Page 52 of The Reckoning of Starlight

The bitter thoughts she’d carried through the door withered at the sight. Her hands were still shaking.

So were Ayla’s.

“You stopped him,” Serenna said quietly.

Ayla spat into the sink. “It wasn’t for you.”

“I didn’t think it was.” Serenna’s gaze dropped to the hand Ayla had curled over her middle. The question tore loose before she could decide whether it was accusation or fear. “Did Elashor force this on you, too?”

Ayla’s hand fell back to her side.

Only then did Serenna hear what she’d asked.

“The crown,” Serenna continued, quieter now. “The king’s heir. Was any of it your choice?”

“You think I chose this?” Ayla barked a laugh, the kind reserved for questions too stupid to dignify. “That I begged to be mounted? I did what survival required.”

Serenna shook her head. “What if there’s a different way to survive?”

“Like what?” The question whipped between them. “Running off with your wraith and rebel prince? Look where that got you. Wings and storm and treason at your back, and yet you still ended up on my floor.” Ayla turned and stalked toward Serenna. “You’re a fool if you think I didn’t bleed for this crown. That I wasn’t broken first.”

She lifted her hand. Essence ignited around her fingertips, shimmering and lethal.

“I didn’t become an arch elf through some generous distribution of power,” she hissed. “Elashor made me take it. And not from a traitor to the realm like you. He forced me to drain Essence from the only person who ever mattered to me.”

For the first time, words seem to fail her. Ayla’s mouth tightened before she forced one more out.

“Mishryn.”

Serenna blinked, the name snagging somewhere in her memory, just out of reach.

Ayla scoffed. “You don’t even remember her, do you?”

Champagne hair surfaced first. A female always at Ayla’s side when Serenna had first come to Centarya, regarding her with the same contempt.

“She was injured when the wraith attacked the academy.” Ayla’s lip quivered, the magic around her flaring. “Nothing that couldn’t have been mended. Elashor told me we were going to visit her. I thought he was taking me to the healers in Kyansari.” Her laugh cracked at the edges. “Instead, he took me to the capital’s dungeon. The place where they sent the injured before they made them disappear as wraith. He said if I wanted power—if I ever wanted to be seen as more than a half-breed—I would have to tear it free myself.”

Ayla swallowed hard, but the words kept pouring out. “It wasn’t only Mishryn’s life he put on the line. It was mine. My mother’s. Every scrap of standing she’d clawed from a council that never let us forget what we were.”

Ayla stared past her now, eyes unfocused.

“Mishryn trusted me,” she whispered. “She reached for me. And I…” Her fingers clenched, the Essence around her fading. “I drained her. I felt her magic unravel like a dying heartbeat.” Her chin trembled. “And I begged her not to scream.”

Serenna’s chest tightened around a phantom pain. She knew what it felt like to have a talent ripped away.

“She didn’t survive the transformation,” Ayla said. “And Elashor stood there, watching me learn the realm’s darkest truth. Then called my grief a weakness.”

Whatever she’d been seeing retreated behind her eyes. Ayla stepped closer, her stare gone glacial.

“Now I wake up every morning with her power inside me. With her screams in my skull. With the moment she reached for me waiting every time I blink. Every battle I win, she loses again. But I won’t let her death mean nothing.” Her hand settled against her middle once more. “I’ll survive. So will this child. So will what remains of Mishryn.”

CHAPTER 12

JASSYN

“Don’t think this is over,” Elashor snarled. He ripped a portal open just outside Ayla’s chambers. “I will have the product of your bloodlines.”

Jassyn hadn’t yet gathered himself enough to breathe before Elashor shoved him through the rift.