Hunt’s chin dipped. “This one … stings. The hag’s halo felt like cold iron. This burns like acid.” He’d just finished voicing the last word when a thought slammed into him. “Bryce. Is she … is she with you?” If they’d hurt her, if Apollion gave one suggestion that—

  “No.” The shadow seemed to blink. “Why?”

  Horror leached through Hunt, colder than ice. “Bryce didn’t make it to Hel?” Where was she, then? Had she made it anywhere, or was she tumbling through time and space, forever trapped—

  He must have made some pitiful noise because Apollion said, “One moment before the hysterics, Athalar,” and vanished.

  Hunt couldn’t breathe. Maybe it was the weight of his body crushing his lungs, but … Bryce hadn’t made it. She hadn’t fucking made it to Hel, and he was stuck here, and—

  Apollion appeared again, a second shadow at his side. Taller and thinner, with eyes like blue opals.

  “Where is Bryce?” hissed the Prince of the Chasm.

  “She went to find you.” Hunt’s voice broke. Beside him, Ruhn groaned, stirring. “She went to fucking find you, Aidas.” The Princes of Hel looked at each other, some wordless conversation passing between them. Hunt pushed, “You two told her to find you. Fed us all that bullshit about armies and wanting to help and getting her ready—”

  “Is it possible,” Aidas said to his brother, ignoring Hunt entirely, “after everything …?”

  “Don’t fall into romanticism,” Apollion cautioned.

  “The star might have guided her,” Aidas countered.

  “Please,” Hunt cut in, not caring if he was begging. “Tell me where she is.” Baxian grunted, rising to consciousness.

  Aidas said quietly, “I have a suspicion, but I can’t tell you, Athalar, lest Rigelus wring it from you. Though he has likely already arrived at the same conclusion.”

  “Fuck you,” Hunt spat.

  But Apollion said to his brother, “We must leave.”

  “Then what was the point of all this watching me from the shadows?” Hunt demanded.

  “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,” 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.”

  “Tell me the fucking truth for once—”

  “Stay alive, Athalar.” The Prince of the Chasm followed his brother, vanishing into darkness and embers.

  * * *

  Tharion woke with a pounding headache that echoed through every inch of his body.

  From the smell in his room, Holstrom had slept there, likely on the floor, but the space was empty. Squinting against his headache, Tharion padded into the main living space to find Holstrom on the couch, Flynn beside him, and Declan and Marc nursing coffees at the small table by the window overlooking the fighting pit. Ariadne sat in a chair, reading a book, her demeanor completely at odds with the female who’d roasted those lions last night.

  No sign of the Fendyr heir. Or the sprites. Maybe he’d hallucinated that part.

  “Morning,” he grumbled, shutting one eye against the brightness of the room.

  None of them answered.

  Fine. He’d deal with them in a moment. After coffee. He padded to the wet bar across the room, the glare of the muted television sending a spike of pain through his left eye, and turned on the coffee machine by muscle memory. Tharion shoved a cup under the nozzle and hit a button that vaguely resembled the main one.

  “You really do look like shit,” Flynn drawled as Tharion inhaled the aroma of the coffee. “Ari, of course, looks gorgeous as always.”

  The dragon kept her attention on her book, ignoring the Fae lord. She didn’t move a muscle, as if she wanted them to forget she was there. Like such a thing was even possible.

  But Flynn focused on Tharion again. “Why didn’t you come to us for help?”

  Tharion sipped his coffee, wincing at the heat that burned his mouth. “It’s too early for this conversation.”

  “Bullshit,” Holstrom said. “We would have helped you. Why come here?”

  Tharion couldn’t keep the snap from his voice. “Because the River Queen would have wiped you guys off the map. I didn’t want that on my conscience.”

  “And this is better?” Ithan demanded.

  Flynn added, “Now you’re stuck here, taking whatever she dishes out, not to mention the shit she’s offering you on the side. How could you be so fucking dumb?”

  Tharion cut him a look. “You’re one to talk about doing dumb shit, Flynn.”

  Flynn’s eyes flickered—a rare glimmer of the powerful Fae lord lurking beneath the casual facade. “Even I would never sell my soul to the Viper Queen, Ketos.”

  Holstrom added, “There’s gotta be some way to get you out of this. You defected from the Blue Court. Who’s to say you can’t defect from—”

  “Look,” Tharion said, grinding his teeth, “I know you’ve got some savior complex, Holstrom—”

  “Fuck you. You’re my friend. You don’t get to ignore the danger you’re drowning in.”

  Tharion couldn’t decide whether to glare at the wolf or hug him. He drank from his boiling-hot coffee again. Welcomed its sear down his throat.

  Ithan said hoarsely, “We’re all that’s left. It’s only us now.”

  Declan said quietly from the table, “It’s all fucked up. Ruhn, Athalar, Bryce …” Marc laid a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  “I know,” Tharion said. “And Cormac’s dead.”

  “What?” Flynn spat his coffee back into his mug.

  Tharion filled them in on what had gone down in the lab, and fuck—he really could have used some of that venom right now. By the time he’d finished explaining his arrangement with the Viper Queen, they were all silent again.

