“The ship knows how to avoid them,” Bryce countered, dodging behind Hunt to avoid another shower of icy water.

  “Yeah, but we don’t want them tipped off that we’re heading into Avallen,” Baxian said. He spread his wings, flapping them once, spraying droplets off his black feathers. “I’ll head west along the wall,” the Helhound said to Hunt. “Meet back here in ten?”

  Before Baxian could leap into the skies, the hatch behind them groaned, and Ruhn appeared through it, Flynn and Dec behind him. All three armed, as Bryce, Hunt, and Baxian were, with weapons from the Depth Charger’s arsenal. Handguns and knives, mostly—but better than nothing.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Ruhn said upon seeing Hunt’s frown. “Flynn and Dec discovered the waffle station in the mess hall and went crazy.”

  Flynn patted his stomach. “You mer know how to do breakfast,” he said to Sendes, who slid her phone into her pocket and sauntered over.

  Bryce might have laughed if Tharion hadn’t emerged from the hatch behind them, tight-faced and pale. He met Bryce’s stare as he came to her side—bleak and exhausted.

  Bryce reached out and cupped the mer’s strong jaw. “Hang in there,” she murmured.

  “Thanks, Legs.” Tharion stepped back to the rail’s edge, his face becoming unreadable.

  She wished she had more to say, more comfort to offer him. After all he’d done to help them these past several months, this was the best she could do? Leave him behind?

  Movement in the hatch caught her eye again, and Lidia’s golden head emerged. Though Ruhn and his friends continued to debate whether waffles went better with syrup or whipped cream—of all the fucking things to talk about right now—she could have sworn her brother tensed.

  Lidia didn’t look at Ruhn, though. Didn’t say anything, only stared up at the swirling mist. If she was surprised at its ominous presence, her face revealed nothing. She offered no explanation, no apology for her own tardiness.

  The Hind glanced back at the open hatch. No doubt thinking about her sons far below.

  Baxian was watching her—like she puzzled him. Bryce didn’t blame him. The Helhound had worked closely with her as the Hind, and yet here she stood, so different underneath the same exterior he’d always known. Even if he, too, had hidden his true allegiances behind his own mask.

  She couldn’t begin to imagine how Lidia might feel, though. Bryce walked up to her and said quietly, “I’m sorry you can’t stay with them.”

  Lidia’s golden eyes snapped to her face. For a moment, Bryce steadied herself for a biting response. But then Lidia’s shoulders slumped slightly, and she said, “Thank you.” Her gaze softened, like she remembered Bryce’s offer to talk last night, and she said again, quieter this time, “Thank you.”

  Bryce nodded, and turned to find Ruhn watching them closely. His face instantly became as unreadable as stone. Whatever was between him and Lidia, she wouldn’t poke it with a ten-foot pole. A hundred-foot pole.

  Bryce instead said to her brother, to Flynn and Dec, “We were about to run some recon, but it occurs to me that you three have actually been here before.” She gestured to the mists. “How do we get in?”

  A particularly large wave rocked the Depth Charger, and Hunt was instantly there, a hand at Bryce’s back to steady her.

  “Alphahole,” she muttered up at him, but let him see the light dancing in her eyes.

  Ruhn and his two friends were frowning at each other, though. Her brother said, “Normally, you need an invite from Morven. But I learned during my Ordeal that having the Starsword grants you … entry privileges.”

  Bryce’s brows lifted, but she winced as another blast of cold, wet wind slammed into her. She stepped closer into Hunt’s warmth, her mate curling a gray wing around her to block the gusts. “How?”

  Ruhn jerked his chin to where the sword was sheathed down her back. “Draw it and you’ll see.” Bryce and Hunt swapped wary glances, and Ruhn sighed. “What, you think this is some sort of prank?”

  Bryce said, “I don’t know! You’re being awfully cryptic!”

  Baxian chuckled from Hunt’s other side, enjoying the show. Gods, he and Danika had been made for each other.

  Despite the pang of loss at the thought, Bryce glared at the Helhound, then drew the sword in one smooth movement. The black blade didn’t so much as gleam in the gray light. The dagger at her side seemed to weigh heavier, as if being dragged toward the blade—

  “Well, look at that,” Tharion drawled, peering up at the wall of mist.

