Page 84 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

Ghost Of A Girl

Rayze

Heat surges up my arm from the control pad, searing like a brand, and I grit my teeth as veins of cold light crawl under my skin, binding me to something vast.

My fingers dig deeper, skin splitting against a living surface. Breath tears ragged from my lungs, shaking with a sob and a snarl.

This was meant to be mine —this connection in my blood. It was stolen from me, just as everything else was. I blink against the sting of tears, vision swimming with grief I choke back.

Saltmaw’s pulse throbs in my bones like war drums, and in that beat I feel the sentience Warrick mentioned for the first time, alive and aware of me.

The weight of Hallie Trask coils in my veins, the ghost of a girl who should have stood here unbroken. My hand trembles but I press harder, wrist burning.

Despite all my burying, that girl lives, and Saltmaw knows .

With a language that can’t be heard, only felt, the ship breathes into me, fills my lungs with its life.

A hard gasp wrenches from between my teeth, wind howling against my ears as Saltmaw lifts from The Dredge.

Rain beats down against me, my hair plastered to my cheeks as I look to the lightning crackling through black sails.

But I’ve no crew to man the masts.

Threads dance to life across my vision, blood trickling down from my nose as my lips curl back with a sharp smile. “Awaken,” I whisper, and I release my hand from the pad to grasp the wheel.

Knots are woven across the levers, each one tethered to different destinies. Any that I pull, I set in motion a new Fate, and maybe that should scare me, but I think of my father laughing as he slit his throat, laughing as he fell to his death.

As he sentenced an entire city of innocents to theirs just so his precious son can have two Bossdoms to rule instead of one.

I am not that man. I don’t seek power for personal gain. I would forsake every ounce of magic in my veins if it meant keeping the people of Synlon alive tonight.

So would my mother.

My sisters.

The Daughters.

If part of me is bound to remain Hallie Trask, then it’s as the girl who shot arrows in a garden believing in a better realm.

Then the girl who survived because still she believed there had to be something better.

Her and Rayze—they make quite a team. Angel of Sin.

Pirate . I glare out across the dark city. Shard Daughter .

Saltmaw shudders beneath me, roaring in answer, accepting me without fear.

Heat coils beneath my skin as I shove a lever down on instinct.

Its leather handle flexes against my palm, gripping me like muscle closing around bone.

The deck shudders. A low, guttural vibration rolls through the hull like a giant waking from centuries of sleep.

Planks ripple with tension. Coils blaze to life across the ship, torches erupting with flame.

My heart hammers, syncing to the ship’s vast, slow pulse.

I feel everything. The sails stretch like living membranes, drinking in wind. Rigging pulls tight, cords straining like tendons ready to leap. Engines churn deep below, beating with thunderous rhythm.

Then I do what no Trask has ever done and call forward my magic.

Threads burn across my vision in lines of ghostly blue. Wind currents swirl. Storm fronts crackle. Fang’s Edge rises on the horizon, sharp and black, waiting.

Saltmaw breathes through me.

It waits for my command.

I retake the wheel, laughing as we slowly ascend from the roof of The Dredge, kissing storm clouds. The realm’s power crashes into mine, making every command easier, lighter. Heat spreads through my chest, and I let my will surge.

Turn. Advance. Hunt.

Saltmaw obeys.

The hull leans hard into the rain. Cannons swivel with purpose, guided by unseen hands that feel like mine. The wheel jerks, following my thoughts without hesitation.

Then I reach across Fate and feel for The Rigged before I see them below.

They march in a stiff formation, bleeding from every alley and Underground entrance. They trample bodies and shoot out windows, shattered glass sparkling among rolling clouds of Brass. Their Fates weave across the night, so tangled it may take all that I have left to command them to my will.

But I will. I must.

I grip the wheel tighter. My voice rasps low, filled with promise. “Fang’s Edge.”

Saltmaw roars in answer. The entire ship glows, veins flaring across its sails. Decks tremble beneath me as it lunges forward, hurling toward the outskirts of Synlon.

Warrick

“You grab a fucking weapon or you die, do you understand?” I shout through the rain, the axe propped against my shoulder as I tuck Serpent blades into the two sheathes at my waist for backup.

Citizens, Skin, cronies—they crowd debris through the streets, careful to stick to the shadows as The Rigged force forward.

The monstrous hulks of mortal flesh and metal move unified and slow, but their impact is massive.

Buildings groan throughout the city, entire first floors barreled through.

Some high rises remain upright simply with luck.

The rest?

“Get down!” someone shouts before a loud groan sounds through the storm.

I swivel around, my head craning back as the source of the sound leans hard toward the right.

The Dredge.

Saltmaw rips away from its docked station on the tower’s roof. It’s the stronghold’s last fucking straw, it’s middle floors already caved from Rayze and I, and it’s lower spaces carved out by The Rigged.

I scan the tower’s trajectory, and my stomach pits.

