The thought sliced through his indecision. If the world was going to burn, let him at least burn reaching.
There wasn’t time to explain. Not with havoc running wild, Essence and earth tearing loose. Vesryn wouldn’t listen. And Lykor… Lykor would only escalate.
Jassyn hesitated for half a breath, every instinct rioting. It wasn’t death he feared, but what would follow if he let this war speak for them first.
Lykor had said maybe they would get to choose—ifthey were still standing at the end. But what if choosing was what kept them standing at all?
So Jassyn tucked his wings tight and leapt. He wasn’t convinced the king’s army would listen, but someone had to reach first.
Before the killing began.
CHAPTER 21
SERENNA
“I–I didn’t mean to.” Serenna’s voice splintered like the egg her sunfire had just cracked.
She turned to Cinderax at her feet, chest drawn tight around the question she feared to voice. “Is there a way to fix it?” The words rasped out raw as she searched his glowing eyes for any solution, any flicker of forgiveness.
Kaedryn stood motionless, claws pressed to her heart. Unblinking, her stare clung to the fractured shell, just as powerless to intervene.
Serenna’s throat burned as she swallowed, chasing steadiness that unraveled between each breath. The egg lay dull in the tent’s veiled light, her failure carved in obsidian, gleaming accusation.
“Can we mend the shell?” she whispered, each word heavier than the last. “I thought I was careful. I…”
I killed it.
The truth hollowed her as the world waited for her to admit it aloud. The silence thickened, pressing against her ribs until she could hear nothing but her own pulse thudding in her ears.
Then a different sound stirred, soft as silk skimming over stone. Serenna flinched as another fissure branched across the shell as the egg tilted slightly on its pedestal.
Eyes wide, breath held, Serenna watched the crack trace the curve like a fingertip skimming glass. Brittle flakes of shell loosened and fell, and from within, a glow kindled—alive, like flame coaxed from coals.
Then came a trill, sharp and small. A single, astonished chirp.
Serenna gasped. Not a dirge of death, but a breath of birth.Hatching.She’d believed her sunfire could only destroy, yet the light inside the egg burned as soft as forgiveness.
Kaedryn moved first, scales dissolving as she shifted back to skin. She rushed forward, lifted the egg from its pedestal, and knelt. Folding a rug aside, she set it into the sand, her fingers lingering briefly before retreating.
Beyond the pavilion, the dunes rippled with heat. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath with Serenna, waiting.
The egg bucked as the hatchling fought—claws striking in staccato rhythm, fangs scraping against the shell.
Cinderax stepped forward and exhaled a thin spiral of fire, circling the egg in slow, concentric rings. Heat gathered close, darkening the sand with a halo of warmth.
The sounds shifted from faint, tentative clicks into frantic scrabbling. Impatient claws battered against the shell holding the dragon captive. A high trill sounded, followed by wet cracks and tremulous croaks, each muffled sound spilling into the next.
Heart pounding, Serenna dropped to her knees beside Kaedryn, eyes fixed on the hatchling’s battle to break free. Warmth from the sand bled through her leathers, but she scarcely felt it. The world had narrowed to sound—the scrape of raking claws, the rasp of breath within as pieces of the shell fell away one by one.
Serenna’s own breath hitched as the egg shuddered, then split again. A thin hiss of steam rose when a single claw punched through the damp membrane—slick and black, talons curved like crescent moons. It scraped at the air, trembled, then hooked the jagged edge.
Another fracture veined sideways and the upper curve of the egg peeled back. Coiled and glistening in the cradle of confinement, the dragon stirred.She,Serenna realized, though she couldn’t have said how she knew.
Slightly smaller than Cinderax, a translucent veil clung to her tucked wings, scales black as coal. Her chest fluttered in shallow breaths, each rise like a wavering ember catching its first glow.
Alive.
Eyes squeezed shut, the hatchling lifted her head, shaking with the effort.
