House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2) by Sarah J. Maas

She read the next page, with a drawing of a Fae female. They did not see the old enemy who offered a hand through space and time. Like a fish to bait, they came, and they opened the gates to us willingly. They walked through them—to Midgard—at our invitation, leaving behind the world they knew.

Bryce backed away from the wall, crashing into the table.

The Asteri had lured them all into this world from other planets. Somehow, using the Northern and Southern Rifts, or whatever way they traveled between worlds, they’d … drawn them into this place. To farm them. Feed off them. Forever.

Everything was a lie. She’d known a lot of accepted history was bullshit, but this …

She twisted to the projector device in the center of the table and stretched an arm to hit the button. A three-dimensional, round map of the cosmos erupted. Stars and planets and nebulas. Many marked with digital notes, as the papers on the walls had been.

It was a digital orrery. Like the metal one she’d glimpsed as a kid in the Autumn King’s study. Like the one in the Astronomer’s chamber.

Was this what Danika had learned in her studies on bloodlines? That they’d all come from elsewhere—but had been lured and trapped here? And then fed on by these immortal leeches?

The map of the universe rotated above her. So many worlds. Bryce reached out to touch one. The digital note immediately appeared beside it.

Urganis. Children were ideal nutrition. Adults incompatible.

She swallowed against the dryness in her throat. That was it. All that remained of a distant world. A note about whether its people made for good eating and what the Asteri had done to its young.

Was there a home planet? Some original world the Asteri had come from, bled so dry that they’d needed to go hunting in the wilds of space?

She began flicking through planets, one after another after another, clawing past the stars and cosmic clouds of dust.

Her heart stopped at one.

Hel.

The ground seemed to slide away from beneath her.

Hel. Lost A.E. 17001.

She had to sink into one of the chairs as she read the note. A dark, cold world with mighty creatures of night. They saw through our lures. Once warring factions, the royal armies of Hel united and marched against us. We were overwhelmed and abandoned their world, but they gave chase. Learned from our captured lieutenants how to slip between the cracks in realms.

Bryce was dimly aware of her shaking body, her shallow breaths.

They found us on Midgard in 17002. Tried to convince our lured prey of what we were, and some fell to their charms. We lost a third of our meals to them. War lasted until nearly the end of 17003. They were defeated and sent back to Hel. Far too dangerous to allow them access to this world again, though they might try. They developed attachments to the Midgard colonists.

“Theia,” Bryce whispered hoarsely. Aidas had loved the Fae queen, and …

Hel had come to help, exactly as Apollion had said. Hel had kicked the Asteri from their own world, but … Tears stung her eyes. The demon princes had felt a moral obligation to chase after the Asteri so they might never prey upon another world. To spare others.

Bryce began sifting through planets again. So many worlds. So many people, their children with them.

It had to be here—the Asteri’s home world. She’d find it and tell the Princes of Hel about it, and once they were done beating these assholes into dust here on Midgard, they’d go to that home world and they’d blow it the fuck up—

She was sobbing through her teeth.

This empire, this world … it was just one massive buffet for the six beings ruling it.

Hel had tried to save them. For fifteen thousand years, Hel had never stopped trying to find a way back here. To free them from the Asteri.

“Where the fuck did you come from?” she seethed.

Worlds ripped past her fingertips, along with the Asteri’s dispassionate notes. Most planets were not as lucky as Hel had been.

They rose up. We left them in cinders.

Firstlight tasted off. Terminated world.

Denizens launched bombs at us that left planet and inhabitants too full of radiation to be viable food. Left to rot in their waste.

Firstlight too weak. Terminated world but kept several citizens who produced good firstlight to sustain us on travels. Children proved hearty, but did not take to our travel method.

These psychotic, soulless monsters—

“You will not find our home world there,” a cold voice said through the intercom on the table. “Even we have forgotten where its ruins lie.”

Bryce panted, only rage coursing through her as she said to Rigelus, “I am going to fucking kill you.”





73

Rigelus laughed. “I was under the impression that you were only here to access the information for which Sofie Renast and Danika Fendyr died. You’re going to kill me as well?”

Bryce squeezed shaking hands into fists. “Why? Why do any of this?”

“Why do you drink water and eat food? We are higher beings. We are gods. You cannot blame us if our source of nutrition is inconvenient for you. We keep you healthy, and happy, and allow you to roam free on this planet. We have even let the humans live all this time, just to give you Vanir someone to rule over. In exchange, all we ask is a little of your power.”

“You’re parasites.”

“What are all creatures, feeding off their resources? You should see what the inhabitants of some worlds did to their planets—the rubbish, the pollution, the poisoned seas. Was it not fitting that we returned the favor?”