House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City) (93 page)

“Thanks for the pep talk,” she said, but smiled grimly up at Hunt. “Light it up, Athalar.”

Hunt pressed a hand to her heart, his lightning a subtle flare that was sucked into the scar. As the last of it faded, Bryce teleported into the archives.

To find whatever truth might lie within them.

71

Bryce’s breathing turned so jagged that she could barely think as she tumbled alone through the darkness.

They were in the Asteri’s palace. In their sacred, forbidden archives.

And she was … in a stairwell?

Bryce took steadying inhales as she surveyed the spiral staircase, crafted entirely of white quartz. Firstlight glimmered, golden and soft, lighting the carved steps downward. At her back was a door—the other side of the one they’d watched Sofie walk through on the surveillance footage.

The one labeled with the number Sofie had etched into her biceps.

Bryce began to creep down the stairs, her black utility boots nearly silent against the quartz steps. She saw no one. Heard no one.

Her heart raced, and she could have sworn the veins of firstlight in the quartz throbbed with each beat. As if in answer.

Bryce halted after a turn in the stairs and assessed the long hallway ahead. When it revealed no guards, she stepped into it.

There were no doors. Only this hall, perhaps seventy feet long and fifteen feet wide. Likely fourteen feet, to be a multiple of seven. The holy number.

Bryce scanned the hall. The only thing in it was a set of crystal pipes shooting upward into the ceiling, with plaques beneath them, and small black screens beside the plaques.

Seven pipes.

The crystal floor glowed at her feet as she approached the nearest plaque.

Hesperus
. The Evening Star.

Brows rising, Bryce strode to the next pipe and plaque.
Polaris.
The North Star.

Plaque after plaque, pipe after pipe, Bryce read the individual names of each Asteri.

Eosphoros. Octartis. Austrus.

She nearly tripped at the penultimate.
Sirius
. The Asteri the Prince of the Pit had devoured.

She knew what the last plaque would say before she reached it.
Rigelus.
The Bright Hand.

What the Hel was this place?

This was what Danika had felt was important enough for Sofie Renast to risk her life for? What the Asteri had wanted to contain so badly they’d hunted Sofie down to preserve the secret?

The crystal at her feet flared, and Bryce had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, as firstlight, pure and iridescent, ruptured.

She squeezed her eyes shut, dropping into a crouch.

But nothing happened. At least, not to her.

The firstlight faded enough that Bryce cracked open her eyes to see it shooting up six of the pipes.

The little black screens beside each plaque flared to life, filled with readings. Only Sirius’s pipe remained unlit. Out of commission.

She went rigid as she read the Bright Hand’s screen:
Rigelus Power Level: 65%.

She whirled to the next plaque. The screen beside it said,
Austrus Power Level: 76%.

“Holy gods,” Bryce whispered.

The Asteri fed on firstlight. The Asteri …
needed
firstlight. She looked at her feet, where light flowed in veins through the crystal before funneling into the pipes. The quartz.

A conduit of power. Exactly like the Gates in Crescent City.

They’d built their entire palace out of it. To fuel and harness the firstlight that poured in.

She’d studied Fury’s rough map of the palace layout. This area was seven levels below the throne room, where the Asteri sat on crystal thrones. Did those thrones fill them with power? In plain sight, they fueled up like batteries, sucking in this firstlight.

Nausea constricted her throat. All the Drops people made, the secondlight the dead handed over … All the power of the people of Midgard, the power the people
gave
them … it was gobbled up by the Asteri and used against its citizens. To control them.

Even the Vanir rebels who were killed fighting had their souls fed to the very beasts they were trying to overthrow.

They were all just food for the Asteri. A never-ending supply of power.

Bryce began shaking. The veins of light wending beneath her feet, glowing and vibrant … She traced them down as far as she could see through the clear stone, into a brilliantly shining mass. A core of firstlight. Powering the entire palace and the monsters that ruled it.

This was what Sofie had learned. What Danika had suspected.