  “Doorbell indeed,” Hunt murmured.

  A triangle of a door—like the one in Silene’s caves—had slid open.

  The hair on Bryce’s arms rose as a white boat, the opposite of those at the Black Dock, sailed out. The arching prow had been carved like a stag’s head, twin lanterns hanging from the branches of its mighty horns.

  And then the stag itself spoke, eyes glowing, its mouth moving as a deep male voice came from inside it—no doubt broadcast from a king miles away.

  “Welcome, Bryce Danaan. I’ve been expecting you.”

  * * *

  Tharion watched his friends climb into the white boat, the angels furling their wings tightly. The boat held steady on the bobbing waves, guided by whatever magic had sent it here in the first place. Flynn kept a wary eye on Lidia as she leapt in after Ruhn, but hesitated before jumping himself. He turned back to Tharion and offered a hand. “See you around, mer.”

  Tharion studied the male’s broad, callused hand, its golden skin flecked with sea spray. Behind Tharion, Sendes had already waved to his friends and was now heading for the hatch.

  If he was to make his move, it had to be now. Because if he stayed on this ship another day … it wouldn’t end well for him.

  Which left him with one choice, really.

  Sendes paused at the open hatch and beckoned Tharion below. Places to be and all that.

  Flynn frowned at the hand he still held extended, at Tharion, standing there—

  Tharion moved.

  Bracing his hands on the rail, he vaulted over the side, landing in the white boat with a thud that had the others cursing at him.

  “Ketos,” Athalar demanded, a steadying hand on the side of the boat as it rocked, “what the fuck?”

  But Flynn landed behind Tharion a second later, saying, “Go, go, go,” to the boat or whatever magic controlled it.

  Tharion’s blood raced in his veins as the boat began to pull away from the Depth Charger, and then Sendes was at the rail, her eyes wide with shock.

  “She’ll kill you,” Sendes cried. “Tharion—”

  Tharion flashed the commander a grin. “She’ll have to breach the mists first.”

  He barely got the last word out before the prow of the boat entered the famed mists.

  Yet he could have sworn a shudder went through the ocean behind them, as if a great leviathan of power was already surging, rising for him—

  They crossed into the dense mists. The sense of pure power vanished. Nothing remained except the gray water around the boat and the drifting mists, too thick to see more than a few feet beyond the glow of the stag’s eyes.

  Tharion faced forward at last and found his friends staring at him in varying degrees of alarm. Lidia Cervos was slowly shaking her head—like she understood the gravity of what he’d done better than any of them.

  “Well,” he said as casually as he could, sitting down and crossing his legs, “not to invite myself to the party, but I’m coming with you guys as well.”

  47

  “You have no idea how many people I had to convince not to eat her carcass on her way down here,” Jesiba drawled as Ithan stared blankly at the shape of the body beneath the white sheet in the morgue.

  At the sagging place between neck and head.

  Hypaxia, working on something at the counter, called over, “This might take a while.”

  Ithan peered around the sterile, tiled morgue and managed to say, “Why do you guys have a morgue down here?”

  Jesiba sat on a medical-looking stool, back straight. “Where else are we supposed to raise dead bodies?”

  “I don’t know why I asked.”

  “You did a number on her, you know.”

  Ithan glared at the sorceress. Jesiba winked at him.

  But Hypaxia turned to them, and Ithan got his first good look at her face since coming down here. Exhaustion etched deep lines into it, and her eyes were bleak. Hopeless.

  What had swearing her allegiance to this House cost her? Jesiba had claimed the ritual had been unusually fast—was that why she looked so drained? Part of him didn’t want to know.

  He opened his mouth to tell her she didn’t have to do this for him, that she should rest, but … he didn’t have time. The longer they waited, the less chance they had to be successful at raising the decapitated—

  Decapitated—

  Nausea churned in his gut.

  “Take a seat, Ithan,” Hypaxia said gently. Greenish light wreathed her fingers as she approached the table holding a bundle in her hands.

  “Is that a sewing kit?” He was going to puke everywhere.

