Was this the right move? This risk, this danger they were plunging into? Maybe they’d have been better off staying in Lunathion, keeping their heads down.

  Maybe she was a coward for thinking that.

  She flicked her attention to Ruhn, her brother’s face tight as he monitored the olive grove as well. He’d worn his Aux battle-suit, too, his black hair tied back in a braid that flowed down his spine, along the length of the Starsword strapped there. He clutched the comm-crystal in a fist, occasionally opening his fingers to study it. As if it might offer some hint about Day’s welfare. He’d said he hadn’t used it since that first contact with her, but he’d grabbed it before they left in case it could help locate her, if she had its twin on her.

  Ruhn shifted from foot to foot, black boots crunching on the rocky, dry earth. “Cormac should be here by now.”

  She knew every second since Agent Daybright had gone dark pressed on her brother. Bryce didn’t want to think about what was probably happening to the agent Ruhn seemed to care so much for. If they were lucky, she’d be alive. If they were luckier, there would be enough of her to salvage. Any attempts Ruhn had made to contact her—even going so far as to use the crystal—had been futile.

  “Give him a minute,” Bryce said. “It’s a long jump.” Too far for her to make—or attempt. Especially with others in tow. She needed all her strength for what was to come.

  “You’re a teleporting expert now?” Ruhn asked, brows high. The ring in his bottom lip glinted in the hot morning light. “Dec’s on standby. I don’t want to throw off his calculations. Even by a minute.”

  Bryce opened her mouth, but Cormac appeared in the small clearing ahead. They’d studied a satellite map of the grove yesterday and Cormac had committed the location to memory, plotting out the jumps he’d need to make to get here from the lab. And the jumps he’d need to make from this grove into the palace itself.

  Cormac announced, “We’re in. Tharion’s in the waiting room. I slipped off to the bathroom. All plans are a go. Ready, Athalar?” Hunt, then Bryce, then Ruhn. That had been the order they’d settled on, after an hour of arguing.

  Hunt drew his gun, keeping it at his thigh. That helmeted head turned to Bryce, and she could feel his gaze even through the visor. “See you on the other side, Quinlan,” Hunt said, taking Cormac’s gloved hand.

  Prince to prince. She marveled at it.

  Then they were gone, and Bryce struggled to get down a breath.

  “I feel like I can’t breathe, either,” Ruhn said, noticing. “Knowing that Day’s in there.” He added, “And knowing that you’re about to go in there, too.”

  Bryce gave him a wobbly smile. And then decided to Hel with it and threw her arms around her brother, squeezing him hard. “Team Fuck-You, remember? We’ll kick ass.”

  He chuckled, holding her tightly. “Team Fuck-You forever.”

  She pulled away, scanning her brother’s violet-blue eyes. “We’ll get her out. I promise.”

  Ruhn’s golden skin paled. “Thanks for helping me, Bryce.”

  She nudged him with an elbow. “We Starborn have each other’s backs, you know?”

  But her brother’s face turned grave. “When we get home, I think we need to talk.”

  “About what?” She didn’t like that serious expression. And didn’t like that Cormac was taking so long.

  Ruhn’s mouth tightened. “All right, since we might very well die in a few minutes—”

  “That is so morbid!”

  “I wanted to wait until shit had calmed down, but … You outrank the Autumn King in power.”

  “And?”

  “I think it’s time his reign comes to an end, don’t you?” He was completely serious.

  “You want me to back you in a coup? A Fae coup?”

  “I want to back you in a Fae coup. I want you as Autumn Queen.”

  Bryce recoiled. “I don’t want to be a queen.”

  “Let’s ditch the whole reluctant royal thing, okay? You saw what the Fae did during the attack this spring. How they shut out innocents and left them to die, with our father’s blessing. You mean to tell me that’s the best our people can do? You mean to tell me that’s what we’re supposed to accept as normal Fae behavior? I don’t buy that for a second.”

  “You should be king.”

  “No.” Something else shone in his eyes, some secret she didn’t know, but she could sense. “You have more power than I do. The Fae will respect that.”

