Bryce, Nesta and Azriel: HOFAS Bonus Chapter

Drip. Drip-drip-drip. Drip.

Eyes closed, head resting against the damp, uneven stone of the cave wall, Bryce listened to the stone and water talk.

Drip-drip. Drop. Drip-drip-drop.

It was more conversation than either Nesta or Azriel had offered up in the two hours that they’d all been taking a breather. Technically, Bryce was supposed to be sleeping. But without day or night to dictate her body’s rhythms, she just sat in a semi- stupor, not really asleep, not really awake.

Drip-drop-drop. Drip.

Bryce cracked open an eye, surveying her two companions. Nesta sat against the opposite wall, head down, breathing lightly.

But Azriel was staring right at Bryce. She started, whacking her head against the rock. White pain splintered across her vision. By the time it cleared, Nesta was awake.

“What is it?” Nesta peered down the tunnel to one side, then the other. Dripping darkness filled both directions, interrupted only by the silvery, watery glow of Bryce’s star through her shirt. A steady shine that hadn’t flared or dimmed. As if it was saying, You’re on the right track. Keep going.

Bryce rubbed the back of her aching head and sat up. “Oh, nothing. Just your usual predator-in-the-night warrior, staring at me while I sleep.”

“You weren’t sleeping,” Azriel said, faint amusement in his voice.

“How do you know?” Bryce countered, but her lips quirked upward.

Nesta yawned, stretching her arms over her head and rolling her neck from side to side. “It’s his job to be vigilant.” She lowered her arms, frowning slightly at Azriel. “Were you really watching her sleep?”

Azriel glowered. “When you say it like that, it sounds… unsa- vory.”

“It’s creepy,” Bryce grumbled.

“You are a stranger to us,” Nesta pointed out. “We’d be fools to take our attention off you for one second. Even while sleeping.”

Bryce crossed her legs, sighing. There was no hope of sleep- ing now. “Well, let’s not be strangers anymore,” she suggested. A survival tactic Randall had taught her: endear herself to any captor. Make them see her heart and soul so they might consider not killing her.

Because even though they’d left that interrogation cell, even though Nesta had given her back her phone, Bryce had little doubt that the killing option was still on the table.

“What is it you want to know?” Nesta asked carefully.

Bryce glanced between them. “How’d you two meet?”

She could have sworn Azriel tensed, like he was weighing how dangerous any answer might be, assessing why Bryce might want to know.

“There was a war,” Nesta said shortly. “Between who?” Bryce asked.

Again, that assessing silence. Azriel answered this time.

“Between an evil Fae King and us.” “You two, or, like… everyone?”

Nesta gave her a withering look. “Yes, the King of Hybern declared war on just me and Azriel.”

“I don’t want to discuss this,” Azriel cut her off coldly.

Bryce didn’t miss the wounded gleam in Nesta’s eyes. Attempting to salvage the conversation, she said, “Well, for what it’s worth, my best friend, Danika, had a shitty mom, too.”

“I don’t have a monopoly on that,” Nesta said flatly, still mas- tering herself after Azriel’s outburst.

Bryce offered a smile. “Danika said it built character.” And at Nesta’s shuttered expression, she found herself saying, “I think she was right – in a way. I think her mother’s cruelty made her a kinder, more thoughtful person. She saw how Sabine treated others, and was so disgusted by it that she wanted to become the opposite. Danika lived in terror of turning into her mother.”

Nesta didn’t say anything, but – there. A shallow nod. Like she understood. Like she lived with that fear every day. The water drip-drip-dripped again in the heavy silence.

“So that… phone of yours,” Nesta said suddenly, as if eager to change the subject for all their sakes. “You said earlier it has music inside it?”

Bryce fished the phone from her back pocket, its answering glare harsh against the softness of her starlight. “Yeah. I’ve got my entire music library on here.”

The clock on her phone read 3:56 in the morning. Her head spun. Was that the time here? Or at home? What day was it here- or there? How long had Hunt and Ruhn been-

She pushed the thoughts from her mind.

“Can I… hear some of your music?” Nesta’s question was ten- tative, as if she was uncomfortable making such a personal request. Bryce flashed her a half smile. “Sure. What kind of music do you like?”

