House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City Series)

Bryce didn’t know who to focus on: Sathia Flynn bristling with fury in Morven’s throne room, or Tristan’s shocked face as he processed the scene before them. Bryce opted for the latter, especially as Flynn snapped at the King of Avallen, “What do you mean, trouble?”

Morven drawled, “Many of the Valbaran Fae sense … unrest on the horizon, and have been seeking shelter within my lands.” Those serpentine shadows writhed around his neck, over his shoulders, with unnerving menace. The king’s shadows, the Murder Twins’ … they felt different from Ruhn’s: wilder, meaner. Ruhn’s shadows were gentle, stealthy night; theirs were the dark of lightless caves.

“If you pitched this place as a luxury vacation, you’re about to get a bunch of one-star reviews,” Bryce muttered, earning a chuckle from Tharion. She didn’t smile at the mer, though. He’d added another nearly all-powerful ruler to their list of enemies—she didn’t want to talk to him right now. From the way Tharion’s chuckle quickly died off, he knew she wasn’t happy.

So Bryce watched as Flynn, dead serious perhaps for the first time in his life, said to the Stag King, voice dripping with disdain, “Let me guess, my parents came running right over.” He glanced around the throne room. “Where’s my oh-so-brave father? And everyone else, for that matter?”

Morven’s face might as well have been carved from stone. “A select few have been allowed in. Most have been sent back to Lunathion. But for those who remain here, there is a price to be paid, of course.”

Flynn slowly turned toward his sister. “What did you promise him?” Pure rage and a hint of fear laced his question. But Flynn didn’t go for the female or the twins holding her.

Bryce sized them up, and found both males already smiling at her. And then, deep in her mind, twin dark shadows snarled, readying to strike—

She incinerated them with a mental wall of starlight.

The twins hissed, one of them blinking as if that light had physically blinded him. Bryce bared her teeth, and kept that shining wall in her mind. A second later, there was a polite tap against it and Ruhn said, Keep this up. No matter what.

Tell Hunt and the others to put up a wall as well, Bryce replied, glaring daggers at the twins.

Already did, Ruhn replied. You should see the lightning around Athalar’s mind. He burned their probes into crisps.

Yuck. Don’t say probes.

Ruhn snorted, and his presence faded from her mind just as Morven continued, “Sathia has promised me nothing. In fact, she has refused to pay my asking price. A generous one, at that: her choice between the males who stand beside her. And as a female has no worth here beyond the offspring she might bear Avallen, I don’t see a reason why your sister should remain in this haven another moment.”

Morven’s words sank in. “I’m sorry,” Bryce said, glancing between Sathia’s outraged, pretty face and the Stag King and his feral shadows, “but to clarify: Are you saying you’re requiring any females who seek refuge here to marry?”

“It would be unsafe for so many unwed females to be running about without a male relative or husband,” Morven said, picking at an invisible fleck of dirt on his night-black pants.

“Yeah,” Bryce said, “the gods know what would happen if all us females were unsupervised. Absolute anarchy. Cities would crumble.”

But Flynn said to Morven, “So bring their brothers and husbands over.”

Bryce glared at him, but Morven declared, “I have no need for more males in this land.”

Bryce ground her teeth hard enough to hurt. This was the male who’d agreed with her father that Bryce and Cormac should marry, injecting more power and dignity into the Fae royal line.

Flynn said, “And my parents?”

Morven sniffed. “I have allowed Lord and Lady Hawthorne to remain here, as our ties date back to the First Wars. They are currently residing at my private hunting lodge up north.”

“So send Sathia to my dad,” Flynn snapped.

“He won’t,” Sathia said at last. Though her Fae voice was soft and cultured, Bryce didn’t miss the backbone of steel running through it. “It’s either marry here, or go back to Lunathion.”

“So go back,” Flynn ordered his sister.

Sathia slowly shook her head. “It’s not safe.”

“You’ve got your cushy villa,” Ruhn said with unusual harshness. “You’ll be fine.”

Sathia shook her head again, gaze fixing on her brother. “It’s not safe because of you.”

“What?” Flynn blurted.

“Word has spread,” Morven said from his antler-and-shadow throne, “of your assistance in that one’s”—a nod toward Ruhn—“escape. Along with the escape of two other enemies of the empire.” A flick of his cold eyes to Baxian and Hunt, who glared back with impressive menace. “The entire Hawthorne family is now wanted by the Asteri for questioning.”

“They want to kill us to punish you,” Sathia burst out, pointing a damning finger at Flynn. “We had to leave in the middle of the night, when we got an alert that the 33rd was coming to bring us in. These clothes are the only ones I have with me.”

