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They had a few close calls, and Hunt wished again for his Umbra Mortis suit, if only for the helmet’s heightened hearing to detect any passing politicians or workers.
The politicians could get fucked for all Hunt cared. But the workers … Gods willing, when the time came, the workers would be able to escape. That when Declan hacked into the Asteri alert system, their phones would buzz with the evacuation order to get the fuck out of the palace, and they would heed the warning.
Hunt’s heart was thundering through every inch of him as he and Bryce hid in the shadows of a massive statue of Polaris, the female’s hands upraised in victory.
Beyond the statue rose a familiar set of doors. The whole hallway was precisely as it had been the last time Hunt had seen it, before his lightning and Rigelus’s power had blasted it to smithereens: busts of the Asteri lining one wall, the windows overlooking the seven hills of the Eternal City on the other. And somewhere out there, inching along the main road of the Sacra Via … Dec and Flynn would be waiting.
But not for them. Hunt knew he and Bryce might never come back from this fight.
If they succeeded in destroying the firstlight core and cutting off the Asteri’s renewable source of power, then they’d have to get close enough to those bastards for Bryce to use the sword and knife. To unite them using that star, and risk whatever might happen with a portal to nowhere.
Theia had been afraid of it. Aidas had warned them to choose life, for fuck’s sake, if the portal was too dangerous. It didn’t bode well. But what other options did they have?
There were too many ifs, too many unknowns. It was an even flimsier plan than the last time they’d snuck into this palace. And while they’d all agreed on the plan together, if it failed, if Bryce or any of them died …
No. He wouldn’t go down that road again. He had made mistakes in the past, bad calls, but fighting against tyranny, against brutality, would never be the wrong choice.
Hunt glanced to his mate, her attention fixed on the hallway. On the Gate at its far end. Sensing his attention, she mouthed, Go, and motioned him along. And Hunt went, as he’d go anywhere, so long as it was with her.
For the first time in his life, it seemed that Urd was listening as he and Bryce slipped past the doors into the empty throne room. He gazed at the towering wall of the Fallen’s wings behind the seven crystal thrones.
And there, at its center, pinned like a new trophy, was his Umbra Mortis helmet and suit.
* * *
Bryce held the Mask in her hands, its gold surface shimmering among the crystal of the sterile throne room. The wings of the Fallen hung on the wall, a fluttering array of colors and shapes and sizes. So many lives, given toward this moment.
Hunt buckled the last bit of his suit into place, fitting the Umbra Mortis helmet over his head. Bryce hadn’t questioned him when he took it off the wall. She knew why he wanted it.
Just as she knew that his wings, pinned right above Rigelus’s throne, could not remain.
He’d wear that suit and helmet one more time. It wouldn’t be the Umbra Mortis wearing that suit, but Hunt. Her Hunt.
And together they would end this.
She wished Ithan had made it in time with Hypaxia’s antidote. But they couldn’t delay this—not by a single minute.
Bryce ran her thumbs over the Mask’s smooth brow. It looked like a death mask for some long-dead king. Had it been crafted around the mold of some Asteri’s face? Fashioned after the hateful visage of a Daglan in that other world?
“Bryce,” Hunt warned, his voice low and warped through the helmet.
She beheld the Shadow of Death standing there. He drew his twin swords from the back of his suit, flipping them in his hands. “Do it now.”
All she’d ever done in her life, every step … it had led here.
Here, to this chamber, with the wings of the noble Fallen around her. With Hunt, one of the few remaining warriors.
But no longer.
Bryce lifted the Mask to her face, and closed her eyes as she slid it on. The metal adhered to her skin. It sucked at her face, her soul—
The world diluted again. Alive, not-alive. Breathing, not-breathing. Dead … undead.
The star inside her flared brightly, as if to say, Hello, old friend. Yes, the ancient magic knew the Mask. It understood its deepest secrets.
Bryce turned to the wings. And in the shadow-vision of the Mask, where the wings were pinned, most held a twinkling light. The kernel of a soul. The last scraps of their existences, shining like a wall of stars.
She’d been right: They had never been given Sailings. It had been the final insult to the dead warriors, the shame of being denied a blessed afterlife. It would prove to be the Asteri’s downfall. These souls, left to wander for centuries, were now hers to claim.