At their confused silence, Bryce pushed, “Classical, dance, jazz…okay, those words clearly mean nothing to you.” “Put on the music that represents your world best,” Nesta said. “I think Midgard could descend into another war over that,” Bryce said. “But I’ll play you my favorite, at least.”

She grimaced at the dwindling battery, well aware that playing music would drain it, but the yearning for a taste of home overcame her apprehension.

Bryce scrolled through her music until she pulled up the folk duo that immediately leapt to mind: Josie and Laurel. Her hand shook a little with the sheer magnitude of picking which od their many songs to play, which sing to be the first ot theirs heard on this planet. Her favourites always shifted depending on her mood, her current phase of life. In the end, she went with her gut.

“Stone Mother” began playing, its rolling, thumping drums offsetting the wild, yet mellow, guitars. And then Josie’s voice filled the tunnel, sharp and yet soaring, accented by Laurel’s sweet, clear backups. The sound was foreign, earthy – haunting. In the span of a few notes, Bryce was back in her childhood bedroom in Nidaros, sprawled on the carpet, letting the sound of the music run over her for the first time.

Then she was in the dry hills of Valbara, surrounded by olive trees. Then the palm-lined quay along the Istros. Then with Danika. Then alone.

Then with Hunt.

This song had carried her through it all – through the years of pain and emptiness and rebuilding. It had carried her from light into darkness and then back to light.

The wraith-like harmonies echoed off the stones, until the rock sounded as if it was singing.

And when it was done, silence resumed. Nesta’s eyes were wide. “That was beautiful,” she said eventually. “I couldn’t understand a word of it, but I felt it.”

Bryce nodded, aching with thoughts of home, of the faces the song had brought to mind. “That’s a kind of folksy, coun- try sound. But this is what we call classical music-the stuff per- formed in grand halls. My friend Juniper dances to this kind of thing in the Crescent City Ballet. I used to dance, too, but… long story. This was one of my favorite dances. It’s from a bal- let called The Glass Coffin.” Bryce hit play again, and the violins began.

Again, Nesta was silent, knees now clutched to her chest, staring into the darkness. As if she was dedicating every inch of herself to

“This sounds like some of our music,” Azriel murmured. Nesta shushed him.

Bryce tapped her foot along to the melody, reading the expres sions stealing across Nesta’s face as the music played. Wonder and curiosity, joy and longing. Nesta seemed to be thrumming with the music, though she didn’t move at all. Like she was coming alive merely listening to the sound.

When the piece finished, its thunderous finale crashing through the cavern, Nesta met Bryce’s stare and said, “I like to dance, too.” It was a small piece of herself, but willingly given. Bryce felt her heart warm toward the warrior, just a bit.

“Yeah?”

But Nesta pointed to the phone again. “Play more, please.” So Bryce did.

Two hours later, they were walking again. Maybe Azriel had been interested enough in the music that he’d let them linger. Bryce had played them a sample of every genre she could think of. Nesta had clapped her hands over her ears at the screaming, wailing death metal, but Azriel had chuckled.

He’d probably get along with Ruhn and his idiot friends.

Nesta had loved the classical stuff the best, and both of them had been intrigued by the pulsing, thumping club music. “That is what you dance to in your world?” Nesta asked. Bryce hadn’t been able to tell if she was intrigued or dismayed. Azriel, at least, had seemed on board.

But now they were silent again, walking past carving after carving. They had to be getting close to… whatever waited at the end of this tunnel.

What if they walked and walked and found nothing, though? At what point would they decide to give up? Bryce’s star still blazed, pointing the way ahead, but what if they weren’t reading it correctly? Maybe her instincts had been wrong.

Maybe she hadn’t really been sent here by Urd.

Maybe it was all one big cosmic fuckup.

A giant accident.

Bryce’s throat tightened. She’d tried not to think about what was happening to Hunt and Ruhn, but in the ongoing gloom of the tunnels, her fear crept in again. Were they safe? Were they even alive?

“The music in your world,” Nesta said suddenly, interrupting Bryce’s doom spiral. “It’s all simply available to anyone?”

