A few steps ahead, Nesta said nothing. But Azriel, trailing behind, mused after a moment, “I don’t think so. From the consistent size of them, I’d guess that a Middengard Wyrm originally made these passages.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.”

  “Does it matter?” Nesta said without looking back.

  “Possibly,” Azriel murmured. “We should be on alert. It might still use them to access the tunnel system.”

  Alarm flared through Bryce. “What makes you say that?”

  Azriel nodded to a pile of white things that she’d mistaken for more of the writhing, newt-like creatures. “Bones. Of those things from the bridge chamber, probably.”

  Bryce stumbled on a slippery rock, going down into the frigid water, palms and knees smarting—

  A strong hand was instantly at her back, but too late to avoid the stinging cuts that now peppered her hands and legs. “Careful,” Azriel warned, setting her on a sturdier rock.

  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—

  “Watch your footing” was all the male said before stepping back. Far enough away that the sword and the dagger halted their strange tugging at Bryce. Her stomach eased, her hearing with it.

  Reaching the bank, she shook off the stinging in her palms, the scent of her blood stronger than that of the river, and wiped the blood from her torn knees. She’d liked these leggings, damn it. Mud came away with the blood, and she clicked her tongue as 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. With an apologetic look to them and their long-dead carver, Bryce continued on. And on. And on.

  * * *

  “Your hands aren’t healing,” Azriel said from behind Bryce the next day. Or whenever it was now, considering that they’d all slept for a few hours with nothing in the darkness to indicate the passing of time. Bryce had dozed lightly, fitfully, aware of every drip of moisture and scrape of rock in the tunnel, the breathing from the warriors beside her.

  She knew they’d been monitoring her every breath.

  After a quick meal, they’d been on their way. And apparently, Azriel hadn’t missed the scent of her hands still leaking blood.

  Nesta halted ahead, as if concerned by Azriel’s words, and when the female backtracked, hand outstretched, Bryce showed her scraped-up palms.

  “Something in the water?” Nesta murmured to Azriel.

  “Her knees healed,” Azriel murmured back.

  Bryce didn’t want to know how he knew that. She peered at her raw, scraped hands, the smeared blood and lingering mud on them. “Maybe my magic’s weird down here. It’d explain why the star is doing its … GPS thing.”

  Her tongue stumbled over the GPS pronunciation in their language, but if they had no idea what the Hel she was talking about, they didn’t let on.

  Instead, Azriel asked, “How fast do you usually heal?” He reached for her hand, her starlight washing over the golden skin of his own hands … and the scars there. Covering every inch.

  She’d seen them during their first encounter on that misty riverbank, but had forgotten until now. She’d never seen such extensive burn scars.

  The sword and dagger, so close now, began their thrumming and tugging. Her hearing hollowed out, her gut with it.

  Azriel’s wings twitched once again.

  But Bryce said of her bleeding hands, blocking out the blades’ call, “I’m half-human, so I’m used to slower healing, but since making the Drop, I’ve been healing at relatively normal Vanir speeds.”

  Nesta must have been filled in on the Drop as well, because she didn’t question what it was. She only said, “Maybe it has something to do with your magic needing so long to replenish, too.”

  “Again,” Azriel reminded them, “her knees have healed.”

  Bryce glanced at the thick scarring over his fingers. What—who—had done such a brutal thing to him? And though she knew it was dumb to open up, to show any vulnerability, she said quietly, “The male who fathered me … he used to burn my brother to punish him. The scars never healed for him, either.” Ruhn had just tattooed over them. A fact she’d only learned right before she’d come here, and knowing about the pain he’d suffered—

  Azriel dropped her hand. But he said nothing as he stepped back, far enough away that the sword and dagger stopped chattering to Bryce. If they continued plaguing him, he made no sign. He only motioned them to keep moving before prowling off into the gloom, taking the lead this time. Bryce watched him for a moment before following, heart heavy in her chest for some reason she couldn’t place.

