Behind her, Nesta and Azriel unleashed twin bolts of magic, one silver, one blue—arcing toward Vesperus from two directions. Splitting Vesperus’s attention for a heartbeat—
The heartbeat Bryce had used to kill Micah.
The heartbeat that she used now to spring at the Asteri, sword in one hand, dagger in the other.
Bone collided with metal, and Vesperus screeched in rage as Bryce plunged Truth-Teller and the Starsword into her chest.
Bryce threw her power into the Starsword, light ripping through the black blade, willing it to tear this fucking monster apart—
She willed it into Truth-Teller, and shadows flowed—
And where the two blades met, where Bryce’s light merged at their nexus, power met power.
Her ears hollowed out. Magic like lightning surged through her, from her. The chamber rippled, a muffled boom echoing through Bryce.
Her blood roared, a beast howling at the moon. She was vaguely aware of a glow, of radiating light that flowed through the Starsword, the dagger—
Vesperus thrashed, falling beyond Bryce’s grip, sinking to her knees.
The Asteri hunched over, hands grappling on the hilts of the blades. She hissed as her skin touched the black metal. “I shall kill you for this.”
But the words were slow … dragged out.
No, that was time slowing, rippling, as it had with Micah, as if the blades were killing the Asteri, a great world power—
A whip of blue magic shot through the world, a ribbon of cobalt piercing the starlight and darkness. She could see every loop and coil as it wrapped around Vesperus’s neck.
Time resumed—sped up to its normal rate. “Stop!” Bryce shouted, but too late.
Vesperus lifted a hand to her neck as Azriel’s blue light dissolved into her skin. She let out a strangled laugh as blood leaked from her mouth. “Still so ignorant. Your power is and will always be mine.”
Blue magic appeared at her fingertips, absorbed from the Illyrian’s attack. She wrapped it around one hand like a glove and grasped the Starsword’s handle.
As if it provided the barrier she needed, allowing her to touch the blade, Vesperus yanked the Starsword free and let it clatter to the stones, coated with gore.
It … it hadn’t worked. The sword and dagger united hadn’t killed her.
Hand glowing blue, Vesperus studied the dagger still in her chest and then smiled at Bryce as she wrapped her fingers, still wreathed in lightning, around the hilt. “I’m going to carve you up with this, girl.”
Nesta rotated Ataraxia in her hand and swung upward. Azriel shouted at her, “Throw your power in the blade!”
“No!” Bryce screamed. The Starsword and Truth-Teller had clearly been weakening the Asteri. If she could figure out how to amplify their power, she’d know how to kill them all—
Vesperus had just yanked Truth-Teller from her chest in a smooth slide when Ataraxia severed flesh and bone, dark blood—or whatever ichor flowed in an Asteri’s veins—spraying.
Vesperus’s dark head tumbled to the stones.
Silver fire wreathed Ataraxia as Nesta plunged the blade into the Asteri’s fallen head. Again. And again. Ichor and light leaked from the broken body, and between one stab and the next, Nesta’s arm slowed, slowed, slowed—
That was time slowing again. Bryce could see every spark of silver flame coiling about the blade, see it reflected in Nesta’s eyes.
The sword descended into Vesperus’s head one last time. Inch by inch, shattering bone and spraying gore—
Time snapped back into movement, but Vesperus did not.
Vesperus, the only Asteri left on this world, lay dead.
* * *
There was a small boat waiting for them. That much had gone right.
Tharion couldn’t stand to look at Ithan. At any of his friends, even the sprites, who’d done so much for him.
The captain was waving to them, a silent order to hurry up while they still had the cover of darkness. Dawn was beginning to turn the sky gray.
They ditched the car at the end of the dock and walked quickly toward the small boat. Once they were on the Depth Charger, they’d be untraceable, even if the Viper Queen tracked the car here.
Tharion slid a hand into his pocket and fingered the white stone that would summon the ship. Dec, Flynn, and the sprites jumped into the boat, Dec quietly talking to the captain, but Holstrom had paused at the edge of the dock.
Silently, Tharion came up beside him.
The water was clear, even twenty feet above the bottom. Where he might have once jumped in, luxuriated in the crisp ocean water …
He didn’t dare send a ripple through the waters of the world announcing his presence. Coward.