“In a way? There’s a sort of… nonphysical library made by machines that can store all the information in the world. Music, art, books-anything. So yeah, you can find any song, any piece of music, and listen to it whenever you want.”

“You have wonders in your world,” Nesta said.

Azriel added from a few steps behind them, “And terrors.”

Bryce grunted her agreement. “I’m sure you do, too.”

“We do,” Azriel said quietly.

Bryce filled in the gap of what he wouldn’t reveal. “But you’ve never seen things like guns or bombs, right?” She assumed they hadn’t, since they’d seemed so shocked when she’d shown them her memories in the Veritas orb.

“Did the Asteri invent those weapons?” Azriel asked darkly. “No. Some other sick fuck did,” Bryce muttered. “But they’re everywhere now.”

“They should all be destroyed.”

“Yes. They bring nothing good into the world.” Bryce angled her head to the side. “So you guys have swords and stuff?” “Something like that,” Azriel hedged. He clearly wasn’t going to enlighten her about their defenses.

“And your magic is…”

“Don’t push it,” Azriel said, a hint of that earlier chill entering his voice.

Nesta’s lips thinned at the tone, like she was remembering it, too. Like it didn’t sit right with her.

“Okay, okay,” Bryce said. “But it’d be cool to know something about your world. Or about you.”

They were both silent.

Bryce asked Nesta, “You have a mate, right?” She nodded to Azriel. “Do you?”

“No,” Azriel said quickly, flatly. “A partner or spouse?”

“No.”

Bryce sighed. “Okay, then.”

Azriel’s wings twitched. “You’re incurably nosy.” “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve said about me.” Bryce winked at him. “Look, I just… I’m curious. Aren’t you?”

Azriel didn’t answer, but Nesta said, “Yes. We are.” Bryce ran a hand over one of the carvings-a young girl sitting on a toadstool, a hound sprawled on the ground beside her. “It’s crazy to me that in fifteen thousand years, we’ve developed all sorts of tech and your world is still, you know, like this.” She motioned to their clothes, the cave. At Nesta’s narrowed eyes, Bryce quickly added, “I’m simply wondering why similar changes didn’t happen here. I mean, we had the Asteri, but a lot of our inventions didn’t come from them.”

“Maybe it was the result of so many different worlds blending together in Midgard,” Nesta mused. “Each brought all of its learn- ing. United, they figured it out. Separate, perhaps they wouldn’t have.”

“Maybe. But we also had firstlight-a communal source of power. You don’t have that here. Just individual power.” Granted, Midgard’s communal power was thanks to the Asteri. Was it a good or a bad thing? Bryce didn’t know where to even begin sort- ing that out. Her feelings about it were a messy tangle of gratitude and rage.

Nesta asked, “Without firstlight, would your world become like ours, do you think?”

Bryce considered. “I don’t see another way to power our cars or phones, so… probably.”

Azriel asked, “Do the guns need firstlight?”

“No,” Bryce said. “And some of the bombs don’t need it, either.” The weight of the darkness pressed in. “Those evils will remain in Midgard forever, even without firstlight.”

“And people would still kill each other, even without those weapons,” Nesta said gravely. “The wicked will always find a way to hurt and harm.”

“Is this the part where you remind me that you guys will always find a way to hurt and harm me if I step out of line?”

“Yes,” Azriel said softly. “But this is also the part where I tell you that we’re the ones who usually try to find a way to stop those wicked people.”

“Isn’t that a little revealing?” Bryce teased. “You’re supposed to maintain the image of the big, bad assholes. Not tell me you’re a bunch of crime-fighting do-gooders.”

“You can do good,” Azriel warned, “while still being bad.”

Bryce whistled. “I know a number of males back home who could only dream of delivering that sentence with such cool.”

Nesta chuckled. “I know a good number, too.”

Azriel threw Nesta an incredulous look. But Nesta was grinning at Bryce.

Bryce grinned back. “Male egos: a universal constant.”

Nesta laughed again. “If you weren’t our captive,” she said, shaking her head, “I think I might like to call you a friend, Bryce Quinlan.”

Bryce didn’t know why the words hit something deep in her.

“Yeah,” Bryce said hoarsely. “Likewise.”