  Nesta continued down the tunnel, this time staying a little closer to Bryce. The female said a shade quietly, “I’m sorry about your brother’s suffering.”

  The words steadied Bryce, focused her. “I’ll make sure my sire pays for it one day.”

  “Good” was all Nesta said. “Good.”

  * * *

  “Tell me about the Daglan.” Bryce’s voice echoed too loudly in the otherwise silent cave from where she sat against the tunnel wall, a carving of three dancing Fae females above her. The scent of her blood filled the cave, the wounds on her hands still open and bleeding. Not enough to be alarming, but a small, steady ooze every now and then.

  Azriel and Nesta, sitting beside each other with the ease of familiarity, both frowned. Nesta said, “I don’t know anything about them.” She considered, then added, “I slew one of their contemporaries, though. About seven months ago.”

  Bryce’s brows rose. “So not an Asteri—Daglan, I mean?”

  Azriel shifted. Nesta glanced sidelong at him, marking the movement, but said to Bryce, “I don’t think so. The creature—Lanthys—was a breed unto himself. He was … horrible.”

  Bryce angled her head. “How did you kill him?”

  Nesta said nothing.

  Bryce’s gaze lifted to the sword hilt peeking above the warrior’s shoulder. “With that?”

  Nesta just said, “Its name is Ataraxia.”

  “That’s an Old Language word.” Nesta nodded. Bryce murmured, “Inner Peace—that’s your sword’s name?”

  “Lanthys laughed when he heard it, too.”

  “I’m not laughing,” Bryce said, meeting the female’s stare.

  She found nothing but open curiosity on Nesta’s face. Nesta said, “The scar your light comes from … it’s shaped like an eight-pointed star. Why?”

  Bryce peered at where the light was muffled by her T-shirt. “It’s the symbol of the Starborn, I think.”

  “And the magic marked you in this way?”

  “Yes. When I … revealed who I was, what I am, to the world, I drew the star out of my chest. It left that scar in its wake.” She glanced to Azriel. “Like a burn.”

  His face was an unreadable mask. But Nesta asked, “So you have a star within you? An actual star?”

  Bryce shrugged with one shoulder. “Yeah? I mean, not literally. It’s not like a giant ball of gas spinning in space. But it’s starlight.”

  Nesta didn’t seem particularly impressed. “And you said these Asteri of yours … they also have stars within them?”

  Bryce winced. “Yes.”

  “So what’s the difference between you and them?” Nesta asked.

  “Aside from the fact that I’m not an intergalactic colonialist creep?”

  She could have sworn Nesta’s mouth kicked up at a corner. That Azriel chuckled, the sound soft as shadow. “Right,” Nesta said.

  “I, uh … I don’t know.” Bryce considered. “I never really thought about it. But …” Those final moments running from Rigelus flashed in her memory, the bursts of his power rupturing marble and glass, searing past her cheek—

  “My light is just that,” Bryce said. “Light. The Asteri claim their powers are from holy stars inside themselves, but they can physically manipulate things with that light. Kill and destroy. Is starlight that can shatter rock actually light? Everything they’ve told us is basically a lie, so it’s possible they don’t have stars inside them at all—that it’s merely bright magic that looks like a star, and they called it a holy star to wow everyone.”

  Azriel said, wings rustling, “Does it matter what their power is called, then?”

  “No,” Nesta admitted. “I was only curious.”

  Bryce chewed on her lip. What was the Asteri’s power? Or hers? Hers was light, but perhaps theirs was actually the brute force of a star—a sun. So hot and strong it could destroy all in its path. It wasn’t a comforting thought, so Bryce asked Nesta, in need of a new subject, “What kind of sword is that, anyway?” Its simple, ordinary hilt jutted above Nesta’s shoulder.

  “One that can kill the unkillable,” Nesta answered.

  “So is the Starsword,” Bryce said quietly, then nodded to Azriel’s side. “Can your dagger kill the unkillable, too?”

