More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
January 30 - February 1, 2024
Maybe it was better not to know. Not to think about how her light seemed to be edging closer to the properties of an Asteri’s destructive power.
Ruhn couldn’t help but admire the symbolism of it, for the only race of Vanir who’d universally stood with Athalar during the Fallen rebellion to have lit this match. He caught a glimpse of Athalar’s face—the awe and grief and pride shining there.
The world seemed to hold its breath as the elegant doe walked up to Ruhn and gently, lovingly, nuzzled his neck.
Something had broken in Ruhn at the sight of it. Something even Pollux and the Hawk and the Asteri’s dungeons hadn’t managed to reach.
“I was, for a time. How do you categorize a human woman who stops aging? Who always reverts to the same age, the same physical condition as she was when she was cursed? I’d cherished my years with my fellow priestesses at Parthos. When the witch-dynasties rose, I thought I might find similar companionship with them. A home.” “You … you were a priestess at Parthos?” She nodded. “Priestess, witch … and now sorceress.”
“Oh right,” she said. “Because I’m your stupid, bumbling daughter. I landed here by accident—is that it?” She laughed, unable to help herself. “You probably even convinced yourself it was Luna sending you some sort of gift. That you were given the gods’ favor and this was destined by Urd.”
Fucking Bryce lmaooo
The Starsword and Truth-Teller could open a portal to nowhere, whatever that was. Now she just needed to learn how to make them do it.
And for Bryce, home was—and always would be—
“They’re not my brothers,” Lidia whispered. Her fingers curled on the glass. “They’re my sons.”
WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCKK?!?!?!
“To the home world of the Fae.”
!!!
“I wanted you to listen,” she snapped, “but you wouldn’t. Yet now that I fit some sort of acceptably sad female backstory, you’re willing to hear me out.”
Harsh but true
The crowd hissed, and parted to reveal Queen Hypaxia Enador walking into the chamber, robes floating behind her on a phantom wind. From the corner of his eye, Ithan caught Jesiba’s smirk. “Hypaxia,” the sorceress said. “Just the necromancer I was looking for.”
What?!
“I’ve paid the Astronomer for years now to look for a way to undo Apollion’s grip on my soul.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know, Ithan Holstrom, about the truth. Too much for me to delve into here and now.” Her fingers halted, and her gaze simmered with ancient pain and anger. “But it was the wolf packs who reached Parthos first. Who started the slaughter and burnings. It was the wolf packs, led by Asteri-bred bloodhounds, who hunted down my sisters. I’ve never forgotten that.”
“The Fendyrs have been a … carefully cultivated line for the Asteri.”
“I think Danika was reckless and willful, and the Asteri knew they could never control her as they could Sabine. I think they realized that with Danika, they’d produced a wolf so powerful she rivaled the ones I faced in the First Wars. True wolves. And she was not on their side. She had to be eliminated.”
Were these truly thin places between worlds? And what the Hel was it about these mists that the Asteri couldn’t cross?
“Welcome, Bryce Danaan. I’ve been expecting you.”
WHAT?!!
The beast who’d grown them had to have been colossal, the likes of which didn’t exist elsewhere on Midgard.
Not in Midgard but in Erilea!
She incinerated them with a mental wall of starlight.
Hell yeahhh 😏😏😏
“You mistake me,” Bryce said in that voice that brooked no argument. “I wasn’t asking your permission.” The star on her chest began to glow, illuminating her T-shirt and athletic jacket. “As a Starborn Princess, no part of Avallen is denied to me.”
HAHAHA
Lidia seemed to grasp the general direction of her thoughts, because she said quietly, “I never had anyone to fight for me.”
😢😢😢
Before Jesiba could reply, the Under-King and Sigrid vanished on a dark wind.
Ahhh shit!!!!
“But I need to feel you first.”
