Son. It wasn’t possible—

  “Helena planned it that way,” Aidas said. His gaze remained fixed on Bryce while he explained, “During my time with Theia, Helena was a quiet girl, but she always listened.”

  “You spoke too much,” Thanatos snapped.

  Aidas ignored him. “Helena learned black salt would allow her to commune with us while protecting her mind and her soul.”

  Just like the barrier of it that Bryce had sprinkled in her apartment, that day she’d summoned Aidas. When Hunt had still thought her a frivolous party girl, playing with fire.

  “Fine,” Hunt cut in. “Great, we’re protected.” He eyed the Prince of the Pit. His very bones shook, but he forced himself past his fear, his dread. “What the fuck did you mean by calling me son?”

  Thanatos scoffed. “You are no son of his.” He yanked off his war helmet, cradling it under an arm. “If anything, you are mine.”

  Hunt’s knees buckled. “What?”

  “Let us sit and be civilized about this,” Aidas said to Bryce, but she was peering into the shadows of the temple looming at the top of the steps.

  “I think we’re good here,” she hedged. Hunt cleared his reeling thoughts enough to follow her line of vision.

  He saw them, then. The dogs. Their milky eyes glowed from the gloom between the pillars.

  “They will not harm you,” Aidas said, nodding toward the hounds that looked an awful lot like the Shepherd that Bryce and Hunt had fought in the Bone Quarter. “They are Thanatos’s companions.”

  Hunt reached for his lightning, little that it could do in this insubstantial form. It zapped against his fingers, normally a familiar, comforting presence, but …

  No one had ever known who had sired him. Where this lightning had come from.

  “My concern exactly,” Bryce said, not taking her attention off the hounds. She nodded to Thanatos. “He eats souls—”

  “The Temple of Chaos is a sacred place,” Apollion said sharply. “We shall never defile it with violence.” The words rumbled like thunder again.

  Hunt sized up Apollion, then Thanatos. What the fucking fuck—

  But Thanatos sniffed toward Bryce, almost as canine as the hounds in the shadows, and said, “Your starlight smells … fresher.”

  The hunger lacing the male’s words stilled Hunt’s chaotic mind—honing him into a weapon primed for violence. He didn’t give a shit if he never got answers about his parentage. If that asshole made one move against Bryce, ghostly forms or no—

  Bryce said nonchalantly, “New deodorant.”

  “No,” Thanatos said, missing the joke entirely, “I can smell it on your spirit. I am the Prince of Souls—such things are known to me. Your power has been touched by something new.”

  Bryce rolled her eyes, but for a heartbeat, Hunt wondered if Thanatos was right: Bryce had explained how the prism in the Autumn King’s office had revealed her light to now be laced with darkness, as if it had become the fading light of day, of twilight—

  “We don’t have much time,” Aidas said irritably. “The dreaming draft will only last so long. Please—come into the temple.” He inclined his head in a half bow. “On my honor, no harm shall come to you.”

  Hunt opened his mouth to say the Prince of the Chasm’s honor meant shit, but Bryce’s whiskey eyes assessed Aidas in a long, unhurried sweep. And then she said, “All right.”

  Pushing aside every raging thought and question for the moment, Hunt kept one eye on the exit behind them as they traded the pebbled shore for the smooth temple steps. As they walked up those steps and entered a space that was a near-mirror to temples back home—indeed, its layout was identical to the last temple Hunt had stood in: Urd’s Temple.

  He shut down the memory of Pippa Spetsos’s ambush, the desperate scramble for their lives. How they’d hidden behind the altar, barely escaping. In lieu of the black stone altar in the center of the temple, a bottomless pit was the main focal point. Five chairs of carved black wood encircled it.

  Hunt and Bryce claimed the chairs closest to the stairs behind them—closest to the river and the boat still idling at the shore. Aidas took the one on Bryce’s other side, sitting with a smooth, feline grace. The braziers bounced their bluish light off his blond hair.

  Apollion’s eyes glimmered like coals as he said to Hunt, “I am disappointed to see that you have not yet freed yourself from the black crown, Orion Athalar.”