  “Maybe the Fae should rot.”

  “Tell that to Dec. And Flynn. And my mother. Look at them and tell me that the Fae aren’t worth saving.”

  “Three. Out of the entire population.”

  Ruhn’s face turned pleading, but then Cormac appeared, panting and covered in sweat. “Athalar’s waiting.”

  “Think about it,” Ruhn murmured as she approached Cormac. “All clear?”

  “No issues. The intel was right: they don’t even have wards around the place,” Cormac reported. “Arrogant worms.” He extended a hand to Bryce. “Hurry.”

  Bryce grabbed the prince’s hand. And with a last look at her brother, she vanished into wind and darkness, stomach whipping around and around. Cormac said over the roaring of the space between places, “He asked you to be queen, didn’t he?”

  Bryce blinked up at him—though it was difficult with the force of the storm around them. “How did you know?”

  “I might have caught the end of your conversation.” Bryce clung harder as the wind pressed. Cormac said, “He’s right.”

  “Spare me.”

  “And you were right, too. When we first met, and you said the Oracle’s prophecy was vague. I understand that now. She didn’t mean our union in marriage would bring prosperity to our people. She meant our union as allies. Allies in this rebellion.”

  The world took form at the edges of the darkness.

  “But after today …” Cormac’s words grew heavy. Weary. “I think the choice about whether to lead our people forward will be up to you.”

  Hunt couldn’t shake the tremor from his hands. Being here, in this palace …

  It smelled the same. Even in the hallway directly outside the archives, where he hid in an alcove, the stale odor of this place dragged claws down his temper, set his knees wobbling.

  Screaming, pain blinding as they sawed off his wings slowly—

  Shahar was dead, her broken body still dust-covered from Sandriel dragging it through the streets on her way in here—

  Pollux laughing as he pissed on Shahar’s corpse in the middle of the throne room—

  His wings, his wings, his wings—

  Hunt swallowed, shutting out the memories, focusing his mind on the hall. No one was around.

  Bryce and Cormac appeared, and she’d hardly thanked him before he vanished, off to grab Ruhn before teleporting back to the lab. Sweat gleamed on the prince’s face, his skin sallow. He had to be exhausted.

  “All right?” Hunt murmured, brushing back her hair with a gloved hand. She nodded, eyes full of worry—and something else. But Hunt flicked her chin and went back to monitoring.

  They stood in tense silence, and then Ruhn was there, Cormac with him. Cormac’s skin was ashen now. He disappeared immediately, back to the lab.

  “Tell Declan we’re a go,” Hunt said.

  Ruhn’s shadows cloaked them from sight as he thumbed in a message on a secure phone that Declan had retrofitted against tracking. In five minutes, Tharion would contact them on it to tell them whether or not to move.

  Bryce’s fingers slid into Hunt’s, clutching tight. He squeezed back.

  He had no idea how five minutes passed. He was barely breathing, monitoring the hall ahead. Bryce held his gloved hand through all of it, her jaw tense.

  Then Ruhn lifted his head. “Tharion said Cormac just blew up the jeep.”

  Hunt nudged her with a wing. “Your turn, Quinlan.”

  Ruhn said, “Remember: Every minute in there risks detection. Make them count.”

  “Thanks for the pep talk,” she said, but smiled grimly up at Hunt. “Light it up, Athalar.”

  Hunt pressed a hand to her heart, his lightning a subtle flare that was sucked into the scar. As the last of it faded, Bryce teleported into the archives.

  To find whatever truth might lie within them.

  71

  Bryce’s breathing turned so jagged that she could barely think as she tumbled alone through the darkness.

  They were in the Asteri’s palace. In their sacred, forbidden archives.

  And she was … in a stairwell?

  Bryce took steadying inhales as she surveyed the spiral staircase, crafted entirely of white quartz. Firstlight glimmered, golden and soft, lighting the carved steps downward. At her back was a door—the other side of the one they’d watched Sofie walk through on the surveillance footage.

  The one labeled with the number Sofie had etched into her biceps.

