Page 36 of The Reckoning of Starlight

The magus staggered backward, snapping a shield into place just before the charge crashed into it. Violet sparks scattered across the sand.

Serenna twisted her wrist and drove the next strike behind his shield, lashing where he’d left his back exposed. Lightning raked across his armor and he pitched forward with a cry, Essence going dark as menders rushed in to drag him from the ring.

A reaver bearing Ayla’s shrike stepped in next.

Serenna didn’t wait for permission.

She launched skyward, joints screaming with every beat. Lightning lanced from her palms in bursts as she circled overhead, the scent of scorched air coiling behind her. Ropes of force lashed upward, reaching for her ankles, but she angled higher with a savage beat of her wings.

Serenna climbed, the figures tracking her from below. Fenn flew over the eastern ring, wreathed in fire, returning every strike a magus threw at him.

He angled higher, racing toward the open sky.

Taryn’s hand flashed with his Starshard. Fenn’s wings seized, yanked closer to the ground.

Serenna knew if she ventured any higher, Ayla would do the same.

She didn’t dare look longer.

Too late.

A burst of force slammed into her wing too fast to dodge.

Pain slashed through the membrane. Serenna spasmed midair, plummeting as the next stroke caught.

Lightning discharged before she could aim. A wild arc cratered the sand at the reaver’s feet, then leapt sideways, striking a spectating initiate square in the chest.

Serenna veered hard, wings dragging lift. The crowd recoiled below her, shouts rising in her wake.

Ayla only watched.

The reaver launched a cloud of shadows. Serenna tucked one wing and rolled under the strike, then drove her next bolt into the soft hollow below his ribs.

His body struck the ground.

After that, the fight blurred into motion and repetition.

Serenna flew low, keeping to the ring’s edge. Striking fast. Racing away. Lightning snapped from her hands—a reaver buckled, then a magus, the air singed with scorched leather and burned flesh.

But there were more. Always more. Each body that fell left space for another to enter the ring. Reaver. Magus. Reaver again. All of them ravenous for the Starshard Ayla dangled as a prize.

Serenna stayed airborne and kept attacking. Kept tearing herself out of reach before the next assault of Essence could strike. Fenn’s fire still lashed at the edge of her sight. If he remained flying, so would she.

By the time the sun climbed near its peak, the ground below shimmered with heat.

Serenna’s body gave out as the menders dragged another reaver from the ring. Lift slipped from her wings. Sand rushed up, and no strength remained to stop it.

Serenna’s wings flared just enough to spare her the full fall. She hit knees-first, palms slapping down, the impact cracking through her teeth. Breath scalded her throat. Her wings sagged behind her, stirring dust with every tremor.

No one had brought her down.

A hush rolled through the crowd.

Then Taryn stepped into the ring.

Serenna’s stomach dropped as she searched the yard where Fenn had been fighting, but the crowd had already begun to disperse.

Then she found him.