  “Someone explain what the fuck that is,” Hunt snapped. Of all the things he’d ever imagined for his life, sitting in a circle with three Princes of Hel hadn’t been anywhere on the list.

  “The black crowns were collars in Hel,” Thanatos answered darkly. His powerful body seemed primed to leap across that pit to attack. Hunt monitored his every breath. “Spells, crafted by the Asteri to enslave us. They were a binding, one the Asteri adapted in their next war—upon Midgard.”

  Hunt turned to Aidas. “You seemed surprised to see one on me that first time we met. Why?”

  But before Aidas could begin, Apollion answered, “Because the Princes of Hel cannot be contained by the black crowns. The Asteri learned that—it was their downfall. As you were made by Hel’s princes, it should not be able to hold you.”

  Made by them? By these fuckers?

  Hunt had no idea what to say, what to do as everything in his life swirled and diluted, his heartbeat ratcheting up to a thunderous beat. “I—I don’t …”

  “Start talking,” Bryce snapped at Apollion, scooting her chair an inch or two closer to Hunt’s. Not from fear, Hunt knew—but from solidarity. It settled something in him, soothed a jagged edge. “Hunt’s mother was an angel.”

  His mother’s loving, tired face flashed before Hunt’s eyes, twisting his heart.

  “She was,” Apollion said, and the way he smiled …

  White rage blinded every one of Hunt’s senses. “Did you dare—”

  “She was not ill used,” Aidas said, holding up an elegant hand. “We might command nightmares, but we are not monsters.”

  “Explain,” Bryce ordered the demon princes, starlight rippling from her. Thanatos sniffed the air once more, savoring it, and earned a glare from Aidas. “From the beginning.”

  Despite the heated words they’d exchanged earlier, Hunt had never loved her more—had never been so grateful that Urd had chosen such a loyal, fierce badass for his mate. He could trust her to get the answers they needed.

  “How much do you know?” Aidas asked her. “Not just about Athalar, but about the whole history of Midgard.”

  “Rigelus has a little conquest room,” Bryce said, the softness fading from her face as she crossed her arms. “He’s got a whole section about invading your planet. And I know Hel once had warring factions, but you sorted out your shit and marched as one to kick the Asteri out of Hel. A year later, you hunted them down across the stars and found them on Midgard. You fought them again, and it didn’t go well that time. You got jettisoned from Midgard and have been trying to creep back through the Northern Rift ever since.”

  “Is that all?” Apollion drawled.

  Bryce said warily to Aidas, “I know you loved Theia. That you fought for her.”

  The Prince of the Chasm studied his long, slender hands. “I did. I continue to do so, long after her death.”

  Hunt had a feeling that the darkness in the pit before them was breathing.

  “Even though she was hardly any better than the Asteri?” Bryce challenged.

  Aidas lifted his head. “There is no denying how Theia spent most of her existence. But there was goodness in her, Bryce Quinlan. And love. She came to regret her actions, both in her home world and on Midgard. She tried to make things right.”

  “Too little, too late,” Bryce said.

  “I know,” Aidas admitted. “Believe me, I know. But there is much that I regret, too.” He swallowed, the strong column of his throat working.

  “What happened?” Bryce pressed. Hunt almost didn’t want to know.

  Aidas sighed, the sound weighted with the passing of countless millennia. “The Asteri ordered Pelias to use the Horn to close the Northern Rift, to defend themselves against attack. He did, sealing out all the other worlds in the process, but the Horn broke before he could close it entirely on Hel. The tiniest of wedges was left in the Rift for my kind to sneak through. Helena used black salt to contact me, hoping to launch another offensive against the Asteri, but we couldn’t find a way. Unless the Rift was fully opened, we could not strike. And our numbers were so depleted that we would not have stood a chance.”

  Thanatos picked up the narrative, resting his helmet on a knee. “The vampyrs and Reapers had defected to the Asteri. They betrayed us, the cowards.” From the shadows behind him, his hounds snarled, as if in agreement. “They’d been our captains and lieutenants, for the most part. Our armies were in shambles without them. We needed time to rebuild.”

