“I played right into her hands.” Ithan’s voice was soft, broken.
No one spoke. No one seemed inclined to. So Tharion figured he might as well ask, “How so?”
Ithan shook his head and looked out the window, face blank, still blood-splattered. He said nothing more.
They drove on through the city, somehow unchanged despite what had just occurred. Drove all the way to the Rose Gate and the Eastern Road beyond it. To the coast, and the ship that would be waiting for them.
And all the consequences that would follow.
* * *
Bryce backed away as Azriel advanced a step toward the crystal coffin, Truth-Teller now glowing with black light in his left hand.
Bryce had seen the gold-clad creature who now slumbered in the coffin before, she realized: when Silene had related her mother’s story. This female before them … she was the Asteri who’d ruled here. Theia’s mistress.
The Asteri’s blue eyes lowered to the dagger. “You dare draw a weapon before me? Against those who crafted you, soldier, from night and pain?”
“You are no creator of mine,” Azriel said coldly. The Starsword gleamed in his other hand. If they bothered him, if they called to him, he didn’t let on. Neither hand so much as twitched.
The Asteri’s eyes flared with recognition at the long blade. “Did Fionn send you, then? To slay me in my sleep? Or was it that traitor Enalius? I see that you bear his dagger—as his emissary? Or his assassin?”
The words must have meant something to Azriel. The warrior let out a small noise of shock.
“Fionn indeed sent us to finish you off,” Nesta lied with impressive menace. “But it looks like now we’ll have the pleasure of killing you awake.”
The Asteri smiled again. “You’ll have to open this sarcophagus to get me.”
Bryce smiled back at her, all teeth. “Fionn sent them. But Theia sent me.”
Blue fire simmered in the creature’s eyes. “That traitorous bitch will be dealt with after I handle you.”
Azriel started to move along the coffin. Assessing the best way to attack the Asteri, no doubt. “Unfortunately for you,” Bryce taunted, “Theia’s been dead for fifteen thousand years. So have the rest of your buddies. Your people are little more than a half-forgotten myth in this world.”
For a heartbeat, it was the creature’s turn to blink. As if a memory had cleared, she said, more to herself than them, “Theia was so charming that day. Told me I looked tired, and to replenish myself in the crystal here, above the well. But she sealed me within instead. To let me starve to death over the eons.” Teeth, white as snow, flashed. “And in my dreams, she danced upon the stones above me. Danced upon my grave while I starved beneath her feet.”
“Give me the Starsword,” Bryce murmured to Azriel. The blade had killed Reapers. Maybe it could kill an Asteri. Maybe that was what she’d come here to learn.
“No,” Azriel snarled. “You brought this terror upon us.”
“I had no idea she was here—”
“Release me, slaves,” the Asteri cut in. “I grow impatient.”
Why hadn’t Theia warned her daughters that this thing was down here? Why be so irresponsible, so reckless—
Et in Avallen ego. Even here, on this island that had been a paradise during Theia’s reign, this evil had existed. And Theia had warned her children about it—that evil was always lurking beneath them, waiting to grab them. Literally.
The taint of the Asteri who had ruled here, Silene had claimed, had lingered about this place—a terrible, ancient power. Enough so that it had needed to be concealed by the Prison’s wickedness. Silene just hadn’t figured out that it remained because an Asteri was still present.
And here, against all odds, was a living link to the past, to answers Bryce needed. If Urd had guided her this far …
Bryce said calmly, “I have questions for you. If you don’t answer them, I’m happy to leave you down here until the end of eternity.”
“Oh, this planet will be long dead before eternity has ended. Its star will expand, and expand, and eventually devour everything in its path. Including this world.”
“Thanks for the astronomy lesson.”
A slow smile. “I shall answer your questions … if you release me from this tomb.”
Bryce held her stare.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Azriel murmured.
But time pressed down on her. With every minute, Hunt suffered. She was sure of it.
The very stones and wards of this place answered to her will …