AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The female went on, “If you are to be believed, how is it that you came here? Why did you come here?”
Bryce surveyed the otherwise empty cell. No table glittering with torture instruments, no breaks in the solid stone beyond the door and the grate in the center of the floor, a few feet away. A grate from which she could have sworn a hissing sound emanated.
“What world is this?” Bryce rasped, the words gravelly. After Ruhn’s body double had introduced himself in that lovely, cozy foyer, he’d grabbed her hand. The strength of his grip, the brush of his calluses against her skin had been the only solid things as wind and darkness had roared around them, the world dropping away—and then there was only solid rock and dim lighting. She’d been brought to a palace carved beneath a mountain, and then down the narrow stairs to this dungeon. Where he’d pointed to the lone chair in the center of the room in silent command.
So she’d sat, waiting for the handcuffs or shackles or whatever restraints they used in this world, but none had come.
The short female countered, “Why do you speak the Old Language?”
Bryce jerked her chin at the female. “Why do you?”
The female’s red-painted lips curved upward. It wasn’t a reassuring sight. “Why are you covered in blood that is not your own?”
Score: one for the female.
Bryce knew her blood-soaked clothes, now stiff and dark, and her blood-crusted hands did her no favors. It was the Harpy’s blood, and a bit of Lidia’s. All coating Bryce as a part of a careful game to keep her alive, to keep their secrets safe, while Hunt and Ruhn had—
Her breath began sawing in and out. She’d left them. Her mate and her brother. She’d left them in Rigelus’s hands.
The walls and ceiling pushed in, squeezing the air from her lungs.
Rhysand lifted a broad hand wreathed in stars. “We won’t harm you.” Bryce found the rest of the sentence lurking within the dense shadows around him: if you don’t try to harm us.
She closed her eyes, fighting past the jagged breathing, the crushing weight of the stone above and around her.
Less than an hour ago, she’d been sprinting away from Rigelus’s power, dodging exploding marble busts and shattering windows, and Hunt’s lightning had speared through her chest, into the Gate, opening a portal. She’d leapt toward Hel—
And now … now she was here. Her hands shook. She balled them into fists and squeezed.
Bryce took a slow, shuddering breath. Another. Then opened her eyes and asked again, her voice solid and clear, “What world is this?”
Her three interrogators said nothing.
So Bryce fixed her eyes on the female, the smallest but by no means the least deadly of the group. “You said the Old Language hasn’t been spoken here in fifteen thousand years. Why?”
That they were Fae and knew the language at all suggested some link between here and Midgard, a link that was slowly dawning on her with terrible clarity.
“How did you come to be in possession of the lost sword Gwydion?” was the female’s cool reply.
“What … You mean the Starsword?” Another link between their worlds.
All of them just stared at her again. An impenetrable wall of people accustomed to getting answers in whatever way necessary.
Bryce had no weapons, nothing beyond the magic in her veins, the Archesian amulet around her neck, and the Horn tattooed into her back. But to wield it, she needed power, needed to be fueled up like some stupid fucking battery—
So talking was her best weapon. Good thing she’d spent years as a master of spinning bullshit, according to Hunt.
“It’s a family heirloom,” Bryce said. “It’s been in my world since it was brought there by my ancestors … fifteen thousand years ago.” She let the last few words land with a pointed glance at the female. Let her do the math, as Bryce had.
But the beautiful male—Rhysand—said in a voice like midnight, “How did you find this world?”
This was not a male to be fucked with. None of these people were, but this one … Authority rippled off him. As if he was the entire axis of this place. A king of some sort, then.
“I didn’t.” Bryce met his star-flecked stare. Some primal part of her quailed at the raw power within his gaze. “I told you: I meant to go to Hel. I landed here instead.”
“How?”
The things far below the grate hissed louder, as if sensing his wrath. Demanding blood.
