Morven screamed in fury—and something like fear.

  She’d done that. With only two-thirds of Theia’s star, she’d managed to—

  “Bryce!” Hunt shouted, but he was too late—Morven had sent a whip of shadow, hidden beneath a plume of the Autumn King’s flame, for her. It wrapped around her legs and yanked. Bryce slammed into stone, starlight blinking out.

  The impact cracked through her skull, setting the world spinning. Or maybe that was the shadows, dragging her closer to the wall of flame.

  Bryce slashed down at the leash of shadows with a hand wreathed in starfire.

  It tore the darkness into ribbons. Bryce was up in a heartbeat, but not fast enough to dodge the punch of flame the Autumn King sent toward her gut—

  Bryce teleported, swift and instinctive as a breath. Right to the Autumn King.

  It ended now.

  The Autumn King staggered in shock as she grabbed his burning fist in one hand. As she held firm, her nails digging in hard. His fire singed into her skin, blinding her with pain, but she dug her nails in deeper and sent her starfire blasting into him.

  Her father roared in agony, falling to his knees. Morven, so stunned he’d been frozen in place, swore brutally.

  Bryce stared at what she had done to the Autumn King’s fist. What had once been his hand.

  Only melted flesh and bone remained.

  The Autumn King retched at the pain, bowing over his knees, hand cradled to his chest.

  “Do you think those gifts make you special?” Morven raged, shaking free of his stupor. A swarming nest of shadows teemed around him. “My son could do the same—and he was trash in the end. Just like you.”

  Morven’s shadows launched for her like a flock of ravens.

  Bryce blasted out a wall of starlight, destroying those shadow birds, but more came, from everywhere and nowhere, from below—

  The Autumn King got to his feet, face gray with agony, cradling his charred remnant of a hand. “I’m going to teach you a new definition of pain,” he spat.

  And there was no amount of training that could have prepared Bryce, no time to teleport to avoid the two swift attacks from the Fae Kings, matched in power.

  She dodged the bone-searing blast of fire from her father, only to have Morven’s shadows grab her again. Hands of pure darkness hurled her onto the stone so hard the breath went out of her. The Starsword and Truth-Teller flew from her fingers.

  A female cried out, and for a moment, Bryce thought it might have been Cthona, maybe Luna herself.

  But it was Sathia.

  It was Sathia, on her feet again, and yet it wasn’t. It was every Fae female who’d come before them.

  Bryce exploded her light outward, shredding Morven’s shadows apart. They cleared to reveal the Autumn King standing above her, a sword of flame in his undamaged hand.

  “I should have done this a long time ago,” her father snarled, and plunged his burning sword toward her exposed heart.

  The Autumn King only made it halfway before light burst from his chest.

  Hunt’s lightning had—

  No.

  It wasn’t Hunt’s lightning that shone through the Autumn King’s rib cage.

  It was the Starsword. And it was Ruhn wielding it, standing behind him.

  Ruhn, who had driven the sword right through their father’s cold heart.

  * * *

  Ruhn knew in his bones why he’d walked through these caves. He was a Starborn Prince, and he’d come to right an ancient wrong.

  With the Starsword in his hand, piercing his father’s heart … Ruhn knew he was exactly where he was meant to be.

  The Autumn King let out a shocked grunt, blood dribbling from his mouth.

  “I know every definition of pain thanks to you,” Ruhn spat, and yanked out the sword.

  His father collapsed face-first onto the stone floor.

  Even Morven’s shadows halted as the Autumn King struggled to raise himself onto his hands. Lidia, guarding Ruhn’s back against the Stag King, said nothing.

  No pity stirred in Ruhn’s heart as his father gurgled blood. As it dribbled onto the stones. The Autumn King lifted his head to meet Ruhn’s stare.

  Betrayal and hatred burned in his face.

  Ruhn said into his mind, into all their minds, I lied about what the Oracle said to me.

  His father’s eyes flared with shock at Ruhn’s voice in his head, the secret his son had kept all these years. Ruhn didn’t care what Morven made of it, didn’t even bother to look at the Stag King. Bryce and Athalar could handle the shadows, if Morven was dumb enough to attack.

