Too little, too late. And of course, Silene would have benefitted from hiding her past—if she didn’t tell anyone who she was or what she and her family had done, she couldn’t be punished for it. How convenient. How noble.

  Silene studied the spot where she knelt on the eight-pointed star in the center of the room. The only adornment.

  She slowly set the Harp atop the star. Snow still melting in her hair, she got to her feet and wiped her tears, then rallied her magic, the sheer concentrated power of her light. It sliced through the stone like a knife through warm butter—a laser.

  Light that wasn’t just light—light, as the Asteri could wield their power.

  Silene carved planets and stars and gods. A map of the cosmos. Of the world she had abandoned. When she finished, she lay beside the Harp, curled around the dagger sheathed at her waist.

  Silene traced her fingers over the stone, like she could somehow reach across the stars to her sister. A seed of starlight began to form at her fingertip—

  The vision went dark. Then Silene’s face appeared again—older, worn. Her clear blue eyes looked out with a steady gaze. My strength wanes, she said. I hope that my life has been spent wisely. Atoning for my mother’s crimes and foolishness and love—and trying to make it right. I carved these tunnels, the path here, so some record might exist of what we were, what we did. But first I had to erase all of it from recent memory.

  Her face faded away, and more images began. A faster montage.

  Silene, walking away from the Harp and through the empty, beautiful halls of a palace carved into the mountain—this mountain.

  Our home had been left empty since we’d vanished. As if the other Fae thought it cursed. So I made it truly cursed. Damned it all.

  She wandered through rooms that must once have been familiar to her, pausing as if lost in memory. Then she waved a hand, and entire hallways were walled off with natural rock. Another wave, and ornate throne rooms were swallowed by the mountain, until only the lowermost passages, the dungeons and this chamber far beneath, remained.

  Despite my efforts to hide what this place had once been, a terrible, ancient power hung in the air. It was as my mother had warned us when we were children: evil always lingered, just below us, waiting to snatch us into its jaws.

  So I went to find another monster to conceal it.

  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. With the dagger and my power, I laid a trap for it. And when it came sniffing, I dragged it back here. Locked it in one of the cells. Warded the door.

  One after another, I hunted monsters—the remaining pets of the Daglan—until many of the lowest rooms were filled with them. Until my once-beautiful home became a prison. Until even the land was so disgusted by the evil I’d gathered here that the islands shriveled and the earth became barren. The winged horses who hadn’t gone with my mother to Midgard, who had once flown in the skies, playing in the surf … they were nearly gone. Not a single living soul remained, except for the monstrosities in the mountain.

  No pity or compassion stirred in Bryce. She didn’t buy Silene’s “for the common good” bullshit. It had all been to cover her own ass, to make sure the Fae in this world never learned how close she and her mother and sister had come to damning them. How Silene and Helena had damned the Fae of Midgard, locking them out along with their children. Another few seconds of keeping the portal open and she could have saved dozens of lives. But she hadn’t.

  So boo-fucking-hoo and to Hel with her atonement.

  I left, wandering the lands for a time, seeing how they had moved on without Theia’s rule. They’d splintered into several territories, and though they were not at war, they were no longer the unified kingdom I had known.

  I will spare you the details of how I came to wed a High Lord’s son. Of the years before and after he became the High Lord of Night, and I his lady. He wanted me to be High Lady, as the other lords’ mates were, but I refused. I had seen what power had done to my mother, and I wanted none of it.

  Yet when my first son was born, when the babe screamed and the sound was full of night, I brought him to the Prison and keyed the wards into his blood. No one knew that the infant who sometimes glowed with starlight had inherited it from me. That it was the light of the evening star. The dusk star.

  And this island that had become barren and empty … this, too, was his. I told him, when he was old enough, what I had left here for him. So that someone might be able to access this record, to know the risks of using the Trove and the threat of the Asteri, always waiting to return here. I made sure he knew that the buried weapon he’d need against the Asteri was down here. I only asked that he not tell his father, my mate. To my knowledge, he never has. And one day, he has promised to tell his son, and his son after him. A secret shame, a secret history, a secret weapon—all hidden within our bloodline. Our burden to carry forward, carved and recounted here so that if the original history becomes warped or parts of it lost to time … here it is, etched in stone.

