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Her gray eyes darkened like the stormy sea she’d sailed across long ago. “When Apollion found my ship, he was ripe with power. He’d just consumed Sirius. I don’t think he intended it, but when his magic … touched me, something transferred over.”

From the way she said touched, Ithan knew exactly how she viewed what he’d done to her.

“It took me a while to realize I had powers beyond the stasis of eternal youth,” she said blandly. “And fortunately, I’ve had fifteen thousand years to master them. To let them become part of me, take on a life of their own, as the books did.”

Horror sluiced through him. “Do you want to … start aging again?”

It was a dangerously personal question, but to his surprise, she answered. “Not yet,” Jesiba said a shade quietly. “Not until it’s time.”

“For what?” he dared ask.

She looked over a shoulder at the small library, at the feisty book that had at last simmered down, as if sulking. “For a world to emerge where these books will be truly safe at last.”

39

Bryce found the Autumn King in his study, his red hair aglow in the morning light. Contemplating the Starsword and Truth-Teller on his desk.

What she’d said the other night must have struck a nerve, then. Good.

“So close,” she purred as she shut the door and approached the desk, “but so far. So unworthy.”

Flames danced in his eyes. “What is it you want, girl?”

She swept around the desk to stand beside his chair, peering at the weapons from his angle. He frowned, as if her mere proximity was distasteful. “Did my mom ever tell you what happened that night she was trying to get me to safety? When your goons caught up to her and Randall?”

“I’d consider your words carefully,” he snarled.

Bryce smiled. “Randall hadn’t picked up a gun in years. Not since he’d gotten home from the front and vowed he’d never use one again. He was on the verge of swearing his vows to Solas when he got the request from the High Priest to go help a single mom and her three-year-old daughter get away from you. And that night your loser guards caught up with us … that was the first time Randall picked up a gun again. He put a bullet right through your chief security officer’s head. Randall hated every single fucking second of it. But he did it. Because in that moment, even after only three days on the run, he knew that he was already in love with my mom. And that there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her.”

The Autumn King’s nose crinkled with annoyance. “Is there a point to this story?”

“My point,” she said, leaning closer to her father, “is that I didn’t just learn about love from my mom. I learned about it from my dad, too. My true dad. My weak human dad who you’re so jealous of that you can’t stand it. He taught me to fight like Hel for the people I love.”

“I grow bored of this.” The Autumn King made to pull away, but Bryce grabbed his arm.

“Way ahead of you there. I grew bored of you the instant you opened your mouth.”

Stone clicked.

The Autumn King reeled back, but too late. The gorsian shackle had already clamped on his wrist.

“You little bitch,” he hissed, and Bryce let the shackle from her other wrist tumble to the ground. “You have no idea who you’re fucking with—”

“I do. A useless, pathetic loser.”

He lunged to his feet, but she’d already snatched up both Truth-Teller and the Starsword. He halted as she unsheathed the blades and pointed both at him.

Bryce said smoothly, the knife and sword steady in her hands, “Here’s the bargain: you don’t put up a fight, and I don’t impale you with these and experiment on how to open a portal to nowhere in your gut.”

Flame burned and then died out in his eyes as the shackle held him firm.

She smiled, inclining her head. “Thanks for that intel about the blades, by the way. I thought you might know something of use. It’s really too bad that you sent all the servants away, isn’t it? No one to hear you scream.”

His face whitened with rage. “You arrived here intentionally.”

“Guilty as charged,” she said, shaking her hair over a shoulder with a toss of her head. “I knew you’d been doing all this research for centuries. You’re the one person who’s obsessed with the Starsword and its secrets, sad Chosen One reject that you are. So I came here for answers. To learn what, exactly, a weapon like this could do. How to get rid of our little intergalactic friends.” She grinned. “And you assumed I landed here because …?”

He glowered.