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.
Bryce’s brow furrowed. What the Hel did that mean?
She peered at a drawing of a mer beside a sketch of a wolf shifter. The aquatic shifters can hold a hybrid form far more easily than those on land.
She read the next page, with a drawing of a Fae female. They did not see the old enemy who offered a hand through space and time. Like a fish to bait, they came, and they opened the gates to us willingly. They walked through them—to Midgard—at our invitation, leaving behind the world they knew.
Bryce backed away from the wall, crashing into the table.
The Asteri had lured them all into this world from other planets. Somehow, using the Northern and Southern Rifts, or whatever way they traveled between worlds, they’d … drawn them into this place. To farm them. Feed off them. Forever.
Everything was a lie. She’d known a lot of accepted history was bullshit, but this …
She twisted to the projector device in the center of the table and stretched an arm to hit the button. A three-dimensional, round map of the cosmos erupted. Stars and planets and nebulas. Many marked with digital notes, as the papers on the walls had been.
It was a digital orrery. Like the metal one she’d glimpsed as a kid in the Autumn King’s study. Like the one in the Astronomer’s chamber.
Was this what Danika had learned in her studies on bloodlines? That they’d all come from elsewhere—but had been lured and trapped here? And then fed on by these immortal leeches?
The map of the universe rotated above her. So many worlds. Bryce reached out to touch one. The digital note immediately appeared beside it.
Urganis. Children were ideal nutrition. Adults incompatible.
She swallowed against the dryness in her throat. That was it. All that remained of a distant world. A note about whether its people made for good eating and what the Asteri had done to its young.
Was there a home planet? Some original world the Asteri had come from, bled so dry that they’d needed to go hunting in the wilds of space?
She began flicking through planets, one after another after another, clawing past the stars and cosmic clouds of dust.
Her heart stopped at one.
Hel.
The ground seemed to slide away from beneath her.
Hel. Lost A.E. 17001.
She had to sink into one of the chairs as she read the note. A dark, cold world with mighty creatures of night. They saw through our lures. Once warring factions, the royal armies of Hel united and marched against us. We were overwhelmed and abandoned their world, but they gave chase. Learned from our captured lieutenants how to slip between the cracks in realms.