House of Earth and Blood
Bryce blinked. “So? What does it have to do with the Horn?”
“It mentions here that the sacred objects were made only for Fae like them. That the Horn worked only when that starlight flowed through it, when it was filled with power. This claims that the Starborn magic, in addition to a bunch of other crap, can be channeled through the sacred objects—bringing them to life. I sure as fuck have never been able to do anything like that, even with the Starsword. But it says that’s why the Prince of the Pit had to steal Pelias’s blood to make the kristallos to hunt the Horn—it contained that essence. I think the Horn could have been wielded by any of them, though.”
Hunt said, “But if the Prince of the Pit had gotten his hands on the Horn, he wouldn’t be able to use it unless he had a Starborn Fae to operate it.” He nodded to Ruhn. “Even if whoever wants the Horn now finds it, they’d have to use you.”
Ruhn considered. “But let’s not forget that whoever is summoning the demon to track the Horn—and kill these people—doesn’t have the Horn. Someone else stole it. So we’re essentially looking for two different people: the killer and whoever has the Horn.”
“Well, the Horn is broken anyway,” Bryce said.
Ruhn tapped the book. “Permanently broken, apparently. It says here that once it was cracked, the Fae claimed it could only be repaired by light that is not light; magic that is not magic. Basically a convoluted way of saying there’s no chance in Hel of it ever working again.”
Hunt said, “So we need to find out why someone would want it, then.” He frowned at Ruhn. “Your father wants it for what—some Fae PR campaign about the good old days of Faedom?”
Ruhn snorted, and Bryce smiled slightly. With lines like that, Athalar was in danger of becoming one of her favorite people. Ruhn said, “Basically, yeah. The Fae have been declining, according to him, for the past several thousand years. He claims our ancestors could burn entire forests to ash with half a thought—while he can probably torch a grove, and not much more.” Ruhn’s jaw tightened. “It drives him nuts that my Chosen One powers are barely more than a kernel.”
Bryce knew her own lack of power had been part of her father’s disgust with her.
Proof of the Fae’s failing influence.
She felt Hunt’s eyes on her, as if he could sense the bitterness that rippled through her. She half lied to him, “My own father never had a lick of interest in me for the same reason.”
“Especially after your visit to the Oracle,” Ruhn said.
Hunt’s brows rose, but Bryce shook her head at him, scowling. “It’s a long story.”
Hunt again looked at her in that considering, all-seeing way. So Bryce peered over at Ruhn’s tome, skimmed a few lines, and then looked back up at Ruhn. “This whole section is about your fancy Avallen cousins. Shadow-walking, mind-reading … I’m surprised they don’t claim they’re Starborn.”
“They wish they were,” Ruhn muttered. “They’re a bunch of pricks.”
She had a vague memory of Ruhn telling her the details about why, exactly, he felt that way, but asked, “No mind-reading for you?”
“It’s mind-speaking,” he grumbled, “and it has nothing to do with the Starborn stuff. Or this case.”
Hunt, apparently, seemed to agree, because he cut in, “What if we asked the Oracle about the Horn? Maybe she could see why someone would want a broken relic.”
Bryce and Ruhn straightened. But she said, “We’d be better off going to the mystics.”
Hunt cringed. “The mystics are some dark, fucked-up shit. We’ll try the Oracle first.”
“Well, I’m not going,” Bryce said quickly.
Hunt’s eyes darkened. “Because of what happened at your visit?”
“Right,” she said tightly.
Ruhn cut in and said to Hunt, “You go, then.”
Hunt snickered. “You have a bad experience, too, Danaan?”
Bryce found herself carefully watching her brother. Ruhn had never mentioned the Oracle to her. But he just shrugged and said, “Yeah.”
Hunt threw up his hands. “Fine, assholes. I’ll go. I’ve never been. It always seemed too gimmicky.”
It wasn’t. Bryce blocked out the image of the golden sphinx who’d sat before the hole in the floor of her dim, black chamber—how that human woman’s face had monitored her every breath.
“You’ll need an appointment,” she managed to say.
Silence fell. A buzzing interrupted it, and Hunt sighed as he pulled out his phone. “I gotta take this,” he said, and didn’t wait for them to reply before striding up the stairs out of the library. A moment later, the front door to the gallery shut.
With Lehabah still watching her show behind them, Ruhn quietly said to Bryce, “Your power levels never mattered to me, Bryce. You know that, right?”
She went back to looking through Danika’s data. “Yeah. I know.” She lifted an eyebrow. “What’s your deal with the Oracle?”
His face shuttered. “Nothing. She told me everything the Autumn King wanted to hear.”
“What—you’re upset that it wasn’t something as disastrous as mine?”
Ruhn rose from his seat, piercings glittering in the firstlights. “Look, I’ve got an Aux meeting this afternoon that I need to prep for, but I’ll see you later.”
“Sure.”
Ruhn paused, as if debating saying something else, but continued toward the stairs and out.
“Your cousin is dreamy,” Lehabah sighed from her couch.
“I thought Athalar was your one true love,” Bryce said.
“Can’t they both be?”
“Considering how terrible they are at sharing, I don’t think it’ll end well for any of you.”
Her email pinged on the laptop. Since her phone was in shards in the rubble of the Raven, Hunt had emailed, Saw your cousin leave. We’re heading to the Comitium in five minutes.
She wrote back, Don’t give me orders, Athalar.
Four minutes, sweetheart.
I told you: don’t call me sweetheart.
Three minutes.
Growling, she stood from the table, rubbing her leg. Her heels were already killing her, and knowing Athalar, he’d make her walk the entire Comitium complex. Her dress would look ridiculous with a different set of shoes, but fortunately, she kept a change of clothes in the bottom drawer of the library desk, mostly in case of a rainy day that threatened to ruin whatever she was wearing.
Lehabah said, “It’s nice—to have company down here.”
Something in Bryce’s chest wrenched, but she said, “I’ll be back later.”
30
Hunt kept a casual distance from Bryce as she walked beside him through the Comitium lobby to the bank of elevators that would take them up to the 33rd’s barracks. The other elevator bays dispersed through the centralized, glass-enclosed atrium led to the four other towers of the complex: one for the City Heads’ meeting rooms and the running of Lunathion, one for Micah as both residence and official office, one for general administrative bullshit, and one for public meetings and events. Thousands upon thousands of people lived and worked within its walls, but even with the bustling lobby, Quinlan somehow managed to stand out.