The entire cave shook as lightning and shadow collided. Hunt gritted his teeth.
Tharion had managed to get the knife away from Sathia before she dropped it and impaled her own foot, and now the female crouched in the circle of fire, head gripped in her hands.
The blast of starlight that shot from Bryce as she ran for their enemies threatened to bring down the cavern. Her hair rose above her head, her fingertips shining white-hot with starfire.
Hunt gaped at her power, the beauty and condensed might of it.
But one of the Murder Twins laughed, a spiteful sound that promised his mate would suffer. Six ghouls burst from the shadows, little more than shadows themselves in their dark, tattered robes and reaching, scabbed hands.
What unholy things had the twins done, to become masters of these wretched beings?
Hunt glimpsed jaws stocked with three-inch, curving teeth opening wide, aiming for a distracted Bryce—
With a roar of fury, he sent half a dozen spears of lightning crackling for the ghouls and a seventh—a lucky one—for the twins’ shadows.
Where lightning met ancient malice, the ghouls exploded into sizzling dust. But his lightning fractured against the twins’ wall of darkness. It kept them from joining the fight with Bryce, though it didn’t destroy their shield.
“Help her,” Baxian hissed over the crackling flame, but Hunt shook his head, throwing more of his lightning at the twins, who were now pushing back with a slowly advancing wall of shadow. Hunt dared a glance at Sathia, who watched with wide eyes as Bryce launched herself at the two Fae Kings.
Bryce flew like a shooting star through the dim cavern.
“She doesn’t need my help,” Hunt whispered.
Fire met starlight met shadows, and Bryce loosed herself on the world.
It ended today. Here. Now.
This had nothing to do with the Asteri, or Midgard. The Fae had festered under leaders like these males, but her people could be so much more.
Bryce carried the weight of that with each punch of starfire toward the Autumn King that had him dancing away, with each smothering spate of shadows Morven sent to herd her back toward the stream.
She hadn’t gone to that other world only because of the sword and knife, or to find some magic bullet to stop the rot in her own world. She knew that now.
Urd had sent her there to see, even in the small fraction of their world that she’d witnessed, that Fae existed who were kind and brave. She might have had to betray Nesta and Azriel, trick them … but she knew that at their cores, they were good people.
The Fae of Midgard were capable of more.
Ruhn proved it. Flynn and Dec proved it. Even Sathia proved it, in the short time Bryce had known her.
Bryce launched a line of pure starfire at Morven, gouging deep in the black-salt floor. He dodged, rolling out of reach with a warrior’s skill.
It stopped today.
The pettiness and chauvinism and arrogance that had been the hallmarks of the Fae of Midgard for generations. Pelias’s legacy.
It all fucking stopped today.
The starlight flared around Bryce, the darkness of Silene’s—Theia’s—dusk power giving it shape, transforming it into that starfire. If she could find that final third piece and make the star whole—
She was already whole. What she had—who she was … it was enough. She’d always been enough to take on these bastards, power or no power. Starborn crap or no.
She was enough.
The Murder Twins were returning Hunt’s ambush now. From his angle, Bryce knew Hunt couldn’t see what they were up to behind their wall of shadows, pushing his way, blasting apart his lightning.
But from over here … Bryce could see how they used that wall against Hunt. Used it to shield themselves from view as they turned her way.
Even Hunt’s lightning wasn’t fast enough as the Murder Twins sprang for her with swords drawn. Right as their shadowy talons scraped down the wall of her mind.
It stopped today.
Bryce exploded—into the twins’s minds, their bodies. Flooding them with starfire. A part of her recoiled in horror as their huge forms crumpled to the ground, steaming holes where their eyes had been. Where their brains had been. She’d melted their minds.
Morven screamed in fury—and something like fear.
She’d done that. With only two-thirds of Theia’s star, she’d managed to—
“Bryce!” Hunt shouted, but he was too late—Morven had sent a whip of shadow, hidden beneath a plume of the Autumn King’s flame, for her. It wrapped around her legs and yanked. Bryce slammed into stone, starlight blinking out.
The impact cracked through her skull, setting the world spinning. Or maybe that was the shadows, dragging her closer to the wall of flame.
Bryce slashed down at the leash of shadows with a hand wreathed in starfire.
It tore the darkness into ribbons. Bryce was up in a heartbeat, but not fast enough to dodge the punch of flame the Autumn King sent toward her gut—
Bryce teleported, swift and instinctive as a breath. Right to the Autumn King.
It ended now.
The Autumn King staggered in shock as she grabbed his burning fist in one hand. As she held firm, her nails digging in hard. His fire singed into her skin, blinding her with pain, but she dug her nails in deeper and sent her starfire blasting into him.