“Move to the other side of the street and run until you hit the outer perimeter of the city,” I order.

I unclip my mask from my belt and shove it on over my face.

“Did you hear me? Run!” I yell.

I don’t wait to take my own fucking advice. My boots slam through flooded alleys as The Dredge’s steel joints shriek and tear. The remaining lights left in the city gutter to black, the constant, piercing wail of sirens stuttering to a high-pitched death screech.

I crane my head over my shoulder, stopping cold. I know I should keep running, but fuck me, what a sight. I’ve wished for this before, I just never thought about the Godsdamn domino effect.

The Dredge slams into the building next to it. Then that one into the next.

Support beams buckle. Bricks and glass drop as fast as rain. Clouds of debris explode outward, and shrapnel flings through the air into the buildings across the way, taking out windows and fire escapes.

“Warrick,” a familiar voice barks around the corner. Dacre Henson huddles between slabs of fallen stone walls, a group of Chrome Guards at his back.

I slide toward them, a falling column narrowly missing me. Dacre catches my shoulder, helping me up as my eyes adjust to the dark city.

“Fang’s Edge?” I ask him.

Dacre coughs against the heavy haze of smoke, fires starting from split circuitry as buildings continue to topple thanks to The Dredge. “Fit as many as I could inside but there’s still thousands camping between the compound and the edge of the mountains.”

A low curse escapes me. “We got them out of the Underground, but now we need them to retreat back into the tunnels.”

“There’s not time,” he argues. “Boss, The Rigged are maybe half an hour from reaching the club.”

I squint, peering up through the haze and spying Saltmaw.

The ship weaves between buildings with care, Rayze likely trying not to set off any more chain reactions.

Between that and all the abandoned ships, their crews either taken out by my girl and I or fighting beside The Rigged—she needs more time.

My gut pulls and shifts, the power inside working tight with a need for release. I want to, but I don’t know what it is . It’s not like Rayze’s starlight, and I’m not about to release some unknown force that could fuck us further.

I press my lips together, finding the same resignation on Dacre’s face and the guards behind him.

“We’ve all been lead to do a whole lot of wrong in this life,” I say with a dark laugh.

“I don’t know that I believe in balancing scales, but if we’re going to start—we may as well make sure Torren Trask died for shit all. ”

I turn my back to them and pin my gaze on the line of The Rigged ahead.

“My father didn’t give you a reason to be proud of Synlon, but my Gods,” I mutter, shaking my head and seeing Saltmaw pick up speed above, the ship tilting up and shooting into the clouds, its entirety swallowed in a flash of lightning. “She will,” I say, a dark smile hooking my lips.

Run .

I slam through Brass curling through the air, my blades extended. My vision stutters, threads glitching in and out of focus as I inhale orange smoke. A thick shroud of shadow coats what little light the moon gave me, but—

I can see better. Clearer.

Armor rattles at my back, guards and civilians following my lead, sprinting in chase.

Color leeches from my immediate surroundings, the orange of the smoke blanching to a bright white. Another inhale and there’s no taming it. I have magic, and it demands to be heard.

Every pump of my arms, the air distorts with a crackling static around my knuckles, the rain slashing my cheeks as my boots hit the ground harder, faster. Threads become brighter before they fade to the darkness between.

Wind rips through my hair and my vest, battering my ears, but the voice that beams through my skull—it’s impossibly clear.

A guiding light.

A star.

A queen.

Don’t make me regret this, Snake of Madness , Fate’s voice pours into me.

I grit my teeth and leap over debris, curve through toppled structures.

Bring my Daughter home safe .

My boot presses into a ledge, and I soar off it, a laugh of disbelief cracking out of me as I reach for the Voids of Fate and they answer with dark pleasure.

A wavering veil of black coats my blades, starlight glittering within.

I bound from fallen building to building, slamming down into the mud just beyond Fang’s Edge as the first wave of The Rigged breaches the final line of buildings.

Then—quiet.

No queen.

No thunder.

The rain just stops .

Above, the storm circles and churns, a funnel of pain and rage. Clouds and rain pull inward, exposing the dark sky. Hundreds of thousands of stars glisten like a silver woven blanket, their watchful eyes peering down.

My heart pounds, pride flooding my chest as black sails careen down from the center of the storm. Lightning crackles out from the Angel of Sin, her power carrying through our city in a thunderous wave.

Rayze catapults off Saltmaw, tucking through the air before she lashes out an arm.

The entire front line of The Rigged folds .

Blood gushes, spraying over my woman as she uses their fallen bodies as leverage to tug her weight rocketing back to the ship, leaping between masts and pivoting through sails to touch the storm, fueling her power only to descend again.

The ground quakes with her presence, and I expect screams. I wait for citizens to retreat, for the field to empty and for Synlon to scramble back to the Underground, but no one moves, their faces tilted back to Saltmaw.

I can’t fucking blame them.

She’s always a vision in red.