Page 34 of The Reckoning of Starlight

“An ancient dragon’s den,” Serenna said. “Turned into an Aelfyn tomb. The dead still had their Starshards.”

“How many?”

“Maybe thirty.” She wasn’t even tempted to lie. “I wasn’t counting.”

“And you bound yourselves to them by blood,” Ayla said, each word polished to a sneer. “Like thralls.”

The disdain came too easily to be ignorance. Ayla had been letting her knowledge show in glints, enough to lure.

“That’s how the druids use theirs.” Serenna slipped a question into the crack. “How is your way different?”

Ayla halted.

In one fluid motion, she swept the diadem from her brow and held it out. “Take it.”

Serenna hesitated, her gaze flicking to Fenn before she could stop it.

“If he’s that distracting,” Ayla said, “I’ll have you flay his face.”

Serenna snatched the diadem.

The instant her fingers brushed the Starshard, every joint locked.

Cold bit first, then burrowed deep. Ice flooded up her arm, deadening her shoulder, and the circlet slipped from her grasp before her hand could close around it.

Silver struck the marble step between them with a delicate clink and rocked to a stop.

“Pick it up,” Ayla said.

Serenna bent, but Ayla’s boot struck the circlet first, sending it skittering around the curve of the stairwell. It bounced from step to step before coming to rest on the landing below.

Serenna’s wings twitched before she followed.

She descended alone under Ayla’s watchful silence, step by step, then lifted the silver band with a shaking hand, careful to keep her fingers away from the gem. On the climb back up, she didn’t look at Fenn. Not while Ayla’s attention hovered like a hand over a hilt, waiting for any excuse to make him bleed.

Serenna thrust the diadem at her sister.

Ayla settled the crown on her brow and continued down. “I claimed my artifact,” she said, like the answer should’ve been obvious. “Filled the reservoir with my power. Forced it to answer me. It’s that simple.”

Numbness still hummed in Serenna’s fingers. She didn’t ask how.

They descended the rest of the Spire in silence. Behind her, the guards’ armor rattled with every step, a cage of moving sound.

By the time they reached the mess hall, Serenna’s thighs burned.

The chamber hadn’t changed, every bench and table waiting in the same arrangement. She’d just never expected to stand inside it again.

Ayla strode down the central aisle with her chin lifted, and Serenna followed at the distance her Starshard silently dictated.

Benches scraped as magus and initiates rose in unison, fists pressed to their hearts for their queen.

Their stares crawled over Serenna’s wings, tracing the violet sheen of her membranes before sliding past her to Fenn. He moved with every muscle held too still, violence banked beneath the elven skin Taryn had chosen for him.

“All initiates will attend this morning’s sparring,” Taryn called, her voice cutting across the hall. “The reavers and magus will demonstrate what you’ll face across the realms.”

She strode through the ranks as though command had always belonged to her. A former wraith who’d never earned a position in this academy, now ruling over those who had. Gifted an arch elf’s power. Proof that Ayla rewarded those willing to trade loyalty for a place at her feet.

Serenna scanned the ranks as Ayla swept through, but no allies remained. The few rebel magus who’d worked with Jassyn were already gone. Everyone left served Ayla, either by choice or by fear—and Serenna couldn’t tell the difference.