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Not one trace of it remained. No more kill switch, no more firstlight. Midgard was free of them.

That sliver of light thinned further. It was now too far for her to reach. She had no way of getting back to the portal. No way of propelling herself there. There was just this, the slow drift toward the event horizon of the black hole. The inevitable, crushing end.

Ahead of her, the first two Asteri, Hesperus and Eosphoros, were nearing that line of no return. They were clawing at nothing, trying to find any sort of purchase in the emptiness of space to haul them away from the yawning mouth of the black hole—

But their glowing fingers found nothing at all as they slid over that line and vanished.

Time slowed for a heartbeat—only one, time dragging, dragging—and then resumed. Their deaths had been fast. A swift swallow.

I believe it all happened for a reason. I believe it wasn’t for nothing.

Rigelus and Austrus were next, but the two were clinging to each other.

No, she saw all at once: it was Austrus who was clinging, frantic as a drowning person, and Rigelus was trying to pry himself free, blasting his fellow Asteri with remnants of power that Austrus absorbed—

Perhaps if she hadn’t drained Rigelus to the dregs, he might have succeeded. The Bright Hand seemed to realize it, too. Decided on a different route to free himself, because he got his feet up between them and kicked.

Austrus went tumbling back—straight for the event horizon. His screams made no sound.

Time slowed and shuddered as the black hole devoured him, too.

And then there was only Rigelus, still glowing—but weakly. That kick he’d given Austrus had propelled him toward Bryce. There was nothing she could do to escape him, no way to paddle out of his range—

Rigelus’s expression revealed undiluted hate as he collided with her. As they spun out through space, with no meaning to up or down, and whatever protection the Horn gave her seemed to buckle in the Asteri’s presence.

The Horn would bow to its maker, its master.

She needed air. She needed air—

Bryce shoved at him, freeing a bit of space between their bodies. Not severing contact, but enough that the Horn’s protection snapped back into place, and she could breathe.

Rigelus was speaking, shouting in her face, but no words reached her. There was no sound in space. But loathing twisted his face, and she knew he beheld the same in hers as she sucked in a breath. Her last, she knew. She’d make it count, too.

Bryce grabbed his scrawny torso and wrapped her arms, then her legs around it.

Rigelus had a one-way ticket for that black hole—she’d make sure of it.

Even if she went with him.

98

His Umbra Mortis helmet discarded in the rubble beside him, Hunt stared at the giant, dark thing that had appeared in the center of the city and was slowly devouring everything around it.

Bryce was in that hole. A dark wind whipped at Hunt’s hair, and he knew without looking who had arrived at his side.

“I told her to choose to live,” Aidas murmured sadly, gazing toward the starry black expanse.

“She wouldn’t be Bryce if she had chosen herself,” Hunt said hoarsely. He wouldn’t love her this much if she wasn’t the sort of person who would have jumped in. “We have to help her,” he growled, wings braced against the tug of the black hole trying to pull all of Midgard in with it.

“There’s nothing that can be done,” Aidas said, his voice full of sorrow.

“I have to try.” Hunt’s knees bent, his wings spread, preparing himself for that leap into space. To Bryce. And that eternal wall of black beyond where his mate glowed.

“You go in there, and you will die,” Aidas said. “There is no air to propel you, nothing for your wings to grasp onto to carry you forward to her. You will drift, and she will still wind up with Rigelus in the Void, and you will follow her in, helpless, a few minutes later.”

“But she left the portal open,” Hunt said. “To Midgard.”

Aidas turned those weary eyes to him. “I believe it shall shut when she and the Horn in her back are obliterated.”