  So Ruhn stared into his father’s hateful face and said, The Oracle didn’t tell me that I would be a fair and just king. She told me that the royal bloodline would end with me.

  He had the sense that his friends were watching with wide eyes. But he only had words for the pathetic male before him.

  I thought it meant your bloodline.

  Ruhn lifted the bloodied Starsword. Flame simmered along his father’s body, limning his powerful form. But Ruhn was no longer a cowering boy, inking himself with tattoos to hide the scarring.

  I was wrong. I think the Oracle meant all of them, Ruhn went on, mind-to-mind. The male lines. The Starborn Princes included—all you fucks who have corrupted and stolen and never once apologized for it. The entire system. This bullshit of crowns and inheritance.

  His father’s sneering voice filled his mind. You’re a spoiled, ungrateful brat who never deserved to carry my crown—

  I don’t want it, Ruhn snapped, and shut down the bridge between their minds that allowed his father to speak. He’d had enough of listening to this male.

  Blood trickled from his father’s lips as his Vanir body sought to heal him—to rally his strength to attack.

  The line will end with me, you fucking prick, Ruhn said into his father’s mind, because I yield my crown, my title, to the queen.

  True fear turned his father’s face ashen. And out of the corner of his eye, Ruhn saw Bryce’s star begin to glow.

  A serene peace bloomed in him. I always assumed the Oracle’s prophecy meant that I would die. He let his kernel of starlight flicker down the blade, an answer to Bryce’s beckoning blaze. One last time.

  But I am going to live, he said to his father. And I am going to live well—without you.

  Even Morven’s shadows weren’t fast enough as Ruhn whipped the Starsword through the air again. And sliced clean through his father’s neck.

  * * *

  Bryce had no words as Ruhn severed the Autumn King’s head. As her brother skewered the skull on the Starsword before it even hit the stone.

  She got to her feet. Came up beside Ruhn where he stood rigid, still holding the bloodied sword, their father’s head impaled on it.

  The fire around their friends remained, an impenetrable prison. As if the Autumn King had imbued the flames with energy he’d cast outside himself, to linger even past his death. A final punishment. Lidia rushed over, as if she could somehow find a way to undo the flames—

  “Let them go,” Bryce said to Morven in a voice she didn’t entirely recognize. “Before we skewer you as well.”

  Morven bared his teeth. But despite the blazing hate in his eyes, he lowered himself to his knees and lifted his hands in submission. “I yield.”

  The fire vanished. Morven blinked, as if surprised, but said nothing.

  Their friends were instantly on their feet, Hunt putting a hand on Sathia’s back to steady her. Then they all came to stand, as one, behind Bryce and Ruhn. And she saw it, for a glimmering heartbeat. Not a world divided into Houses … but a world united.

  Bryce walked a few steps to pick up Truth-Teller from where it lay near the Autumn King’s decapitated corpse. She didn’t look at the body, at the blood still pooling outward, as she said to Ruhn, “Helena created the prophecy to explain what these weapons could do, the power needed to take on the Asteri. But I think, in her own way, the prophecy was also her hope for me. What I might do, beyond wielding the power.”

  Confusion swirled in Ruhn’s bright blue eyes.

  “Sword,” Bryce said, nodding to the Starsword in his hand. She lifted Truth-Teller in her own. “Knife.” And then she pointed to their friends, to the Fae and angel and mer and shifter behind them. “People.”

  “It wasn’t only about the Fae,” Ruhn said quietly.

  “It doesn’t have to be,” Bryce amended. “It can mean what we want it to.” She smiled slightly. “Our people,” she said to Ruhn, to the others. “The people of Midgard. United against the Asteri.”

  It had taken all this time, a journey through the stars and under the earth … but here they were.

  Morven spat on the ground. “If you plan to fight the Asteri, you will fail. It doesn’t matter if you unify every House. You will be wiped from the face of Midgard.”

  Bryce surveyed the king on his knees. “I appreciate your confidence.”

  Morven’s shadows began to seethe along his shoulders again. Rippling down his arms. “I yield now, girl, but the Fae shall never accept a half-breed by-blow as queen, even a Starborn one.”

