Page 92

Sigrid slashed for his throat again. Then again. She hurled him against the ropes with strength only a Fendyr Alpha could wield. And as he rebounded, shooting right for her, he saw it. The death in her eyes.

She’d kill him. He might have pulled her from the tank, but she was, first and last, an Alpha.

And Alphas did not lose. Not to lesser wolves.

Make your brother proud.

They were the only words in his head as Ithan hurtled through the air. As he met Sigrid’s eyes. The primal, intrinsic dominance there that took no prisoners. Had no mercy. Could never have mercy.

Make your brother proud.

Ithan aimed his clawed fist for her shoulder, a blow that would send her to her knees.

But Sigrid was fast—too fast. And did not yet understand how swiftly she could move.

Neither did Ithan.

One moment, his claws were heading for her shoulder. The next, she’d managed to bob to the right, planning to sidestep the blow—

Ithan saw it in slow motion. As if watching someone else—another wolf, caught in this ring.

One moment, Sigrid was dodging him, so swift he didn’t have time to pull the punch. The next, she was still, eyes wide with shock and pain.

His claws hadn’t gone through her shoulder.

They’d punched straight through her throat.

21

Aidas was a Prince of Hel, Silene went on.

Bryce’s breath caught in her throat.

Using rare summoning salts that facilitated communication between worlds, his spies in Midgard had kept him well informed since the Asteri had failed to conquer his planet. Aidas had been assigned to hunt for the Asteri ever since. So their evil might never triumph again. On his world, or any other.

Hel was somehow the force for good in all this. How had Aidas been able to see past Theia’s atrocities? And more than that, to love her? It made no sense. Unless Aidas was just like Theia, a murdering hypocrite—

Long hours did my mother and Aidas speak through the portal, neither daring to cross into the other’s world. For many days afterward, in secret, they planned.

It soon became clear that we needed more troops. Any Fae that were loyal to us … and humans. The very enemies my mother had slaughtered and enslaved, she now needed. Their final stronghold lay at Parthos, where all the scholars and thinkers of their day had holed up in the great library. And so it was to Parthos we next went, winnowing under cover of darkness.

“Unbelievable,” Nesta seethed.

The white-stoned city rose like a dream from a vast, black-soiled river delta.

Parthos was more beautiful than any city currently on Midgard, adorned with elegant spires and columns, massive obelisks in the market squares, sparkling fountains and complex networks of aqueducts, and humans milling about in relative peace and ease, not fear.

At the edge of the city, overlooking the marshes to the north, sat a massive, columned building—no, a complex of several buildings.

The library of Parthos.

It hadn’t only been a place to hold books, Bryce knew. The compound had housed several academies for various fields of study—the arts, sciences, mathematics, philosophy—as well as the vast collection of books, a treasure trove of thousands of years’ worth of learning.

Bryce’s heart ached to see it—what had once been. What had been lost.

Crowded into an amphitheater in the center of the complex stood a mix of humans and Fae arguing—pointing and shouting.

The meetings did not go well, Silene said. But my mother stood firm. Explained what she had learned. What the humans had long known, though they had been ignorant of the details.