  “It’s called Truth-Teller,” he said in that soft voice, like shadows given sound. “And no, it cannot.”

  Bryce arched a brow. “So does it … tell the truth?”

  A hint of a smile, more chilling than the frigid air around them. “It gets people to do so.”

  Bryce might have shuddered had she not caught Nesta rolling her eyes. It gave her enough courage to dare ask the winged warrior, “Where did the dagger come from?”

  Azriel’s hazel eyes held nothing but cool wariness. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because the Starsword”—she motioned to the blade he had down his back—“sings to it. I know you’re feeling it, too.” Let it be out in the open. “It’s driving you nuts, right?” Bryce pushed. “And it gets worse when I’m near.”

  Azriel’s face again revealed nothing.

  “It is,” Nesta answered for him. “I’ve never seen him so fidgety.”

  Azriel glowered at his friend. But he admitted, “They seem to want to be near each other.”

  Bryce nodded. “When I landed on that lawn, they instantly reacted when they were close together.”

  “Like calls to like,” Nesta mused. “Plenty of magical things react to one another.”

  “This was unique. It felt like … like an answer. My sword blazed with light. That dagger shone with darkness. Both of them are crafted of the same black metal. Iridium, right?” She jerked her chin to Azriel, to the dagger at his side. “Ore from a fallen meteorite?”

  Azriel’s silence was confirmation enough.

  “I told you guys back in that dungeon,” Bryce went on. “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.”

  Nesta frowned deeply. “And you truly think this is that particular dagger?”

  “It checks too many boxes not to be.” Bryce lifted a still-bloody hand, and she didn’t miss the way they both tensed. But she furled her fingers and said, “I can feel them. It gets stronger the closer I get to them.”

  “Then don’t get too close,” Nesta warned, and Bryce lowered her hand.

  Bryce surveyed the carved walls, pivoting. “These reliefs tell a narrative, too, you know.”

  Nesta peered up at the images: the three dancing Fae in the foreground, the stars overhead, the scattered islands. The mountain island with the castle atop its highest peak. And again, always the reminder of that suffering underworld beneath it. Memento mori. Et in Avallen ego. “What sort of narrative?”

  Bryce shrugged. “If I had a few weeks, I could walk the whole length and analyze it.”

  “But you don’t know our history,” Nesta said. “It’d have no context for you.”

  “I don’t need context. Art has a universal language.”

  “Like the one tattooed on your back?” Nesta said.

  All right. Their turn to ask questions. “Your friend—Amren. She said it was the same as the language in some book?”

  Azriel asked, stone-faced, “What do you call it in your world—that language?”

  Bryce shook her head. “I don’t know. I told the truth earlier. My friend and I got … We had a lot to drink one night.” And smoked a fuck-ton of mirthroot, but they didn’t need to know that, or need an explanation about the drugs of Midgard. “I barely remember it. She said it meant Through love, all is possible.”

  Nesta clicked her tongue, but not with disdain. Something like understanding.

  Bryce went on, “She claimed she picked the alphabet out of a book in the tattoo shop, but … I don’t think that was the case.” She needed to steer this away from the Horn. Quickly. Especially since Nesta had been the one they’d called to inspect her tattoo.

  Azriel asked, “How did your friend know the language?”

  “I still don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure out what she knew for months now.”

  “Why not just ask her?” Nesta countered.

  “Because she’s dead.” The words came out flatter than Bryce had intended. But something cracked in her to say them, even if she’d lived with that reality every day for more than two years now. “The Asteri had her assassinated, then had it framed as a demonic murder. She was getting close to discovering some major truth about the Asteri and our world, so they had her killed.”

  “What truth?” This from Azriel.

  “I’ve been trying to uncover that, too,” Bryce said.

  “Was the language of your tattoo part of it?” Azriel pressed.

  “I don’t know—I only got as far as learning that she’d uncovered what the Asteri truly are, what they do to the worlds they conquer. If I ever get home …” Her heart became unbearably heavy. “If I ever get home, maybe I’ll learn the rest.”