Did the Asteri even possess holy stars in their chests, or was it firstlight, stolen from the people? Firstlight that they
mandated
be given over in the Drop to fuel cities and technology … and the overlords who ruled this world. Secondlight that was ripped from the dead, squeezing every last drop of power from the people.

Cut off the firstlight, destroy this funnel of power, get people to stop handing over their power through the Drop in those centers that funneled off their energy, stop the dead from becoming secondlight …

And they could destroy the Asteri.

72

Athalar paced in a tight circle. “She should be back.”

“She’s got two minutes,” Ruhn growled, clenching the comm-crystal so hard in his fist it was a wonder the edges weren’t permanently etched into his fingers.

Hunt said, “Something happened. She should be here by now.”

Ruhn eyed the watch on his wrist. They had to make it down to the dungeons. And if they didn’t start immediately … He peered at the crystal in his hand.

Day
, he said, throwing her name out into the void. But no answer came. Like every other attempt to reach her recently.

“I’m going to get a head start,” he murmured, pocketing the crystal. “I’ll cloak myself in my shadows. If I’m not back in ten minutes, leave without me.”

“We all go together,” Hunt shot back, but Ruhn shook his head. “We’ll come find you.”

Ruhn didn’t reply before he slipped down the hall, blending into the darkness, and aimed for the passageways that would take him across the palace compound. To the dungeons and the agent trapped within them.

Bryce raced back to the top of the stairs, bile burning her throat.

She’d been here too long. Could only spare a minute or two more.

She reached the door and the landing, rallying what remained of Hunt’s charge to teleport back to him and Ruhn, but the door handle seemed to gleam. What else lay down here? What else might she uncover? If this was her only opportunity …

Bryce didn’t let herself doubt as she slipped into the main archives hallway. It was dim and dusty. Utterly silent.

Shelves crammed with books loomed around her, and Bryce scanned their titles. Nothing of interest, nothing of use—

She sprinted through the library, reading titles and names of sections as fast as she could, praying that Declan had kept up and was moving the cameras away from her. She scanned the vague section titles above the stacks.
Tax Records, Agriculture, Water Processing
…

The doors along this stretch had been named similarly to each other—not in code, but along a theme.

Dawn. Midnight. Midday
. She had no idea what any of the names meant, or what lay behind the door. But one in the center snared her eye:
Dusk
.

She slipped inside.

Bryce was late. Hunt stayed put only because his secure phone had flashed with a message from Declan.
She’s okay. She went into a room called Dusk. I’ll keep you posted.

Of course Quinlan was doing
extra
research. Of course she couldn’t listen to the rules and be back when she was supposed to—

Then again,
Dusk
could have something to do with Dusk’s Truth. No wonder Bryce had entered.

Hunt paced again. He should have gone with her. Made her teleport him in, even if it would have drained her at a time when they’d need all her gifts.

Ruhn had already been gone for three minutes. A lot could happen in that time.

“Come on, Bryce,” Hunt murmured, and prayed to Cthona to keep his mate safe.

Cloaked in shadows, Ruhn raced down the halls, encountering no one. Not one guard.

It was too quiet.

The hall opened into a wide fork: To the left lay the dungeons. To the right, the stairs up to the palace proper. He went left without hesitation. Down the stairs that turned from cloudy quartz to dark stone, like the life had been sucked from the rock. His skin chilled.

These dungeons … Athalar had made it out, but most never did.

Ruhn’s stomach churned, and he slowed his pace, readying himself for the gauntlet ahead. Checkpoints of guards—easy enough to avoid with his shadows—locked doors, and then two halls of cells and torture chambers. Day had to be somewhere in there.

Screams began leaking out. Male, thankfully. But they were wrenching. Pleading. Sobbing. He wished he could plug his ears. If Day was making a similar sound, in such agony …

Ruhn kept going—until Mordoc stepped into his path with a feral grin. He sniffed once, that bloodhound gift no doubt feeding him a host of information before he said, “You’re a long way from cavorting with spies in the alleys of Lunathion, Prince.”

