Ruhn watched his sister glance between the Starsword and Truth-Teller, one blade blazing with starlight, the other with darkness. “What now?” she asked quietly.
“Other than taking a moment to process the deaths of those two assholes over there?” Ruhn said. He nodded toward Morven and his father.
Bryce offered a watery smile. “We learned some things, at least.”
“Yeah?” The others were all crowding around them now, listening.
“Turns out,” Athalar said with what Ruhn could have sworn was forced casualness, “Theia did some weird shit with her star magic, divvying it up between herself and her daughters. Long story short, Bryce has two of those pieces, but Helena used Avallen’s nexus of ley lines and natural magic to hide the third piece somewhere on Avallen. If Bryce can get that piece, the sword and knife will be able to open a portal to nowhere, and we can trap the Asteri inside it.”
Bryce gave Hunt a look as if to say there was a lot more to it than that, but she said, “So … new mission: find the power Helena hid. Aidas claimed that Helena used Midgard’s ley lines to hide it in these caves after Pelias died.” She sighed, scanning all their faces. “Any thoughts on where it might be?”
Ruhn blinked at her. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “I do have a thought.”
“Really?” Athalar said, frowning.
“Don’t look so shocked,” Ruhn grumbled.
Lidia came up to his side, adding, “After Pelias died, you say?”
“Yeah. It’s complicated—”
“I think it’s part of the land,” Lidia interrupted. “In the very bones of Avallen.”
Bryce and Athalar raised their eyebrows, but Ruhn glanced to Lidia and nodded. “It explains a lot.”
Bryce cut in, “Like …？”
“Like why Avallen was once part of an archipelago, but now it’s only one island,” Ruhn said. “You said Helena drew upon Avallen’s ley lines to contain her mother’s star—to hide it here, right? I think doing so drained all the land’s magic from its ley lines, and repurposed it to encage Theia’s power. It made the land wither. Just as you said Silene’s own lands withered around the Prison while it held her own share of power.”
Bryce mused, “Silene had the Horn, but Helena had to use the ley lines instead. Yet both had a disastrous effect on the land itself.” She peered down at the blades again.
“How do you propose getting the magic out?” Lidia challenged. “We have no idea how to access it.”
No one answered. And, fuck, Morven and the Autumn King were lying there, dead and dismembered, and—
“Anyone got any bright ideas?” Tharion asked into the fraught silence.
Ruhn stifled his laugh, but Bryce slowly turned toward the mer, as if in surprise.
“Bright,” she murmured. Then looked at Athalar, scanning his face. “Light it up,” she whispered. As if it was the answer to everything.
* * *
Bright.
Light.
Light it up.
The world seemed to pause, as if Urd herself had slowed time as each thought pelted Bryce.
She glanced at the walls. At the river of starlight that Helena had depicted at the bottom of every carving.
Mere hours ago, she’d thought it was the bloodline of the Starborn in artistic form.
But Silene had depicted the evil running beneath the Prison in her carvings, unwittingly warning about Vesperus … Perhaps Helena, too, had left a clue.
A final challenge.
Bryce peered down at the eight-pointed star in the center of the room. The two strange slits in the points. One small, one larger.
She looked at the weapons in her hands: a small dagger, and a large sword. They’d fit right into the slits in the floor, like keys in a lock.
Keys to unlock the power stored beneath. The last bit of power she needed to open the portal to nowhere.
That power had originally belonged to the worst sort of Fae, but it didn’t have to. It could belong to anyone. It could be Bryce’s for the taking.
To light up this world.
“Bryce?” Hunt asked, a hand on her back.
Bryce rallied herself, breathing deep. Bits of debris and rock from her battle with the Fae Kings began drifting upward.
She walked through it, right to that eight-pointed star on the ground, identical to the one on her chest. The debris and rock swirled, a maelstrom with her at its center.
Bryce inhaled deeply, bracing herself as she whispered, “I’m ready.”
“For what?” Hunt demanded, but Bryce ignored him.