At least there weren’t any Reapers. No sign of Sigrid, wherever she’d gone. One more clusterfuck for him to deal with—but another day. If he managed to live another day, of course.

  The Under-King’s bony, withered fingers clicked on the stone arms of his throne. “Prime,” he said to Ithan, “I’m honored to be your first political visit. Though I believe protocol dictates that a meeting with the Governor should have been your priority.” A knowing glance at Hypaxia. “Unless present company makes such things … uncomfortable.”

  Hypaxia’s eyes flickered, but she said nothing.

  They’d come here for a reason, so Ithan ignored the Under-King’s mocking and said, “Look, uh … Your Majesty.” The Under-King gave him a smile that was all browned, aged teeth. Ithan tried not to shudder. “Jesiba Roga said you agreed that we could make a request. I’d like to speak to my brother, Connor Holstrom.”

  The Under-King turned to Hypaxia. “Did I not give you duties to attend to?”

  “Handing out blood bags to vampyrs isn’t a good use of my time,” Hypaxia said with impressive authority.

  “Shall I reassign you to waiting on the Reapers?” A cruel smile. “They’d enjoy a taste or two of you, girl.”

  “I only want five minutes with my brother,” Ithan interrupted.

  “To do what?” The Under-King leaned forward.

  “I need to tell him a few things.”

  “The goodbye you never got to say,” the Under-King taunted.

  “Yes,” Ithan said sharply.

  The Under-King angled his head. “And you promise not to warn him of what awaits?”

  “Does it matter if I do? He’s trapped here already,” Ithan said, gesturing to the temple, the barren land beyond.

  “I have no interest in civil unrest—even amongst the dead,” the Under-King said. “And too much unrest would bring unwanted attention and questions.” From the Asteri, no doubt.

  Ithan crossed his arms. “That didn’t seem to be your position when you sold my friends out to Pippa Spetsos.”

  “Pippa Spetsos stood to assist in expanding my kingdom significantly,” the creature said. “It was an investment for my Reapers—to keep them contented and fed.”

  Ithan blocked out the flash of the Prime’s broken body, the way Sigrid had sucked out his soul.

  Hypaxia said calmly, “Why did the Reapers first defect from Apollion and join you?”

  The Under-King flinched. “Do not speak his name here.”

  “My apologies,” Hypaxia murmured. She didn’t sound at all sorry.

  But the Under-King settled himself. “In Hel, the Reapers fed on and ruled the vampyrs, and when the vampyrs defected to this world, the Reapers followed their food source. And found the other beings on Midgard to be a veritable feast. So they have left the vampyrs to themselves, feeding as they please on the rest of the populace.”

  Ithan couldn’t stop his shudder this time. He couldn’t imagine what Hel was like, if Reapers and vampyrs had just been walking about—

  “But you are not from Hel,” Hypaxia said.

  “No.” The Under-King’s milky eyes settled on Ithan. “I was birthed by the Void, but my people …” He smiled cruelly at Ithan. “They were not unknown to your own ancestors, wolf. I crept through when they charged so blindly into Midgard. This place is much better suited to my needs than the caves and barrows I was confined to.”

  Ithan reeled. “You came from the shifters’ world?”

  “You were not known as shifters then, boy.”

  “Then what—”

  “And she,” the Under-King went on, gesturing to that unusual depiction of Urd towering above him, “was not a goddess, but a force that governed worlds. A cauldron of life, brimming with the language of creation. Urd, they call her here—a bastardized version of her true name. Wyrd, we called her in that old world.”

  “That is all well and good,” Hypaxia said, “but my friend’s request—”

  “Go speak to your brother, boy,” the Under-King drawled, almost melancholy. As if all the talk of his old world had exhausted him. “You have seven minutes.”

  Ithan’s mouth dried out. “But where—”

  The Under-King pointed to the exit behind them. “There.”

  Ithan turned. And there was Connor, as vibrant as he’d ever been in life, standing in the temple doorway.

  82

  Ithan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he sat beside his brother on the front steps of the temple. Hypaxia remained inside, speaking quietly with the Under-King.