  Nesta murmured to Azriel, “Does Rhys … does he know?”

  “No,” Azriel replied without an ounce of doubt. “Somewhere along the line … all this was forgotten, and never passed on.”

  Bryce couldn’t bring herself to care. She knew the truth now, and all that mattered was getting home to Midgard to share it with others. With Hunt.

  But to the rest of the world, Silene said, I ensured that my mother and her lands became a whisper. Then a legend. People wondered if Theia had ever existed. The old generation died off. I clung to life, even after my mate had passed. As an elder, I spun lies for my people and called them truth.

  “No one knows what became of Theia and General Pelias,” I told countless generations. “They betrayed King Fionn, and Gwydion was forever lost, his dagger with it.” I lied with every breath.

  “Theia and Fionn had two daughters. Unimportant and unimpressive.” That was the hardest, perhaps. Not that my own name was gone. But that I had to erase Helena’s, too.

  Bryce glowered. Erasing her sister’s name was worse than butchering human families?

  My son had sons, and I lived long enough to see my grandsons have sons of their own. And then I returned here. To the place that had once been full of light and music, and now housed only terrors.

  To leave this account for one whose blood will summon it, child of my child, heir of my heir. To you—I leave my story, your story. To you, in this very stone, I leave the inheritance and the burden that my own mother passed to me.

  The image blurred, and there she was again. That old, weary face.

  I hope the Mother will forgive me, Silene said, and the hologram dissolved.

  “Well, I fucking don’t,” Bryce spat, and flipped off the place where Silene had stood.

  22

  Hunt could only watch in despair as the Bright Hand of the Asteri swept into the chamber, followed by Pollux and the Hawk. The Hawk noted the hand still dangling from the chains and laughed.

  “Just like a rat,” the Hawk taunted, “gnawing off a limb when caught in a trap.”

  “Get fucked,” Baxian spat, Ruhn’s blood coating his face, his neck, his chest.

  “Language,” Rigelus chided, but didn’t interfere as Pollux snatched the iron poker from where Ruhn still clutched it between his feet. Ruhn, to his credit, tried to hold on to it, legs curling upward to tuck it close. But weakened and bleeding … there was nothing he could do. Pollux ripped it away, beating Ruhn’s back once with it—prompting a pained grunt from the prince—then used the poker to prod Ruhn’s severed hand from the shackle above.

  It landed on the filthy ground with a sickening thump.

  Smiling, the Hawk picked it up like it was a shiny new toy.

  Observing the three of them, Rigelus said mildly, “If I’d known you were so bored down here, I would have sent Pollux back sooner. Here I was, thinking you’d had enough of pain.”

  Pollux stalked to the lever, wings glowingly white. With a smirk, the Hammer pulled it and sent all three of them dropping heavily to the ground.

  The agony that blasted through Hunt drowned out Ruhn’s scream as the prince landed on his severed wrist.

  Hunt gave himself one breath, one moment on that filthy floor to sink down into the icy black of the Umbra Mortis. To fight past the pain, the guilt, to focus. To lift his head.

  Rigelus stared down at them impassively. “I’m hoping that I will soon have further insight into where Miss Quinlan might have gone,” he crooned. “But perhaps you might feel inclined now to talk?”

  Ruhn spat, “Fuck off.”

  Behind Rigelus’s back, the Hawk folded the fingers of Ruhn’s severed hand until only the middle one remained upright.

  Hunt snarled softly. The snarl of the Umbra Mortis.

  Yet Rigelus stepped closer to Hunt, immaculate white jacket almost obscenely clean in this place. The golden rings on his fingers glimmered. “It brings me no joy to see you with the halo and slave brand again, Athalar.”

  “Halo,” Hunt asked as solidly as he could, “or black crown?”

