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“Think very carefully, Bryce Quinlan,” Rigelus said, stepping forward with his hands raised. “One bullet from you into the core, and this world and all its innocents will be sucked into a void with no end.”
The same Void that Apollion had claimed allowed him to devour the Asteri? Polaris’s body had been sucked into nothing—
“You seemed so outraged in your little video,” Rigelus purred, “at the deaths of those innocents in Asphodel Meadows. But what are a few hundred children compared to the millions you damn by firing that bullet?”
A void with no end …
“Kill her, brother,” hissed the fourth Asteri, Austrus, glowing with power. “Kill her, and let us return to battle the princes before they find us down here—”
“What will it be, Bryce Quinlan?” Rigelus asked, extending a hand. “You have my word that if you do not fire that bullet, you and yours shall go free. And remain so.”
The other Asteri whirled on him, outraged.
“I can teach you things you’ve never even dreamed of,” Rigelus promised. “The language inked on your back—it is our language. From our home world. I can teach you how to wield it. Any world might be open to you, Bryce Quinlan. Name the world, and it shall be yours.”
“I only want this world to be free of you,” Bryce said through her teeth. “Forever.”
One of the Asteri began, “How dare you speak to—” but Rigelus interrupted, attention only on Bryce, “That, too, might be possible. A Midgard of your imagining.” He smiled, so earnestly she almost believed him. “Yours will be a life of comfort. I shall set you up as a true queen—not only of the Fae, but of all Valbara. No more Governors. No more angelic hierarchies, if that is what you and Athalar wish. If you desire the dead to be freed, then we shall find a way around death, too. They were always simply dessert to us.”
“Dessert,” Bryce said, hands shaking with anger. She gripped the rifle tighter.
“The secondlight shall be the dead’s to keep,” Rigelus went on.
But Bryce said, a familiar white haze of pure rage creeping over her vision, “They’re not dessert. They’re people. People the inhabitants of this planet knew and loved.”
“A poor choice of words,” Rigelus acknowledged, “and I apologize. But what you wish, you shall have. And if you desire to—”
“Enough of this catering to vermin,” Eosphoros snapped. “She dies.”
“I don’t think so,” Bryce said, and teleported directly to the Asteri. Right to the hole in the floor that Hunt had made. “I think it’s your turn for that.”
She fired the Godslayer Rifle into the firstlight core.
* * *
The Asteri screamed, and time dripped by as the bullet fired from the rifle, slow enough that Bryce could see the writing on its side: Memento Mori.
Powered by the souls of the dead, of Connor and the Pack of Devils and so many more … the dead sacrificing for the sake of the living. The dead, yielding eternity so Midgard might be free.
The bullet spiraled downward, into the light, toward that final crystal barrier.
Rigelus lunged for her, his hands incandescent with uncut power. Once he touched her, she’d be dead—
And maybe this was what Danika had planned all along, in putting the Horn in her, wanting her to claim that other piece of Theia’s star from Avallen. Maybe this was what Urd had planned for her, had whispered she might do ever since she had accessed her power, or what Hel had imagined she and Hunt might one day do.
She wished she’d had a bit more time with Hunt. With her parents and friends. A bit more time to savor the sun, and the sky, and the sea. To listen to music, all the music she could ever hear. To dance—just one more step or spin—
Rigelus was still reaching for her arm with his bright hands; the bullet was still spiraling. And as that bullet of secondlight smashed through that final layer of crystal, as it tunneled down and down—
Bryce wished she’d had more time.
But she didn’t. And if this was the time that she had been given … she’d make it count.
I believe it all happened for a reason. I believe it wasn’t for nothing.
From far away, the words she’d spoken at the Gate the previous spring echoed.
All that had happened had been for this. Not for her, but for Midgard. For the safety and future of all worlds.
