Page 36

CHAPTER 36

SERENNA

S even days out from the jungle, featureless plains gave way to a vast frozen lake stretching to the horizon. Countless spires of ice jutted upward at irregular angles, as if the earth had erupted in a violent upheaval. Deep wounds scarred the surface, shadowed ravines plunging into darkness.

Cracks veined the black ice beneath Serenna’s boots, creaking faintly with every step.

Vesryn crouched at the rim of a gaping chasm, twice as wide as he was tall. “These tunnels are…odd,” he said, leaning over the rim. “It’s like something burrowed through here.”

Serenna kept her distance, content to stay far from the precarious ledge. Fenn, however, cocked his head before dropping to his heels beside the prince.

“I can’t even see the bottom,” he mused, peering over.

“I don’t like this,” Jassyn murmured, moving closer to Serenna. “Do you feel it too?” He scuffed his boot against the frosty ground. “There’s no water beneath this ice. The lower levels of the lake must have drained after the top froze. Somehow.”

Serenna sensed the eerie hollowness beneath her feet and tucked her arms deeper into her furs, staving off the chill. Her eyes flicked over the spiked mounds piercing through the ice field like broken fangs. “And whatever made those tunnels tore through the earth like it was nothing.”

“What the fuck are you two doing?” Lykor snarled at Fenn and the prince. He yanked up his hood, shielding his eyes from the midday sun. Snapping his gauntlet out, he tore open another portal. “We’re not stopping here to admire the view.”

Fenn and Vesryn exchanged a glance, and Serenna sensed the unmistakable prelude to recklessness before they moved. Ignoring Lykor entirely, they both dropped to their chests, each inching closer to the perilous drop as if daring the other to tempt fate.

“There could be something down there,” Vesryn said, studying the abyss. His eyes lit up. “What if there’s a dragon below?” A sphere of illumination bloomed at his fingertips.

Lykor released a sharp, humorless scoff. He yanked the Heart of Stars out of his cloak and brandished it at the prince. “Why don’t you try asking this useless trinket?”

His scowl slid to Serenna, like it was her fault the Heart had fallen silent. Lykor had shoved the artifact into her hands earlier in the week and demanded that she ask if the dragons had any other insight. But not so much as a whisper answered.

Serenna glared back at him, though she agreed that this venture seemed as frivolous as it was dangerous.

“I’m sure Fenn will have Vesryn dangling over the edge by his ankles to get a better look if we linger much longer,” she grumbled to Jassyn as the prince cast the glowing orb down into the tunnel.

Rubbing some life back into her fingers, Serenna froze, sensing a faint shudder beneath her boots. Jassyn shifted beside her, eyes widening before clashing with hers.

A deep, guttural growl rumbled up from the tunnel, shaking the ice. But that wasn’t the most concerning noise.

A piercing whine followed—the same keening she’d heard in the jungle—the unmistakable sound of a Starshard priming to discharge.

The frozen earth fractured and ice shards exploded into the air, glinting in the harsh sunlight. Fenn yelped, snatching Vesryn’s cloak as the ground split apart with a bone-rattling crack .

In a blink, Fenn disappeared into a plume of shadows, warping them away as a chasm split wide open. They reappeared near Lykor as the ledge they’d been on crumbled into the void.

Something massive surged below the frosty layer, rising from the depths. An enormous ice-encrusted limb punched through the surface, followed by another—then another.

Sword-length talons gouged the frozen earth, dragging a massive form upward. A primal roar erupted from the abyss, a seismic force that shook the ground, sending tremors down Serenna’s spine.

Lykor staggered and barked, “Get through the fucking portal!”

Serenna grabbed Jassyn’s hand and dashed toward the rift, the ground fissuring beneath their feet as quakes tore through the ice field. Heart pounding harder with each passing second, she barely had time to react before a shockwave knocked her off balance, the world tilting as she crashed into Jassyn.

Her hand slipped from his as she slammed into the ground. For a fleeting moment, everything seemed to slow.

The ice beneath him groaned, fracturing with another sickening break that echoed across the lake.

“Jassyn!” Serenna screamed, her voice desperate as she scrambled toward him.

The ice shifted under her palms as she lunged, her fingers brushing the edge of his cloak.

Jassyn reached, his hand clawing for hers, but he only caught empty air as the ground gave way.

Serenna watched in horror as he fell, vanishing under the ice.