They walked in silence again, but it was no longer tense. There was something…lighter in it. If only for the moment. Like they weren’t her captors, but rather her companions.

Fine. In this world, at least, the Fae weren’t so bad. They clearly had their share of Fae assholes here, too, but Nesta … Bryce didn’t mind her.

It was uncomfortable, really. Bryce had always prided herself on resenting any and all Fae, her brother and his idiot friends being the rare exceptions, but these two strangers, and what she’d pieced together about the people around them…

They seemed like decent, caring people who loved each other.

She wasn’t even sure the Fae of Midgard knew what the word love meant. The Autumn King’s definition of it had left a small scar on her mom’s face.

But these Fae were different.

Did it matter? The Fae in Midgard weren’t her problem, and she didn’t want them to be, but what if they could be more? Was such a change possible?

“Do you like it?” Bryce asked Nesta suddenly. “Being Fae?”

“I didn’t at first,” Nesta said plainly. “But now I do.”

Azriel seemed to be listening closely.

Nesta went on, “I’m stronger, faster. Harder to kill.

I don’t see a downside to that.”

“And the near-immortal life span isn’t so bad, huh?” Bryce teased.

“I’m still adjusting to the idea of that,” Nesta said, eyes on the tunnel ahead. “That time is so… vast. The day-to-day versus the sprawl of centuries.” She slid her attention to Azriel. “How do you deal with it?”

He was quiet for a moment before saying, “Find people you love-they make the time pass quickly.” He caught Nesta’s eye, and said a shade apologetically, “Especially if they’ll forgive your occasional snapping at them over things that aren’t their fault.”

Something seemed to soften in Nesta’s eyes-relief, perhaps, at the extended olive branch. She said quietly, tentatively, “Nothing to forgive, Az.”

But his words had lightened some of the remaining tension. And his next ones finished the job entirely as he winked at Nesta. “And I’ve been told having children makes the time fly, too.”

Nesta rolled her eyes, but Bryce didn’t miss the gleam in them. Nesta was willing to play – to get back to their normal dynamic. She admitted, “I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to raise a child.” She pointed to herself. “Raised by a terrible mother, remember?”

“Doesn’t mean you’ll be one,” Azriel said gently. Nesta was quiet for a heartbeat, then acknowledged,

“My mother was even worse to Feyre – and my sister has turned out to be…” She searched for the word. “A perfect mother.”

“There’s no such thing as a perfect mother,” Bryce cut in. “Just so you know.”

“Your own mother sounds pretty perfect,” Nesta said dryly.

“Gods, no,” Bryce said, laughing. “But she’d be the first to say so. Perfect is an unfair ideal to hold anyone to. My mom taught me that, actually.”

Bryce swallowed hard, thinking of Ember. Had the Asteri hunted her down and killed her? If Bryce ever got home… would her mother be there?

Nesta laid a hand on Bryce’s shoulder-it seemed consoling, somehow. Like she sensed all that coursed through Bryce’s mind, the panic now thudding in her heart.

“What is it?” Bryce asked, glancing at the female.

Nesta nodded to Bryce’s pocket. “Could we hear some more of your music?”

It was a friendly offer – definitely intended to pull Bryce out of her brooding. A kindness from a female clearly not accustomed to such displays. Bryce fished out her phone again.

The battery was inching toward the red zone. It would be dead soon. But for this… she could spare it. “What do you want to hear?” Bryce asked, opening her music library.

Nesta and Azriel swapped glances, and the male answered a bit sheepishly, “The music you play at your pleasure halls.”

Bryce laughed. “Are you a club rat, Azriel?”

He glowered at her, earning a smirk from Nesta, but Bryce played one of her favorite dance tunes-a zippy blend of thump- ing bass and saxophones, of all things. And as the three of them walked into the endless dark, she could have sworn she caught Azriel nodding along to the beat.

She hid her smile and played song after song, until the battery on her phone drained to the dregs. Until that last, beautiful link to Midgard went dark and died.

No more music. No more pictures of Hunt.

But the music seemed to linger, like a ghostly echo through the caves.

And with each mile onward, she could hear Azriel humming to himself. The rolling, wild melody of “Stone Mother” softly flowed off his lips, and she could have sworn even the shadows danced at the sound.