  Until Flynn said, “Okay. Next steps: We need to get to the Depth Charger, and then to Pangera. To the Eternal City.” He nodded to Tharion. “Before we got ambushed by Sabine, we had just decided to seek you out—to bail you out of this shit, and to see if you could get us in with the mer on the ship.”

  “There’s no way in Hel the Vipe lets him go,” Ari said, breaking her silence.

  The males blinked at her, as if they’d indeed forgotten that a dragon sat in their midst. Marc’s mouth tightened as he realized how much she’d heard.

  But Flynn asked her, brow arching, “And you’re an authority on the Vipe now?”

  “I’m an authority on assholes,” Ari countered smoothly, giving Flynn a look as if to indicate that he was included on that list. “And by asking her to free him, you’ll make her cling tighter.”

  “She’s right,” Tharion said. “I can try to think of a way to contact Commander Sendes—”

  “No,” Ithan said. “We all go.”

  “I’m touched,” Tharion said, setting his coffee down on the counter behind him. “Really. But it’s not as easy as saying I defect and walking out.”

  Ithan bristled, but Sigrid appeared in the bathroom doorway, steam rippling out. She must have showered. “What would it take?”

  Tharion eyed the female. Definitely an Alpha, with that solid stance, those bright eyes. The lack of fear in them. “The Vipe’s all about business.”

  “You’re rich,” Ari said to Flynn.

  “It’s not about money for her,” Marc said. “She’s got more than she knows what to do with. It’d take a trade.”

  Tharion frowned toward the hallway—the door that led to the Viper Queen’s private chambers. “Who’s with her right now?”

  “Some female,” Ari answered, rising to her feet and padding toward the hall. She reached the door to her room and said over a shoulder, “Pretty blond in an imperial uniform.” The dragon didn’t say anything else as she shut her bedroom door. Then locked it.

  “We need to get out of here,” Declan said, voice low. “Immediately.”

  “What’s wrong?” Flynn asked. Declan was already reaching for his handgun, Marc easing to his feet beside him with feline grace.

  Tharion peered down the hall in time to see the door swing open. The Viper Queen, clad in a blue silk tracksuit and white high-top sneakers, sauntered toward them, hooped gold earrings swaying beneath her black bob. “Just a moment,” she said to whoever was in the room behind her. “Your kind of poison’s downstairs. Takes a minute to get.”

  Tharion stiffened as the snake shifter entered the room, surveying his friends.

  “You missed a spot of Sabine’s blood on your hands,” she drawled to Flynn.

  They all glared at her. But it was the Fendyr heir who shot to her feet and snapped, “You’re no better than the Astronomer, keeping these people here, drugging and—”

  The Viper Queen cut her off. “Lower the hackles, little Fendyr.” She surveyed Sigrid from her wet hair to her baggy sweats. “Staying here’s free, but a wardrobe upgrade will cost you.”

  “Let them go,” Sigrid commanded, voice like thunder. “The dragon and the mer—let them go.”

  Tharion didn’t let the Alpha’s ferocity get his hopes up. Not as the Viper Queen laughed. “Why would I do that? They bring in good business.” She cut Tharion a mocking smirk as she stalked for the door, headed to get whatever drugs her client down the hall wanted. “When they’re not blowing their load after a few minutes.”

  Tharion bristled, crossing his arms. But as soon as the Viper Queen had shut the door, vanishing outside, clipped footsteps sounded from down the hall.

  Dec and Flynn drew their guns. Holstrom had his claws out. Tharion unsheathed his own, his entire body tensing.

  “Put those away,” said a cool female voice. Terror stole any last traces of Tharion’s brain fog.

  “Oh fuck,” Flynn breathed.

  “You open that door,” the Hind said mildly, “and Prince Ruhn dies.”

  9

  Bryce and Nesta pushed through the tunnel for hours, tense silence filling the space between them again. Worse than before.

  It was typical, Bryce realized, of her interactions with the Fae she knew from her own world. She didn’t know why it somehow … disappointed her to realize it.

  They paused once, Nesta wordlessly tossing her a water canteen along with a roll of dark bread.

  “You brought provisions,” Bryce said around a mouthful of the faintly sweet, moist roll. “Seems weird, considering you intended to bring me right back to the cell.”

  Nesta only swigged from her canteen. “I had a feeling I might be running around after you for a while.”

  “Long enough to need to stop to eat?” Their gazes met, Nesta’s silvered in Bryce’s starlight.

  “We don’t know these caves. I prepared for anything.”

  “Not the Wyrm, apparently.”

  “You’re alive, aren’t you?”

  Bryce couldn’t help her snort. “Fair enough.”

  There was no more talk after that.

  It was possible they could walk right into a dead end and have wasted miles and hours down here. But the tunnel seemed … intentional. And Bryce wasn’t about to pose a question about the potential fruitlessness of their trek if it would make Nesta try to drag her back to the cave-in to wait to be dug out.

  She was getting her way—for better or worse.

  * * *

  Bryce was deep enough in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the fork in the tunnel until she’d nearly passed the tunnel that veered to the right. She drew up short, the halt of Nesta’s footsteps behind her telling her the warrior had done the same.

