The fire around their friends remained, an impenetrable prison. As if the Autumn King had imbued the flames with energy he’d cast outside himself, to linger even past his death. A final punishment. Lidia rushed over, as if she could somehow find a way to undo the flames—
“Let them go,” Bryce said to Morven in a voice she didn’t entirely recognize. “Before we skewer you as well.”
Morven bared his teeth. But despite the blazing hate in his eyes, he lowered himself to his knees and lifted his hands in submission. “I yield.”
The fire vanished. Morven blinked, as if surprised, but said nothing.
Their friends were instantly on their feet, Hunt putting a hand on Sathia’s back to steady her. Then they all came to stand, as one, behind Bryce and Ruhn. And she saw it, for a glimmering heartbeat. Not a world divided into Houses … but a world united.
Bryce walked a few steps to pick up Truth-Teller from where it lay near the Autumn King’s decapitated corpse. She didn’t look at the body, at the blood still pooling outward, as she said to Ruhn, “Helena created the prophecy to explain what these weapons could do, the power needed to take on the Asteri. But I think, in her own way, the prophecy was also her hope for me. What I might do, beyond wielding the power.”
Confusion swirled in Ruhn’s bright blue eyes.
“Sword,” Bryce said, nodding to the Starsword in his hand. She lifted Truth-Teller in her own. “Knife.” And then she pointed to their friends, to the Fae and angel and mer and shifter behind them. “People.”
“It wasn’t only about the Fae,” Ruhn said quietly.
“It doesn’t have to be,” Bryce amended. “It can mean what we want it to.” She smiled slightly. “Our people,” she said to Ruhn, to the others. “The people of Midgard. United against the Asteri.”
It had taken all this time, a journey through the stars and under the earth … but here they were.
Morven spat on the ground. “If you plan to fight the Asteri, you will fail. It doesn’t matter if you unify every House. You will be wiped from the face of Midgard.”
Bryce surveyed the king on his knees. “I appreciate your confidence.”
Morven’s shadows began to seethe along his shoulders again. Rippling down his arms. “I yield now, girl, but the Fae shall never accept a half-breed by-blow as queen, even a Starborn one.”
Ruhn lunged for him, Starsword angling, but Bryce blocked him with an arm. For a long moment, she stared down into Morven’s face. Really, truly looked at it. At the male beneath the crown of shadows.
She found only hate.
“If we win,” Bryce said quietly, “this new world will be a fair one. No more hierarchies and bullshit.” The very things Hunt had fought for. That he and the Fallen had suffered for. “But right now,” Bryce said, “I’m Queen of the Valbaran Fae.” She nodded to the Autumn King’s body cooling on the ground, then smirked at Morven. “And of Avallen.”
Morven hissed, “You’ll be Queen of Avallen over my dead …” He trailed off at the smile on her face. And paled.
“As I was saying,” Bryce drawled, “for the moment, I’m queen. I’m judge, jury …”
Bryce looked to Sathia, still shaken and wide-eyed from the twins’ attack—yet unafraid. Unbroken, despite what the males in her life, what this male, had tried to do to her.
So Bryce peered down at Morven and finished sweetly, “And I’m your motherfucking executioner.”
The King of Avallen was still blazing with hate when Bryce slid Truth-Teller into his heart.
* * *
It was a matter of a few strokes of Truth-Teller through Morven’s neck for Bryce to behead him. And as she rose to her feet, it was a Fae Queen who stood before Ruhn, wreathed in starlight, unflinching before her enemies. From the love shining on Athalar’s face as he beheld Bryce, Ruhn knew the angel saw it as well.
But it was Sathia who approached Bryce. Who knelt at her feet, bowing her head, and declared, “Hail Bryce, Queen of the Midgardian Fae.”
“Oof,” Bryce said, wincing. “Let’s start with Avallen and Valbara and see where we wind up.”
But Flynn and Declan knelt, too. And Ruhn turned to his sister and knelt as well, offering up the Starsword with both hands.
“To right an old wrong,” Ruhn said, “and on behalf of all the Starborn Princes before me. This is yours.”
No words had ever sounded so right. Nor had anything felt so right as when Bryce took the Starsword from him, a formal claiming, and weighed it in her hands.