail a life this small.

Ayla’s Starshard hummed in Serenna’s pocket, nearly as heavy as the promise she’d made to her dying sister.

She wanted to be rid of it.

Shame followed the thought immediately, but it didn’t change the urge to put the gem out of memory and out of reach. Out of the room where Sharyne’s cries kept giving Ayla a voice.

But the gem belonged to Sharyne.

One day, when she was old enough to understand—when she could carry a piece of her mother without being crushed by the history—Serenna would honor Ayla’s final request and give her what remained of her and Mishryn.

Until then, Serenna would carry it for her.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” Serenna clenched the swaddling cloth. “There has to be someone better suited. Someone who doesn’t…” She swallowed, jaw aching around the confession. “Someone who doesn’t panic when she cries.”

The humor slipped from Fenn’s face as he glanced down at Sharyne’s damp lashes, her trembling mouth, the furious pulse fluttering against petal-thin skin.

He crouched beside them and covered Serenna’s wrist with his claw. “I’ll show you.”

Fenn reached past her, holding Sharyne’s arms gently while he drew the cloth across her chest. Talons made for tearing skimmed close without catching skin, sweeping the fabric around Sharyne until only her furious red face remained.

She hiccuped.

Then fell silent.

Fenn nodded. “There. See? Not so difficult.”

Sharyne’s lips puckered, threatening betrayal. One arm strained against the cloth as she tested the restraint and found herself, for the moment, defeated.

Before she could gather another scream, Fenn lifted her against his chest, one broad palm bracing the back of her head. Sharyne startled, then settled into warmth with a soft, offended sigh.

Serenna shook her head as the ringing in her ears eased. “You’ve done this before.”

Fenn rolled his eyes. “I helped raise seven sisters. I can handle one tiny elf.”

Serenna stared at Fenn cradling Sharyne, at how impossibly small the infant looked, held safe in the curve of his talons.

Before dawn, Vesryn had insisted on holding his sister with solemn, exhausted concentration, Sharyne’s fist tangled in his silver hair while he pretended not to notice.

All morning, she’d been passed from Fenn’s claws to Vesryn’s arms to Serenna’s unsteady hands. Ayla’s daughter, held by the people left standing between her and a world that had already taken too much.

Fenn drew another length of cloth from the cradle and slung it over one shoulder.

Serenna blinked. “What are you doing?”

“Securing the menace.” He settled Sharyne against his chest and bound her there with efficient, merciless tugs. “Since your princeling abandoned his post to speak to the dragons, I’m assuming command.”

Serenna’s mouth twitched. “Did you inform him of this self-promotion?”

“Not yet.” Fenn hooked a talon in the sling and tested its hold. “He was already prickly after scorching two bottles of pocket goat milk.”

A laugh slipped out of Serenna. “That’s what she’s drinking?”

“Milk that I acquired at great personal cost.”