  “I believe Helena realized,” Aidas went on, “that the war would not be won in her lifetime. Nor by any of her sons. They had too much of their father in them. And they, too, greatly enjoyed the benefits of being in the Asteri’s favor.”

  Bryce uncrossed her arms, leaning forward. “I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand why Helena built the Cave of Princes. Just to talk to you guys like long-distance pen pals?”

  Aidas’s full mouth kicked up at a corner. “In a way, yes. Helena needed our counsel. But by that point, she’d also figured out what Theia had done in her last moments alive.”

  60

  The Cave of Princes was as foul and disorienting as Ruhn remembered. But at least he had a kernel of starlight to keep the ghouls at bay in the misty dark. Even if it took most of his concentration to summon it and keep it glimmering.

  He and Lidia had entered hours ago, and he’d immediately smelled Flynn’s and Dec’s scents hanging in the air. Along with Morven’s and the Murder Twins’. But it was the sixth scent that had sent Ruhn running down the passages, Lidia easily keeping pace with him. A scent that haunted his nightmares, waking and asleep.

  Somehow, the Autumn King was here. And his father wasn’t lying in wait for Ruhn, but heading deeper into the caves, after Bryce. Ruhn pushed ahead, even when his legs demanded a break.

  Morven’s and his father’s scents—with the others in tow—cut through nearly hidden tunnels and steeply descending passageways, as if the Stag King knew every secret, direct route. He probably did, as King of Avallen. Or maybe the ghouls showed him the way.

  Eventually, Ruhn’s body screamed for water, and he paused. Lidia didn’t complain—didn’t do anything but follow him, always alert to any threat. Yet as they once again rushed down the passage, Lidia said quietly, “I apologize for last night.”

  Despite every instinct roaring at him to hurry, Ruhn halted. “What do you mean?”

  Her throat worked, her face almost luminous in his starlight. “When I … flinched.”

  He blinked. “Why the Hel would you apologize for that?” Pollux should be the one to apologize. Hel, Ruhn would make the fucker apologize to Lidia—on his knees—before putting a bullet in his head.

  Color stained her cheeks, a rosy glow against the misty darkness behind them. “I like to think myself immune to … lingering memories.”

  Ruhn shook his head, about to object, when she went on. “Everything I did with Pollux, I did willingly. Even if I found his brand of entertainment hard to stomach at times.”

  “I get it,” Ruhn said a shade hoarsely. “I really do. I’m not judging, Lidia. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Ever.”

  “I want to, though.” Lidia glanced at his mouth.

  “Want to what?” he asked, voice dropping an octave.

  “Know what your body feels like. Your mouth. In reality. Not in some dreamworld.”

  His cock hardened, and he shifted on his feet. He didn’t mask the arousal in his tone, his scent, when he said, “Anytime you want, Lidia.”

  Except, of course, right now. But after he sorted through whatever shitshow was about to go down in these caves—

  The pulse in her throat seemed to flutter in answer. “I want you all the time.”

  Gods damn. Ruhn leaned in. Ran his mouth, his tongue, up her neck. Lidia let out a breathy little sound that had his balls drawing tight.

  Ruhn said against her soft skin, “When we get out of these caves, you’ll show me exactly where you want me, and how you want me.”

  She squirmed a little, and he knew that if he slid his hand between her legs, he’d find her wet. “Ruhn,” she murmured.

  He kissed her neck again, watching through heavily lidded eyes as her nipples pebbled, poking against the thin material of her shirt. He’d explore those a lot. Maybe do a little exploring right now—

  A rasping, ancient hiss sounded from the rocks nearby.

  And this was so not the place. Ruhn peeled away from Lidia, meeting her eyes. They were glazed with lust.

  But she cleared her throat. “We have to keep going.”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Maybe you should, ah, take a moment,” she said, smirking at the bulge in his pants.

