Her heart wrenched to see it, to remember. It steadied her, though. Sharpened her focus.
The Asteri had been here—under a different name, but they’d been here. The ancestors of these Fae had defeated them. And Urd had sent her here—here, not Hel. Here, where she’d instantly encountered a dagger that made the Starsword sing. Like it had been the lodestone that had drawn her to this world, to that riverbank. Could it really be the knife from the prophecy?
She’d believed that destroying the Asteri would be as simple as obliterating that firstlight core, yet Urd had sent her here. To the original world of the Midgardian Fae. She had no choice but to trust Urd’s judgment. And pray that Ruhn, that Hunt, that everyone she loved in Midgard could hold on until she found a way to get home.
And if she couldn’t …
Bryce examined the silver bean that lay smooth and gleaming in her hand. Amren said without looking at her, “You swallow it, and it will translate our mother tongue for you. Allow you to speak it, too.”
“Fancy,” Bryce murmured.
She had to find a way home. If that meant navigating this world first … language skills would be useful, considering the extent of bullshit still to be spun. And, sure, she didn’t trust these people for one moment, but considering all the questions they kept lobbing her way, she highly doubted they were going to poison her. Or go to such lengths to do so, when a slit throat would be way easier.
Not a comforting thought, but Bryce nonetheless popped the silver bean into her mouth, worked up enough saliva, and swallowed. Its metal was cool against her tongue, her throat, and she could have sworn she felt its slickness sliding into her stomach.
Lightning cleaved her brain. She was being ripped in two. Her body couldn’t hold all the searing light—
Then blackness slammed in. Quiet and restful and eternal.
No—that was the room around her. She was on the floor, curled over her knees, and … glowing. Brightly enough to illuminate Rhysand’s and Amren’s shocked faces.
Azriel was already poised over her, that deadly dagger drawn and gleaming with a strange black light.
He noted the darkness leaking from the blade and blinked. It was the most shock Bryce had seen him display.
“Put it away, you fool,” Amren said. “It sings for her, and by bringing it close—”
The blade vanished from Azriel’s hand, whisked away by a shadow. Silence, taut and rippling, spread through the room.
Bryce stood slowly—as Randall and her mom had taught her to move in front of Vanir and other predators.
And as she rose, she found it in her brain: the knowledge of a language that she had not known before. It sat on her tongue, ready to be spoken, as instinctual as her own. It shimmered along her skin, stinging down her spine, her shoulder blades—wait.
Oh no. No, no, no.
Bryce didn’t dare reach for the tattoo of the Horn, to call attention to the letters that formed the words Through love, all is possible. She could feel them reacting to whatever had been in that spell that set her glowing and could only pray it wasn’t visible.
Her prayers were in vain.
Amren turned to Rhysand and said in that new, strange language—their language: “The glowing letters inked on her back … they’re the same as those in the Book of Breathings.”
They must have seen the words through her T-shirt when she’d been on the floor. With every breath, the tingling lessened, like the glow was fading. But the damage was already done.
They once again assessed her. Three apex killers, contemplating a threat.
Then Azriel said in a soft, lethal voice, “Explain or you die.”
2
Tharion’s blood dripped into the porcelain sink of the hushed, humid bathroom, the roar of the crowd a distant rumble through the cracked green tiles. He breathed in through his nose. Out through his mouth. Pain rippled along his aching ribs.
Stay upright.
His hands clenched the chipped edges of the sink. He inhaled again, focusing on the words, willing his knees not to buckle. Keep standing, damn you. He’d taken a beating tonight.
The minotaur he’d faced in the Viper Queen’s ring had been twice his weight and at least four feet taller than him. He had a hole in his shoulder leaking blood down the sink drain thanks to the horns he hadn’t been fast enough to avoid. And several broken ribs thanks to blows from fists the size of his head.
Tharion loosed another breath, wincing, and reached for the small medkit on the lip of the sink. His fingers shook, fumbling with the vial of potion that would blunt the edge of the pain and accelerate the healing his Vanir body was already doing.