  Rigelus blinked—the only sign of his surprise—but the term clearly landed with the Bright Hand.

  “Been talking to shadows, have you?” Rigelus hissed.

  “Umbra Mortis and all that,” Hunt said. “Makes sense for the Shadow of Death.”

  Baxian chuckled.

  Rigelus narrowed his eyes at the Helhound, then turned back to Hunt. “What lengths would the Umbra Mortis go to in order to keep these two pathetic specimens alive, I wonder?”

  “What the fuck do you want?” Hunt growled. Pollux flashed him a warning look.

  “A small task,” Rigelus said. “A favor. Unrelated to Miss Quinlan entirely.”

  “Don’t fucking listen to him,” Baxian muttered, then cried out as a whip cracked, courtesy of the Hawk.

  “I’d be willing to offer a … reprieve,” Rigelus said to Hunt, ignoring the Helhound entirely. “If you do something for me.”

  That was what this had been about, then. His mystics would find Bryce—he didn’t need the three of them for that. But the torture, the punishment … Hunt willed his foggy head to clear, to listen to every word. To cling to that Umbra Mortis he’d once been, what he’d been so happy to leave behind.

  “Your lightning is a gift, Athalar,” Rigelus continued. “A rare one. Use it once, on my behalf, and perhaps we can find you three more comfortable … arrangements.”

  Ruhn spat, “To do what?”

  “A side project of mine.”

  Hunt snapped, “I’m not agreeing to shit.”

  Rigelus smiled sadly. “I assumed that would be the case. Though I’m still disappointed to hear it.” He pulled a sliver of pale rock from his pocket—a crystal. Uncut and about the length of his palm. “It’ll be harder to extract it from you without your consent, but not impossible.”

  Hunt’s stomach flipped. “Extract what?”

  Rigelus stalked closer, crystal in hand. The Asteri halted steps from Hunt, fingers unfurling so he could examine the hunk of quartz in his palm. “A fine natural conduit,” the Bright Hand said thoughtfully. “And an excellent receptacle for power.” Then he lifted his gaze up to Hunt. “I’ll give you a choice: offer me a sliver of your lightning, and you and your friends will be spared the worst of your suffering.”

  “No.” The word rose from deep in Hunt’s gut.

  Rigelus’s expression remained mild. “Then choose which one of your friends shall die.”

  “Go to Hel.” The Umbra Mortis slipped away, too far to reach.

  Rigelus sighed, bored and weary. “Choose, Athalar: Shall it be the Helhound or the Fae Prince?”

  He couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

  Pollux was grinning like a fiend, a long knife already in his hand. Whichever of Hunt’s friends was chosen, the Hammer would draw out their deaths excruciatingly.

  “Well?” Rigelus asked.

  He’d do it—the Bright Hand would do this, make him choose between his friends, or just kill both of them.

  And Hunt had never hated himself more, but he reached inward, toward his lightning, suppressed and suffocated by the gorsian shackles, but still there, under the surface.

  It was all Rigelus needed. He pressed the quartz against Hunt’s forearm, and the stone cut into his skin. Searing, acid-sharp lightning surged out of Hunt, ripped from his soul, twisted through the confines of the gorsian shackles, extracted inch by inch into the crystal. Hunt screamed, and he had a moment of brutal clarity: this was what his enemies felt when he flayed them alive, what Sandriel had felt when he’d destroyed her, and oh gods, it burned—

  And then it stopped.

  Like a switch being flipped, only darkness filled him. His lightning sank back into him, but in Rigelus’s hands, the crystal now glowed, full of the lightning he’d wrenched from Hunt’s body. Like a firstlight battery—like the scrap of power extracted during the Drop.

  “I think this will do for now,” Rigelus crooned, sliding the stone back into his pocket. It illuminated the dark material of his pants, and Hunt’s throat constricted, bile rising.

  The Bright Hand turned away, and said to the Hammer and the Hawk without looking back, “I think two out of three will still be a good incentive for Miss Quinlan to return, don’t you? Executioner’s choice.”