  Bryce began to creep down the stairs, her black utility boots nearly silent against the quartz steps. She saw no one. Heard no one.

  Her heart raced, and she could have sworn the veins of firstlight in the quartz throbbed with each beat. As if in answer.

  Bryce halted after a turn in the stairs and assessed the long hallway ahead. When it revealed no guards, she stepped into it.

  There were no doors. Only this hall, perhaps seventy feet long and fifteen feet wide. Likely fourteen feet, to be a multiple of seven. The holy number.

  Bryce scanned the hall. The only thing in it was a set of crystal pipes shooting upward into the ceiling, with plaques beneath them, and small black screens beside the plaques.

  Seven pipes.

  The crystal floor glowed at her feet as she approached the nearest plaque.

  Hesperus. The Evening Star.

  Brows rising, Bryce strode to the next pipe and plaque. Polaris. The North Star.

  Plaque after plaque, pipe after pipe, Bryce read the individual names of each Asteri.

  Eosphoros. Octartis. Austrus.

  She nearly tripped at the penultimate. Sirius. The Asteri the Prince of the Pit had devoured.

  She knew what the last plaque would say before she reached it. Rigelus. The Bright Hand.

  What the Hel was this place?

  This was what Danika had felt was important enough for Sofie Renast to risk her life for? What the Asteri had wanted to contain so badly they’d hunted Sofie down to preserve the secret?

  The crystal at her feet flared, and Bryce had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, as firstlight, pure and iridescent, ruptured.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, dropping into a crouch.

  But nothing happened. At least, not to her.

  The firstlight faded enough that Bryce cracked open her eyes to see it shooting up six of the pipes.

  The little black screens beside each plaque flared to life, filled with readings. Only Sirius’s pipe remained unlit. Out of commission.

  She went rigid as she read the Bright Hand’s screen: Rigelus Power Level: 65%.

  She whirled to the next plaque. The screen beside it said, Austrus Power Level: 76%.

  “Holy gods,” Bryce whispered.

  The Asteri fed on firstlight. The Asteri … needed firstlight. She looked at her feet, where light flowed in veins through the crystal before funneling into the pipes. The quartz.

  A conduit of power. Exactly like the Gates in Crescent City.

  They’d built their entire palace out of it. To fuel and harness the firstlight that poured in.

  She’d studied Fury’s rough map of the palace layout. This area was seven levels below the throne room, where the Asteri sat on crystal thrones. Did those thrones fill them with power? In plain sight, they fueled up like batteries, sucking in this firstlight.

  Nausea constricted her throat. All the Drops people made, the secondlight the dead handed over … All the power of the people of Midgard, the power the people gave them … it was gobbled up by the Asteri and used against its citizens. To control them.

  Even the Vanir rebels who were killed fighting had their souls fed to the very beasts they were trying to overthrow.

  They were all just food for the Asteri. A never-ending supply of power.

  Bryce began shaking. The veins of light wending beneath her feet, glowing and vibrant … She traced them down as far as she could see through the clear stone, into a brilliantly shining mass. A core of firstlight. Powering the entire palace and the monsters that ruled it.

  This was what Sofie had learned. What Danika had suspected.

  Did the Asteri even possess holy stars in their chests, or was it firstlight, stolen from the people? Firstlight that they mandated be given over in the Drop to fuel cities and technology … and the overlords who ruled this world. Secondlight that was ripped from the dead, squeezing every last drop of power from the people.

  Cut off the firstlight, destroy this funnel of power, get people to stop handing over their power through the Drop in those centers that funneled off their energy, stop the dead from becoming secondlight …

  And they could destroy the Asteri.

  72

  Athalar paced in a tight circle. “She should be back.”

  “She’s got two minutes,” Ruhn growled, clenching the comm-crystal so hard in his fist it was a wonder the edges weren’t permanently etched into his fingers.

  Hunt said, “Something happened. She should be here by now.”

  Ruhn eyed the watch on his wrist. They had to make it down to the dungeons. And if they didn’t start immediately … He peered at the crystal in his hand.

