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.