  Silence fell. Then Nesta nodded to the three dancing Fae figures above Bryce. “So what does that mean, then? If you don’t need the context.”

  Bryce examined the relief. Took in the dancing, the stars, the idyllic islands in the background. And she said softly, “It means that there was once joy in this world.”

  Silence. Then Nesta said, “That’s it?”

  Bryce kept her eyes on the dancers, the stars, the lush lands. Ignored the darkness beneath. Focused on the good—always the good. “Isn’t that all that matters?”

  13

  It took five hours for the Viper Queen to deign to meet Ithan.

  Five hours, plus the fact that Ithan had opened the door to the hallway where two Fae assassins stood posted and threatened to start ripping apart the warehouse.

  Then and only then was he escorted here, to her office.

  He’d left Flynn, Dec, Marc, and Tharion quietly debating not only how the fuck they’d get out of the Meat Market, but also whether to trust the Hind. The sprites, shocked by her mention of their lost queen, had retreated into Tharion’s bedroom with Sigrid. The dragon hadn’t yet emerged from her own.

  But Ithan had had enough of debating, of asking questions. He’d never been good with that shit. Maybe it was the athlete in him, but he just wanted to do something.

  It didn’t matter if they could trust the Hind or not. If she could get them to Pangera, closer to their friends … he’d take that. But he had to get one friend out first.

  Ithan sat in an ancient green chair in a truly derelict office, watching the Viper Queen type key by key into a computer that could have doubled as a cement block.

  A statue of Luna sat atop that computer, arrow pointed at the Viper Queen’s face. A few more deliberate click-clacks of her long nails on the keyboard, and then her green eyes slid to Ithan.

  “So what was all the yelping about?”

  Ithan crossed his arms. On the desk itself sat a statuette of Cthona, carved from black stone. In one arm the goddess cradled an infant to her bare breast. In the other, she extended an orb—Midgard—out into the room. Cthona, birther of worlds. He touched it idly, gathering his courage.

  “I want to discuss what you’re going to do about Sabine,” he said.

  The Viper Queen leaned back in her seat, sleek bob swaying. “As far as I know, when Amelie Ravenscroft woke up from having her throat cut by my guards, she tracked down the Prime Apparent, dragged her carcass home, and has been feeding Sabine a steady diet of firstlight to regenerate her. She’s already back on her feet.”

  Ithan’s blood curdled. “So Sabine recovered quickly.”

  The Viper Queen cocked her head. “Were you hoping otherwise?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he asked, “And you’re going to hand Sigrid and me over to her?”

  The Viper Queen opened a drawer, pulled out a silver tin of cigarettes, and lifted one to her mouth. “Depends on how nicely you ask me not to, Holstrom.” The cigarette rose and fell with the words. She lifted a lighter and ignited the tip, taking a long drag.

  “What’ll it take?”

  Smoke rippled from her mouth as the Viper Queen sized him up. Her tongue darted over her purple lower lip. Tasting—scenting. The way snakes smelled.

  “Let’s introduce ourselves first. We’ve never met, have we?”

  “Hi. Nice to meet you.”

  “So testy. I thought you’d be a big old softy.”

  He flashed his teeth. “I don’t know why you’d assume that.”

  She took another long drag of her cigarette. “Did you not go against Sabine’s orders and lead a small group of wolves into Asphodel Meadows to save humans? To save the most vulnerable of the House of Earth and Blood?”

  He growled. “I was doing a nice thing. There wasn’t much more to it than that.”

  The Viper Queen exhaled a plume of smoke, more dragon than the one upstairs. “That remains to be seen.”

  Ithan challenged, “You sent your people to help that day, too.”

  “I was doing a nice thing,” the Viper Queen echoed mildly. “There wasn’t much more to it than that.”

  “Maybe you’ll feel inclined to do the nice thing today, too.”