Page 247 of The Reckoning of Starlight

The trace of amusement stopped Serenna short of the ledge. She glanced back. “Why?”

Skylash settled deeper around the clutch. “The whelps have grown bored hunting flightless prey.”

Serenna’s smile vanished. “But you told them not to hunt dracovae or druids.”

“I told them not to eat druids.” She tucked her snout under one wing and closed her eyes. “Perhaps your kind will find that fear improves the wing.”

“Stars,” Serenna muttered.

Wings tore free from her spine as she hurled herself from the ledge, racing to reach the fliers before four young Stormstrikes descended.

Wind struck the instant Serenna cleared the island. She folded her wings and plunged, letting a cloud devour her.

Mist slicked her face as white erased the sky. Only the current remained, its downward pull pressing against her senses.

The clouds scattered, sunlight spilling through.

The lower chains opened into view, and Serenna scanned the sky for lightning. None yet.

Hundreds of floating islands staggered through the sky, some carrying forests and abandoned towers, others little more than shelves of wind-scoured stone. Bright streamers fluttered between them, marking the trial routes. Fliers already raced the course while water, fire, and wind lashed across their paths.

Wraith, elves, humans, and everyone in between rode the currents as druids. Since the war, Rimeclaw, Veyrix, and Cinderax had chosen new scalebound heedless of the bloodlines that once decided who was permitted power.

A horn sounded from the western launch isle, and six newly-turned scalebound hurled themselves from its rim.

The trials had grown from the drills that had left Serenna bruised across the Splitfang, when staying aloft long enough to cross the canyon had been victory enough.

Now they taught the shape of losing control before the lesson could cost any lives. Speed eroded caution, competition dulled judgment, and beastblood fed on both, turning a rival’s lead into pursuit before thought could catch up.

A sheet of water erupted across the sky. Two fliers climbed clear while a third drove straight through, wings buckling under the weight before she wrestled them open again.

Farther ahead, a Zephyrfang wraith ripped the wind sideways with both claws, tumbling another flier onto his back. By the time he recovered, fire was already crossing the narrow pass beyond him, scattering the fliers across the sky.

Serenna’s station waited beyond the spectators. Iron spires rose from neighboring islands, built to catch Skylash’s lightning and web the last stretch with a maze of sparks.

She angled toward them, her thumb skimming the narrow band of gold around her forefinger. Essence was barred from this novice course, and the metal kept her magic stifled while she flew.

These days, Serenna tolerated that silence for another reason. Too much Essence drew the voices near.

Return home.

Sometimes only those two words. Sometimes others followed, distant and layered, until the stars crowded too close behind her eyes.

At night, the gold came off, and the bonds it had smothered reawakened.

Tethered, she missed sensing Vesryn and Fenn. Which was ridiculous now when both males were somewhere below. Vesryn was supposed to be monitoring the course, which meant worsening any hazard he considered too forgiving.

Fenn had planned to watch with Sharyne and Koln from one of the spectator islands. Hopefully one of them had remembered her coat. Between two wraith who regarded cold as a mild inconvenience, Serenna gave Sharyne even odds of being taught that shivering built character.

A blast of lightning struck her square in the back.

The charge spun Serenna out of the sky. She rolled with it, caught a current, and wrenched herself back upright.

Static crawled over her scales as a dark shape streaked past, close enough for displaced air to slap her wings.

Obsidian scales flashed in the sun, amethyst wings slicing through the sky.

Skyshatter.