  Connor appeared exactly as he had the day Ithan had last seen him, cheering in the stands at his sunball game … except for the bluish light around his body. The mark of a ghost.

  Ithan had found out the hard way what that meant—he’d tried to hug his brother, but his arms went right through him.

  Seven minutes. Less than that now.

  “There’s so much I wanted to say to you,” Ithan began.

  Connor opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

  Ithan blinked. “You can’t … you can’t talk?”

  Connor shook his head.

  “Ever? Or just—now?”

  Connor mouthed ever.

  “But Danika talked to Bryce—”

  Connor tapped his chest. As if to say, In here.

  Ithan rubbed at his face. “The Under-King fucking knew you couldn’t talk, and—”

  Blue glowed in his vision as Connor laid a hand on his shoulder. It didn’t have any weight. But the look his brother gave him, pitying and worried—

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” Ithan said, voice breaking.

  Connor slowly shook his head.

  “I should have been there.”

  Connor laid a finger on his lips. Don’t say another word.

  Ithan swallowed down the tightness in his throat. “I miss you every single day. I wish you were with me. I … Fuck, I’m knee-deep in shit, and I could really use my brother right now.”

  Connor angled his head. Tell me.

  Ithan did. As succinctly as he could, aware of each second counting down. About Sigrid and Sabine and the Prime. About what he was now. About the parasite and its antidote.

  Ithan glanced at his phone when he finished. Only two minutes left. Connor was smiling faintly.

  “What?” Ithan said.

  His brother laid a hand on his heart and bowed his head, a mark of respect to the Prime.

  Ithan glowered. “It’s not funny.”

  Connor lifted his head, shaking it. There was nothing but pride in his eyes.

  Ithan’s throat closed up. “I don’t know what to do now. How to be Prime. How to fix this shit with Sigrid—if it can even be fixed. We’re all out of Athalar’s lightning now, anyway. Maybe I’m an asshole for not making Sigrid a priority. But I need to help Bryce and the others first. I’m so fucking far out of my league. And … there’s more I can’t tell you. I wish I could, but—”

  Connor glanced behind them, to the temple and the Under-King inside it.

  When he was assured that they were truly alone, he extended a hand toward Ithan. A sparkling seed of light filled it. Connor lifted it to his mouth and mimicked eating it.

  “You know?” Ithan whispered. “About the secondlight?”

  Connor nodded once.

  Ithan snorted. “Trust the Pack of Devils to figure it out.”

  But Connor reached into a pocket and laid something on the ground between them.

  A bullet.

  It was crafted of the same reeking metal as a Death Mark. As if it had been created from all those coins tossed into the river. Whatever properties its metal held must have allowed it to be touched and moved by the dead.

  “I don’t understand,” Ithan said. “What is it?”

  Connor began gesturing, too fast for Ithan to follow.

  But robes rustled on stone, and Ithan grabbed the black bullet before the Under-King appeared from between the temple pillars and declared, “Your time has come to an end.”

  Connor looked to Ithan’s hand, then up at him, eyes pleading with him to catch his meaning.

  “Just one more minute,” Ithan begged. “Please.”

  “You have already been granted more than most mortals ever receive. Be grateful.”

  “Be grateful,” Ithan breathed as Hypaxia stepped beside the Under-King. “For what? For my brother being here?” His shout echoed off the gray pillars, the gravel, the empty mists.

  Connor signaled to shut up. Ithan ignored him.

  “I refuse to accept this,” Ithan seethed, claws glinting at his fingertips. “That this is the best it gets—”

  “Remember your vow, pup,” the Under-King warned.

  Ithan bristled. “What are you but some freak alien from another world who capitalized on this one?”

  Connor was staring at him now—eyes wide, urging him to be quiet, to stand down.

  But that thing that had awoken in Ithan the moment the parasite had vanished wouldn’t go away. It stared down this creature, this thing from his people’s home world, and it knew the Under-King for what he truly was.

  Enemy, his blood sang, and it spoke of caves beneath hills, of plundered graves and musty darkness. Enemy.

