Gripping her Starshard, Serenna reached into the stillness where Essence waited. Magic surged up to meet her as she threw open the floodgates of her Well.
Silver light flared from the gem at her throat, unspooling in widening arcs. Illumination curled down her shoulders, twining her arms in molten threads. She pulled harder, drawing every strand of power into a single, focused current.
Sunfire rushed to her fingertips, a blaze unfurling from her palms.
Above, the storm shuddered awake. Clouds roiled, pressure coiling tight.
The first bolt came screaming from the sky’s throat.
Cinderax took wing and unleashed a roar—high and wild, more shriek than a dragon’s bellow. Fire spiraled from his jaws, colliding with the lightning. The impact burst into a corona of sparks, hissing outward in a flash of light.
Fenn was already sprinting across the summit to intercept the following strike. His wings snapped open just before he warped skyward, reappearing in a whirl of fire. His claws flashed, hurling a gout of flame into the path of the next bolt. Lightning hit, detonating into smoke.
The crystal beneath Serenna’s boots answered with a fury of its own, sparks racing up from the depths in pursuit.
She barely blinked before Jassyn yanked the charge the rest of the way to his waiting palm. Sparks scattered across his scales as he wrenched the current aside and flung it over the ledge into the lake below.
Serenna caged the sunfire beneath her skin, narrowing the blaze before it could spiral loose. Essence slammed against its confinement, heat surging up her arms until her muscles locked.
Every heartbeat became a battle as the illumination fought to tear free. She gripped tighter. Forced the magic down. Refused to let it consume what she still meant to save.
High above, she sensed lightning and fire warring. Fenn and Cinderax blurred in the sky, steering away strike after strike.
Beside her, Jassyn didn’t waver. Lightning spun faster from the mountain’s depths. He caught every bolt, wrenching the currents aside before they could touch her.
Steadying her breath, Serenna raised her blazing palm, shaping the sunfire tight around her fingers while the othersheld the storm at bay. She chose her mark—a crystal facet just beyond her boots, its edges glinting like a broken star.
And struck.
A chisel of light flew from her fingertips, honed by ruthless control rather than brute force. She poured only a sliver of her strength into it, refusing to burn too bright, too soon.
The surface didn’t crack as she expected. Instead, the crystal drank in the sunfire, radiance sinking through facets in molten rivulets like metal poured into a mold.
Beneath her, something stirred.
A low, seismic groan rippled through the summit, followed by glass screeching against glass. The floor lurched. Serenna and Jassyn staggered as panels deep below began to turn, massive sheets grinding into new alignment.
Sparks scattered in fractured prisms as the summit split open, crystal sinking inward to reveal a spiraling descent carved straight into the mountain’s core.
A warning jolted through her. No longer bound to fixed channels, lightning hissed through the reconfigured grid, drawn like a predator scenting the first drop of blood.
A pane on the surface flared white-hot.
Then ruptured.
Lightning geysered upward, shrieking in a column of light.
Cinderax plunged from the sky in a streak of scale, unleashing a torrent of flame to meet the strike. The bolt slammed into the blaze, erupting in a burst of sparks.
Serenna blinked through the afterglow, pulse still racing as she extinguished Essence. She spared one more glance at Fenn flying above—wings slicing, talons lit with fire—then gathered her courage and stepped toward the fractured passage now gaping wide.
Jassyn moved with her, amber eyes slitted and wild, shoulders braced, palms already lifted to catch the next strike.
The wind died the moment they crossed beneath the glass. A charged silence rushed in its place—static lifting loose strands from Serenna’s braid, the air thrumming with pressure.
The corridor spiraled downward. Crystalline walls reflected the lightning bleeding from Skylash far below, scattering it into a thousand splintered sparks. With every pulse, her silhouette sharpened—distortion peeling away, the dragon beneath emerging.
The passage tightened as they descended, a helix of faceted glass winding through open air. Every cautious step set Serenna’s instincts on edge with nothing beneath her but smooth crystal.
