Lidia sketched a bow, but refrained from telling the queen about the antidote just yet, how it would make Irithys’s flame even more lethal. Later—if they survived. But right now … Lidia smirked at the queen, at their gathering enemies. “Let’s burn it all down.”

  Because ahead of them, dozens strong, an entire line of war-machines headed their way. Missile launchers groaned into position. All aiming for where they stood.

  “With pleasure,” Irithys said, and even from a few feet away, Lidia’s skin seared with the heat of the queen’s flame. “We shall build a new world atop their ashes.”

  Rithi, Sasa, and Malana turned blue, matching their queen’s fire with their own. The four fire sprites unleashed their power on the war-machines and the Vanir powering them. Lidia’s white-hot flames joined theirs, twining and dancing around it, as if every moment of recognition until now had built toward this, as if her flames had known theirs for millennia.

  And as one flame, one unified people, as Bryce Quinlan had promised, their fire struck the enemy line.

  Machines ruptured. Lidia staggered back, back, back with the force of it, still unfamiliar with the fire in her veins, after it had been so long suppressed.

  But the sprites kept their fire concentrated on the machines and their pilots. And as Lidia hit the ground, as the missiles exploded upon contact with the flames, she cast the last of her power upward. To shield the allied forces fighting behind them and the fire sprites now ahead of her from the shrapnel, which melted until it became raining, molten metal.

  It hissed where it hit the earth.

  Irithys blazed like a blue star, shooting from machine to machine, leaving burning death in her wake. The three other sprites followed suit. Where they shimmered, imperial forces died.

  And as the enemy melted at their fingertips … for a moment, just one, Lidia allowed herself to kindle a spark of hope.

  * * *

  “I’m okay,” Tharion panted, blood leaking from his mouth. “I’m okay.”

  “I call bullshit,” Ruhn said, kneeling beside the mer, fumbling through his pack for the vial Lidia had mentioned. The mer would be dead already without the antidote in his veins. But if Ruhn didn’t do something to help Tharion now, he’d surely be dead in a few minutes.

  “Get him into a sitting position,” Actaeon was saying to his brother. “Get his head above his chest so the blood doesn’t go out too fast.”

  “We have to help her,” Brann said. “She’s out on the battlefield—”

  “You guys aren’t going anywhere,” Ruhn said to the boys. He found the clear vial and knocked it back. “Help me get Ketos up. We’ve got two seconds before those shithead guards come back, maybe with Rigelus in tow—”

  They didn’t have two seconds.

  From the stairwell at the far end of the hall, the two angels who’d held the boys captive emerged. No sign of Rigelus, thank the gods, but right then, whatever was in that potion hit Ruhn’s stomach, his body, and the world tilted, surging, blacking out—

  A moment, long enough so that when his vision returned, it was to see the two angels reaching for their guns.

  Ruhn exploded.

  Starlight, two beams of it straight to their eyes, blinded them. Just as Bryce had done to the Murder Twins. Twin whips of his shadows wrapped around their necks and squeezed.

  “What the fuck,” Brann said, but Ruhn barely heard him. There was only power, surging as it never had before. His mind was starkly clear as he willed the shadows to begin slicing through angelic flesh.

  Blood spurted. Bone cracked. Two heads rolled to the ground.

  “Holy shit,” Brann breathed. Actaeon was gaping at Ruhn.

  “The mer,” the kid said, whirling back to where Tharion had passed out again.

  “Fuck,” Ruhn spat, and put a hand to Tharion’s chest to staunch the bleeding—

  Warm, bright magic answered. Healing magic, rising to the surface as if it had been dormant in his blood.

  He had no idea how to use it, how to do anything other than will it with a simple Save him.

  In answer, light poured from his hands, and he could feel Tharion’s flesh and bone knitting back together beneath his fingers, mending, healing …

  It had been a clean shot through the chest and out the back. And this new healing magic seemed to know what to do, how to close both entry and exit wounds. It couldn’t replace the blood, but if Ketos was no longer leaking … he might survive.

  A shudder rocked the palace, and time slowed.