  He threw her a wry look. “You don’t think the ghouls will appreciate it?”

  Lidia snickered. Then grabbed his hand, tugging him back into a steady, paced run. “I want to be the only one who gets to appreciate it from now on.”

  He couldn’t stop the purely male smugness that flooded him. “I can live with that.”

  * * *

  “I know what Theia did,” Bryce said, shaking her head. “She tried to send her daughters back to their home world, but only Silene made it.”

  Aidas arched a brow. “I’m assuming you have gleaned something of the truth, if you know of Silene by name. Did you learn what happened to her?”

  “She left a … a magical video that explained everything.” Bryce pulled Truth-Teller from the sheath at her side. Here, at least, the blades didn’t pull at each other. “Silene had this with her when she returned to her home world. And now I’ve brought it back to Midgard.”

  Aidas started at the sight of the dagger. “Did Silene account for what happened during that last encounter with her mother?”

  Bryce rolled her eyes. “Just tell me, Aidas.”

  Thanatos and Apollion shifted in their seats, annoyed at her irreverence, but Aidas’s mouth curved toward a smile. “It took me—and Helena—years to understand what Theia actually did with her magic.”

  “She shielded her daughters,” Bryce said, recalling how Theia’s star had split in three, with an orb going to each of her children. “She used the Harp to carry her magic over to them as a protection spell of sorts.”

  Aidas nodded. “Theia used the Harp to divide her magic—all her magic—between the three of them. A third to Silene. A third to Helena. And the remainder stayed with Theia.” His eyes dimmed with an old sorrow. “But she did not keep enough to protect herself. Why do you think Theia fell to Pelias that day? With only a third of her power, she did not stand a chance against him.”

  “And the sword and knife?” Bryce asked.

  “Theia endeavored to keep the Asteri from being able to wield her power to use the sword and knife. Both weapons were keyed to her power, thanks to Theia’s assistance in their Making,” Aidas explained calmly. “It is why the Starsword calls to the descendants of Helena—of Theia. But only to those with enough of Theia’s starlight to trigger its power. Your ancestors called these Fae Starborn. The Asteri have no power over the blades; they lack Theia’s connection to the weapons. Since the Starsword and the knife were both Made by Theia at the same moment, their bond has always linked them. They have long sought to be reunited, as they were in their moment of their Making.”

  “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.”

  Aidas nodded. “I believe that when you opened the Gate, despite your desire to come to Hel, the Starsword’s desire to reach the knife—and vice versa—was so strong that the portal was redirected to the world where they were Made. With the door closed between worlds, they had been unable to reunite. But once you opened it, the blades’ pull toward each other was stronger than your untrained will.”

  With the Starsword in hand, she’d gone right to Truth-Teller, landing on that lawn mere feet away from Azriel and the dagger.

  Bryce winced down at the blades. “I’m trying not to be creeped out that these things are, like … sentient.” But she’d felt it, hadn’t she? That pull, that call between them. She’d sworn they were talking last night, for fuck’s sake. Like two friends who’d been apart, now rushing to catch up on every detail of their lives.

  Over fifteen thousand years of separation.

  Aidas went on, “But it wasn’t just the blades that you reunited in the home world of the Fae, was it?”

  Bryce’s hands glowed faintly with that ghostly aura. “No,” she admitted. “I think … I think I claimed some of Theia’s magic. Silene left it waiting there.” She’d thought it was another star, not a piece of a larger one.

  Aidas did not seem surprised, but the other two princes wore such similar expressions of confusion that she almost smiled. Bryce glanced to Hunt, who nodded shallowly. Go ahead, he seemed to say.

  So Bryce explained how she had claimed the power from the Prison, what she’d seen and learned from Silene’s memory, her confrontation with Vesperus.

  Bryce finished, “I thought Silene had left her power, yet she still had magic afterward. It must have been Theia’s power that she left in the stones. It absorbed into mine—like it was mine. And when my light shone through the Autumn King’s prism, it had transformed. Become … fuller. Now tinged with dark.”

  Aidas mused, “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.”