That darkness was pure Pit. Fires blazed on the other side of the field—that had to be Lidia.
“Ruhn!” He knew that voice.
He turned, Tharion a limp weight on his shoulder, and found Ithan Holstrom sprinting toward them, a rifle over his shoulder.
He knew that rifle, too. The Godslayer Rifle.
Ithan’s face was splattered with dirt and blood, like he’d fought his way up here. “Is Ketos alive?” At Ruhn’s nod, Ithan asked, “Where’s Bryce?”
As if in answer, light flared from the palace above and behind them.
Ruhn’s blood turned to ice. “We told her and Athalar to meet us. But it was a trap … fuck.”
“I need to get to Bryce,” Ithan said urgently.
Ruhn pointed to the palace, and couldn’t find the words, any words, to say that the wolf might already be too late.
Ace and Brann looked up at him, at the palace, at the battlefield.
His charges. His to protect through the storm.
“Run,” Ruhn told Ithan, and motioned to the twins. “Keep close, and follow my lead.”
95
Bryce’s breath sawed through her lungs, but she gave herself over to it. To the wind and movement and propulsion of herself and Hunt through the small space as Rigelus launched strike after strike.
She was not the scared female she’d been a week ago, running from him down the hall. She knew Theia’s star gave her enough of an edge to keep one step ahead of Rigelus as she teleported again and again and again.
They just had to deactivate the core, and then she’d take the sword and knife and go after the Asteri. One by one.
Hunt’s lightning slammed continuously into the floor. But she and Hunt kept moving, so fast that one boom hadn’t finished sounding before another began. The sound was monstrous, all-consuming, and the room rained stone and crystal.
But in the center of the room, the tunnel of warped, melted crystal was almost complete.
Minutes had passed, maybe years. It was a dance, keeping one step ahead of Rigelus, and she knew that it would come to its crashing finale soon enough.
Another blow, and the glow of the firstlight core blazed, casting Rigelus’s furious face in stark relief.
Bryce teleported them away, but it was slower—too slow—
Rigelus snapped his power at them.
A wall like burning acid sent them careening into the stairwell, and Bryce knew only Hunt’s lightning kept it from being fatal. She rallied her power to teleport, but it sputtered out.
“Perhaps you should not have expended so much of your strength against Polaris.” Rigelus smirked, and lifted his gleaming hand—
It was a choice of death or survival.
Bryce teleported herself and Hunt—but not to the center of the room. They crashed to the floor a level above, clear of the core.
“One more strike!” Hunt was shouting. “Bryce, one more fucking strike and we’re through—”
Bryce’s knees buckled, and her head swam. Her power had dissolved into stardust in her veins.
Hunt caught her as she swayed. “Bryce.” Her nose stung; she could taste the blood in her mouth, metallic and sharp. “Fuck,” Hunt hissed, and grabbed her face in his hands. “Bryce—look at me.”
It took effort. Too much effort.
“I’m sorry,” she panted, and the words were barely a rasp. “I’m sorry.” All that power she’d attained … what good had it done? And what good would having the Starsword and the knife be if she had no starlight left to unite them?
“One more, Bryce,” Hunt said, breathing hard. Blood leaked from his own nostrils. The cost of all that power, without cease. “Just one more blow, I can feel it …”
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
They had to get back down there before Rigelus could find some way to repair the damage they’d done. “Okay,” she said again, but her power wouldn’t rally. She looked to Hunt. “A boost?”
From the concern in his eyes, she knew he didn’t have much left, either. But his lightning sparked, a crown about his head, making a primal god of him.
Rather than strike her with his Helfire, he hauled her to him and kissed her.
Lightning flowed from him into her, a living river of song and power. She pulled back, panting hard, and it hadn’t been much, but it was there, it was enough—
“Stop,” called an exhausted male voice from down the hall.
And though she’d leapt between worlds and ended Archangels and Asteri, nothing had prepared her to see Ithan Holstrom racing down the palace hallway with the Godslayer Rifle slung over his shoulder.