  Ruhn lunged for him, Starsword angling, but Bryce blocked him with an arm. For a long moment, she stared down into Morven’s face. Really, truly looked at it. At the male beneath the crown of shadows.

  She found only hate.

  “If we win,” Bryce said quietly, “this new world will be a fair one. No more hierarchies and bullshit.” The very things Hunt had fought for. That he and the Fallen had suffered for. “But right now,” Bryce said, “I’m Queen of the Valbaran Fae.” She nodded to the Autumn King’s body cooling on the ground, then smirked at Morven. “And of Avallen.”

  Morven hissed, “You’ll be Queen of Avallen over my dead …” He trailed off at the smile on her face. And paled.

  “As I was saying,” Bryce drawled, “for the moment, I’m queen. I’m judge, jury …”

  Bryce looked to Sathia, still shaken and wide-eyed from the twins’ attack—yet unafraid. Unbroken, despite what the males in her life, what this male, had tried to do to her.

  So Bryce peered down at Morven and finished sweetly, “And I’m your motherfucking executioner.”

  The King of Avallen was still blazing with hate when Bryce slid Truth-Teller into his heart.

  * * *

  It was a matter of a few strokes of Truth-Teller through Morven’s neck for Bryce to behead him. And as she rose to her feet, it was a Fae Queen who stood before Ruhn, wreathed in starlight, unflinching before her enemies. From the love shining on Athalar’s face as he beheld Bryce, Ruhn knew the angel saw it as well.

  But it was Sathia who approached Bryce. Who knelt at her feet, bowing her head, and declared, “Hail Bryce, Queen of the Midgardian Fae.”

  “Oof,” Bryce said, wincing. “Let’s start with Avallen and Valbara and see where we wind up.”

  But Flynn and Declan knelt, too. And Ruhn turned to his sister and knelt as well, offering up the Starsword with both hands.

  “To right an old wrong,” Ruhn said, “and on behalf of all the Starborn Princes before me. This is yours.”

  No words had ever sounded so right. Nor had anything felt so right as when Bryce took the Starsword from him, a formal claiming, and weighed it in her hands.

  Ruhn watched his sister glance between the Starsword and Truth-Teller, one blade blazing with starlight, the other with darkness. “What now?” she asked quietly.

  “Other than taking a moment to process the deaths of those two assholes over there?” Ruhn said. He nodded toward Morven and his father.

  Bryce offered a watery smile. “We learned some things, at least.”

  “Yeah?” The others were all crowding around them now, listening.

  “Turns out,” Athalar said with what Ruhn could have sworn was forced casualness, “Theia did some weird shit with her star magic, divvying it up between herself and her daughters. Long story short, Bryce has two of those pieces, but Helena used Avallen’s nexus of ley lines and natural magic to hide the third piece somewhere on Avallen. If Bryce can get that piece, the sword and knife will be able to open a portal to nowhere, and we can trap the Asteri inside it.”

  Bryce gave Hunt a look as if to say there was a lot more to it than that, but she said, “So … new mission: find the power Helena hid. Aidas claimed that Helena used Midgard’s ley lines to hide it in these caves after Pelias died.” She sighed, scanning all their faces. “Any thoughts on where it might be?”

  Ruhn blinked at her. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “I do have a thought.”

  “Really?” Athalar said, frowning.

  “Don’t look so shocked,” Ruhn grumbled.

  Lidia came up to his side, adding, “After Pelias died, you say?”

  “Yeah. It’s complicated—”

  “I think it’s part of the land,” Lidia interrupted. “In the very bones of Avallen.”

  Bryce and Athalar raised their eyebrows, but Ruhn glanced to Lidia and nodded. “It explains a lot.”

  Bryce cut in, “Like …?”

  “Like why Avallen was once part of an archipelago, but now it’s only one island,” Ruhn said. “You said Helena drew upon Avallen’s ley lines to contain her mother’s star—to hide it here, right? I think doing so drained all the land’s magic from its ley lines, and repurposed it to encage Theia’s power. It made the land wither. Just as you said Silene’s own lands withered around the Prison while it held her own share of power.”

