Page 80 of The Reckoning of Starlight

“Caverns in the north,” Vesryn said. “I’ve been there with the rangers.”

“Then you can open portals directly there.”

Mara and Thalaesyn’s rifts swallowed bodies too slowly, the streets leading toward them filling faster than the portals could empty them. Serenna’s gaze lifted to the rooftops, where Centarya’s casters still turned fleeing civilians into targets. Her wing claws flexed, sparks lashing between the talons. She had a debt to settle with the magus.

“I’ll keep the casters off you.”

Vesryn’s jaw tightened, a protest gathering behind his teeth, but Fenn flashed his fangs and spoke first. “I’ll get you closer, princeling. Try to survive the indignity.”

He snatched Vesryn’s arm and warped before the prince could object.

They reappeared lower over the district, and Vesryn tore a rift open above the cobblestones. A cluster of families stumbled into the void before Centarya’s wielders could adjust their aim.

Another portal opened at the mouth of an alley. Then another beside an overturned cart. Then three more ripped through the smoke along the crowd’s edges, drawing bodies away from the desperate rush toward the market.

Serenna veered for the nearest rooftop. The haze thinned over the building, revealing a magus with shadows writhing between his hands, his focus riveted on a druid defending the corridor below.

Serenna seized Skylash’s spark, and lightning cracked awake between her palms.

She hurled it at the rooftop.

The bolt struck the magus square in the chest, violet light bursting through armor. He flew backward off the edge and slammed into the street below, blood splashing across the ground.

Serenna skimmed lower, hunting for the next caster.

From another rooftop, a reaver launched a net of force around a passing druid and yanked her from the air. She slammed down at his feet, bones cracking as her wings splayed across shattered tiles. He was on her before she could rise, wrenching the Starshard staff from her hands and driving the gem to her throat. His head whipped toward Serenna as she cut through the smoke.

The druid’s body jerked. Her claws snapped open, and fire poured from them, stolen and streaking straight toward Serenna.

Serenna’s stomach lurched. She knew that violation, the horror of being forced to deliver the blow.

Rage snapped at her heels as her wings beat harder. She snatched the fire midair and wrenched it around, hurling it back into the reaver’s face.

He staggered backward, flames pouring into his mouth, his scream scorched out. His boot caught the roof’s lip, and he went over, burning all the way down.

The Starshard staff clattered across the tiles where he’d stood.

Serenna landed hard, boots skidding. Her ankle threatened to buckle, Vesryn’s mending wearing thin against the jolt.

She dropped beside the druid. One wing bent wrong, its clawed tip clenched tight. Her eyes stared through Serenna without finding her, each breath rattling shallow.

Serenna pressed her palms to the ruined membrane and hauled mending from her Well. Crimson lattices sank into the wing, hooking shattered bones and drawing them back into place. Too fast. Too imprecise. Enough to hold, but nowhere near enough to fly.

A lash of shadow hissed past her ear.

Serenna threw a shield over them both. From the adjacent rooftop, another caster was already gathering Essence for a second volley.

Shadows struck, but her barrier held. The lattice wavered under her palms as she split Essence between mending and survival. Every thread she forced into the shield stole from the magic knitting the wing together.

Another wave of shadows slammed into her shield. Serenna gritted her teeth and poured more Essence into the barrier.

The shield would fail before she healed the wing. If the druid was going to survive, Serenna had to get her off the roof.

Against her chest, her Starshard pulsed, steady as a second heart. Its facets scraped at her awareness, hungry and familiar, waiting to be used. Serenna reached for the portaling talent locked inside.

The power that answered wasn’t hers alone.

Essence hit like a wave breaking. Vesryn’s magic surged through first, then Fenn’s crashed in. The two streams collided, too violent to merge. Serenna gasped as her Starshard seized the impact, prismatic light spilling through the seams of her armor.