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“Oh right,” she said. “Because I’m your stupid, bumbling daughter. I landed here by accident—is that it?” She laughed, unable to help herself. “You probably even convinced yourself it was Luna sending you some sort of gift. That you were given the gods’ favor and this was destined by Urd.”
His silence was confirmation enough.
She made an exaggerated pout. “Tough luck. And really tough luck about the shackle. Though I guess it’s fitting that I used the key Ruhn kept in his room. He told me about it once, you know. That’s what he had to use when you’d bind him with these and burn him. You put these delightful things on him so he couldn’t fight back. And it happened often enough that he invested in a disarming key that he left in his desk so he could free himself when you sent him back to his room to suffer.”
Again, the Autumn King said nothing. The bastard wouldn’t deny it.
Bryce flashed her teeth, searing white rage creeping over her vision. But her voice was cold as ice as she said, “To be honest, I’d really like to kill you right now. For my mom, but also for Ruhn. And for me, too, I guess.” She nodded to the doorway. “But we do have a bargain, don’t we? And I’ve got a hot date today.”
Pure death loomed in his eyes. “The Asteri will kill you.”
“Maybe. But you’re not going to help them by telling them about this.” She extended the Starsword toward his face. He didn’t dare move as she bopped him on the nose with its tip. “It’s a real shame that you unplugged all your electronics and shut off your interweb. There’ll be no way to call for help from the basement closet.”
He choked on his outrage. “The—”
“Oh, don’t worry,” she drawled. “I put a bucket and some water in there for you. Probably enough to last until one of your meathead guards wonders what’s going on in here and comes to check.” She pretended to think. “They might have a bitch of a time getting through your wards, though.”
“As will you.”
“Unfortunately for you, no, I won’t. You didn’t ward against teleporting. Such a rare gift here—you didn’t even think to spell against it, did you? Lucky me.”
“I would consider your next moves very carefully if—”
“Yeah, yeah.” She pointed with the sword to the door. “Let’s go. Your subterranean abode awaits.”
He didn’t try anything as she escorted him down, clearly wary of the power of the weapons she held.
Ever since Vesperus had writhed under the two blades, there had been a thought niggling at the back of Bryce’s mind. Remembering all Ruhn had told her about the Autumn King’s obsession with the Starsword, she’d gambled that he might know about the dagger, too.
It had been the hardest decision she’d ever made: to come here, to play this game, rather than to will the portal to take her right to Hunt. But Hunt, as she had feared, had still been in the dungeons, and to appear there would have been too risky. And this knowledge was too important.
But now she knew a little more. The Starsword and Truth-Teller could open a portal to nowhere, whatever that was. Now she just needed to learn how to make them do it.
Good thing he’d also told her where on Midgard to find more information about the blades.
The Autumn King balked as Bryce pointed with the sword to the open closet in the basement. Like so much of the house, it was fireproof. The heavy steel door would likely take him a while to break out of, if he even managed to free himself from the gorsian shackle.
The Autumn King growled as he backed into the closet, “I will kill you and your bitch mother for this.”
She motioned him further inside. “I’ll pencil you in for tomorrow.”
With that, she slammed the door shut in his face and locked it. He barreled into it a second later, the door shuddering, but it held.
Whistling to herself, propping the Starsword on a shoulder, Bryce strode out of the basement.
There was so much more to do. Places to be. People to see.
And more to learn.
Five minutes later, Bryce pulled her phone out of the desk drawer in the Autumn King’s study. It was dead, and a quick search of his office showed no hint of charging cords to get it working again. She slipped it into the band of her leggings, then picked up the Starsword and Truth-Teller from where she’d placed them on the desk.
The Autumn King’s prism device sat where he’d left it. An idle beam of sunlight shone through the windows, catching in the prism and refracting a rainbow onto one of the golden planets of the orrery—on Midgard. Light pulled apart. Light stripped bare.
In the chaos of those final moments with Vesperus and these days with the Autumn King, she hadn’t yet had a chance to explore the magic she’d taken from Silene’s store.
She’d claimed the magic, she supposed, as Silene had surely left it there for future heirs to take. But why hadn’t they? Why hadn’t her son, who’d heard the truth directly from her mouth? Bryce knew she might never know the answer now. But she could try to learn something about the power she now held within her.
With a sharp inhale, Bryce rallied her magic. On the exhale, she sent a stream of her starlight into the prism, her power faster than ever before.