  For a heartbeat, Ruhn thought it might be his own power, but no. He’d felt this before. Just a short time ago, when the world had rippled with what he knew, deep in his bones, was the impact of an Asteri dying. Like an Archangel’s death, but worse.

  Another Asteri must be going down.

  He willed that lovely, bright power to keep healing Ketos, though. To use the stretch of time to buy more of it for the mer, to heal, heal, heal—

  It was eternity, and yet it was nothing. Time resumed, so fast that the boys lost their grip on Tharion, but the wound had healed over. Ruhn grunted as he hoisted the unconscious mer over a shoulder and said to the boys, “We gotta get out of here.”

  Half of him wanted to dump the twins somewhere safe and race to wherever Lidia was, but his mate had asked him to protect the two most precious people in her world.

  He wouldn’t break a gesture of trust so great. Not for anything.

  They tore through the palace, its halls eerily empty. People must have gotten the evacuation order and fled. The guards had even left their stations at the doors and the front gates.

  Ruhn and the boys made it into the city streets, and Ruhn reached for his phone to dial Flynn, praying the male had the van nearby. Only then did he get a look at the battlefield beyond the city. The cloud of darkness above the glowing lights.

  That darkness was pure Pit. Fires blazed on the other side of the field—that had to be Lidia.

  “Ruhn!” He knew that voice.

  He turned, Tharion a limp weight on his shoulder, and found Ithan Holstrom sprinting toward them, a rifle over his shoulder.

  He knew that rifle, too. The Godslayer Rifle.

  Ithan’s face was splattered with dirt and blood, like he’d fought his way up here. “Is Ketos alive?” At Ruhn’s nod, Ithan asked, “Where’s Bryce?”

  As if in answer, light flared from the palace above and behind them.

  Ruhn’s blood turned to ice. “We told her and Athalar to meet us. But it was a trap … fuck.”

  “I need to get to Bryce,” Ithan said urgently.

  Ruhn pointed to the palace, and couldn’t find the words, any words, to say that the wolf might already be too late.

  Ace and Brann looked up at him, at the palace, at the battlefield.

  His charges. His to protect through the storm.

  “Run,” Ruhn told Ithan, and motioned to the twins. “Keep close, and follow my lead.”

  95

  Bryce’s breath sawed through her lungs, but she gave herself over to it. To the wind and movement and propulsion of herself and Hunt through the small space as Rigelus launched strike after strike.

  She was not the scared female she’d been a week ago, running from him down the hall. She knew Theia’s star gave her enough of an edge to keep one step ahead of Rigelus as she teleported again and again and again.

  They just had to deactivate the core, and then she’d take the sword and knife and go after the Asteri. One by one.

  Hunt’s lightning slammed continuously into the floor. But she and Hunt kept moving, so fast that one boom hadn’t finished sounding before another began. The sound was monstrous, all-consuming, and the room rained stone and crystal.

  But in the center of the room, the tunnel of warped, melted crystal was almost complete.

  Minutes had passed, maybe years. It was a dance, keeping one step ahead of Rigelus, and she knew that it would come to its crashing finale soon enough.

  Another blow, and the glow of the firstlight core blazed, casting Rigelus’s furious face in stark relief.

  Bryce teleported them away, but it was slower—too slow—

  Rigelus snapped his power at them.

  A wall like burning acid sent them careening into the stairwell, and Bryce knew only Hunt’s lightning kept it from being fatal. She rallied her power to teleport, but it sputtered out.

  “Perhaps you should not have expended so much of your strength against Polaris.” Rigelus smirked, and lifted his gleaming hand—

  It was a choice of death or survival.

  Bryce teleported herself and Hunt—but not to the center of the room. They crashed to the floor a level above, clear of the core.

  “One more strike!” Hunt was shouting. “Bryce, one more fucking strike and we’re through—”

  Bryce’s knees buckled, and her head swam. Her power had dissolved into stardust in her veins.

  Hunt caught her as she swayed. “Bryce.” Her nose stung; she could taste the blood in her mouth, metallic and sharp. “Fuck,” Hunt hissed, and grabbed her face in his hands. “Bryce—look at me.”