  Ithan’s snarl cleaved the mists, bounced off the temple. Frost curled at his fingertips. Even Connor backed away in surprise.

  “What is that?” the Under-King said, backing away a step as well, toward the temple interior. Ithan peered down at his hands. The ice crusting them.

  Enemy.

  The silent dead, the suffering—Ithan would stand for it no more.

  “Get out of my realm,” the Under-King said, and Ithan scented his fear. His surprise and dread. Like he knew Ithan for that ancient enemy as well.

  The Under-King backed away another step, nearly inside the temple now, and slipped on pure ice. Righting himself, robes fluttering, he lifted a bony hand, and Ithan knew in his gut it would be to summon the hunting hounds.

  Ithan didn’t give him the chance.

  Ice crusted the Under-King’s withered hand. Then his arm. Then his shoulder—

  “Stop this now!” the Under-King bellowed.

  But the ice kept crawling over him. Ithan let it. Let this male see what a ruthless fucking murderer he was, let him see that he wouldn’t tolerate this shit for his brother, for his parents, for anyone he loved.

  No more Sailings. He’d never go to another.

  He’d single-handedly destroyed the Fendyr line. Why not destroy Death, too?

  The Under-King opened his mouth to shout, but Ithan’s ice covered his face, his body. An encasing cold so complete, Ithan could feel it in his heart. Hear its frigid wind, capable of killing in seconds.

  Ithan yielded to it. Poured it into the being now trapped on the stairs before him like a statue.

  He knew Connor was watching in horror. And he didn’t dare take his focus off the Under-King long enough to read Hypaxia’s face.

  Ithan became so cold he forgot what warmth was. Forgot fire and sun and—

  Connor got in front of him. Snarling.

  Ithan’s focus slipped. But instead of the disgust and dismay he thought would be on Connor’s face, there was only sorrow and worry.

  “Well, that’s one way to shut the old windbag up,” Jesiba Roga said, stalking from the shadows of the temple interior.

  Ithan whirled. But Jesiba said to Hypaxia, who was tense and thrumming with power by the nearest pillar, “Do it.”

  The former witch-queen didn’t strike with her shimmering power. She merely lifted an unlit brazier from beside the temple entrance. With a face like stone, Hypaxia swung the dark metal.

  And the Under-King exploded into sparkling shards of ice.

  83

  There was a ringing silence as Ithan took in the pile of ice that had once been the Under-King … and felt nothing.

  The Under-King was dead. Gone.

  Ithan had killed him.

  “Looks like we’ll need a new Head of House,” Jesiba said calmly to Hypaxia, who was staring down at the Under-King, clearly appalled at what she’d done.

  What they’d done.

  “When I swung at him,” Hypaxia said quietly to Ithan, ignoring Jesiba, “I put a bit of my power behind the blow.”

  Hypaxia held out a bloodied hand to Ithan, and he realized that he, too, was bleeding all over, from the explosion of razor-like ice shrapnel. Rivers of red ran down his hands, his face. Hypaxia didn’t look much better.

  He slid his bloodied hand into hers. Her hand glowed, and they were both healed. The cuts on her face vanished—along with his, judging by the tingle that washed over his skin. Faster than he’d ever seen any other medwitch work.

  “Play later,” Jesiba said. “We have work to do.”

  “What work?” Ithan asked.

  “You kill it, you become it,” Jesiba said to Hypaxia. “You are now, for all intents and purposes, Head of the House of Flame and Shadow. And this place.”

  Her face paled. “That’s not possible. I don’t want that burden.”

  “Too bad. You killed him.”

  Hypaxia advanced on Jesiba, her face twisted in anguish and fury. “You knew this would happen,” she accused. “You made me escort Ithan not to help him, but—”

  “I suspected things might shake out in your favor,” Jesiba said mildly. “But even though you’ve inherited this place by right, you must make some decisions quickly. Before Rigelus becomes aware.”

  “Like what?” Ithan demanded, looking to Connor, who still stood nearby at the top of the stairs, watching them all with awe on his ghostly face.

  “Like what to do with the souls here,” Jesiba said, nodding to Connor.

