A brimstone missile sailed overhead, sparking with golden light. It hit a building nearby, and the world ruptured.
Even Ithan, with his speed and grace, was thrown. His bones cracked against the building, the Godslayer Rifle swinging from his shoulder. And something else had cracked behind him, not bone but—
Ithan slid to the ground among the screaming people, reaching for his pack. Frantically, he pulled out the container with the vials of antidote for Bryce and Hunt.
Liquid leaked from them. Only shards of the vials remained.
Tharion had more, but Luna knew where the mer was in this mess. The rifle, at least, was unharmed—scraped up along the barrel, but nothing that would affect its usefulness.
He struggled to his feet, but a strong hand gripped him. Helped him up.
Ithan whirled, teeth out, only to find a human woman standing there, her eyes blazing with determination. And behind her, helping the wounded or running for the battle, were more humans. Some in their work clothes, some unarmed, but all heading for the conflict. For this first and possibly last shot against the Asteri.
And he knew. Bryce’s message hadn’t only been a distraction for the Asteri. It had been a rallying cry. For the people who had suffered most at the Asteri’s hands.
So Ithan began hurtling for the palace again. Past all those humans, valiantly helping and fighting—despite the odds, despite the cost. The antidotes for his friends were gone. But he still had the rifle and its bullet.
Make your brother proud.
* * *
Lidia didn’t bother with bullets. She holstered her gun and drew her sword.
She knew the odds against Pollux. But she’d been studying him for years now. Had learned his moves, his arrogance, his tricks.
She hadn’t let him learn hers.
So Lidia glanced sidelong at Ruhn and said, “Get out of here. This is between him and me.”
She wanted nothing to do with Ruhn. He’d shot her—he’d shot her, in some male fit of dominance, and it had kept her from her sons. She’d never forgive him—
“No fucking way.” Ruhn eyed the two guards flanking her sons. As if he could take them, as if Pollux’s gun wasn’t pointed right at the back of his skull.
It’d be a bullet for Ruhn, but Pollux wouldn’t blast her apart with a gun, or with his power. Not right away. He’d want to bloody her up right. Hurt her slow and hard and make her beg for mercy.
The palace shuddered.
“Lidia,” Pollux said with hideous satisfaction. “You look well for someone who’s been knee-deep in trash lately.”
“Fuck you,” Ruhn spat.
Behind Pollux, still several feet down the hallway, her sons stood tall, even as they trembled. The sight short-circuited something in her brain.
But Pollux sneered at Ruhn. “Was it for you that she left, then? Betrayed all she knew? For a Fae princeling?”
“Don’t give him that much credit,” Lidia snarled. She’d say anything to keep Pollux’s attention on her—away from the boys. Ruhn could go to Hel for all she cared. But Lidia gestured between herself and Pollux. “This reckoning was years in the making.”
“Oh, I know,” Pollux said, and motioned to the two angels behind him. “See, the Ocean Queen’s fleet isn’t all that secure. Catch a mer spy, threaten to fillet them, and they’ll tell you anything. Including where the Depth Charger is headed. And the two very interesting children aboard it—their true heritage at last revealed and the talk of the ship.”
Lidia considered every scenario in which she could take on Pollux and get her sons out of here. Few of them ended with her walking out of here alive, too.
“They put up an admirable fight, you know,” Pollux said. “But they couldn’t keep their mouths shut, could they?” He glared at Actaeon. A bruise bloomed on his temple. “You learned quick enough how effective a gag is.”
A flame lit deep inside her, crackling and blazing.
“After all the trouble these two brats gave me,” Pollux said, white wings glimmering with brute power, “I’m really going to enjoy killing them in front of you.”
93
Ruhn kept perfectly still as Brann and Actaeon, bound in gorsian shackles, were shoved to their knees before Pollux by those two imperial guards.
The Hammer smiled at Lidia, who’d gone utterly still and pale. “I knew instantly that they weren’t mine, of course. No sons of my blood could be captured so easily. Pathetic,” he sneered at a seething Brann, who was sporting a bloody nose. The kid would take on the Hammer with his bare hands.