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That a great number of people had vanished, as if they had never been. Some said to another world, others said they’d moved on to distant lands, still others said they’d been chosen by the Cauldron and spirited away somewhere.” “They must have gone to Midgard,” Bryce said. “Led by Theia and Pelias—”
“It is in our history, Rhysand,” Amren said gravely. “But the Asteri were not known by that name. Here, they were called the Daglan.”
“The glowing letters inked on her back … they’re the same as those in the Book of Breathings
Might have felt a mantle settle on her shoulders, a train of starlight in her wake. Might have felt something like a crown settle upon her head. Guiding her into the dark.
“You’re a born killer—like any true witch. That girl on the throne is as softhearted as your mother.
“This one … stings. The hag’s halo felt like cold iron. This burns like acid.”
Why different
“To ensure that we can continue to rely on you when the time comes.” “To do what?” Hunt ground out. “What you were born to do—to accomplish the task for which your father brought you into existence,”
“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.”
Silene.”
New phone who dis
Nesta lifted an arm. Silver flame wreathed her fingers. Bryce backed away a step. It was fire but not fire. It was like ice turned into flame. It echoed in Nesta’s eyes as she laid her hand on the stone wall. Silver fire rippled over the carvings.
Silver flames? Power she kept?
Fae kneeling before impossibly tall, robed humanoids, glowing bits of starlight in their upraised hands. Magic. An offering to the crowned creatures before them. One of the beings was reaching a hand toward the nearest Fae, her fingers stretching toward that offered light.
Asteri?
The Hind turned to Tharion, and he withstood her blazing look. “I made sure the Depth Charger was there to pick you up after Agent Silverbow sacrificed himself, trying to bring the Asteri down with him; I filled Commander Sendes in about Ruhn and Athalar and Baxian being captured, and Bryce going missing. I’m the one who’s kept Rigelus off your scent, kept the Asteri from killing anyone who has ever meant anything to Ruhn, Bryce, or Athalar.”
a masked queen, a crown upon her head, bearing instruments in her hand
The dread trove?
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.
Rhys & feyre?
Her gaze flicked to the Starsword strapped to Azriel’s back, then to his side, to the knife hanging there. Her ears hollowed out for a moment, a dull thump sounding once, and her hand spasmed, seemingly tugged toward those blades. Azriel’s wings twitched at the same moment, and he rolled his shoulders, like he was shaking off some phantom touch.
From the consistent size of them, I’d guess that a Middengard Wyrm originally made these passages. Maybe it even used these waterways to get around.”
Bryce’s stomach hollowed out with her ears this time, and the dagger was right there, the sword so close— Azriel let out a grunt, going rigid. Like he could feel it, too, the weapons’ demand to be together or apart or whatever it was, the strange power of them in proximity to each other—
she wiped her hand along the rock wall, trying to smear it away. She realized too late that she’d smudged the blood and dirt over a carving of two serene, lute-playing Fae females.
“Like calls to like,”
Sum bingo!
A statue of Luna sat atop that computer, arrow pointed at the Viper Queen’s face.
Nesta went silent, and Bryce thought she might not answer, but then she said, “I had a tattoo on my back—recently. A magical one, now gone. But it was of an eight-pointed star.” “And?” “And the magic, the power of the bargain that caused the tattoo to appear … it chose the design. The star meant nothing to me. I thought maybe it was related to my training, but its shape was identical to the scar on your chest.”
An archway had been etched, stars glimmering around it. And in that archway stood a male figure, the image created with impressive depth. His hand was upraised in greeting.
The Middengard Wyrm had arrived at last. Precisely according to Bryce’s plan.
She’d been dripping blood for it all this way, leaving a trail, constantly scraping off her scabs to reopen her wounds—ones she’d intentionally inflicted on herself by “falling” into the stream. If the Wyrm relied on scent to hunt, then she’d left a veritable neon sign leading right to them. She hadn’t known when or how it would attack, but she’d been waiting. And she was ready.
Bryce fucking Who man and her plans!
“Cassian’s waiting for you, Nesta,” Azriel said—tone gentling. “Take off the Mask.” Nesta stayed silent, Ataraxia ready in her hand. One swipe, and Azriel would be dead. “He’s waiting for you at the House of Wind,” Azriel went on. “At home.” Another blink from Nesta. The silver fire banked a little. Like whoever Cassian was, and whatever the House of Wind was … they might be the only things capable of fighting the siren song of the Mask. “Gwyn and Emerie are waiting,” Azriel pushed. “And Feyre and Elain.” The silver flame flared at that. Then Azriel said, “Nyx is waiting, too.” The silver
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“Because I’ve seen that star on your chest before.” “Yeah, you said that,” Bryce said. “Your tattoo—” “Not my tattoo.” “Then where?” Bryce breathed. If she could get answers— But Nesta strode ahead again into the darkness. “No place good.”
