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October 8 - October 20, 2025
“We shall build a new world atop their ashes.”
And as one flame, one unified people, as Bryce Quinlan had promised, their fire struck the enemy line.
She was not the scared female she’d been a week ago, running from him down the hall.
Its only been a week???
And though she’d leapt between worlds and ended Archangels and Asteri, nothing had prepared her to see Ithan Holstrom racing down the palace hallway with the Godslayer Rifle slung over his shoulder.
“I told her to choose to live,” Aidas murmured sadly,
“She wouldn’t be Bryce if she had chosen herself,”
Bryce had gone into death itself for him that day in the spring. Hunt could do no less for her.
He knew which of the Fallen controlled this suit, whose soul had come to offer a hand. To help him do the impossible. “Shahar,”
Not to be some instrument of Hel, but because Urd knew that there would be a female who would be kind and selfless and brave, who would give everything for her city, for her planet. And that she would need someone to give everything back to her.
And as it left the suit, spiraling through space, golden with all that angelic wrath … He felt Shahar leave with it.
A glowing, black figure filled it. Then another. Aidas and Apollion.
And then Ruhn was there. Starlight flaring. Pushing back against the impossible. Lidia was beside him, crackling with fire.
Tharion. Holstrom. Flynn and Dec. A fire sprite, her small body bright with flame. Isaiah and Naomi. So many hands, so many powers, from almost every House.
The friends they’d made were what mattered in the end. Not the enemies. Throug...
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Hunt had never hated anything more than he hated the grief in the prince’s eyes. The tears on Aidas’s face.
The boys had been the ones who’d convinced him to come back—had refused to go another step until they helped in some way.
“Not a sacrifice. A trade.” She beckoned behind her, summoning Jesiba Roga to her side.
“Oh, Quinlan,” Roga said, and there were tears gathering on her lashes.
“It is for me to offer,” Jesiba said, and looked down again at Bryce. Tears covered the sorceress’s cheeks.
Jesiba smiled softly. “After fifteen thousand years, I’ve had my fill of Midgard.”
“Thank you. I never knew that Quinlan … that she meant anything to you.” Jesiba’s brows rose, and a bit of the prickly sorceress he knew returned. “Of course she does. Do you know how hard it is to find a competent assistant?”
“I … I hope you find peace.” Jesiba’s face bloomed in a smile, and it was perhaps the first true one he’d ever seen from her.
“I’ve already found it, Athalar. Thanks to you both.”
“Why else do you think I’m here? I traded my life for yours.”
Jesiba walked up to her and took her hand. “That Archesian amulet isn’t merely for protection against my books or against demons. It’s a link to Midgard itself.”
“The Parthos books are yours now. Protect them, cherish them. Share them with the world.”
“But how did you know I’d wind up—” “You’ve got one of the worst self-sacrificing streaks I’ve ever encountered,”
“Go home, Bryce. This will all be here when you’re ready.”
“We’ll all be here when you’re ready.” Far out, on a distant hill, stood seven figures.
And standing at their front, a hand upraised … Bryce began crying, and it was pure joy and love that burst from her as she lifted a hand in greeting toward Danika.
She heard the words on the wind, carried from her friend’s soul to hers. Light it up, Bryce.
And then there was a spark of light by Danika’s shoulder, and Bryce knew that fire … She blew a kiss to Lehabah.
Bryce nodded, and hugged Jesiba, conveying all that was in her heart. Jesiba hugged her back—first awkwardly, then wholeheartedly.
“This,” she groaned, “is like some fucked-up version of attending your own Sailing.”
“Who died and made you Prime?”
“Does someone, uh, want to put Jesiba’s ashes in a … cup or something?”
“Lead the angels, Isaiah. I’m here if you need me.”
“Oh, Rhys will be fine, Cassian,” Ember said—in the Fae’s language.
“It got too hard to mime everything. They gave us that bean-thing they offered you.”
“He and Randall bonded about being overprotective dads,” Ember said.
“Poor Nesta’s been in the doghouse since you took their weapons and dumped us here,”
But Ember continued, looking only at Nesta, “I am glad of one thing: that I was able to meet you.”
“Next time I take on intergalactic evil, I’ll try to accommodate your bonding schedule.”
“This time with you was a gift, Nesta. It truly was.” With that, she pulled Nesta to her in a tight embrace, and Bryce could have sworn something like pain and longing crossed Nesta’s expression. Like she hadn’t experienced a mom-hug for a long, long time.
Bryce’s heart swelled to the point of pain as Randall approached Hunt and hugged him, too.
Ember at last pulled away from Nesta. But she gently put a hand to the female’s cheek and whispered, “You’ll find your way,”
“Alphaholes,” Nesta echoed, eyes gleaming with amusement.
“I think that eight-pointed star was tattooed on you for a reason. Take that sword and go figure out why.”
“He shot you,” Ace said, frowning at Ruhn. “I shouldn’t have told you that,” Ruhn muttered.
Thanatos giving her a look that said she might have destroyed the Asteri but he was still mad about his dog,
