Serenna’s strand held steady while Vesryn’s burned hotter, wild at the edges. His magic wavered, the braid stuttering into raw illumination before he dragged it back into sunfire.
A low growl broke from his throat. “Not a word,” he muttered.
Serenna didn’t hide her grin. “I thought I was the one who had to keep up?”
He exhaled sharply through his nose. “Don’t let it get to your head.”
Vesryn drove their power forward. Sunfire streamed across the hollow, a flare held just shy of impact—close enough to blister the air, to whisper against the gold without striking. A sheen shuddered across the seal as if something buried within had drawn breath.
A pulse of pressure radiated from the prince, and Serenna followed—reaching, delving deeper. Pushing for more. Her breath caught as something shifted, not only in the strength of her magic, but through the bond. A fierce pride swelled—his pride of her—fused with a warmth so steady it felt like devotion set alight, igniting fire in her power.
Vesryn’s free hand closed at her waist, anchoring her as his voice brushed her ear. “Don’t hold back.”
Serenna let go, falling into the current of their power, her light twining with his—shaped by trust, guided by a steadiness that fear couldn’t touch.
Heat burst through the golden barrier, flushing bright. The surface rippled, then split, weeping molten ribbons that bled into the earth.
Serenna squinted through the shimmer as the runoff streamed into ancient channels carved into the basin, spirals of stone long buried by time. The grooves drew the gold in elegant arcs, carrying it away from the tunnel.
By the time they released their power, Serenna trembled from the toll of channeling Essence while holding her shift steady. Scales receding, her breath came quick as Vesryn lowered their hands, her veins still humming as if the sunfire hadn’t fully left.
They stepped toward the open tunnel together. Nothing remained but an arch of smooth stone streaked with fossilized roots, the last traces of heat fading into the surrounding earth.
“Hopefully we find something inside,” Vesryn said, igniting a few orbs of illumination. “Since the druids went to all this trouble.” He swept a hand toward the darkness. “Want the honors?”
Serenna eyed the depths as silence and cool air spilled out. “Not really,” she mumbled.
But she stepped forward anyway.
CHAPTER 8
JASSYN
Jassyn left Asharyn through Fenn’s portal and stepped into a camp clinging to a broken ledge of the Dreadspire Range. Static snapped through the air, peeling away the desert’s heat in a crackling rush. Canvas whipped and iron pins rattled as a gale tore through the tents, a breath exhaled from the Crackling Maw itself.
To one side, Centarya’s former initiates—wraith Vesryn’s rangers had corralled from the wilds—stood braced against the breeze. Some, now awakened to shaman power, twisted the windy currents, but it wasn’t quite controlled.
Fenn, who’d shadowed Jassyn all morning, fell into step and sealed the portal shut with a flick of his claw. Glancing sideways at him, Jassyn didn’t need to ask who’d sent him to follow.
Lykor, most likely. Quiet control, a care he’d never admit.
Jassyn hadn’t shared the real reason for coming to this training ground high in the mountains. He told himself he needed to practice channeling lightning before the hunt for Skylash.
But the truth prickled up his arms, raising every hair.
It was about flying. Or the attempt, since he hadn’t dared the night before.
Not far. Just enough to see if he could stomach the height, if the air would catch beneath his wings.
And if he fell… Well, Fenn could warp him back to safety before his body broke on the rocks. But even that fallback felt flimsy this close to the cliff’s edge.
Fenn’s eyes flicked skyward, toward Cinderax gliding over the nearest peaks with wraith and Kaedryn’s druids. “Zaeryn and her scouts returned an hour ago from charting the strike threshold,” he said. “She asked if you’d join the forward advance tomorrow. As a mender. Just in case.”
Jassyn studied the area beyond the Dreadspire Range where lightning ripped across the sky. No thunder followed as the light tore itself apart, fractured and directionless.
Like his thoughts.
Like the beastblood pacing under his skin.