  “We let them go,” Ithan said. “We don’t even need the Quiet Realms at all, do we?”

  “No,” Jesiba said. “Death worked just fine without them before the Asteri came.”

  But Connor was shaking his head.

  “No?” Ithan asked.

  His brother nodded to Ithan’s clenched fist, clutching the black bullet. Connor opened his mouth, but still, no sound emerged.

  “Oh, please,” Jesiba said, and turned to Hypaxia. “Order him to speak already.”

  Hypaxia’s brows rose. “Speak.”

  Connor blew out a breath, distinctly audible. Hypaxia was truly the mistress of this place. Ithan marveled at it.

  And it was his brother’s voice, the voice he’d known his whole life, that insisted, “Don’t send us off into the ether.”

  “Connor …,” Ithan started.

  Connor held Hypaxia’s stare. “Don’t miss this opportunity.” He began walking down the stairs—nearly running—and it was all they could do to follow him. With that strong, sure grace, his brother stalked down the empty avenue flanked with strangely carved obelisks. All the way to the Dead Gate, its crystal muted in the dimness.

  Only when they stood before it did Connor speak again. “That bullet,” Connor said, nodding to where Ithan held it, “was made by us—the dead. For Bryce.” A soft, pained smile crossed his face at her name. “To use with the Godslayer Rifle.”

  “What’s so special about it?” Jesiba demanded.

  “Nothing yet. But it was crafted to hold us. Our secondlight.” As if in answer, the Gate began to glow. “We had planned to make contact with Jesiba—to ask her, through her role in Flame in Shadow, to get in touch with one of you.” Connor shrugged with one shoulder. “But when you appeared earlier, Ithan, with the Under-King distracted … Well, it was a little earlier than we’d planned, but everyone was ready. I think Urd made it so.” After all Ithan had heard and experienced, he didn’t doubt his brother’s claim. “So they began the exodus through this Gate. They were finishing when I was summoned to you.”

  A conduit, like the one Bryce had drawn from in the spring.

  “All of our secondlight, from every soul here,” Connor said quietly. “It’s yours to put in that bullet. Use it well.”

  Ithan’s throat constricted. “But if you … if you turn into secondlight—”

  “I’m already gone, Ithan,” Connor said gently. “And I can think of no better way to end my existence than by striking a blow for all our ancestors who’ve been trapped and consumed by the Asteri.” He nodded to the bullet, the glowing Gate illuminating his face. “Look at the engraving.”

  Memento Mori. The letters gleamed in the Gate’s pale light.

  Jesiba let out a quiet laugh. “Got the idea from me, did you?”

  Connor’s mouth quirked up at a corner. Ithan nearly broke down at that half smile. Gods, he’d missed it. Missed his big brother.

  But the Dead Gate glowed brighter—as if the time had come. As if it couldn’t hold all those souls, the secondlight they’d become, much longer.

  Connor said to Ithan, “You do make me proud, you know. Every day before now, and every day after. Nothing you do will ever change that.”

  Something ruptured in Ithan’s chest. “Connor—”

  “Tell Bryce,” Connor said, eyes shining as he stepped toward the glowing Gate, a wall of light now shimmering in the empty arch, “to make the shot count.”

  Connor stepped into the archway and faded into that wall of light.

  He was gone. And this time it was just as unbearable, as unfathomable to have had his brother here, to see him and speak to him and lose him again—

  The light began shrinking and contracting, pulsating, and Ithan could have sworn he heard the hissing of Reapers rushing toward them in the distance. The light shivered and imploded, condensing into a tiny seed of pure light.

  It floated in the Gate’s archway, thrumming with such power that the hair on Ithan’s arms rose.

  “Put it in the bullet,” Jesiba ordered Ithan, who unscrewed its cap and gingerly approached the seed.

  All the souls of the people here … the dreams of the dead, their love for the living …

  Ithan gently slid the bullet around the seed of light and replaced the cap. He lifted the bullet between his thumb and forefinger, its point digging into his skin.

  As the light floated up through the bullet, Memento Mori was briefly illuminated, letter by letter.