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Without warning, Nesta stopped, holding up a fist.
Bryce halted beside her, glancing sidelong to find Nesta’s blue-gray eyes making a slow sweep over the tunnel ahead. Icy calm had settled on her face.
Bryce murmured, “What is it?”
Nesta’s eyes again flicked over the terrain.
As Bryce stepped forward, her star illuminated what had given the warrior pause: the tunnel widened into a large chamber, its ceiling so high even Bryce’s starlight didn’t reach it. And in the center of it … the path dropped away on either side, leaving only a sliver of a rocky bridge over what seemed to be an endless chasm.
Bryce knew it wasn’t endless only because far, far below, water roared. A large subterranean river, if the sound was this loud even up here. Bits of spray floated from the darkness, the damp air laced with a thick, metallic scent—iron. There must have been deposits of it down here.
Nesta said with equal quiet, “That bridge is the perfect place for an ambush.”
“From who?” Bryce hissed.
“I haven’t lived long enough to know every horror in this world, but I can tell you that dark places tend to breed dark things. Especially ones as old and forgotten as this.”
“Great. So how do we get across without attracting said dark things?”
“I don’t know—this tunnel is foreign to me.”
Bryce turned to her in surprise. “You’ve never been down this way?”
Nesta cut her a look. “No. No one has.”
Bryce snorted, surveying the chasm and bridge ahead. No movement, no sound other than the rushing water far below. “Who’d you piss off to get sent to retrieve me, anyway?”
She could have sworn Nesta’s lips curved into a smile. “On a good day, too many people to count. But today … I volunteered.”
Bryce arched a brow. “Why?”
That silvery flame flashed in Nesta’s eyes. A shiver slithered along Bryce’s spine. Fae and yet … not.
“Call it intuition,” Nesta said, and stepped onto the bridge.
* * *
They’d made it halfway across the narrow bridge—Bryce doing everything she could not to think about the lack of railings, the seemingly endless drop to that thundering river—when they heard it. A new noise, barely audible above the rapids’ roar.
Talons skittering over stone.
From above and below.
“Hurry.” Nesta drew that plain-yet-remarkable sword. At the touch of her hand, silver flames skittered down the blade and—
The breath whooshed out of Bryce. The sword pulsed, as if all the air around it had vanished. It was like the Starsword, somehow. A sword, but more. Just as Nesta was Fae but more.
“What is your sword—”
“Hurry,” Nesta repeated, stalking across the rest of the bridge.
Bryce mastered herself enough to obey, moving as fast as she dared given the plunge gaping on either side.
Leathery wings fluttered. Those talons scraped along the stone mere feet ahead—
Bryce damned caution to Hel and jogged toward the tunnel mouth beyond, where Nesta was waving at her to hurry the fuck up, sword gleaming faintly in her other hand.
Then Bryce’s star illuminated the rock framing the tunnel’s mouth.
