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“When knife and sword are reunited, so shall our people be,” Bryce murmured into the quiet.
“What you were born to do—to accomplish the task for which your father brought you into existence,” Apollion said before fading into nothing, leaving Aidas standing alone before the prisoners. Shock reared up in Hunt, dampened by the weight of an old, unbidden hurt. “I have no father.” Aidas’s expression was sad as he stepped out of the shadows. “You spent too long asking the wrong questions.” “What the fuck does that mean?” Aidas shook his head. “The black crown once again circling your brow is not a new torment from the Asteri. It has existed for millennia.”
Showing a masked queen, a crown upon her head, bearing instruments in her hand and standing before an adoring crowd. Behind her, a great mountaintop palace rose toward the sky, winged horses soaring among the clouds.
The last carving before the river had been one of transition: a Fae King and Queen seated on thrones, a mountain—different from the one with the palace atop it—behind them with three stars rising above it. A different kingdom, then. Some ancient High Lord and Lady, Nesta had suggested before approaching the river.
Et in Avallen ego. Even in Avallen, there am I.
“Seeing you go into that freezing river helped,” Azriel said mildly,
“Like calls to like,” Nesta mused. “Plenty of magical things react to one another.”
“There’s literally a prophecy in my world about my sword and a dagger reuniting our people. When knife and sword are reunited, so shall our people be.”
“Gwyn and Emerie are waiting,” Azriel pushed. “And Feyre and Elain.” The silver flame flared at that. Then Azriel said, “Nyx is waiting, too.”
Baxian said softly, “Let me shoulder this burden. You can get the next one.”
“You were a worthy mate to Danika,”
But my mother, Theia, used the time she served the Daglan to learn all she could about their instruments of conquest. The Dread Trove, we called it in secret. The Mask, the Harp, the Crown, and the Horn.
They were Fae like us, but not. The ears, the grace, the strength were identical, but they were shape-shifters, all of them. Each capable of turning into an animal. And each, even in their humanoid body, equipped with elongated canine teeth.
Prince Aidas only asked my mother one thing when she opened the gate to his world: “Have you come to ask for Hel’s help, then?”
Hunt shut out the sounds. The smells. Bryce and his future and those beautiful kids—that was the image he held in his mind instead. Escape—survival—was the goal. Bryce was the goal.
She told me once, when I marveled at our luck that the portal had opened to Aidas that day, that it was because they were mates—their souls had found each other across galaxies, linking them that fateful day, as if the mating bond between them was indeed some physical thing.
Last time he’d been here, he’d been alone. He’d had only the screams of soldiers to endure. His guilt had devoured him, but it was different than this. Than having to be here with two brothers and bear their suffering along with his own.
The creature snickered, and drawled to Nesta, “I can smell them on you, girl. Do you not think a blacksmith knows their own creation?”
The female in the sarcophagus was an Asteri.
“You may call me Vesperus.” The creature’s eyes glowed with irritation. “Are you related to Hesperus?” Bryce arched a brow at the name, so similar to one of Midgard’s Asteri. “The Evening Star?” “I am the Evening Star,” Vesperus seethed.
The firstlight flowing up the Asteri’s body shivered—and vanished. Nesta had plunged Ataraxia right through Vesperus’s chest.
“It is on Avallen, and females are not allowed beyond the lobby of the archives.” “Yeah, our periods would probably get all over the books.”
“You … you were a priestess at Parthos?” She nodded. “Priestess, witch … and now sorceress.”
“For a world to emerge where these books will be truly safe at last.”
The ground slid out from under Ruhn. The boy had Lidia’s face. Her coloring. Another boy to his left, also not mer, had dark hair and golden eyes. Lidia’s eyes. Behind them, Flynn grunted with surprise. “You’ve got brothers on this ship?” “They’re not my brothers,” Lidia whispered. Her fingers curled on the glass. “They’re my sons.”