  Day, he said, throwing her name out into the void. But no answer came. Like every other attempt to reach her recently.

  “I’m going to get a head start,” he murmured, pocketing the crystal. “I’ll cloak myself in my shadows. If I’m not back in ten minutes, leave without me.”

  “We all go together,” Hunt shot back, but Ruhn shook his head. “We’ll come find you.”

  Ruhn didn’t reply before he slipped down the hall, blending into the darkness, and aimed for the passageways that would take him across the palace compound. To the dungeons and the agent trapped within them.

  Bryce raced back to the top of the stairs, bile burning her throat.

  She’d been here too long. Could only spare a minute or two more.

  She reached the door and the landing, rallying what remained of Hunt’s charge to teleport back to him and Ruhn, but the door handle seemed to gleam. What else lay down here? What else might she uncover? If this was her only opportunity …

  Bryce didn’t let herself doubt as she slipped into the main archives hallway. It was dim and dusty. Utterly silent.

  Shelves crammed with books loomed around her, and Bryce scanned their titles. Nothing of interest, nothing of use—

  She sprinted through the library, reading titles and names of sections as fast as she could, praying that Declan had kept up and was moving the cameras away from her. She scanned the vague section titles above the stacks. Tax Records, Agriculture, Water Processing …

  The doors along this stretch had been named similarly to each other—not in code, but along a theme.

  Dawn. Midnight. Midday. She had no idea what any of the names meant, or what lay behind the door. But one in the center snared her eye: Dusk.

  She slipped inside.

  Bryce was late. Hunt stayed put only because his secure phone had flashed with a message from Declan. She’s okay. She went into a room called Dusk. I’ll keep you posted.

  Of course Quinlan was doing extra research. Of course she couldn’t listen to the rules and be back when she was supposed to—

  Then again, Dusk could have something to do with Dusk’s Truth. No wonder Bryce had entered.

  Hunt paced again. He should have gone with her. Made her teleport him in, even if it would have drained her at a time when they’d need all her gifts.

  Ruhn had already been gone for three minutes. A lot could happen in that time.

  “Come on, Bryce,” Hunt murmured, and prayed to Cthona to keep his mate safe.

  Cloaked in shadows, Ruhn raced down the halls, encountering no one. Not one guard.

  It was too quiet.

  The hall opened into a wide fork: To the left lay the dungeons. To the right, the stairs up to the palace proper. He went left without hesitation. Down the stairs that turned from cloudy quartz to dark stone, like the life had been sucked from the rock. His skin chilled.

  These dungeons … Athalar had made it out, but most never did.

  Ruhn’s stomach churned, and he slowed his pace, readying himself for the gauntlet ahead. Checkpoints of guards—easy enough to avoid with his shadows—locked doors, and then two halls of cells and torture chambers. Day had to be somewhere in there.

  Screams began leaking out. Male, thankfully. But they were wrenching. Pleading. Sobbing. He wished he could plug his ears. If Day was making a similar sound, in such agony …

  Ruhn kept going—until Mordoc stepped into his path with a feral grin. He sniffed once, that bloodhound gift no doubt feeding him a host of information before he said, “You’re a long way from cavorting with spies in the alleys of Lunathion, Prince.”

  Tharion raced behind Cormac, a shield of water around them as the prince hurled ball after ball of fire into the chaotic, smoky lab. Chunks of rupturing machines flew toward them, smoldering—and Tharion intercepted them as best he could.

  The doctor had led them right into the lab without a second thought. Cormac had put a bullet through the male’s head a moment later, then ended the lives of the screaming scientists and engineers around him.

  “Are you fucking insane?” Tharion screamed as they ran. “You said we’d limit the casualties!”

  Cormac ignored him. The bastard had gone rogue.

  Tharion snarled, half debating whether to overpower the prince. “Is this any better than what Pippa Spetsos does?”

  Tharion got his answer a second later. Gunfire crackled behind them, and rebels stormed in. Right on time.

  Imperial Vanir reinforcements roared as they rushed in—and were drowned out by the barrage of guns. An ambush.