She was sobbing through her teeth.
This empire, this world … it was just one massive buffet for the six beings ruling it.
Hel had tried to save them. For fifteen thousand years, Hel had never stopped trying to find a way back here. To free them from the Asteri.
“Where the fuck did you come from?” she seethed.
Worlds ripped past her fingertips, along with the Asteri’s dispassionate notes. Most planets were not as lucky as Hel had been.
They rose up. We left them in cinders.
Firstlight tasted off. Terminated world.
Denizens launched bombs at us that left planet and inhabitants too full of radiation to be viable food. Left to rot in their waste.
Firstlight too weak. Terminated world but kept several citizens who produced good firstlight to sustain us on travels. Children proved hearty, but did not take to our travel method.
These psychotic, soulless monsters—
“You will not find our home world there,” a cold voice said through the intercom on the table. “Even we have forgotten where its ruins lie.”
Bryce panted, only rage coursing through her as she said to Rigelus, “I am going to fucking kill you.”
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Rigelus laughed. “I was under the impression that you were only here to access the information for which Sofie Renast and Danika Fendyr died. You’re going to kill me as well?”
Bryce squeezed shaking hands into fists. “Why? Why do any of this?”
“Why do you drink water and eat food? We are higher beings. We are gods. You cannot blame us if our source of nutrition is inconvenient for you. We keep you healthy, and happy, and allow you to roam free on this planet. We have even let the humans live all this time, just to give you Vanir someone to rule over. In exchange, all we ask is a little of your power.”
“You’re parasites.”
“What are all creatures, feeding off their resources? You should see what the inhabitants of some worlds did to their planets—the rubbish, the pollution, the poisoned seas. Was it not fitting that we returned the favor?”
“You don’t get to pretend that this is some savior story.”
Rigelus chuckled, and the sound knocked her from her fury enough to remember Hunt and Ruhn, and, oh gods, if Rigelus knew she was here, he’d find them—
“Isn’t that what you’re doing?”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“You left such a noble audiomail to your friend Juniper. Of course, once I heard it, I knew there was only one place you could be going. Here. To me. Precisely as I had hoped—and planned.”
She shut away her questions, instead demanding, “Why do you want me here?”
“To reopen the Rifts.”
Her blood froze. “I can’t.”
“Can’t you?” The cold voice slithered through the intercom. “You are Starborn, and have the Horn bound to your body and power. Your ancestors wielded the Horn and another Fae object that allowed them to enter this world. Stolen, of course, from their original masters—our people. Our people, who built fearsome warriors in that world to be their army. All of them prototypes for the angels in this one. And all of them traitors to their creators, joining the Fae to overthrow my brothers and sisters a thousand years before we arrived on Midgard. They slew my siblings.”
Her head spun. “I don’t understand.”
“Midgard is a base. We opened the doors to other worlds to lure their citizens here—so many powerful beings, all so eager to conquer new planets. Not realizing we were their conquerors. But we also opened the doors so we might conquer those other worlds as well. The Fae—Queen Theia and her two foolish daughters—realized that, though too late. Her people were already here, but she and the princesses discovered where my siblings had hidden the access points in their world.”
Rage rippled through his every word. “Your Starborn ancestors shut the gates to stop us from invading their realm once more and reminding them who their true masters are. And in the process, they shut the gates to all other worlds, including those to Hel, their stalwart allies. And so we have been trapped here. Cut off from the cosmos. All that is left of our people, though our mystics beneath this palace have long sought to find any other survivors, any planets where they might be hiding.”
Bryce shook. The Astronomer had been right about the host of mystics here. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Why do you think we allowed you to live this spring? You are the key to opening the doors between worlds again. You will undo the actions of one ignorant princess fifteen thousand years ago.”