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A thought, and her will was their will. The Mask called, and the souls of the Fallen answered, drifting from the wall like a swarm of fireflies.
Rustling filled the air. The wings began to beat slowly at first, like butterflies testing out their new bodies. The flapping of wings filled the throne room, the world. A storm wind from Hunt had the pins ripping free. All but two sets—one a familiar gray, one shiningly white—loosed into the world.
And then the throne room was full of wings—white and gray and black, soaring, their sparks of soul shining brightly within them, visible only to Bryce as she looked through the Mask.
Hunt and Bryce stood in the center of the storm, her hair whipped about by their wind, skin grazed by their downy feathers.
A spark of Hunt’s lightning struck the two pairs of wings still pinned to the wall. His own wings, and Isaiah’s. They caught fire, burning until they were nothing but ashes floating on the breeze of a thousand wings, freed at last from this place.
Another storm wind from Hunt and the doors to the hall opened. The windows lining the hall exploded.
And the wings of the Fallen soared for the open blue sky beyond.
The throne room emptied of them, like water down a drain, leaving a lone figure in the doorway. Staring at them.
Rigelus.
Feathers floated in the air around him.
“What,” the Bright Hand seethed, glowing with power, “do you think you’re doing?”
He stepped in, and his eyes went right to Bryce’s face. Maybe it was the Mask, maybe she had been pushed beyond her limits, but she felt no fear, absolutely none, as she looked at the Bright Hand of the Asteri and said, “Righting a wrong.”
But Rigelus narrowed his eyes at the Mask. “You bear a weapon you have no business wielding.”
In the streets beyond, people were shouting at the sight of the host of wings flying overhead.
Dead and undead—Rigelus’s nature confused the Mask. Alive and not-alive. Breathing and not-breathing. It couldn’t get a grip on the Bright Hand, and it seemed to be recoiling, pulling away from Bryce—
She focused. You obey me.
The Mask halted. And remained in her thrall.
Rigelus eyed Hunt in his battle-suit and helmet. But he said to Bryce, “You traveled a long way from home, Bryce Quinlan.” He advanced one step. That he hadn’t attacked yet was proof of his wariness.
Hunt’s lightning slithered over the floor.
But Bryce pointed behind Rigelus. To one of the hills beyond the city walls, where the wings had landed in the dry grass. They coated the hilltop, wings flapping idly, a flock of butterflies come down to rest.
And Bryce commanded them, Rise, as you once were.
Ice colder than that in Nena flowed through her, toward the now-distant wings. She could sense Hunt’s pain, but Bryce didn’t take her eyes from Rigelus.
“You have no idea what powers you toy with, girl,” Rigelus said. “The Mask will curse your very soul—”
“Let’s spare ourselves the idle threats this time,” Bryce said, and pointed out the window again. This time to the army that had crept up to stand among the wings bearing those souls. “I think you have bigger issues to deal with.”
She smiled then—a predator’s smile, a queen’s smile—as the armies of Hel crested the hill.
“Right on time,” Bryce said.
Rigelus said nothing as more and more of those dark figures appeared atop the hill. Spilling out from the portal she’d opened for them just over its other side, hidden from view.
At the sight of the teeming hordes cresting the hills, seemingly from nowhere, at the sight of the three princes marching at their front …
People began screaming in the streets. Another signal—for Declan. To get the evacuation order out under the guise of an Imperial Emergency Alert. Every phone in this city would buzz with the command to escape beyond the city walls—to the coast, if they could.
Rigelus stared toward the armies of Hel now assembled on his doorstep.