  Bryce tugged the neck of her T-shirt down to reveal more of her starlight, illuminating the two options gaping before them.

  To the left, the tunnel continued, old, rough rock walls curving into the gloom.

  To the right … Around the natural archway, an array of stars and planets had been carved, crowned at its apex by a large setting or rising sun. Bryce’s star glowed brighter as she faced it, guiding her there.

  She could dimly make out more scenes of violence and bloodshed covering the walls inside the tunnel.

  “I’m going to take a guess and say let’s go right.” Bryce sighed, covering her star again with her shirt.

  “Very well,” Nesta said, and strode for the archway.

  Bryce lunged before Nesta could clear it, grabbing the warrior by the back of her collar. With a twirl and a flash, Nesta was on her, sword at Bryce’s throat. Its metal was impossibly cold.

  Bryce held up her hands, trying not to breathe too loudly, to bring her skin into any more contact with that horrific blade than necessary. “No—look.” She nodded as minutely as she could to the carvings in the tunnel just beyond the archway.

  Nesta didn’t remove the blade, which seemed to throb against Bryce’s skin, like the sword was alive and aware. But Nesta’s gaze shifted to where Bryce had indicated.

  “What is it?”

  “Those carvings,” Bryce breathed. “Back home, my job is to look at ancient art, to study it and sell it, and … never mind, that’s not really relevant. I just mean I’ve seen a lot of ancient Fae artwork, and that stuff on the walls—it’s spelling out a warning. So if you want to get impaled by a bunch of rusty spears, keep walking.”

  Nesta blinked, head angling, more feline than Fae. But the sword lowered.

  Bryce tried not to gasp in relief as that icy metal left her skin, her soul. She never wanted to endure anything like it again.

  Nesta either didn’t know or didn’t care about the sword’s impact on Bryce as she surveyed the carvings. The one closest to them.

  A female, clearly Fae nobility from the ornate robes and fancy jewelry, stared out from the wall. As if she were addressing an audience, welcoming the newcomers to the tunnel. She was young and beautiful, yet stood with a presence that seemed regal. Long hair flowed around her like a silent river, framing her delicate, heart-shaped face.

  Bryce shook off the last of her dread and translated the inscription. “Her name was Silene.”

  Nesta peered at the writing beneath the image. “That’s all it says?”

  Bryce shrugged. “Old-school Fae. Lots of fancy titles and lineage. You know how they liked to preen.”

  Nesta’s lips quirked upward. Bryce motioned at the embossed panels that continued onward.

  “The warning is in the story she’s telling here,” Bryce said.

  A field of corpses had been carved into the wall, a battlefield stretching ahead. Crucifixes loomed over the battlefield, bodies hanging from them. Great, dark beasts of scales and talons—the ones from the pit beneath her cell, she realized with a shudder—feasted on screaming victims. Blood eagles were splayed out on stone altars.

  “Mother above,” Nesta murmured.

  “Those holes along the corpses there—the ones that look like wounds … I’d bet anything there are mechanisms in them to send weapons at passersby,” Bryce said. “As some fucked-up ‘artistic’ way of making the viewer experience the pain and terror of these Fae victims.”

  Bryce could have sworn something like surprise and embarrassment—that perhaps the warrior herself hadn’t spotted the threat—crossed Nesta’s face.

  “How do you propose we get through, then?” A weighted question. A test.

  Like Hel would Bryce freeze again. She held out a hand. “Pass me something heavy. I’ll see if I can trigger the mechanism to fire.”

  Nesta sighed, as if annoyed again. Bryce turned to her, about to snap something about having a better idea, when 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.

  Mechanisms clicked—and misfired. Rusty metal bolts shot from the walls. Or tried to. They barely cleared the wall before they melted into dust.

  Nesta’s power shivered down the walls, disappearing into the dark. Faint clicking and hissing faded away into the gloom; the sound of the traps turned to ashes.

  Nesta met Bryce’s stare. The fire wreathing her hand winked out, but the silver flame still flickered in her eyes. “You have my gratitude” was all Nesta said before striding ahead.

  * * *

  Later, Bryce and Nesta again dined on hard cheese and more of that dark bread, their resting place a small alcove in the tunnel wall. Bryce’s starlight still provided the only glow, muted through her T-shirt. It was cold enough that she looked with envy at Nesta’s dark cape, wrapped tightly around the warrior.

  She distracted herself by peering at the carvings etched into the walls: 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.

  Bryce’s stomach twisted as she noted that behind the supplicating Fae, chained humans lay prostrate on the earth, their crudely carved faces a sharp contrast to the otherworldly, pristine beauty of the Fae. Another bit of fucked-up artistry: Humans were little more than rock and dirt compared to the Fae and their godlike masters. Not even worth the effort of carving them. Present only for the Fae to lord their power over them, to crush the humans beneath their heels.

  From far away, Rigelus’s voice sounded in Bryce’s memory. The Asteri had once given the humans to the Vanir to have someone to rule over, to keep them from thinking about how they were hardly better off, all of them slaves to the Asteri. It continued on Midgard today, this false sense of superiority and ownership. And it seemed it existed in this world as well.