House of Earth and Blood

“Beyond being without an Anchor,” the Autumn King said, “she used an artificial power source to bring her to that level. Her body is not biologically equipped to make the Ascent. Even with a true Anchor, she wouldn’t be able to gain enough momentum for that first jump upward.”

Jesiba gravely nodded her confirmation, but the sorceress said nothing.

Declan’s memories of his Drop and Ascent were murky, frightening. He’d gone farther than anticipated, but had at least stayed within his own range. Even with Flynn Anchoring him, he’d been petrified he wouldn’t make it back.

Despite registering on the system as a blip of energy beside Bryce, Danika Fendyr was not a tether to life, not a true Anchor. She had no life of her own. Danika was merely the thing that had given Bryce enough courage to attempt the Drop alone.

The Autumn King went on, “I’ve looked. I’ve spent centuries looking. Thousands of people throughout the ages have attempted to go past their own intended levels through artificial means. None of them ever made it back to life.”

One minute remained, the seconds flying off the countdown clock.

Bryce had still not Ascended. Was still making the Search, facing whatever lay within her. The timer would have halted if she had begun her attempt at the Ascent, marking her entrance into the Between—the liminal place between death and life. But the timer kept going. Winding down.

It didn’t matter, though. Bryce would die whether she attempted it or not.

Thirty seconds left. The remaining dignitaries in the room bowed their heads.

Ten seconds. The Autumn King rubbed at his face, then watched the clock count down. The remainder of Bryce’s life.

Five. Four. Three. Two.

One. The milliseconds raced toward zero. True death.

The clock stopped at 0.003.

A red line shot across the bottom of the Eleusian system’s graph, along the runway toward oblivion.

Declan whispered, “She’s running.”

“Faster, Bryce!” Danika raced at her heels.

Step after step after step, Bryce barreled down that mental runway. Toward the ever-nearing end of it.

“Faster!” Danika roared.

One shot. She had one shot at this.

Bryce ran. Ran and ran and ran, arms pumping, gritting her teeth.

The odds were impossible, the likelihood slim.

But she tried. With Danika beside her, this last time, she could try.

She had made the Drop solo, but she was not alone.

She had never been alone. She never would be.

Not with Danika in her heart, and not with Hunt beside her.

The end of the runway neared. She had to get airborne. Had to start the Ascent, or she’d fall into nothingness. Forever.

“Don’t stop!” Danika screamed.

So Bryce didn’t.

She charged onward. Toward that very final, deadly end point.

She used every foot of the runway. Every last inch.

And then blasted upward.

Declan couldn’t believe what he was seeing as the Autumn King fell to his knees. As Bryce rose, lifted on a surge of power.

She cleared the deepest levels.

“It’s not …,” the Autumn King breathed. “It’s not possible. She is alone.”

Tears streamed down Sabine’s harsh face as she whispered, “No, she isn’t.”

The force that was Danika Fendyr, the force that had given Bryce that boost upward, faded away into nothing.

Declan knew it would never return, in this world or on a mist-veiled isle.

It might still have been too long for Bryce’s brain to be without oxygen, even if she could make it the entire way back to life. But his princess fought for every bit of progress upward, her power shifting, traces of everyone who’d given it to her coming through: mer, shifter, draki, human, angel, sprite, Fae …

“How,” the Autumn King asked no one in particular. “How?”

It was the ancient Prime of the wolves who answered, his withered voice rising above the pinging of the graph. “With the strength of the most powerful force in the world. The most powerful force in any realm.” He pointed to the screen. “What brings loyalty beyond death, undimming despite the years. What remains unwavering in the face of hopelessness.”

The Autumn King twisted toward the ancient Prime, shaking his head. Still not understanding.

Bryce was at the level of ordinary witches now. But still too far from life.

Motion caught Declan’s eye, and he whirled toward the feed of the Old Square.

Wreathed in lightning, healed and whole, Hunt Athalar was kneeling over Bryce’s dead body. Pumping her torso with his hands—chest compressions.

Hunt hissed to Bryce through his gritted teeth, thunder cracking above him, “I heard what you said.” Pump, pump, pump went his powerful arms. “What you waited to admit until I was almost dead, you fucking coward.” His lightning surged into her, sending her body arcing off the ground as he tried to jump-start her heart. He snarled in her ear, “Now come say it to my face.”

Sabine whispered a sentence to the room, to the Autumn King, and Declan’s heart rose, hearing it.

It was the answer to the ancient Prime’s words. To the Autumn King’s question of how, against every statistic blaring on Declan’s computer, they were even witnessing Hunt Athalar fight like Hel to keep Bryce Quinlan’s heart beating.

Through love, all is possible.

94

She was sea and sky and stone and blood and wings and earth and stars and darkness and light and bone and flame.

Danika was gone. She had given over what remained of her soul, her power, to get Bryce off the runway, and for that initial rocketing Ascent.

Danika had whispered, “I love you,” before fading into nothing, her hand sliding from Bryce’s.

And it had not destroyed Bryce, to make that final goodbye.

The roar she had emitted was not one of pain. But of challenge.

Bryce barreled higher. She could feel the surface nearby. The thin veil between this place and life. Her power shifted, dancing between forms and gifts. She thrust upward with a push of a mighty tail. Twisted and rose with a sweep of vast wings. She was all things—and yet herself.

And then she heard it. His voice. His answering challenge to her call.

He was there. Waiting for her.

Fighting to keep her heart going. She was close enough to the veil to see it now.

Even before she had come to lie dead before him, he’d fought to keep her heart going.

Bryce smiled, in this place between, and at last careened toward Hunt.

“Come on,” Hunt grunted, continuing the chest compressions, counting Bryce’s breaths until he could shock her again with his lighting.

He didn’t know how long she had been down, but she’d been dead when he’d awoken, healed and whole, to a repaired city. As if no magic bombs, no demons, had ever harmed it.

He saw the glowing Gate, the blazing light—the firstlight—and knew only someone making the Drop could generate that kind of power. And when he’d seen her lifeless body before the Gate, he’d known she’d somehow found a way to make the Drop, to unleash that healing firstlight, to use the Horn to seal the portals to Hel at the other Gates.

So he’d acted on instinct. Did the only thing he could think of.

He’d saved her and she’d saved him, and he—