  Jesiba snorted. “You’d better hope her head’s back on when Hypaxia wakes her.”

  The former witch-queen pulled a glowing syringe of firstlight from a cabinet and laid it on a tray atop a wheeled cart. “As soon as she wakes, an injection of firstlight will heal the damage. But the head needs to be attached first so that the tendons can regrow and latch on.”

  “Okay,” Ithan said, taking a deep breath against his rising nausea. “Okay.” Fuck, he was a monster for having made this necessary.

  “Here we go,” Hypaxia said.

  Jesiba caught Ithan’s eye. “Sure you want to resurrect a Fendyr?”

  He didn’t answer. Couldn’t face the answer. So he said nothing.

  Hypaxia began chanting.

  * * *

  Hunt had been in Morven Donnall’s throne room for all of ten seconds and he already hated it.

  After the shining white boat had guided them through the mists, he’d expected some sort of summer paradise to lie beyond. Not a cloudy sky above a land of dense green hills and a gray-stoned castle perched on a cliff above a winding—also gray—river. In the distance, thatched-roof cottages marked farmsteads, and a small city of two- and three-story buildings crusted the hill, up to the castle itself.

  No skyscrapers. No highways. No cars. The lamps he could make out were flame, not firstlight.

  The boat sailed down the river toward the cliff, entering the castle through a yawning cave at its base. Everyone had stayed silent throughout the journey, assuming the stag on the prow had ears that worked as well as its mouth, and could broadcast every word to the male waiting in the castle for them.

  A male now seated before them, on a throne seemingly crafted from a single set of antlers. The beast who’d grown them had to have been colossal, the likes of which didn’t exist elsewhere on Midgard. Did stags that big roam around here? The thought was … not comforting.

  But neither were the shadows that curled like snakes around the king, wild and twining. A coiled crown of them sat atop Morven’s dark head, blacker than the Pit.

  Bryce and Ruhn stood at the head of their little group, and Hunt swapped a look with Baxian, whose frown told Hunt he was deeply unimpressed by this place.

  “Could use a reno, if you ask me,” Tharion muttered from Hunt’s other side, and Hunt’s mouth twitched upward.

  The mer had some nerve, cracking jokes when he’d just acted directly against the Ocean Queen’s orders. Yeah, Hunt was glad to have Ketos with them, but fuck—what had the mer been thinking, jumping into the boat?

  Hunt knew what he’d been thinking, actually. And didn’t blame the mer for his choice, but they had enough enemies out there as it was. If this somehow provoked the Ocean Queen to work against them …

  From the glares the others kept throwing Ketos’s way, they weren’t happy about this development, either. But right now, they had another ruler to deal with.

  “You bring traitors and enemies of the empire to my home,” the Fae King intoned. The shadows around him halted their twining—predators readying to attack.

  But Bryce pointed to herself, then to Ruhn, the portrait of innocent confusion, and said, “Are you talking to me or him?”

  Baxian ducked his head, as if trying not to smile. Hunt felt inclined to do the same, but he didn’t dare take his focus off the stone-faced ruler or the shadows at his command.

  “This male”—a disdainful look at Ruhn—“has been disowned by his father. You are the only royal standing before me.”

  “Oof,” Bryce said to Ruhn. “So harsh.” Ruhn’s eyes glittered, but he said nothing. She gestured to the dim, small castle around them. “You know, I’m surprised by all this doom and gloom. Cormac said it’d be nicer.”

  Morven’s dark eyes flashed. The shadow-crown atop his head seemed to darken further. “That name is no longer recognized or acknowledged here.”

  “Yeah?” Ruhn said, crossing his arms. “Well, it is with us. Cormac gave his life to make this world a better place.”

  “He was a liar and a traitor—not just to the empire, but to his birthright.”

  “And we can’t have that,” Bryce crooned. “All that precious breeding stock—gone.”

  “I will remind you that royal you might be, but you are still female. And Fae females speak only when spoken to.”

  Bryce smiled slowly.

  “Now you’ve done it,” Hunt grumbled, and decided it was a good time to step up to his mate’s side. He said to the king, “Telling her to shut up doesn’t end well for anyone. Trust me.”

