Fae against Fae. It shouldn’t have bothered her. Shouldn’t have grabbed her as it did: the warrior-female’s merciless expression as she embedded her spear in the agonized face of the female soldier before her. It shouldn’t have unsettled something in Bryce to see it.
She’d long ago understood that this kind of thing wasn’t beyond the Fae. She took comfort in knowing she wasn’t like them, would never be that way.
Yet what she’d just done …
She wasn’t a monster. Was she?
Maybe she’d regret it. She knew Hunt would have yelled at her for setting a trap only to go help the people she’d ensnared.
But Bryce began running again, hurtling through the cave. Back toward Nesta and Azriel.
And prayed there was something left for her to save.
* * *
Bryce realized now, as she retraced her steps, that what she’d earlier thought to be the roaring of the river was in fact the thunderous movement of the Wyrm’s massive body. Azriel and Nesta must have made the same mistake.
In the dark, her starlight silvered the walls, casting the world into stark relief.
Her starlight hadn’t felt so … empty before. While it had been guiding them, it had been comforting, had brought some color and spark to this realm of eternal night. Now, bobbing with every sprinting step, it seemed harsh. Devoid of color.
Like even the light was disgusted by her.
Nesta and Azriel weren’t in the tunnel by the carving of the archway. From the shaking of the ground and the snapping of jaws ahead, they’d driven the Wyrm back to the river.
Bryce checked herself in time to slow to a walk before reaching the bank, reminding herself of Randall’s training.
Observe, assess, decide.
So she crept up the last few feet toward the rushing water, a hand over her star to dim it, and—
They weren’t there. No sign of the Wyrm or its meal. Her stomach dropped. They’d seemed supremely badass and capable. Surely that Wyrm couldn’t have …
It had.
Nesta lay sprawled on a large rock in the river not ten feet away. No sign of the Wyrm or Azriel. Perhaps it had eaten him already. And would soon return for the other part of its meal.
Oh gods, she’d done this, she’d fucked up beyond forgiveness—
Bryce raced to Nesta’s prone form, splashing through the icy water, slipping over stones, the river foaming around her waist in a strong current as she reached to turn the female over—
Nesta’s eyes were open. And blazing with fury.
A hand wrapped around Bryce’s throat. A blade poked into her back. And Azriel’s voice was whisper-soft as he snarled, “Give me one reason not to bury this knife in your spine.”
Bryce bared her teeth. “Because I came back to help?”
Nesta snorted, getting to her feet. Utterly unharmed.
“The Wyrm?” Bryce managed to ask, trying not to think about the knife angled to slide into her body. Or about the tug and thrum of the Starsword and the dagger, so near to her now.
“It’s hunting us,” Nesta seethed, eyeing the river, the tunnel.
“Then fucking run,” Bryce panted. “The tunnel’s open—”
“We’re not leaving that thing alive in the world,” Azriel said with quiet venom. Nesta unsheathed Ataraxia, the blade glowing faintly. Her demeanor was calm, as if this was all in a day’s work.
Solas burn her. Randall would kill her for being so stupid. “You lured me here.”
Nesta nodded to Azriel, who withdrew his blade but kept a hand on Bryce’s shoulder, either to prevent her from moving or to hold her steady in the river’s current. “You saved me from the traps in the walls. It only made sense that you’d have a guilty conscience to go with that soft heart.”
Scratch that: her mother would kill her for being so stupid.
“I—” Bryce began, but Nesta said, “Save it.”
The sharp tone was enough to make Bryce peer into the river’s darkness, the tunnel on either side. Even the call of the Starsword and Truth-Teller became secondary as she asked, “How did it disappear?”
“Deep pits in the riverbed,” Azriel murmured. “It got one whiff of Nesta’s power and dove into one. But from the shaking of the stone … it’s staying close. Watching us.”
“Then why the fuck are we standing in the river?”
Nesta smirked at her. “Bait.”
* * *
Make your brother proud.
The Viper Queen might as well have shot Ithan in the fucking gut. Like she knew precisely how ashamed Connor would have been of how far he’d fallen.