“What a sacrifice for you,” Flynn sneered. But Bryce caught the guilt darkening his eyes. Declan had already pulled out his phone, no doubt to check on his family and Marc—

“There’s no reception here, thanks to the mists,” Sathia said to Declan.

The male’s face paled, and he muttered, “I forgot.”

But Sathia added quietly, “I put in a call to your parents before we left. They said they’d get in touch with your boyfriend, too.”

Flynn gaped at her, but Declan bowed his head in thanks.

“What?” Sathia glared at her brother. “You think I’m that much of a monster?”

Flynn gave her another sneer that said, Yes, and Bryce stepped in to spare everyone from their bickering. “Okay,” she said to Morven, “so you’re insisting that Flynn’s sister marry one of … these creeps?” Bryce gestured to the Murder Twins holding Sathia, making sure that mental wall of starlight was still intact. She wasn’t letting their minds anywhere near hers.

“Seamus and Duncan are lords of the Fae,” Morven snapped at Bryce. “You will address them with a female’s proper tone of deference.”

For fuck’s sake. “You didn’t answer my question,” Bryce said. Sathia’s expression had become downright panicked. “You’re really forcing her into marriage or deporting her to be killed by the Asteri?”

Morven twirled a shadow around one of his long, broad fingers. “Her father has agreed it is in her best interest to wed. And has agreed that should she refuse, she shall be sent back to Lunathion.” He clenched his fist, crushing the shadow within. “For too long, she has refused any males he has presented to her for marriage. Her father’s patience has come to an end, and he has begged me to oversee this matter.”

“Dad of the year,” Baxian growled.

Bryce grunted her agreement.

Sathia said with impressive coldness, “It is within my rights to refuse any suitor presented to me.”

Morven gave her a look dripping with distaste. “It is, girl. Just as it is within your father’s rights to disown you for failing in your duty to continue the family bloodline.”

Bryce grumbled, “So what’s the point of giving females refusal rights at all if you punish them for it?”

“This isn’t our problem,” Flynn grumbled, and even Ruhn whirled to him in shock. “We didn’t come here to deal with this.”

“So you’re not here to beg asylum as well?” Morven asked, propping his chin on a fist.

“No,” Hunt growled, stepping forward, wings flaring. “We’re not.” He glanced to Bryce, motioning her forward again.

Swapping a look with Ruhn that said they’d deal with the issue of Sathia later, Bryce set aside her concern and lifted her chin as she stepped to Hunt’s side. “I’m here to access the Avallen Archives and the Cave of Princes.”

“Access denied,” Morven said.

“You mistake me,” Bryce said in that voice that brooked no argument. “I wasn’t asking your permission.” The star on her chest began to glow, illuminating her T-shirt and athletic jacket. “As a Starborn Princess, no part of Avallen is denied to me.”

“I shall decide who is worthy of accessing my realm,” Morven snarled.

“The starlight says otherwise,” Bryce said. She drew the Starsword—and the dagger. “And so do these.”

As if their sheaths had kept their power contained, the naked metal now throbbed against her palm, up her arms, tugging toward each other so violently it took all her strength to keep them apart.

Morven paled. Even his shadows receded. “What is that in your left hand?” Even the Murder Twins and Sathia had their eyes trained on her, as if they couldn’t look away.

“Some major prophecy fulfillment,” Bryce said, hoping to Hel she was hiding the tremble in her arms from keeping the black blades steady, from ignoring that instinct murmuring to her to bring them together, not keep them apart.

“Where did you get that knife?” Morven hissed.

“So you know what it is, then?” Bryce said.

“Yes,” he seethed. “I can feel its power.”

“Well, that makes it easier,” Bryce said. She sheathed both weapons. Mercifully, the pulling eased with the action. “Less explaining for me.” She nodded to Morven, and he glowered. “I’ll be in and out of here before you know it.”

His shadows returned, darkening the air behind his antler-throne until it seemed Morven sat before a void. “Females are forbidden in both the Avallen Archives and the Cave of Princes.”

“I don’t really care,” Bryce said.

“You spit on our sacred traditions.”

“Get over it.”

Morven’s nostrils flared. “I’ll remind you, girl, that one word from me and the Asteri will have you in their grasp.”

“You’d have to open the mists to them first,” Bryce countered. “And it seems like you’ve worked really hard not to do that—or give them a reason to come here at all.”

“You can be removed by guards.”

Bryce gestured to Hunt, then Baxian, then the others. “My own guards might make that difficult.”

“This is my kingdom—”

“I’m not challenging that. I just want to look through your archives. A few days, then we’ll all be out of your hair.” She pulled the Autumn King’s notebook from her jacket. “I’ll even sweeten the deal: Here’s my sire’s private journal. Well, his most current one. All his recent scheming, written down. It’s pretty stupid, if you ask me. Dear Diary, today I made a list of all my enemies and how I plan to kill them. It’s so hard being king—I wish I had a friend!”