  Bryce mused, “Silene had the Horn, but Helena had to use the ley lines instead. Yet both had a disastrous effect on the land itself.” She peered down at the blades again.

  “How do you propose getting the magic out?” Lidia challenged. “We have no idea how to access it.”

  No one answered. And, fuck, Morven and the Autumn King were lying there, dead and dismembered, and—

  “Anyone got any bright ideas?” Tharion asked into the fraught silence.

  Ruhn stifled his laugh, but Bryce slowly turned toward the mer, as if in surprise.

  “Bright,” she murmured. Then looked at Athalar, scanning his face. “Light it up,” she whispered. As if it was the answer to everything.

  * * *

  Bright.

  Light.

  Light it up.

  The world seemed to pause, as if Urd herself had slowed time as each thought pelted Bryce.

  She glanced at the walls. At the river of starlight that Helena had depicted at the bottom of every carving.

  Mere hours ago, she’d thought it was the bloodline of the Starborn in artistic form.

  But Silene had depicted the evil running beneath the Prison in her carvings, unwittingly warning about Vesperus … Perhaps Helena, too, had left a clue.

  A final challenge.

  Bryce peered down at the eight-pointed star in the center of the room. The two strange slits in the points. One small, one larger.

  She looked at the weapons in her hands: a small dagger, and a large sword. They’d fit right into the slits in the floor, like keys in a lock.

  Keys to unlock the power stored beneath. The last bit of power she needed to open the portal to nowhere.

  That power had originally belonged to the worst sort of Fae, but it didn’t have to. It could belong to anyone. It could be Bryce’s for the taking.

  To light up this world.

  “Bryce?” Hunt asked, a hand on her back.

  Bryce rallied herself, breathing deep. Bits of debris and rock from her battle with the Fae Kings began drifting upward.

  She walked through it, right to that eight-pointed star on the ground, identical to the one on her chest. The debris and rock swirled, a maelstrom with her at its center.

  Bryce inhaled deeply, bracing herself as she whispered, “I’m ready.”

  “For what?” Hunt demanded, but Bryce ignored him.

  On an exhale, she plunged the weapons into the slits in the eight-pointed star. The small one for the knife. The larger one for the sword.

  And like a key turning in a lock, they released what lay beneath.

  63

  Light blasted up through the blades into her hands, her arms, her heart. Bryce could hear it through her feet, through the stone. The song of the land beneath her. Quiet and old and forgotten, but there.

  She heard how Avallen had yielded its joy, its bright green lands and skies and flowers, so it might hold the power as it was bid, waiting all this time for someone to unleash it. To free it.

  “Bryce!” Hunt shouted, and she met her mate’s eyes.

  None of what the Princes of Hel had said about him scared her. They hadn’t made Hunt’s soul. That was all hers, just as her own soul was his.

  Helena had bound the soul of this land in magical chains. No more. No more would Bryce allow the Fae to lay claim over anything.

  “You’re free,” Bryce whispered to Avallen, to the land and the pure, inherent magic beneath it. “Be free.”

  And it was.

  Light burst from the star, and the caves shook again. They rolled and rattled and trembled—

  The walls were buckling, and she had the sense that Hunt lunged for her, but fell to his knees as the ground moved upward. Stone crumbled away around them, burying Pelias’s sarcophagus, the corpses of the two newly dead kings, and all their other hateful ancestors below. It churned them into dust. Sunlight broke through, the very earth parting as Bryce and the others were thrust upward.

  Sunlight—not gray skies.

  They emerged in the hills less than a mile from the castle and royal city. As if the caves had been backtracking all this way.

  And from the rocky ground beneath them, spreading from the star at Bryce’s feet, grass and flowers bloomed. The river from the caverns burst forth, dancing down the newly formed hill.

  Sathia and Flynn laughed, and both siblings knelt, putting their fingers in the grass. The earth magic in their veins surged forth as an oak burst from Flynn’s hands, shooting high over them, and from Sathia’s hands tumbled runners of strawberry and brambles of blackberry, tangles of raspberries and thickets of blueberries—