Vesryn plucked the gem from her hand, wiped it clean on his leathers, then fastened the chain gently around the back of her neck. “Like an arch elf.”
The Starshard settled against her collarbone, cool and deceptively light, humming gently into her skin.
Serenna adjusted the clasp, fingers lingering to trace the crystal edge. “These Starshards…” Her voice faltered as she searched his face. “You were right. There’s more to them than I thought. But it won’t activate unless I…?”
“It answers toyounow,” Vesryn said. “It’s just a pretty gem until you draw from it.”
He glanced at the shard pinched in his claw. As his wings vanished, the crystal slipped free. He swiped it out of the air and pocketed it in one seamless motion.
Serenna’s hand tightened around her own shard before she let go. It hadn’t flared again, but she could still feel the thrum of power, coiled and waiting.
Vesryn tipped his chin toward the hollow below and angled for the crater’s rim. “Let’s see how well the druids locked the dead inside.”
Her stomach turned, but she didn’t correct him. They hadn’t locked dead Aelfyn beneath the earth at all.
They’d buried the living.
CHAPTER 7
SERENNA
Silence pressed closer as Serenna edged toward a descent that curled in perfect rings like a fossilized bloom. At the hollow’s center, an arched tunnel sagged inward, its mouth choked with dirt.
A pulse of Essence stirred. She caught Vesryn’s eyes as a portal unfurled beside him, the other end spiraling open at the base of the crater.
He shrugged. “Saves us the glide down.”
The sun vanished as they stepped through the rift, drowned by the bowl of earth. Vesryn brushed his hand across the tunnel’s sealed entrance, disturbing centuries of stillness as layers of soil flaked and fell away.
Something glimmered beneath.
Gold.
Using Essence to force their way forward was out of the question now—magic would only unravel against the metal. If Kaedryn had known about this, then why arm them with advice that could never work?
Serenna cast her awareness outward and streamers of air sparked behind her eyes. She motioned Vesryn aside and coaxed the wind into a gust. A sweep of her hand sent grit shearing fromthe archway in ragged sheets, dust billowing away under her control.
When the air settled, the fallen earth no longer masked what it had buried. A barrier gleamed, a door wrought of solid gold.
Vesryn’s eyes narrowed. “I guess that explains why the Aelfyn never walked back out.”
“And if gold laces the entire den…” Serenna drew an uneasy breath. “Then they couldn’t portal free either.”
Vesryn extended a palm, a sphere of flame hissing to life. “No better time to see how hot our fire burns.”
Serenna mirrored him, drawing heat from her chest until it coiled down her arm. They backed away from the tunnel to the far curve of the crater. Together, they shoved their hands forward and struck the plate of gold.
Twin gouts of fire speared across the hollow, colliding midair. Heat ripped up Serenna’s spine, her lungs locking under the pressure. Wings tore through her leathers as she poured more strength into the blaze. At the tips, claws flexed and spat fire on their own, stoking the inferno as if they’d been waiting to burn.
The conflagration swelled, magnified.
Vesryn’s laugh erupted wildly as he shifted into wings. “Didn’t know the claws did that.” Fire streamed from the talons, feeding the molten river already burning between them.
The gold began to glow. The surface bowed, shimmered, seemed ready to yield.
Then stilled.
The barrier held, glimmering with a false surrender that mocked them. Heat simmered back in waves, and Serenna gritted her teeth and drove harder, arms trembling as fire rolled from her palms.