  It took effort. Too much effort.

  “I’m sorry,” she panted, and the words were barely a rasp. “I’m sorry.” All that power she’d attained … what good had it done? And what good would having the Starsword and the knife be if she had no starlight left to unite them?

  “One more, Bryce,” Hunt said, breathing hard. Blood leaked from his own nostrils. The cost of all that power, without cease. “Just one more blow, I can feel it …”

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

  They had to get back down there before Rigelus could find some way to repair the damage they’d done. “Okay,” she said again, but her power wouldn’t rally. She looked to Hunt. “A boost?”

  From the concern in his eyes, she knew he didn’t have much left, either. But his lightning sparked, a crown about his head, making a primal god of him.

  Rather than strike her with his Helfire, he hauled her to him and kissed her.

  Lightning flowed from him into her, a living river of song and power. She pulled back, panting hard, and it hadn’t been much, but it was there, it was enough—

  “Stop,” called an exhausted male voice from down the hall.

  And though she’d leapt between worlds and ended Archangels and Asteri, nothing had prepared her to see Ithan Holstrom racing down the palace hallway with the Godslayer Rifle slung over his shoulder.

  * * *

  Hunt had no energy left to dwell on the fact that Holstrom seemed … leveled up. Older, more powerful somehow, even though he’d just seen the wolf. He didn’t fucking care about any of it as the wolf reached them and said to Bryce, “I was sent to give you this.” He handed her the rifle.

  With shaking hands, Bryce took it. “Jesiba gave it to you?”

  “No. I mean, yes, but …” Ithan’s eyes were wide. “There’s a bullet in there, full of the secondlight of the dead of Crescent City. Connor gave it to me. For you.”

  “Connor?” Bryce swayed again, and Hunt caught her.

  “There’s no time to explain,” Ithan said, “but the dead sent me to give you that rifle, and that bullet.” Ithan’s eyes shone bright. “Connor said to make it count, Bryce.”

  Bryce looked down at the rifle in her hands, weighing it. Hunt asked, “What use is one bullet of secondlight against an Asteri?”

  “Not against an Asteri,” Bryce said. “That bullet is a secondlight bomb.”

  Ithan nodded, apparently getting what she meant more than Hunt did.

  “I don’t have enough strength to teleport both of us back to the core,” Bryce said, and took Hunt’s hand. She pressed something cold into it.

  Her words struck, and Hunt spat, “Fuck that.” His temper flared. “Fuck that, Bryce, let’s go blast that monster to Hel—”

  “Get out of the palace,” Bryce warned, and teleported. Alone.

  Taking the Godslayer Rifle with her, and leaving the Mask in Hunt’s hand.

  * * *

  She had one shot.

  Last time, Lehabah had bought her the two seconds it cost to line up that shot.

  This time, there was no fire sprite to save her. No synth to fuel her. Only training that Randall had hammered into her over the years. She sent a silent prayer of thanks to him.

  One shot, straight down into the tunnel that Hunt had made, to blast apart the last of the crystal around the core and release all that firstlight.

  She knew what lining up the shot would cost her. Knew that in the second it took to aim, Rigelus would launch his power at her, and there would be no wall of Hunt’s lightning to keep it at bay.

  Bryce savored the whipping, wild wind around her as she teleported—one last time, propelling herself through the world.

  She lifted the rifle to her shoulder, clicking off the safety, and then she was there in the core room, debris and crystal everywhere, her rifle already aimed at the hole in the center.

  But Rigelus was not alone. The three other remaining Asteri now stood with him, the four of them a solid wall between Bryce and the firstlight core. At least another one was dead, if the slowing of the world a few minutes ago was any indication. But four remained.

  Bryce’s finger stalled on the trigger. To waste the bullet on them—

  “Don’t you want to know what you risk, before you act so recklessly?” Rigelus said smugly. He didn’t wait for her to answer. “You destroy the firstlight core, and you destroy Midgard itself.”