“You hand him over,” a female voice drawled from the open doorway, “and you’ll have a third queen pissed at you.” Tharion’s stomach bottomed out. Bryce Quinlan swept through the doorway and winked at the Ocean Queen. “Tharion serves me.”
The Ocean Queen eyed Bryce unflinchingly. “And who, pray tell, are you?” Bryce didn’t miss a beat. “I’m Bryce Danaan, Queen of the Valbaran Fae.” Hunt let out a strangled sound—a sob. Bryce looked at him then, scanning his face, the tears he couldn’t stop. Her gaze flicked to the halo, then down to his wrist—but her expression yielded nothing. She just walked up to where he sat, and it was her, her fucking scent, and that was her soft skin brushing his hand as she peered down into his face.
If Danika could not be here, it was only fitting that her mate stood here instead.
Baxian chuckled from Hunt’s other side, enjoying the show. Gods, he and Danika had been made for each other.
Bryce flew like a shooting star through the dim cavern. “She doesn’t need my help,” Hunt whispered.
It wasn’t Hunt’s lightning that shone through the Autumn King’s rib cage. It was the Starsword. And it was Ruhn wielding it, standing behind him. Ruhn, who had driven the sword right through their father’s cold heart.
The Oracle didn’t tell me that I would be a fair and just king. She told me that the royal bloodline would end with me.
I thought it meant your bloodline. Ruhn lifted the bloodied Starsword. Flame simmered along his father’s body, limning his powerful form. But Ruhn was no longer a cowering boy, inking himself with tattoos to hide the scarring. I was wrong. I think the Oracle meant all of them, Ruhn went on, mind-to-mind. The male lines. The Starborn Princes included—all you fucks who have corrupted and stolen and never once apologized for it. The entire system. This bullshit of crowns and inheritance.
The line will end with me, you fucking prick, Ruhn said into his father’s mind, because I yield my crown, my title, to the queen.
A serene peace bloomed in him. I always assumed the Oracle’s prophecy meant that I would die. He let his kernel of starlight flicker down the blade, an answer to Bryce’s beckoning blaze. One last time. But I am going to live, he said to his father. And I am going to live well—without you.
Their friends were instantly on their feet, Hunt putting a hand on Sathia’s back to steady her. Then they all came to stand, as one, behind Bryce and Ruhn. And she saw it, for a glimmering heartbeat. Not a world divided into Houses … but a world united.
“The people of Midgard. United against the Asteri.” It had taken all this time, a journey through the stars and under the earth … but here they were.
“Hail Bryce, Queen of the Midgardian Fae.”
“To right an old wrong,” Ruhn said, “and on behalf of all the Starborn Princes before me. This is yours.”
She folded Bryce’s fingers around the photo. “Take it.” Fury’s eyes shone bright. “So we’ll all be with you.”
Friends worth fighting for. Worth dying for.
“But it must be broken.” He extended the sword to Ithan. “Ithan Holstrom is my heir.”
“You are hereby stripped of your title, your rank, and your authority.” Sabine just stared.
Sabine’s eyes flared with shock as Ithan bit down, tasting metal. And shattered the Fendyr sword between his teeth.
Still in his wolf form, Ithan started to turn toward the witnesses of his savagery, but Perry said, “Don’t look,” and dropped to her knees before him. Tilted back her head and exposed her neck. “I yield.” She added a heartbeat later, “I yield to the Prime.”
“Hail Ithan,” Amelie said, loud enough for all to hear, “Prime of the Valbaran Wolves.”
Make your brother proud. And as his howl finished echoing, he could have sworn he heard a male wolf’s cry float up from the Bone Quarter itself.
“I wish I had seen more of that male here. I wish you had been that male for my daughter. But if you are that male now, and you are that male for the sake of this city …” She waved a hand, and the sobeks swam away on a silent command. “Then the Blue Court shall help. Any who we can bring down here before the warships catch wind of it … any person, from any House: I shall harbor them.”
The Governor of Valbara had arrived.
Apollion had given his essence, his Helfire, to Hunt. And if that made him a son of Hel, so be it.
