To channel her power in an endless flow would scorch her alive. But to stop now meant death.
And that was no choice at all.
The balconies thundered with a wordless roar, their hunger fed with every blow.
Fire slammed into Serenna’s dome, blistering heat pressing close. Wind shrieked through, sand scouring her eyes, gritting between her teeth. Ice hammered in jagged spears, pounding relentlessly to pierce her storm.
Her sparks collided with them, but the strands were wrenched away as fast as she summoned them, torn from her control.
And yet Serenna spun the bombarding elements, hauling the onslaught into herself until her body became a conduit. Wind tangled with flame. Ice hissed to steam. Lightning fused as the tempest swelled, devouring every hurled strike rather than unleashing it.
The children attacked without mercy, but Serenna refused to see them through the storm’s fury. Refused to let their faces become enemies.
She saw only Fenn—pinned and bleeding, wings staked to the ground. His breaths rasped beneath her, ragged as her own. Each gasp became a count her body kept as she bent the raging elements around them.
Every lash she repelled gouged deeper into her strength. Every act of restraint dragged behind her like a chain, slowing what should’ve been savage retribution. Mercy leeched her power, grinding her down.
But mercy wouldn’t save them. Not Fenn. Not her.
A streak of ice punched through the elemental storm and tore into Serenna’s shoulder, ripping flesh open to the bone. She screamed and collapsed over Fenn, all breath knocked from her lungs.
The sand burned her knees. Wind flayed her skin raw. And yet, it was his touch she felt, barely a twitch of his talons against her arm.
Serenna’s gaze found his, and his eyes held hers, glowing steady even through the blood. For a heartbeat, the world stilled, a fragment of stolen time.
He nodded. The choice was hers. Fight or yield. Rise or fall. He would meet whatever end beside her.
Something inside Serenna ruptured. She didn’t breathe, she broke. A sob snagged in her throat as she bent close and brushed her lips to Fenn’s.
“I love you,” she gasped as she pulled back, a tear burning its way down her cheek.
Fenn’s face contorted, fangs bared as pain and fury flared in his eyes. “Stars slay me,” he rasped, the words fracturing hoarse. “I love you too, she-elf.”
Then, with a snarl, he thrashed against the shadows and spears holding him fast, fire erupting from his wing talons. “Let me burn for you,” he growled. “Better ash at your side than breath without you.”
Wild and desperate, he poured his fire into her lightning. Even pinned, he gave her everything.
Serenna drank the inferno in. Flames and sparks whirled around her as she folded heat and energy into her storm. Legs trembling, she pushed to her feet and rose over Fenn. Blood dripped from her shoulder, the pain hardening into wrath as lightning wreathed her fists in violet fire.
Her storm crackled, straining against the assault, her chest aching with the effort.
And then she let go.
Serenna reached into the tempest and ripped it apart, threads of lightning snapping loose. The protective domecollapsed around them. She seized the children’s fire, wrenched ice and wind, claimed every element raging wild.
The youths closed in. Serenna’s gaze caught on a girl with a braid pulled too tight, her hands shaking as she wrestled Serenna for control. A boy bared his teeth, but his eyes flicked to Fenn, uncertain.
They were no soldiers. Only children wrapped in livery, their magic paraded as purpose beneath the balconies. Nameless weapons dressed for display.
Serenna’s chest compressed until it felt ready to split. She didn’t want to hurt them. She only wanted to stop. To stop watching those she loved hurt. To stop being forced into survival that demanded she become something unrecognizable.
But choice had been stolen from her long ago.
Above, silks rippled between pale stone columns as cheers roared from the crowd. In that moment, Serenna wanted to burn this stars-cursed world—the jeweled parasites reclining in comfort, the tyrants like Elashor who spilled blood the way others discarded stale wine.
And Ayla, who’d forced her into this pit.
Serenna knew her sister would never let her hurl magic at the nobles, though every fiber in her body screamed to try. So she fixed her gaze on the children before her, every breath searing raw.
