House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City Series)

Ithan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he sat beside his brother on the front steps of the temple. Hypaxia remained inside, speaking quietly with the Under-King.

Connor appeared exactly as he had the day Ithan had last seen him, cheering in the stands at his sunball game … except for the bluish light around his body. The mark of a ghost.

Ithan had found out the hard way what that meant—he’d tried to hug his brother, but his arms went right through him.

Seven minutes. Less than that now.

“There’s so much I wanted to say to you,” Ithan began.

Connor opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Ithan blinked. “You can’t … you can’t talk?”

Connor shook his head.

“Ever? Or just—now?”

Connor mouthed ever.

“But Danika talked to Bryce—”

Connor tapped his chest. As if to say, In here.

Ithan rubbed at his face. “The Under-King fucking knew you couldn’t talk, and—”

Blue glowed in his vision as Connor laid a hand on his shoulder. It didn’t have any weight. But the look his brother gave him, pitying and worried—

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” Ithan said, voice breaking.

Connor slowly shook his head.

“I should have been there.”

Connor laid a finger on his lips. Don’t say another word.

Ithan swallowed down the tightness in his throat. “I miss you every single day. I wish you were with me. I … Fuck, I’m knee-deep in shit, and I could really use my brother right now.”

Connor angled his head. Tell me.

Ithan did. As succinctly as he could, aware of each second counting down. About Sigrid and Sabine and the Prime. About what he was now. About the parasite and its antidote.

Ithan glanced at his phone when he finished. Only two minutes left. Connor was smiling faintly.

“What?” Ithan said.

His brother laid a hand on his heart and bowed his head, a mark of respect to the Prime.

Ithan glowered. “It’s not funny.”

Connor lifted his head, shaking it. There was nothing but pride in his eyes.

Ithan’s throat closed up. “I don’t know what to do now. How to be Prime. How to fix this shit with Sigrid—if it can even be fixed. We’re all out of Athalar’s lightning now, anyway. Maybe I’m an asshole for not making Sigrid a priority. But I need to help Bryce and the others first. I’m so fucking far out of my league. And … there’s more I can’t tell you. I wish I could, but—”

Connor glanced behind them, to the temple and the Under-King inside it.

When he was assured that they were truly alone, he extended a hand toward Ithan. A sparkling seed of light filled it. Connor lifted it to his mouth and mimicked eating it.

“You know?” Ithan whispered. “About the secondlight?”

Connor nodded once.

Ithan snorted. “Trust the Pack of Devils to figure it out.”

But Connor reached into a pocket and laid something on the ground between them.

A bullet.

It was crafted of the same reeking metal as a Death Mark. As if it had been created from all those coins tossed into the river. Whatever properties its metal held must have allowed it to be touched and moved by the dead.

“I don’t understand,” Ithan said. “What is it?”

Connor began gesturing, too fast for Ithan to follow.

But robes rustled on stone, and Ithan grabbed the black bullet before the Under-King appeared from between the temple pillars and declared, “Your time has come to an end.”

Connor looked to Ithan’s hand, then up at him, eyes pleading with him to catch his meaning.

“Just one more minute,” Ithan begged. “Please.”

“You have already been granted more than most mortals ever receive. Be grateful.”

“Be grateful,” Ithan breathed as Hypaxia stepped beside the Under-King. “For what? For my brother being here?” His shout echoed off the gray pillars, the gravel, the empty mists.

Connor signaled to shut up. Ithan ignored him.

“I refuse to accept this,” Ithan seethed, claws glinting at his fingertips. “That this is the best it gets—”

“Remember your vow, pup,” the Under-King warned.

Ithan bristled. “What are you but some freak alien from another world who capitalized on this one?”

Connor was staring at him now—eyes wide, urging him to be quiet, to stand down.

But that thing that had awoken in Ithan the moment the parasite had vanished wouldn’t go away. It stared down this creature, this thing from his people’s home world, and it knew the Under-King for what he truly was.

Enemy, his blood sang, and it spoke of caves beneath hills, of plundered graves and musty darkness. Enemy.

Ithan’s snarl cleaved the mists, bounced off the temple. Frost curled at his fingertips. Even Connor backed away in surprise.

“What is that?” the Under-King said, backing away a step as well, toward the temple interior. Ithan peered down at his hands. The ice crusting them.

Enemy.

The silent dead, the suffering—Ithan would stand for it no more.

“Get out of my realm,” the Under-King said, and Ithan scented his fear. His surprise and dread. Like he knew Ithan for that ancient enemy as well.

The Under-King backed away another step, nearly inside the temple now, and slipped on pure ice. Righting himself, robes fluttering, he lifted a bony hand, and Ithan knew in his gut it would be to summon the hunting hounds.

Ithan didn’t give him the chance.

Ice crusted the Under-King’s withered hand. Then his arm. Then his shoulder—

“Stop this now!” the Under-King bellowed.

But the ice kept crawling over him. Ithan let it. Let this male see what a ruthless fucking murderer he was, let him see that he wouldn’t tolerate this shit for his brother, for his parents, for anyone he loved.

No more Sailings. He’d never go to another.

He’d single-handedly destroyed the Fendyr line. Why not destroy Death, too?

The Under-King opened his mouth to shout, but Ithan’s ice covered his face, his body. An encasing cold so complete, Ithan could feel it in his heart. Hear its frigid wind, capable of killing in seconds.

Ithan yielded to it. Poured it into the being now trapped on the stairs before him like a statue.

He knew Connor was watching in horror. And he didn’t dare take his focus off the Under-King long enough to read Hypaxia’s face.

Ithan became so cold he forgot what warmth was. Forgot fire and sun and—

Connor got in front of him. Snarling.

Ithan’s focus slipped. But instead of the disgust and dismay he thought would be on Connor’s face, there was only sorrow and worry.

“Well, that’s one way to shut the old windbag up,” Jesiba Roga said, stalking from the shadows of the temple interior.

Ithan whirled. But Jesiba said to Hypaxia, who was tense and thrumming with power by the nearest pillar, “Do it.”

The former witch-queen didn’t strike with her shimmering power. She merely lifted an unlit brazier from beside the temple entrance. With a face like stone, Hypaxia swung the dark metal.

And the Under-King exploded into sparkling shards of ice.