  “You bastard,” Hunt breathed. “I did what you asked.”

  Rigelus strode for the stairs that led out of the chamber. “Had you agreed to give me your lightning from the start, both of your companions would have been spared. But since you made me go to all that effort … I think you need to learn the consequences of your defiance, however short-lived it was.”

  Baxian seethed, “He’ll never stop defying you—and neither will we, asshole.”

  It meant more than it should have that the Helhound spoke up for him. And also made it worse.

  Last time he’d been here, he’d been alone. He’d had only the screams of soldiers to endure. His guilt had devoured him, but it was different than this. Than having to be here with two brothers and bear their suffering along with his own.

  Being alone would have been better. So much better.

  Rigelus knew it, too. It was why he’d waited this long to come down here, giving Hunt time to comprehend the bind he was in.

  The Bright Hand ascended the steps with feline grace. “We shall see what Athalar is willing to give up when it really comes down to it. Where even the Umbra Mortis draws the line.”

  * * *

  Lidia’s time had run out. If she was to act, it had to be now. There was no margin for error. She needed the prisoners ready—in whatever way she could manage.

  But she’d gotten no farther than two steps into the dungeon when the breath whooshed from her body at the sight of the stump where Ruhn’s hand should have been.

  The prince hung, unconscious, from his chains. Athalar and Baxian were out, too. All three were caked in blood.

  Pollux and the Hawk were panting, smiling like fiends. “You missed the fun, Lidia,” the Hawk said, and held up—

  Held up—

  That broad, tattooed hand—Ruhn’s hand—had touched her. On that mental plane, soul to soul, those hands had caressed her, gentle and loving.

  “Well done,” she managed, though she screamed inside. Clawed at the walls of her being and shrieked with fury. “Which one of you claimed the prize?”

  “Baxian, actually,” the Hammer said, chuckling. “Chewed it off like the dog he is in an attempt to get free.”

  Lidia made herself turn. Look at the Helhound like she was impressed. Some small part of her was. But the pain Ruhn had endured …

  She put a hand to her stomach, and her wince wasn’t entirely feigned.

  “Lidia?” the Hawk asked, white wings rustling.

  “Her cycle,” Pollux answered for her, disdain coating his voice.

  “I’m fine,” she snapped, to make the show complete. The Hawk and Pollux swapped looks, as if to say, Females. She pulled a velvet case from an interior pocket of her uniform jacket. When she flicked it open, firstlight glowed from the two syringes strapped within.

  “What’s that?” The Hawk stalked a step closer, peering at the needles.

  Lidia made herself smirk at him, then at Pollux. “It seems a shame to me that Athalar and the Helhound’s wings are no longer able to be … targeted. I thought we’d bring them back into play.”

  A shot of a medwitch healing potion, laced with firstlight, would regrow their wings within a day or two, even under the repressive power of the gorsian shackles. If she’d known about Ruhn’s hand, she would have brought three, but now there would be no way to casually explain the need for it, not without drawing too much attention.

  And she needed Athalar and Baxian able to fly.

  Pollux smiled. “Clever, Lidia.” He jerked his chin toward the unconscious angels. “Do it.”

  She didn’t need the Hammer’s permission, but she didn’t protest. “Wait until they’re fully regrown,” she warned Pollux and the Hawk. “Let them savor the hope of having their wings again before you find some interesting way to remove them anew.”

  Athalar and Baxian were too deeply unconscious to even feel the prick of the needle at the center of their spines. Firstlight glowed along their backs, stretching like shining roots toward the stumps of their wings. The wounds in between healed over slowly, but she’d bade the medwitch who’d crafted the potion to weave a spell in it to target the wings specifically. If she’d healed them both completely, it would have been too suspicious.

  Slowly, before her eyes, the stumps on their backs began to rebuild, flesh and sinew and bone creeping together, multiplying.

  Lidia turned from the gruesome sight. She could only pray they’d be healed in time.