House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City #3) by Sarah J. Maas

So she’d sat, waiting for the handcuffs or shackles or whatever restraints they used in this world, but none had come.

The short female countered, “Why do you speak the Old Language?”

Bryce jerked her chin at the female. “Why do you?”

The female’s red-painted lips curved upward. It wasn’t a reassuring sight. “Why are you covered in blood that is not your own?”

Score: one for the female.

Bryce knew her blood-soaked clothes, now stiff and dark, and her blood-crusted hands did her no favors. It was the Harpy’s blood, and a bit of Lidia’s. All coating Bryce as a part of a careful game to keep her alive, to keep their secrets safe, while Hunt and Ruhn had—

Her breath began sawing in and out. She’d left them. Her mate and her brother. She’d left them in Rigelus’s hands.

The walls and ceiling pushed in, squeezing the air from her lungs.

Rhysand lifted a broad hand wreathed in stars. “We won’t harm you.” Bryce found the rest of the sentence lurking within the dense shadows around him: if you don’t try to harm us.

She closed her eyes, fighting past the jagged breathing, the crushing weight of the stone above and around her.

Less than an hour ago, she’d been sprinting away from Rigelus’s power, dodging exploding marble busts and shattering windows, and Hunt’s lightning had speared through her chest, into the Gate, opening a portal. She’d leapt toward Hel—

And now … now she was here. Her hands shook. She balled them into fists and squeezed.

Bryce took a slow, shuddering breath. Another. Then opened her eyes and asked again, her voice solid and clear, “What world is this?”

Her three interrogators said nothing.

So Bryce fixed her eyes on the female, the smallest but by no means the least deadly of the group. “You said the Old Language hasn’t been spoken here in fifteen thousand years. Why?”

That they were Fae and knew the language at all suggested some link between here and Midgard, a link that was slowly dawning on her with terrible clarity.

“How did you come to be in possession of the lost sword Gwydion?” was the female’s cool reply.

“What … You mean the Starsword?” Another link between their worlds.

All of them just stared at her again. An impenetrable wall of people accustomed to getting answers in whatever way necessary.

Bryce had no weapons, nothing beyond the magic in her veins, the Archesian amulet around her neck, and the Horn tattooed into her back. But to wield it, she needed power, needed to be fueled up like some stupid fucking battery—

So talking was her best weapon. Good thing she’d spent years as a master of spinning bullshit, according to Hunt.

“It’s a family heirloom,” Bryce said. “It’s been in my world since it was brought there by my ancestors … fifteen thousand years ago.” She let the last few words land with a pointed glance at the female. Let her do the math, as Bryce had.

But the beautiful male—Rhysand—said in a voice like midnight, “How did you find this world?”

This was not a male to be fucked with. None of these people were, but this one … Authority rippled off him. As if he was the entire axis of this place. A king of some sort, then.

“I didn’t.” Bryce met his star-flecked stare. Some primal part of her quailed at the raw power within his gaze. “I told you: I meant to go to Hel. I landed here instead.”

“How?”

The things far below the grate hissed louder, as if sensing his wrath. Demanding blood.

Bryce swallowed. If they learned about the Horn, her power, the Gates … what was to stop them from using her as Rigelus had wanted to? Or from viewing her as a threat to be removed?

Master of spinning bullshit. She could do this.

“There are Gates within my world that open into other worlds. For fifteen thousand years, they’ve mostly opened into Hel. Well, the Northern Rift opens directly into Hel, but …” Let them think her rambling. An idiot. The party girl most of Midgard had labeled her, that Micah had believed her to be, until she was vacuuming up his fucking ashes. “This Gate sent me here with a one-way ticket.”

Did they have tickets in this world? Transportation?

She clarified into their silence, “A companion of mine gambled that he could send me to Hel using his power. But I think …” She sorted through all that Rigelus had told her in those last moments. That the star on her chest somehow acted as a beacon to the original world of the Starborn people.

Grasping at straws, she nodded to the warrior’s dagger. “There’s a prophecy in my world about my sword and a missing knife. That when they’re reunited, so will the Fae of Midgard be.”

Master of spinning bullshit, indeed.

“So maybe I’m here for that. Maybe the sword sensed that dagger and … brought me to it.”

Silence. Then the silent, hazel-eyed warrior laughed quietly.

How had he understood without Rhysand translating? Unless he could simply read her body language, her tone, her scent—

The warrior spoke with a low voice that skittered down her spine. Rhysand glanced at him with raised brows, then translated for Bryce with equal menace, “You’re lying.”

Bryce blinked, the portrait of innocence and outrage. “About what?”