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Azriel struck before she could exhale. Searing, sharp power, a bolt of blue right into her star. Bryce bent over, coughing, breathing around the burn, the alien strangeness of the power.
“Are you all right?” Nesta asked with something like concern.
Was it his power? Or something about this world? Even Hunt’s hadn’t felt like this—so undiluted, like one-hundred-proof liquor.
Bryce closed her eyes and counted to ten, breathing hard. Letting it ease into her blood. Her bones. It tingled along her limbs.
Slowly, she straightened, opening her eyes. From the way the others’ faces were illuminated, she knew her gaze had turned incandescent.
They tensed, reaching for their weapons, bracing for her to flee or attack. But Bryce extended her hands—now glowing white—to them.
Nesta took one first. Then Azriel’s hand, battered and deeply scarred, slid around hers. Light leaked from where their skin met. She could have sworn his shadows hovered, watching like curious snakes.
Bryce pictured the tunnel mouth. She wanted to go there—
A blink, and it was done.
The raw power in her faded with the jump. Enough that the incandescence vanished and her skin returned to its normal state. Until only her star remained glowing once more.
But she found Azriel and Nesta observing her with different expressions than before. Wariness, yet something like respect, too.
“Let’s go,” Azriel said, and released her hand. Because the sword and dagger weren’t merely tugging now. They were singing, and all she had to do was reach out for them—
But before she could give in to temptation, Azriel stalked into the dark.
Staying a few feet behind him still wasn’t enough to block out the blades’ song. But Bryce tried to ignore it, well aware of Nesta’s watchful gaze. Tried to pretend that everything was totally fine.
Even if she knew that it wasn’t. Not even close. And she had a feeling that whatever waited at the end of these tunnels would be way worse.
* * *
“The Cauldron,” Nesta said hours later, pointing to yet another carving on the wall. It indeed showed a giant cauldron, perched atop what seemed to be a barren mountain peak with three stars above it.
Azriel halted, angling his head. “That’s Ramiel.” At Bryce’s questioning look, he explained, “A mountain sacred to the Illyrians.”
Bryce nodded to the carving. “What’s the big deal about a cauldron?”
“The Cauldron,” Azriel amended. Bryce shook her head, not understanding. “You don’t have stories of it in your world? The Fae didn’t bring that tradition with them?”
Bryce surveyed the giant cauldron. “No. We have five gods, but no cauldron. What does it do?”
“All life came and comes from it,” Azriel said with something like reverence. “The Mother poured it into this world, and from it, life blossomed.”
Nesta said quietly, “But it is also real—not a myth.” Her swallow was audible. “I was turned High Fae when an enemy shoved me into it. It’s raw power, but also … sentient.”
“Like that mask you put on earlier.”
Azriel folded his wings tightly, clearly wary of discussing such a powerful instrument with a potential enemy. But Nesta asked, “You detected a sentience in the Mask?”
Bryce nodded. “It didn’t, like, talk to me or anything. I could just … sense it.”
“What did it feel like?” Nesta asked quietly.
“Like death,” Bryce breathed. “Like death incarnate.”
Nesta’s eyes grew distant, grave. “That’s what the Mask can do. Give its wearer power over Death itself.”
Bryce’s blood chilled. “And this is a … normal type of weapon here?”