Tharion raced behind Cormac, a shield of water around them as the prince hurled ball after ball of fire into the chaotic, smoky lab. Chunks of rupturing machines flew toward them, smoldering—and Tharion intercepted them as best he could.

The doctor had led them right into the lab without a second thought. Cormac had put a bullet through the male’s head a moment later, then ended the lives of the screaming scientists and engineers around him.

“Are you fucking insane?” Tharion screamed as they ran. “You said we’d limit the casualties!”

Cormac ignored him. The bastard had gone rogue.

Tharion snarled, half debating whether to overpower the prince. “Is this any better than what Pippa Spetsos does?”

Tharion got his answer a second later. Gunfire crackled behind them, and rebels stormed in. Right on time.

Imperial Vanir reinforcements roared as they rushed in—and were drowned out by the barrage of guns. An ambush.

Would it be enough to draw the Asteri’s attention away? Cormac had incinerated the jeep with his fire magic moments before they’d shot the doctor—surely that would warrant a message to the Asteri. And this shitshow unfolding …

Cormac skidded to a stop, Tharion with him. Both of them fell silent.

A familiar female, clad in black and armed with a rifle, stepped into their path.

Pippa pointed the gun at Cormac. “I’ve been looking forward to this.” Her rifle cracked, and Cormac teleported, but too slowly. His powers were drained.

Blood sprayed a moment before Cormac vanished—then appeared behind Pippa.

The bullet had passed through his shoulder, and Tharion launched into movement as Pippa twisted toward the prince.

Tharion was stopped by shaking ground, though. A glowing, electrified sword plunged into the floor in front of him.

A mech-suit sword.

Cormac shouted to Tharion, “
Get out of here!
” The prince faced off against Pippa as the woman fired again.

Tharion knew that tone. Knew that look. And it was then that he understood.

Cormac hadn’t just gone rogue. He’d never intended to get out of here alive.

The door marked
Dusk
had been left unlocked. Bryce supposed she had Declan to thank for the dead electronic keypad.

Braziers of firstlight glowed in the corners of the room, dimly
illuminating the space. A round table occupied the middle. Seven seats around it.

Her blood chilled.

A small metal machine sat in the center of the table. A projection device. But Bryce’s attention snagged on the stone walls, covered in paper.

Star-maps—of constellations and solar systems, marked up with scribbled notations and pinned with red dots. Her mouth dried out as she approached the one nearest. A solar system she didn’t recognize, with five planets orbiting a massive sun.

One planet in the habitable zone had been pinned and labeled.

Rentharr. Conq. A.E. 14000.

A.E
.
She didn’t know that dating system. But she could guess what
Conq.
meant.

Conquered … by the Asteri? She’d never heard of a planet called Rentharr. Scribbled beside it was a brief note:
A bellicose, aquatic people. Primordial land life. Little supply. Terminated A.E. 14007.

“Oh gods,” Bryce breathed, and went to the next star-map.

Iphraxia. Conq. A.E. 680. Lost A.E. 720.

She read the note beside it and her blood iced over.
Denizens learned of our methods too quickly. We lost many to their unified front. Evacuated.

Somewhere out in the cosmos, a planet had managed to kick out the Asteri.

Map to map, Bryce read the notes. Names of places that weren’t known in Midgard. Worlds that the Asteri had conquered, with notations about their use of firstlight and how they either lost or controlled those worlds. Fed on them until there was nothing left.

Fed on their power … like she had with the Gate. Was she no better than them?

The rear wall of the chamber held a map of this world.

Midgard
, the map read.
Conq. A.E. 17003.

Whatever
A
.
E.
was, if they’d been on
this
planet for fifteen thousand years, then they’d existed in the cosmos for far, far longer than that.

If they could feed off firstlight, generate it somehow on each
planet … could they live forever? Truly immortal and undying? Six ruled this world, but there’d originally been a seventh. How many existed beyond them?

Pages of notes on Midgard had been pinned to the wall, along with drawings of creatures.

Ideal world located. Indigenous life not sustainable, but conditions prime for colonization. Have contacted others to share bounties.