Page 73 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Her boot was still trapped beneath a sheared edge of stone, too heavy to kick loose.

Serenna reached through the bond for Fenn’s Well, hauling on his force talent. Blue light surged between her fingers before she slammed it into the rock. Stone split with a crack that rang off every jagged surface in the cavern. The pieces fell away, spilling salt dust across her leg.

Only then did she feel the damage fully—swelling packed tight inside her boot, the joint hot and pulsing against leather. It wouldn’t bear weight without mending.

The rest of the cavern started to reach her in fragments, the ringing in her ears thinning screams and groans to a distant hum. A broken stone had crushed a reaver, his jaw still working without sound. Blood seeped into the sand where a druid’s claw raked slow furrows in the dust—just the arm, the rest buried.

A dark trail painted the rubble in a thickening line. It ended at Taryn, and fear snapped cold through Serenna before the rest of the sight caught up. Fenn’s sister lay half-trapped beneath debris, her ravaged wrist still leaking blood from where Cinderax had bitten her hand off. Her unfocused eyes stared through the ruin, her remaining fist locked around Fenn’s Starshard, knuckles white against the facets.

Serenna’s beastblood surged. Shadows ripped from her palms, ravenous for retribution.

Darkness struck Taryn’s head.

Her skull detonated.

Blood sheeted across the nearest rocks, bones clicking against stone like hail. Her body convulsed once, wedged between two slabs, then sagged in the sand.

Fenn’s Starshard gave a final pulse between Taryn’s dead fingers before going dark.

A tremor started in Serenna’s arm and wouldn’t stop. She stared at the blood sinking into the sand, darkness fanning outward grain by grain.

Taryn had tried to kill Fenn back at Lykor’s fortress. She’d laughed when their Starshards forced them to butcher each other.

None of it steadied her.

Through the bond, Serenna sent a trembling thread of Fenn’s force across the ground and hooked it around his Starshard. She jerked the magic hard. The gem resisted between Taryn’s clenched fingers, then wrenched loose, spinning through the dust into Serenna’s open palm. She shoved it into her armor, the crystal still carrying the warmth of Taryn’s skin.

The cavern’s muffled noise dulled inside her skull until only her heartbeat broke through. Then a low hum surfaced under it—her Starshard, thrumming from somewhere deeper in the ruin.

Fenn’s gem was secured. For now. But if Ayla woke before Serenna reclaimed her own, control would cinch tight again.

Fenn’s chest rose and fell steadily. He was safer unconscious. Awake, he’d try to protect her, and Ayla would force Serenna to strike him.

Serenna didn’t look at Taryn’s corpse again. Gritting her teeth, she crawled forward through the sand. Her ruined ankle flashed agony up her leg with every inch, but the desperation to reach her Starshard pulsed louder than the pain.

She found Ayla ten paces away, under slabs balanced so precariously that they’d crush her if the cavern shuddered. Serenna braced herself, dragging her body closer.

One of Ayla’s arms curled over her middle, the other raised over her head as a shield. Blood trailed from her scalp into crimson hair already matted with it, the diadem still crowning her brow as if the collapse had spared the crown.

Serenna drove a wedge of force beneath the slabs and heaved.

Too reckless. Too wild. Stone groaned against stone, dust blooming thick enough to choke on. The rock above Ayla shifted, grinding lower.

The chain at Ayla’s throat was the only thing left in focus. Serenna drove more force beneath the rubble, prying until her sister’s body lay exposed.

She crawled the rest of the way through the settling grit and snatched her Starshard from Ayla’s throat. The chain bit into Ayla’s neck as she wrenched it free, broken links scattering into the sand. Ayla’s lashes fluttered but didn’t open.

Warmth flooded through the facets, familiar as her own pulse. Serenna shoved the gem into her armor beside Fenn’s.

Her drifting illumination caught on a crescent of gold in the rubble.

Her tether. The collar Ayla had stripped during the fight.

She couldn’t let Ayla wake unbound and risk her sister subduing her with Essence.

Serenna lunged for the collar, her body remembering fury before it remembered pain. The moment gold met her fingers, Essence vanished, the bonds with Fenn and Vesryn dispersing into silence.

Ayla began to stir.