She couldn’t see him. Only starlight remained. But through the brilliance, she felt him—the shape of his arms locked tight around her, heat bleeding through her scales, their bodies pressed together. Their bond thrummed taut and urgent as he reached deep through her, wrenching on her Well.
The sunfire resisted even that, ravenous as it raged, desperate to finish what it had begun. Ascension, just as the illusions had whispered.
The spiral behind her eyes spun faster, constellations wheeling into impossible longing. As if the galaxy had drawn breath, pulling her closer with the inhale.
She didn’t want to go, but the stars didn’t care what she wanted.
Essence ignited through her marrow as she unraveled at the edges. And somewhere in that rupture, a part of her screamed.
She no longer knew what she was—star or shadow, vessel or void. A shattering soul, caught in the gravity between collapse and return.
She rose from herself. Hovered in a suspended heartbeat, drifting like mist from scorched earth. Yet even in that breathless ascent, the shape of Vesryn’s arms held her below.
Something broke deep in the blaze, a fracture hardening into defiance. She refused to shatter in this den as the Aelfyn had, their last breaths spent clawing toward starlight.
Her place wasn’t in a spiral of stars. The voices there weren’t the one calling her name. Her place was here, in thenow. With the people she loved—the ones she bled for, burned for.
Essence ripped sideways, siphoned in a violent rush as coolness pressed against the burning scales at her chest.
Serenna gasped, eyes flying open as her awareness slammed back into her body. Her lungs seized as power unspooled inside her, drawn into the Starshard Vesryn pressed to her sternum.
Forged to cradle what mortals could not, the gem swallowed the sunfire. Heat collapsed in her veins until her Well drained completely, magic folding inward like a star gone cold.
Serenna’s vision blinked between light and darkness, phantom constellations whirling behind her eyes. Steam curled from her skin, heat bleeding where scales receded as she shifted. She bore no wounds, yet every fiber rang with the memory of that other sky.
Her gaze found Vesryn at last—alive, unscathed. Behind him, the earthen walls that had tried to claim him stood blackened, flaking char. Fossilized roots lingered only as scorched impressions, the gold melted into molten streams.
And yet, even as the smoke thinned, an ache remained of what she’d nearly touched. A place etched in stars, an echo resonating with invitation.
Vesryn’s brow furrowed as he drew the Starshard away from her chest, then gathered her close. Steady, though his hands shook.
Serenna sagged into him, winding her arms around his neck, clinging to the only solid thing left. Her magic had nearly pulled her elsewhere, drawn upward toward whatever waited beyond. But he’d anchored her from falling into the stars.
The prince’s fingers drifted to her face, trembling as they cradled her. His eyes searched hers, and his voice—once ragged with panic—came as a whisper. “You saw it, didn’t you?”
Serenna swallowed hard, throat raw from screams she didn’t remember. “Why didn’t you say something before?”
“I wasn’t sure what it was,” he said, the bond humming with unease. “Or if I imagined it when we freed Cinderax. The overload of power… I–I thought I was dying. But after watching those illusions of the Aelfyn, and now you…” He trailed off, gaze lifting to the cavern weeping gold. “I think I understand more now. But not enough.”
For a moment, silence hung around them before Vesryn released an unsteady sigh.
“I think I know why the king’s been plundering Essence and amassing power,” he said softly.
Serenna stilled as his voice went distant, the last glimmer of starlight fading from behind her eyes.
“I think…he’s going to try what the Aelfyn in this den failed to do. What nearly claimeduswhen the sunfire broke loose.”
His breath caught, and Serenna sensed the first tremor of real fear slipping past his guard.
“I think the king means to ascend,” Vesryn rasped. “And reign with the might of the stars themselves. If he succeeds…no power in this world could rise to defy him. Every realm will kneel.”
CHAPTER 12
JASSYN
Pinned to the cliff with Lykor’s wings locked against his, Jassyn barely had time to blink before lightning screamed down.
The blinding charge slammed into Lykor’s back, and he grunted as his scales devoured the strike. The bolt writhed across his wings like a living vein torn from the sky then vanished, the storm hissing into silence as the current dissolved against him.
