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“The three of us,” Aidas amended. “Our four other brothers are currently engaged in other conflicts, helping other worlds.”
“I didn’t realize you guys were, like, intergalactic saviors,” Bryce said.
Aidas’s mouth quirked upward. She could have sworn Apollion’s did, too.
“But yes,” Aidas went on, “opening the Northern Rift is the only way for our armies to fully and quickly enter Midgard.”
“After what happened this spring,” Hunt said to his mate, “you trust them not to fucking eat everyone?”
“Those were our pets,” Aidas insisted, “not our armies. And they have been severely punished for it. They will stay in line this time, and follow our orders on the battlefield.”
Bryce glanced to Hunt, but he couldn’t read the expression on her face. The princes flickered once more, the temple shimmering and paling. A tug pulled at Hunt’s gut, yanking him back toward the body he’d left in Avallen.
“I’ll think about it,” Bryce answered.
“This is no game, girl,” Thanatos snapped.
Bryce leveled a cool look at the Prince of the Ravine. “I’m sick and tired of people using girl as an insult.”
Thanatos opened his mouth to respond, but abruptly vanished—his connection had been severed.
Apollion said to Hunt, “Do not squander the gifts that have been given to you—by me, by my brother.” His gaze drifted to the halo on Hunt’s brow. “No true son of Hel can be caged.”
Then he was gone, too.
Son of Hel. Hunt’s very soul iced over at the thought.
Only Aidas remained, seeming to cling to the connection as he spoke to Bryce, his blue eyes intense on her face. “If you find that final piece of Theia’s power … if the cost of uniting the sword and knife is too much, Bryce Quinlan, then don’t do it. Choose life.” He glanced to Hunt. “Choose each other. I have lived with the alternative for millennia—the loss never gets easier to bear.”
Bryce reached a ghostly hand toward Aidas, but the Prince of the Chasm was gone.
And all of Hel with him.
62
Bryce opened her eyes to fire. Blazing, white-hot fire.
Hunt’s lightning instantly surrounded her, but it was too late.
The Autumn King and Morven stood in the chamber, somehow having caught up with them. Shadows wreathed the latter, but her father raged with flame.
And in the center of the room, surrounded by fire that even Tharion’s water could not extinguish, stood her friends.
Bryce gave herself one breath to take in the sight: Tharion, Baxian, Sathia, Flynn, and Declan, all huddled close and ringed by fire. There was no sign of the ghouls in the shadows, but the Murder Twins stood just outside the perimeter, smirking like the assholes they were.
The Autumn King didn’t bother to encircle her and Hunt with fire, knowing that even Hunt’s lightning couldn’t stop him if he chose to burn their prisoners to ashes. It was protection enough.
“Get up,” Morven ordered Bryce, shadows like whips in the Stag King’s hands. “We’ve been waiting long enough for you to snap out of that stupor.”
Hunt hissed, and Bryce glanced over to find angry, blistered weals along her mate’s forearm. They’d been burning Hunt to try to wake him up—
Bryce lifted her eyes to the shadow-crowned King of Avallen. To her sire, standing cold-faced beside him despite the fire at his fingertips. “What did you do with that black salt?” the Autumn King asked quietly. “Who did you see?”
Bryce drew the Starsword and Truth-Teller.
“Relinquish those weapons,” Morven snapped. “You’ve sullied them long enough.”
The fire closed in tighter around their friends. Baxian swore as a lick of it singed his black feathers.
