“I’d planned to go right to the archives,” Bryce said. “No royal visit required.”
“The mists,” Ruhn said, “tell him everything. He’ll know we’ve arrived. It’ll infuriate him if you don’t … pay tribute.”
“So we play nice,” Athalar said, draining his glass of water. The other diners kept glancing toward their table—with awe, with dread, with curiosity. All of them pretended not to notice.
“And,” Ruhn added, wincing, “females aren’t permitted in the archives.”
Tharion rolled his eyes. “Please,” he muttered.
“Yeah, yeah,” Bryce said, waving a dismissive hand. “The Autumn King made sure I was aware of their No Girls Allowed rules. But too bad for Morven: I’m going in.”
Hunt nudged her with a gray wing. “I’m assuming you have some plan up your sleeve that you’re going to spring on us at the worst possible moment.”
“I think you mean the coolest possible moment,” Bryce said, and Tharion, despite himself, smiled again.
“Note how she didn’t answer that,” Hunt said darkly to Baxian, who chuckled and said, “Danika was the same.”
An undercurrent of longing and sorrow flowed beneath the Helhound’s light tone. A male who’d lost his mate. It was, rumor claimed, worse than losing one’s soul. Tharion couldn’t decide whether he pitied the male for the loss, or envied him for being lucky enough to have found his mate in the first place. He wondered what Baxian would have preferred: to have never known Danika, or this, to have had their centuries together cut so brutally short.
Bryce reached across the table and squeezed the Helhound’s hand, love and pain on her face. Tharion turned his gaze from the matching expression Baxian gave her as he squeezed her hand back. A private, intimate moment of grieving.
After a moment of silence for the two of them to mourn the wolf they’d both loved, Flynn said, “Avallen is an old and fucked-up place. We need to be fast so we can get the Hel out of there.”
Bryce let go of Baxian’s hand and said primly, “Research takes time.” The perfect imitation of a schoolmarm. But she dropped the act as she added quickly, “Plus I want to visit the Cave of Princes.”
Tharion had heard only legends regarding the famed caves—none of them good.
Ruhn gaped. “And you think you can do this without even saying hello to Morven? Females aren’t allowed in there, either.”
Bryce crossed her arms, leaning into Athalar’s side. “Okay, maybe we’ll drop in for tea.”
Her brother was having none of it. “The Cave of Princes … why? What’s that got to do with the portal-to-nowhere stuff?”
Bryce shrugged, going back to her food. “It’s where the Starsword has always been held. I think there might be some information there.”
“Again … not actually answering,” Hunt said under his breath to Baxian. Tharion stifled his grin of amusement. Especially as Bryce glared at her mate. Athalar just pressed a kiss to her brow, a casual bit of love that had Baxian glancing away.
Tharion wished he had something to offer the Helhound, some sort of comfort. But the gods knew he wasn’t the one to dispense any sort of advice regarding love. Loss, maybe—he’d learned to live with the hole in his chest after Lesia had been murdered—but he doubted Baxian wanted to hear someone try to liken losing a sister to losing one’s mate.
“We shouldn’t stay on Avallen a moment longer than necessary,” Flynn insisted, drawing Tharion’s attention once more. “I’m telling you, every time I’ve been on the island, it’s made my magic … unhappy.” In emphasis, a delicate vine wrapped around his hand, between his fingers. “It literally shrivels up and dies when I’m there.” The vine did just that, withering into dust that sprinkled over his half-eaten plate of fish and rice. Flynn took a bite anyway.
“I always forget you actually have magic,” Bryce said. “But I’ll refrain from making the obvious dig about failing to perform on Avallen.”
“Thanks,” Flynn muttered, shoveling another forkful of food into his mouth.
“We should split up when we arrive,” Declan declared, pushing around his own meal. “Some of us can hit up the archives, and the others can go to the Cave of Princes. We’ll all look for any extra intel about the Starsword and its connection to the dagger.”
With a glance to the massive window at the rear of the mess hall, overlooking the crushing black ocean beyond, Tharion said, “And I’ll be here, praying to Ogenas that you find something useful about how to destroy the Asteri with those blades.”