Not firstlight, not as she knew it on Midgard—but raw Fae power from a time before the Drop. The power ascended toward her through the stone, like a glimmering arrow fired into the dark—
Azriel flapped his wings and was instantly airborne, swooping for the tunnel exit.
Like a small sun emerging from the stone itself, a ball of light burst from the floor. A star, twin to the one in Bryce’s chest. Her starlight at last awoke again, as if reaching with shining fingers for that star hovering inches away.
With trembling hands, Bryce guided the star to the one gleaming on her chest. Into her body.
White light erupted everywhere.
Power, uncut and ancient, scorched through her veins. The hair on her head rose. Debris floated upward. She was everywhere and nowhere. She was the evening star and the last rays of color before the dark.
Azriel had nearly reached the tunnel. Another flap of his wings and he’d be swallowed by its dark mouth.
But at a mere thought from Bryce, stalactites and stalagmites formed, closing in on him. The room became a wolf, its jaws snapping for the winged warrior—
The rock had moved for her, as it had for Silene.
“Stop him,” she said in a voice that was more like her father’s than anything she’d ever heard come out of her mouth.
Azriel swept for the tunnel archway—and slammed into a wall of stone. The exit had sealed.
Slowly, he turned, wings rustling. Blood trickled out of his nose from his face-first collision with the rock now in his path. He spread his wings, bracing for a fight.
The mountain shook, the chamber with it. Debris fell from the ceiling. Walls began shifting, rock groaning against rock. As if the place this had once been was fighting to emerge from the stone.
But Nesta raced at Bryce, Ataraxia drawn, silver flame wreathing the blade.
Bryce lifted a hand, and spike after spike of rock ruptured from the ground, blocking Nesta’s advance. The chamber shuddered again—
“Stop,” Azriel roared, something like panic in his voice. “The cells—”
From far away, she could sense it: the things lurking within the mountain, her mountain. Twisted, wretched creatures. Some had been here since Silene had trapped them. Had been contemplating their escape and revenge all this time. She’d let them out if she restored the mountain to its former glory.
And in that moment, the mountain—the island—spoke to her.
Alone. It was so alone—it had been waiting all this time. Cold and adrift in this thrashing gray sea. If she could reach out, if she could open her heart to it … it might sing again. Awaken. There was a beating, vibrant heart locked away, far beneath them. If she freed it, the land would rise from its slumber, and such wonders would spring again from its earth—
The mountain shook again. Nesta and Azriel had halted ten feet away, Ataraxia a blazing light, Truth-Teller enveloped by shadows. The Starsword remained sheathed at Azriel’s back—but she could have sworn it twitched. As if urging Azriel to draw it.
Nesta warned Bryce, her eyes on the shaking earth, “If you open those cells—”
“I don’t want to fight you,” Bryce said, voice oddly hollow, like the surge of magic she’d taken from Silene’s store had emptied out her soul. “I’m not your enemy.”
“Then let us bring you back to our High Lord,” Nesta snapped. Ataraxia flashed in answer.
“To do what? Lock me up? Cut the Horn out of my skin?”
“If that’s what’s necessary,” Nesta said coldly, knees bending, readying to strike. “If that’s what it takes to keep our world safe.”
Bryce bared her teeth in a feral grin. More spikes of rock shot up from the ground, angling toward Nesta and Azriel. “Then come and take it.”
With a flap of his wings, Azriel burst toward her, fast as a striking panther—
Bryce stomped her foot. Those spikes of stone stretched higher, blocking his way. Blue light flared from him, smashing through the stones.
Bryce stomped her foot again, summoning more lethal spears of rock—but there were none left. Only a vast, gaping void.
Bryce had only a second to realize there literally was a void below her feet, before the ground beneath them collapsed entirely.
23
If the prisoners had done something as drastic as biting off Ruhn’s hand, they had to be dangerously close to breaking. Which left Lidia with too little time, and too few options.
The one before her now seemed the wisest and swiftest. She could only trust that Declan Emmet had gotten the coded message she’d sent through her secure labyrinth of channels and was turning the cameras away at this very moment.