AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, I’ll get the Trove soon enough,” Vesperus said, and peered at the hole above her coffin, the ruined chamber beyond.
For a heartbeat, Bryce wasn’t in the tomb, but back in Griffin Antiquities. A heartbeat, and she was in the library below the gallery, Micah held at bay, Lehabah begging her to go—
She’d found a way then. She’d killed a fucking Archangel.
There were two blades practically screaming for her to use them. Bryce again reached out a hand, her will, toward Azriel. And as surely as the Starsword had done, Truth-Teller flew from his grip. He tried to grab it, but even his swift lunge wasn’t fast enough to stop it. To stop Bryce as the knife soared for her fingers.
The dagger’s hilt landed in her palm, cool and heavy.
Her body began to hum. Like having one blade in each hand—the Starsword and Truth-Teller—electrified her.
Bryce stepped toward Vesperus. Vesperus swayed back slightly. Just as Bryce had suspected.
Behind her, Nesta and Azriel unleashed twin bolts of magic, one silver, one blue—arcing toward Vesperus from two directions. Splitting Vesperus’s attention for a heartbeat—
The heartbeat Bryce had used to kill Micah.
The heartbeat that she used now to spring at the Asteri, sword in one hand, dagger in the other.
Bone collided with metal, and Vesperus screeched in rage as Bryce plunged Truth-Teller and the Starsword into her chest.
Bryce threw her power into the Starsword, light ripping through the black blade, willing it to tear this fucking monster apart—
She willed it into Truth-Teller, and shadows flowed—
And where the two blades met, where Bryce’s light merged at their nexus, power met power.
Her ears hollowed out. Magic like lightning surged through her, from her. The chamber rippled, a muffled boom echoing through Bryce.
Her blood roared, a beast howling at the moon. She was vaguely aware of a glow, of radiating light that flowed through the Starsword, the dagger—
Vesperus thrashed, falling beyond Bryce’s grip, sinking to her knees.
The Asteri hunched over, hands grappling on the hilts of the blades. She hissed as her skin touched the black metal. “I shall kill you for this.”
But the words were slow … dragged out.
No, that was time slowing, rippling, as it had with Micah, as if the blades were killing the Asteri, a great world power—
A whip of blue magic shot through the world, a ribbon of cobalt piercing the starlight and darkness. She could see every loop and coil as it wrapped around Vesperus’s neck.
Time resumed—sped up to its normal rate. “Stop!” Bryce shouted, but too late.
Vesperus lifted a hand to her neck as Azriel’s blue light dissolved into her skin. She let out a strangled laugh as blood leaked from her mouth. “Still so ignorant. Your power is and will always be mine.”
Blue magic appeared at her fingertips, absorbed from the Illyrian’s attack. She wrapped it around one hand like a glove and grasped the Starsword’s handle.
As if it provided the barrier she needed, allowing her to touch the blade, Vesperus yanked the Starsword free and let it clatter to the stones, coated with gore.
It … it hadn’t worked. The sword and dagger united hadn’t killed her.
Hand glowing blue, Vesperus studied the dagger still in her chest and then smiled at Bryce as she wrapped her fingers, still wreathed in lightning, around the hilt. “I’m going to carve you up with this, girl.”
Nesta rotated Ataraxia in her hand and swung upward. Azriel shouted at her, “Throw your power in the blade!”
“No!” Bryce screamed. The Starsword and Truth-Teller had clearly been weakening the Asteri. If she could figure out how to amplify their power, she’d know how to kill them all—
Vesperus had just yanked Truth-Teller from her chest in a smooth slide when Ataraxia severed flesh and bone, dark blood—or whatever ichor flowed in an Asteri’s veins—spraying.