“You detected a sentience in the Mask?” Bryce nodded. “It didn’t, like, talk to me or anything. I could just … sense it.” “What did it feel like?” Nesta asked quietly. “Like death,” Bryce breathed. “Like death incarnate.”
A massive metal wall now blocked their way, thirty feet high and thirty feet wide at least, with a colossal eight-pointed star in its center. The carvings continued straight up to it: battle and suffering, two females running on either side of the passage, as if running for this very wall … Indeed, around the star, an archway had been etched. Like this was the destination all along.
Gate?
“This is the place I last saw the star on your chest.” She drew Ataraxia, and the blade gleamed in the dimness. “We call it the Prison.”
Why did Nesta see the 8 pointed star in the prison? where?
“At the beginning of the tunnels,” Nesta said, “there was that carving of a young female … you said her name was Silene.” “The carving’s an exact likeness,” Bryce said, nodding. “But who is she?” Azriel said softly, voice tinged with pain, “She looks like Rhysand’s sister.”
We were forced to make the Tithe to them once a year. To offer up kernels of our power in tribute. To fuel their own power—and to limit our own.
Amen said the Drop sounded like the Tithe
black-haired, white-skinned Asteri.
My mother served at that monster’s side for a century, a slave to her every sick whim. Bryce knew who it was before Silene spoke again. Knew whose truth she’d been led here, across the stars, to learn at last. Theia.
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.
Asteri instruments of conquest = dread trove - not made by cauldron?
crowned, masked queen—Theia—flashed in Bryce’s memory. She’d been holding two instruments: a horn and a harp.
The Daglan, Silene went on, always quarreled over who should control the Trove, so more often than not, the Trove went unused. It was their downfall.
Nesta murmured to Azriel, “The Prison was once a royal territory?”
Jesiba’s gallery dragged a bound and gagged Fionn into the inky depths of the bog, the once-proud king screaming as he went under. Horror rooted Bryce to the spot. Theia and Pelias stood at the water’s edge, faces impassive.
My mother returned that day with only Pelias and my father’s blades. As she had helped Make them, they answered to the call in her blood. To her very power. Bryce knew that call. Had been hearing it since she arrived in this world. A chill rippled down her spine. And then she took the Trove for herself. Theia sat, enthroned, the Harp and Horn beside her, the Mask in her lap, and the Crown atop her head.
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.
fae from ToG world?
Rigelus and his companions were not Fae at all, but parasites who conquered world after world, feeding off the magic and lives of their citizens. The Daglan, now under their true name: the Asteri.
The Asteri had infected the water we consumed with a parasite. They’d poisoned the lakes and streams and oceans. The parasites burrowed their way into our bodies, warping our magic. Holy gods. The Asteri created a coming-of-age ritual for all magical creatures who had entered Midgard, and their descendants. A blast of magic would be released and then contained—and then fed to the Asteri. It was a greater, more concentrated dose than the seeds of power they’d sucked off us for years in the Tithe. They spun it into a near-religious experience, explained it away as a method to harness energy for
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Beneath another mountain, far to the south, I found a being of blood and rage and nightmares. Once a pet of the Asteri, it had long been in hiding, feeding off the unwitting.
A sarcophagus made of clear quartz lay in the center of the space. And inside it, preserved in eternal youth and beauty, lay a dark-haired female.
Make the Tithe so I may regain my strength and leave this cage.” Bryce knew then. Knew what evil had been kept in this coffin all this time.
the missing asteri??
Bryce had seen the gold-clad creature who now slumbered in the coffin before, she realized: when Silene had related her mother’s story. This female before them … she was the Asteri who’d ruled here. Theia’s mistress.
“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.
Locking him inside the House of Flame and Shadow.
Ruhn watched her beautiful, perfect face. Watched as determination set her features. “Have the ship at the planned coordinates,” she told Declan. “Ready the hatch for an aerial landing.”
Yaaasssss lidia saved them all
“You break it, Holstrom,” the sorceress drawled from her desk as she typed away, “you buy it.” Wasn’t that the truth.
oof too soon Jesiba
