House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3)

“And the sword and knife?” Bryce asked.

“Theia endeavored to keep the Asteri from being able to wield her power to use the sword and knife. Both weapons were keyed to her power, thanks to Theia’s assistance in their Making,” Aidas explained calmly. “It is why the Starsword calls to the descendants of Helena—of Theia. But only to those with enough of Theia’s starlight to trigger its power. Your ancestors called these Fae Starborn. The Asteri have no power over the blades; they lack Theia’s connection to the weapons. Since the Starsword and the knife were both Made by Theia at the same moment, their bond has always linked them. They have long sought to be reunited, as they were in their moment of their Making.”

“Like calls to like,” Bryce murmured. “That’s why the Starsword and Truth-Teller keep wanting to be close to each other. Why they keep freaking out.”

Aidas nodded. “I believe that when you opened the Gate, despite your desire to come to Hel, the Starsword’s desire to reach the knife—and vice versa—was so strong that the portal was redirected to the world where they were Made. With the door closed between worlds, they had been unable to reunite. But once you opened it, the blades’ pull toward each other was stronger than your untrained will.”

With the Starsword in hand, she’d gone right to Truth-Teller, landing on that lawn mere feet away from Azriel and the dagger.

Bryce winced down at the blades. “I’m trying not to be creeped out that these things are, like … sentient.” But she’d felt it, hadn’t she? That pull, that call between them. She’d sworn they were talking last night, for fuck’s sake. Like two friends who’d been apart, now rushing to catch up on every detail of their lives.

Over fifteen thousand years of separation.

Aidas went on, “But it wasn’t just the blades that you reunited in the home world of the Fae, was it?”

Bryce’s hands glowed faintly with that ghostly aura. “No,” she admitted. “I think … I think I claimed some of Theia’s magic. Silene left it waiting there.” She’d thought it was another star, not a piece of a larger one.

Aidas did not seem surprised, but the other two princes wore such similar expressions of confusion that she almost smiled. Bryce glanced to Hunt, who nodded shallowly. Go ahead, he seemed to say.

So Bryce explained how she had claimed the power from the Prison, what she’d seen and learned from Silene’s memory, her confrontation with Vesperus.

Bryce finished, “I thought Silene had left her power, yet she still had magic afterward. It must have been Theia’s power that she left in the stones. It absorbed into mine—like it was mine. And when my light shone through the Autumn King’s prism, it had transformed. Become … fuller. Now tinged with dark.”

Aidas mused, “I’d say you had a third of Theia’s power already, the part that originally was given to Helena—that came down to you through Helena’s bloodline, and you took another third from where Silene stashed it. But if you can find the last third, the part that Theia originally kept for herself … I wonder how your light might appear then. What it might do.”

“You knew Theia,” Bryce said. “You tell me.”

“I believe you’ve already begun to see some glimpses of it,” Aidas said, “once you attained what Silene had hidden.”

Bryce considered. “The laser power?”

Aidas laughed. “Theia called it starfire. But yes.”

Bryce frowned. “Is it—is it the same as the Asteri’s?” She hadn’t realized how much the question had been weighing on her. Eating at her.

“No,” Apollion cut in, scowling. “They are similar in their ability to destroy, but the Asteri’s power is a blunt, wicked tool of destruction.”

Aidas added, eyes shining with sympathy, “Starfire’s ability to destroy is but one facet of a wonderous gift. The greatest difference, of course, lies in how the bearer chooses to use it.”

Bryce offered him a small smile as that weight lifted.

Hunt cut in, “So just to clarify: There’s still a third well of Theia’s power out there—or was?”

“Helena knew that her own portion of her mother’s magic would be passed down to future generations,” Aidas said. “But when Theia died, all that remained of Theia’s power lay in the Starsword. Theia put it into the blade after she parted from her daughters.”

Bryce shook her head. “Let me get this straight. Theia divided her power into three parts: one to each of her daughters, and she transferred the last part to the Starsword. So the final piece of her magic is … in this blade? It’s been waiting all this time?”

“No,” Aidas said. “Helena removed it.”

Bryce groaned. “Really? It can’t be easy?”

Aidas snorted. “Helena did not deem it wise to leave what remained of Theia’s star in the sword, even in secret.”

“But how would the Asteri have been able to wield Theia’s power to use the sword and knife,” Bryce protested, “if she was dead?”

“They could have resurrected her,” Hunt said quietly.

Aidas nodded gravely. “Theia didn’t want them to be able to access the full strength of the star in her bloodline, even through her corpse. So she split it in three, putting only enough into the Starsword for her to face Pelias—long enough to buy her daughters time to run. She gave her magic to her daughters, thinking they would both escape to their home world and be beyond the reach of the Asteri forever.”

“Why not send the Starsword with them, too?”

“Because then the knife and sword would have been together,” Thanatos said.

“But what sort of threat do they pose?” Bryce said, practically shouting with impatience. “The Autumn King said they can open a portal to nowhere—is that it?”

“Yes,” Aidas confirmed. “And together, they can unleash ultimate destruction. Theia separated them to keep the Asteri from ever having that ability. She did not know of a way they could be united by someone not of her bloodline, but the Asteri have been known to be … creative.”

“How did Helena transfer the power out of the sword? She didn’t have the Harp,” Bryce said.

“No,” Aidas agreed. “But Helena knew that Midgard possessed its own magic. A raw, weaker sort of magic than that in her home world, but one that could be potent in high concentrations. She learned that it flowed across the world in great highways, natural conduits for magic.”

“Ley lines,” Bryce breathed.

Aidas nodded. “These lines are capable of moving magic, but also carrying communications across great distances.” Like those between the Gates of Crescent City, the way she’d spoken to Danika the day she’d made the Drop. “There are ley lines across the whole of the universe. And the planets—like Midgard, like Hel, like the home world of the Fae—atop those lines are joined by time and space and the Void itself. It thins the veils separating us. The Asteri have long chosen worlds that are on the ley lines for that exact purpose. It made it easier to move between them, to colonize those planets. There are certain places on each of these worlds where the most ley lines overlap, and thus the barrier between worlds is at its weakest.”

Everything slotted together. “Thin places,” Bryce said with sudden certainty.

“Precisely,” Apollion answered for Aidas with an approving nod. “The Northern Rift, the Southern Rift—both lie atop a tremendous knot of ley lines. And while those under Avallen are not as strong, the island is unique as a thin place thanks to the presence of black salt—which ties it to Hel.”