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Sathia didn’t back down. “With all that power you have. With who you are, what you bear.”

Hunt let out a low whistle of warning.

But Bryce seethed at Sathia, “I just want the Fae to leave me the fuck alone. And I’ll leave them the fuck alone.”

Sathia pointed at the Starsword on Bryce’s back. “But the prophecy—when those blades are reunited, so shall our people be. That has to mean you, uniting all the Fae peoples—”

“I already did that,” Bryce cut in. “I connected the Fae of Midgard to the ones in our home world. Prophecy fulfilled. Or were you hoping for something else?”

Sathia’s gaze simmered. An unbroken female, despite the life she’d led. “I was hoping for a Fae Queen. Someone who might change things for the better.”

“Well, you got me instead,” Bryce said, and continued into the dark, fingers curling at her sides. Maybe she’d use her laser power to wipe these carvings from the walls. As easily as Rigelus had shattered the statues in the Eternal Palace. Maybe she’d send out a blast of her light so vicious it would obliterate all the hissing ghouls around them. “The Fae dug their own graves. They can lie in them.”

Sathia let it drop.

Hunt fell into step beside Bryce, putting a hand on her shoulder as if to offer his support, but she could have sworn that even her mate was disappointed in her.

Whatever. If they wanted to preserve a long, fucked-up line of Fae tyrants, that was on them.

* * *

Flynn and Dec abandoned Ruhn the moment they called it quits at the archives, leaving him and Lidia to share a painfully quiet meal in the castle’s empty dining room.

There was so much he wanted to ask her, to talk to her about, to know. He couldn’t find the words. So he ate, fork unbearably loud against his plate, each bite like crunching glass. And when they finished, they walked back to their rooms in silence, each step echoing in the hallway, loud as a thunderclap.

But before they parted ways, as Ruhn was about to enter his room, he blurted, “You think my sister’s okay?”

“You’re the one who’s been in the Cave of Princes,” Lidia said, but turned toward him. “You tell me.”

He shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t know. Bryce has got a lot of shit going on right now. Those caves are confusing on a good day. If you’re not focused, they can be deadly.”

Lidia crossed her arms. “Well, I have faith that between her, Athalar, and Baxian, your sister will be fine.”

“Tharion will be insulted.”

“I don’t know Ketos well enough as a warrior to judge him.”

“Ithan Holstrom calls him Captain Whatever, but I think it’s selling him a bit short. Tharion’s a badass when he feels like it.”

She smiled, and damn if it didn’t do funny things to Ruhn’s chest. She said again, “Your sister will be fine.”

He nodded, blowing out a breath. “Do you and Hypaxia have any contact?”

“No. Not since the ball.”

His mouth moved before he could think through his next question. “That night … were you ever going to meet me in the garden?”

Surprise flickered in her eyes, then vanished. Her mouth pursed, like she was debating her answer. “The Harpy got there before I did,” she said finally.

He stepped toward her, the hall suddenly too small. “But were you going to show up like we’d planned?”

“Does it matter?”

He dared another step. He hadn’t realized how her hips swelled so invitingly before dipping to her waist.

His hands curled, and he hated himself for the punch of lust that went through him, nearly knocking the breath from his lungs. He wanted her. Wanted her naked and under him and moaning his name, wanted her to tell him everything, and wanted … wanted his friend back. The friend he could speak honestly to, who knew things about him that no one else knew.

He took one more step, and he could see her trembling. With fear or restraint, he had no idea.