Sexy timessss
Their magics collided—their souls. She scattered across the stars, across galaxies, lightning skittering in her wake. She had the dim sense of Hunt being thrown with her, of his shout of ecstasy and surprise. Knew that their bodies remained joined in some distant world, but here, in this place between places, all they were melted into one, crossed over and transferred and becoming something more. Stars and planets and rainbow clouds of nebulas swirled around them, darkness cut with lightning brighter than the sun. Sun and moon held together in perfect balance, suspended in the same sky. And
...more
“It felt like my power went into you,” Hunt said, eyes tracking the lightning as it slithered down her body. “It’s … yours.” “As mine is yours,” she said, touching a fleck of starlight glittering between the sable locks of his hair.
Caranam?
It had felt like dying, both then and now. Felt like Luna had shot her with a poisoned arrow and she was bleeding out, an invisible wound leaking into the world, and there was nothing that could ever be done to heal it.
🥺🥺🥺
“You know nothing of loyalty.” Lidia let out a low laugh, and glanced toward the five figures heading out into the greenery of the countryside. Toward the red-haired female in the center of the group. “I’ve never had a leader to stir the sentiment.”
!!!!!
“It’s good to have another female around here.”
😂
“You’re a prince,” Lidia said coolly. “Start acting like one.”
OUCH!! Tell him Lidia!
“Their deck launchers just fired brimstone missiles into Asphodel Meadows.”
There was nothing left in the heart of Asphodel Meadows beyond a giant crater, still smoldering.
😭😭😭
“I mean it,” Sathia said, not taking Bryce’s shit for one second.
Sathia’s gaze simmered. An unbroken female, despite the life she’d led. “I was hoping for a Fae Queen. Someone who might change things for the better.”
HELL YEAH
He wanted her. Wanted her naked and under him and moaning his name, wanted her to tell him everything, and wanted … wanted his friend back. The friend he could speak honestly to, who knew things about him that no one else knew.
This female had so much blood on her hands, yet—
Not again!!
The Roots of Earthen Magic
“That the right leader makes all the difference.”
“Then make her death count for something, Bryce.”
there was nowhere to run, nothing to do but stand and face the threat, as Morven stalked out of the mists. And behind him, flame simmering in his eyes, strode the Autumn King.
OH SHITTTTT!!!!
“Your father, too—he does not deserve a son like you.”
you saw me. For the first time, you saw me. I could talk to you as I hadn’t spoken to anyone. You reminded me that I was—I am—alive. I hadn’t felt that way in a very long time.”
“Lidia,” he said roughly. “Finding out who you are … it fucked with my head. To know you’re the Hind, but also Lidia—also Day. My Day. But now …” He swallowed. “Now?” Her gaze dipped to his mouth. His cock tightened at that gaze. He said, voice near guttural, “Now I don’t fucking care who you are, so long as you’re mine.” Her eyes shot to his, again full of surprise. “Because I’m yours, Day. I’m fucking yours.”
“Welcome, son,” said the Prince of the Pit.
WHAT?!
“It took me—and Helena—years to understand what Theia actually did with her magic.”
“Like calls to like,” Bryce murmured. “That’s why the Starsword and Truth-Teller keep wanting to be close to each other. Why they keep freaking out.”
“I’d say you had a third of Theia’s power already, the part that originally was given to Helena—that came down to you through Helena’s bloodline, and you took another third from where Silene stashed it. But if you can find the last third, the part that Theia originally kept for herself … I wonder how your light might appear then. What it might do.”
“Helena planted that prophecy, seeded it in Fae lore. She knew that despite her mother’s fears, the sword and knife are needed to destroy the Asteri. She knew that if a scion came along who could claim all three pieces of magic, they’d need the sword and knife to make that power count. Theia’s power, when whole, is the only thing that can unite and activate the true power of those blades and stop the Asteri’s tyranny.”
certain people, with certain gifts, can access the power of thin places—on any world. World-walkers.” Aidas gestured gracefully to Bryce. “You are one of them. So were Helena and Theia. Their natural abilities lent themselves to moving through the mists.”
The Maasiverse!!
“What blinds an Oracle?” Bryce whispered. “Theia’s star,” Aidas said softly. “I told you: The Oracle did not see that day … but I did. I saw you, so young and bright and brave, and the starlight Helena had told me to wait for. That third of Theia’s power, passed down through Helena’s line.”