  96

  Bryce didn’t lower the Godslayer Rifle. She kept it aimed at the Asteri’s feet. At the hole just behind them. To get close enough, she’d have to teleport right to them, and fire straight into the hole.

  “That core is tied to Midgard’s very soul,” Rigelus said. “You destroy it, and this entire planet will wink out of existence.”

  Bryce’s blood chilled. She might have called bullshit had it not been for Vesperus’s claims about the Cauldron.

  “You made the core a kill switch for this world,” Bryce breathed.

  The Asteri to Rigelus’s left—Eosphoros, the Morning Star—sneered, “To prevent rodents like you from getting any ideas about destroying us.”

  “Our fate,” Rigelus said to Bryce, folding his hands in front of him almost beatifically, “is tied to that of this planet. You kill our source of nourishment, and you doom every living soul on Midgard as well.”

  “And if I call your bluff?” Bryce demanded, buying whatever time she could to sort out all she’d heard and witnessed and endured—

  “Then a darkness like none you have ever known shall devour this planet, and you will all cease to exist,” said the Asteri to Rigelus’s right—Hesperus, the Evening Star.

  “So you’d rather die,” Bryce said, “than see any of us freed from you?”

  “If we are denied our food, then we shall die; there is no purpose to your existence, if not to sustain us. You are chattel.”

  “You’re fucking delusional.” Bryce kept the rifle aimed at their feet. “How about I kill all of you, and leave the core here? How about that?”

  “You’d have to get close enough with those blades to do so, girl,” Eosphoros sneered, death in her eyes as she glanced to the Starsword at Bryce’s back, to Truth-Teller sheathed at her side. “We shall not make Polaris’s mistake.”

  They were right—Bryce knew that if she set down the gun, if she drew the blades … Well, they’d kill her so fast she probably wouldn’t be able to draw the weapons in time.

  “Think very carefully, Bryce Quinlan,” Rigelus said, stepping forward with his hands raised. “One bullet from you into the core, and this world and all its innocents will be sucked into a void with no end.”

  The same Void that Apollion had claimed allowed him to devour the Asteri? Polaris’s body had been sucked into nothing—

  “You seemed so outraged in your little video,” Rigelus purred, “at the deaths of those innocents in Asphodel Meadows. But what are a few hundred children compared to the millions you damn by firing that bullet?”

  A void with no end …

  “Kill her, brother,” hissed the fourth Asteri, Austrus, glowing with power. “Kill her, and let us return to battle the princes before they find us down here—”

  “What will it be, Bryce Quinlan?” Rigelus asked, extending a hand. “You have my word that if you do not fire that bullet, you and yours shall go free. And remain so.”

  The other Asteri whirled on him, outraged.

  “I can teach you things you’ve never even dreamed of,” Rigelus promised. “The language inked on your back—it is our language. From our home world. I can teach you how to wield it. Any world might be open to you, Bryce Quinlan. Name the world, and it shall be yours.”

  “I only want this world to be free of you,” Bryce said through her teeth. “Forever.”

  One of the Asteri began, “How dare you speak to—” but Rigelus interrupted, attention only on Bryce, “That, too, might be possible. A Midgard of your imagining.” He smiled, so earnestly she almost believed him. “Yours will be a life of comfort. I shall set you up as a true queen—not only of the Fae, but of all Valbara. No more Governors. No more angelic hierarchies, if that is what you and Athalar wish. If you desire the dead to be freed, then we shall find a way around death, too. They were always simply dessert to us.”

  “Dessert,” Bryce said, hands shaking with anger. She gripped the rifle tighter.

  “The secondlight shall be the dead’s to keep,” Rigelus went on.

  But Bryce said, a familiar white haze of pure rage creeping over her vision, “They’re not dessert. They’re people. People the inhabitants of this planet knew and loved.”

  “A poor choice of words,” Rigelus acknowledged, “and I apologize. But what you wish, you shall have. And if you desire to—”

  “Enough of this catering to vermin,” Eosphoros snapped. “She dies.”

  “I don’t think so,” Bryce said, and teleported directly to the Asteri. Right to the hole in the floor that Hunt had made. “I think it’s your turn for that.”