Her father roared in agony, falling to his knees. Morven, so stunned he’d been frozen in place, swore brutally.
Bryce stared at what she had done to the Autumn King’s fist. What had once been his hand.
Only melted flesh and bone remained.
The Autumn King retched at the pain, bowing over his knees, hand cradled to his chest.
“Do you think those gifts make you special?” Morven raged, shaking free of his stupor. A swarming nest of shadows teemed around him. “My son could do the same—and he was trash in the end. Just like you.”
Morven’s shadows launched for her like a flock of ravens.
Bryce blasted out a wall of starlight, destroying those shadow birds, but more came, from everywhere and nowhere, from below—
The Autumn King got to his feet, face gray with agony, cradling his charred remnant of a hand. “I’m going to teach you a new definition of pain,” he spat.
And there was no amount of training that could have prepared Bryce, no time to teleport to avoid the two swift attacks from the Fae Kings, matched in power.
She dodged the bone-searing blast of fire from her father, only to have Morven’s shadows grab her again. Hands of pure darkness hurled her onto the stone so hard the breath went out of her. The Starsword and Truth-Teller flew from her fingers.
A female cried out, and for a moment, Bryce thought it might have been Cthona, maybe Luna herself.
But it was Sathia.
It was Sathia, on her feet again, and yet it wasn’t. It was every Fae female who’d come before them.
Bryce exploded her light outward, shredding Morven’s shadows apart. They cleared to reveal the Autumn King standing above her, a sword of flame in his undamaged hand.
“I should have done this a long time ago,” her father snarled, and plunged his burning sword toward her exposed heart.
The Autumn King only made it halfway before light burst from his chest.
Hunt’s lightning had—
No.
It wasn’t Hunt’s lightning that shone through the Autumn King’s rib cage.
It was the Starsword. And it was Ruhn wielding it, standing behind him.
Ruhn, who had driven the sword right through their father’s cold heart.
Ruhn knew in his bones why he’d walked through these caves. He was a Starborn Prince, and he’d come to right an ancient wrong.
With the Starsword in his hand, piercing his father’s heart … Ruhn knew he was exactly where he was meant to be.
The Autumn King let out a shocked grunt, blood dribbling from his mouth.
“I know every definition of pain thanks to you,” Ruhn spat, and yanked out the sword.
His father collapsed face-first onto the stone floor.
Even Morven’s shadows halted as the Autumn King struggled to raise himself onto his hands. Lidia, guarding Ruhn’s back against the Stag King, said nothing.
No pity stirred in Ruhn’s heart as his father gurgled blood. As it dribbled onto the stones. The Autumn King lifted his head to meet Ruhn’s stare.
Betrayal and hatred burned in his face.
Ruhn said into his mind, into all their minds, I lied about what the Oracle said to me.
His father’s eyes flared with shock at Ruhn’s voice in his head, the secret his son had kept all these years. Ruhn didn’t care what Morven made of it, didn’t even bother to look at the Stag King. Bryce and Athalar could handle the shadows, if Morven was dumb enough to attack.
So Ruhn stared into his father’s hateful face and said, The Oracle didn’t tell me that I would be a fair and just king. She told me that the royal bloodline would end with me.
He had the sense that his friends were watching with wide eyes. But he only had words for the pathetic male before him.
I thought it meantyour bloodline.
Ruhn lifted the bloodied Starsword. Flame simmered along his father’s body, limning his powerful form. But Ruhn was no longer a cowering boy, inking himself with tattoos to hide the scarring.
I was wrong. I think the Oracle meant all of them, Ruhn went on, mind-to-mind. The male lines. The Starborn Princes included—all you fucks who have corrupted and stolen and never once apologized for it. The entire system. This bullshit of crowns and inheritance.
His father’s sneering voice filled his mind. You’re a spoiled, ungrateful brat who never deserved to carry my crown—
I don’t want it,Ruhn snapped, and shut down the bridge between their minds that allowed his father to speak. He’d had enough of listening to this male.
Blood trickled from his father’s lips as his Vanir body sought to heal him—to rally his strength to attack.
The line will end with me, you fucking prick,Ruhn said into his father’s mind, because I yield my crown, my title, to the queen.
True fear turned his father’s face ashen. And out of the corner of his eye, Ruhn saw Bryce’s star begin to glow.
A serene peace bloomed in him. I always assumed the Oracle’s prophecy meant that I would die. He let his kernel of starlight flicker down the blade, an answer to Bryce’s beckoning blaze. One last time.
But I am going to live,he said to his father. And I am going to live well—without you.
Even Morven’s shadows weren’t fast enough as Ruhn whipped the Starsword through the air again. And sliced clean through his father’s neck.