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

“Once we left our home world, our powers began to dim. Too late, we realized that we had been dependent on our land’s inherent magic. The magic in other worlds was not potent enough. Yet we could not find the way back home. Those of us who ventured here found ways to amplify that power, thanks to the gifts of the land. We pooled our power, and imbued those gifts into the Cauldron so that it would work our will. We Made the Trove from it. And then bound the very essence of the Cauldron to the soul of this world.”

Solas. “So destroy the Cauldron …”

“And you destroy this world. One cannot exist without the other.”

Behind them, Nesta sucked in a sharp breath. But Bryce said, “You gave this world a kill switch.”

“We gave many worlds … kill switches. To protect our interests.” She said it with such calm, such surety.

“Do you know Rigelus?”

“You speak his name very casually for a worm.”

“We’re closely acquainted.”

A slight pursing of the lips. “I knew him in passing. I’m assuming you wish to slay him—and have come to ask me how to do it.”

Bryce said nothing.

Vesperus leveled a cold look at her. “I will not help you in that regard. I will not betray the secrets of my people.”

“Was this sort of compassion the reason Theia didn’t kill you?”

Vesperus glowered. “Theia knew that for my kind, this sort of punishment would be far worse than death. To be confined, yet live. To neither breathe, nor eat, nor drink—but to be left in half slumber, starving.” That gleam in her eyes—it wasn’t solely rage. It was madness. “It would have been a mercy to kill me. Theia did not understand the word. I raised her from childhood not to. She would come down here every now and then and stare at me—I slept, but I could sense her there. Gloating over me. Convinced of her triumph.”

A chill skittered down Bryce’s spine. “She kept you down here as a trophy.”

Vesperus’s chin dipped in a nod. “I believe she drew pleasure from my suffering.”

“I don’t blame her,” Bryce snapped, even as a sick feeling filled her stomach. Theia might have helped Midgard in the end, but she was no better than the monster who’d raised her.

“I have questions for you, too, mongrel.”

“By all means,” Bryce said, waving her hand.

“If we lost the war to Theia, if my people are now a mere myth, how is it that you know Rigelus intimately? Do the Asteri still dwell here?”

“No,” Bryce said. “I came from another world. One where the Asteri remain in control.”

“How long have the Asteri ruled?”

“Fifteen thousand years.”

“Rigelus must be very pleased with himself.”

“Oh, he is.”

But the Asteri looked from Bryce to Azriel and Nesta behind her, brows lifting. “Is life so unbearable under our rule that you must always defy us?”

Yes. No. For Bryce, life had been fine. Shitty in spots, but fine. But for so many others …

“Does it matter,” Vesperus pushed on, addressing Bryce once more, “that we take a little of your power? What would you even do with it?”

“It matters that we’re lied to,” Bryce said. “That our power is not yours for the taking. That your supremacy is unchecked and unearned.”

“There is a natural order to the universe, girl. The strong rule the weak, and the weak benefit from it. Everything in nature preys and is preyed upon. You Fae somehow consider this an affront only when it is applied to you.”

“I’m not going to debate the ethics of conquest with you. Rigelus and the others have no right to my world, but they’ve poisoned the water in Midgard—it’s full of some sort of parasite that leaches our magic and requires us to offer it up to the Asteri. How do I undo it?”

Vesperus’s eyes glowed with delight. “We’d hoped for something of this nature, rather than the Tithe, which required the consent”—she spat the word as if it tasted foul—“of our subjects, but we never figured out how … The water supply, you say?” A soft laugh. “Rigelus always was clever.”

“How the fuck do I undo it?”

“You seem to think me inclined to help you, when I would receive nothing in return.”

“I know what you want, and you’re not getting it.”

“And if I were to say that I have no wish to rule, only to live?”

“You’d still be a leech, who’d need to feed on these people. You don’t deserve to go free.”

“They have a place in this land for creatures like me. The unwanted. It is called the Middle. I have dreamt of it, seen it in my long slumber.”

“That’s not my decision to make.”

“Use the Crown that Made scum over there possesses.” Vesperus nodded to Nesta. “You could forge a path to enact your vision by clearing the minds of those before you.”

She had no idea what Vesperus meant, but Bryce countered coolly, “You guys had a long fucking time to figure out every way to justify your actions, huh?”

“We are superior beings. We do not need to justify anything.”

“You’d fit right in on Midgard.”

“If Rigelus has held on to his power for so long, then your world is firmly in his grasp. He will not abandon it. He will have learned from the mistakes my companions and I made on this world and on others.”