  “I will not be addressed by a slave,” Morven seethed, nodding toward Hunt’s wrist, the mark barely visible past his black sleeve. Then he nodded to Hunt’s haloed brow. “Least of all a Fallen angel, disgraced by the world.”

  “Oh boy,” Bryce said, sighing at the ceiling. She whirled to their group. “Okay, let’s do a head count. If you’re disowned, disgraced, or both, raise your hand.”

  Tharion, Baxian, Lidia, Hunt, and Ruhn raised their hands. Bryce surveyed Flynn and Dec, both still in their usual black jeans and T-shirts, and sighed again. She gestured expansively, giving them the floor.

  Flynn smirked, sauntering to Bryce’s side. “Far as I know, I’m still my father’s heir. Good to see you again, Morven.”

  Hunt could have sworn Morven’s shadows hissed. “It would be in your best interests, Tristan Flynn, to speak to me with the utmost respect.”

  “Oh?” Flynn crossed his arms, brimming with entitled arrogance.

  Morven motioned to someone behind them, the delicate silver embroidery along the wrists and collar of his immaculately cut black jacket gleaming in the firelight, and Hunt whirled as two hulking guards prowled from the shadows. He hadn’t sensed them, hadn’t heard them—

  From Tharion’s and Baxian’s shocked faces, he knew they were equally surprised.

  But Ruhn, Flynn, and Declan glowered. Like they recognized the approaching males, both towering and armed to the teeth. They were clearly twins.

  The Murder Twins Ruhn had mentioned, capable of prying into minds as they saw fit.

  But that wasn’t Hunt’s top concern—not yet.

  Because between them, in black leggings and a white sweater, light brown hair down around her face … Hunt had no idea who the Fae female was. She was fuming, though, outright seething at the guards, the king, and—

  “What the fuck?” Flynn exploded.

  “Sathia?” Declan said, gaping.

  “It seems,” Morven drawled as the Murder Twins dragged the Fae female forward, their grips white-knuckled on her arms, hard enough to bruise, “that your sister has landed in a heap of trouble, Tristan Flynn.”

  48

  Bryce didn’t know who to focus on: Sathia Flynn bristling with fury in Morven’s throne room, or Tristan’s shocked face as he processed the scene before them. Bryce opted for the latter, especially as Flynn snapped at the King of Avallen, “What do you mean, trouble?”

  Morven drawled, “Many of the Valbaran Fae sense … unrest on the horizon, and have been seeking shelter within my lands.” Those serpentine shadows writhed around his neck, over his shoulders, with unnerving menace. The king’s shadows, the Murder Twins’ … they felt different from Ruhn’s: wilder, meaner. Ruhn’s shadows were gentle, stealthy night; theirs were the dark of lightless caves.

  “If you pitched this place as a luxury vacation, you’re about to get a bunch of one-star reviews,” Bryce muttered, earning a chuckle from Tharion. She didn’t smile at the mer, though. He’d added another nearly all-powerful ruler to their list of enemies—she didn’t want to talk to him right now. From the way Tharion’s chuckle quickly died off, he knew she wasn’t happy.

  So Bryce watched as Flynn, dead serious perhaps for the first time in his life, said to the Stag King, voice dripping with disdain, “Let me guess, my parents came running right over.” He glanced around the throne room. “Where’s my oh-so-brave father? And everyone else, for that matter?”

  Morven’s face might as well have been carved from stone. “A select few have been allowed in. Most have been sent back to Lunathion. But for those who remain here, there is a price to be paid, of course.”

  Flynn slowly turned toward his sister. “What did you promise him?” Pure rage and a hint of fear laced his question. But Flynn didn’t go for the female or the twins holding her.

  Bryce sized them up, and found both males already smiling at her. And then, deep in her mind, twin dark shadows snarled, readying to strike—

  She incinerated them with a mental wall of starlight.

  The twins hissed, one of them blinking as if that light had physically blinded him. Bryce bared her teeth, and kept that shining wall in her mind. A second later, there was a polite tap against it and Ruhn said, Keep this up. No matter what.

  Tell Hunt and the others to put up a wall as well, Bryce replied, glaring daggers at the twins.