She grinned as Morven’s eyes narrowed on the leather-bound notebook, and she flashed him the first page, where her father’s distinctive handwriting was visible. He’d know it well, as the two old losers communicated mostly through written letters, since Avallen had no computers. “You let us stay here and it’s yours when we leave.”

Morven’s fingers drummed on the arm of his throne. Fish on a line.

But he said, shadows lightening at last, “Your presence here threatens to bring the Asteri’s wrath upon me.”

Bryce considered, blinking. “Well, it seems you’ve got no problem harboring fugitives, if you’re letting in Flynn’s parents.”

He glared, pure darkness in his eyes.

Bryce went on, “I mean, you could probably make up for Cormac’s dishonor by selling us out to the Asteri … but if you hand us over, you’d have to turn in Flynn’s parents and the other nobles, too. And I doubt it’d win you any points with your own people if you betrayed some fancy-ass nobles.” She crossed her arms. “You’re in a real pickle, huh?”

Morven tapped his booted foot on the ground.

“It’s super hard,” Bryce commiserated, “to try to play both sides, isn’t it?”

“I am not playing either side,” Morven said. “I am loyal to the Asteri.”

“Then open the mists—invite them here. Let’s have them over for brunch.”

Morven’s silence was damning.

Bryce smiled. “I thought so.” She nodded to Sathia. “One more thing: she doesn’t marry anyone, and she comes with us.”

Sathia gaped at Bryce. But Bryce threw the Fae female a warning look. Bryce had only seen Sathia Flynn from a distance at parties. Usually, the female’s hair was dyed varying shades of shining dark brown or blond. Now her locks were an ordinary light brown—her natural color, perhaps. It was like seeing a glimpse of the real female beneath.

“I cannot allow that,” Morven said. “She is an unwed female.”

“Her brother is here,” Bryce said, nodding to Flynn. “Irresponsible party boy that he is, at least he has the parts that matter to you.”

Flynn glared, but Dec elbowed him hard enough that he stepped up and said, “I’ll, uh, take responsibility for Sathia.”

Sathia bristled like an angry cat, but kept her mouth shut.

“No,” Morven said, a shadow wrapping itself around his wrist like a bracelet. An idle, bored bit of magic. “You are an unsuitable chaperone, as you have demonstrated time and again.”

Hunt gave Bryce a look, and she knew what he was thinking. It was the same thing Ruhn said into her mind a heartbeat later:

As much as it kills me to say this … we might have to let this go. Sathia is Flynn’s sister and all, but it’s not our battle to fight.

Bryce subtly shook her head. You really want to leave her to Morven’s mercy?

Trust me, Bryce, Sathia can handle herself.

But Bryce glanced back at Lidia, who’d been watching all this with a cold, clear focus. Staying completely silent in that way of hers that made others forget her presence. Even Morven, it seemed, hadn’t noticed who stood in his throne room—because he now let out a low grunt of surprise at the sight of her.

Yet the Hind met Bryce’s gaze. What would you do? Bryce tried to convey.

Lidia seemed to grasp the general direction of her thoughts, because she said quietly, “I never had anyone to fight for me.”

Well, that did it.

Bryce opened her mouth, rallying power to her star, but Tharion spoke from behind them.

“I’ll marry Sathia.”

It took Hypaxia seven hours, seven minutes, and seven seconds to raise Sigrid.

Ithan barely moved from his stool the entire time Hypaxia stood over the corpse and chanted. Jesiba left, came back with her laptop, and worked for some of the time. She even offered Ithan some food, which he refused.

He had no appetite. If this didn’t work …

Hypaxia’s now-hoarse chanting stopped suddenly. “I—”

Ithan hadn’t been able to watch as she’d sewed Sigrid’s head back on. Only when she’d covered the body again had he returned his gaze to the spectacle.

Hypaxia staggered back from the examination table. From the shape under the sheet. Ithan was instantly up, catching her smoothly.

“What have you done?” Jesiba demanded, laptop shutting with a click.

Ithan set Hypaxia on her feet, and the former witch-queen looked between them, helpless and—terrified. Out of the corner of his eye, something white shifted.

Ithan turned as the body on the table sat up. As the sheet rippled away, revealing Sigrid’s grayish face, her eyes closed. The thick, unforgiving stitches in an uneven line along her neck. She still wore her clothes, stiff with old blood.

Stitches popping, Sigrid slowly turned her head.

But her chest … it didn’t rise and fall. She wasn’t breathing.

The lost Fendyr heir opened her eyes. They burned an acid green.

“Reaper,” Jesiba breathed.