House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City Series)

It was too easy to get into the Asteri’s palace. Lidia knew every entrance, but even with her unrivaled knowledge, it was too easy for them to get in through the service doors that led to the extensive garbage-processing dock.

Too easy to slip down one of the reeking chutes and land in a trash room a level below.

But only when the four of them were in the tiny, malodorous closet on the sublevel did they pause. Look at each other.

“Good luck,” Ruhn said to his sister, perhaps for the last time.

But Bryce smiled gently, softly, and though she had been all fierce determination in the van a few minutes ago, it was love in her face now as she said to him, “You brought so much joy into my life, too, Ruhn.”

He remembered, then, saying those words to her before she’d vanished through the Gate. You brought so much joy into my life, Bryce. It felt like a lifetime ago.

She said nothing more, and Ruhn had no words in him as Bryce, Athalar in tow, cracked open the door and slipped out.

Ruhn waited a moment in silence with Lidia, the reek of the trash threatening to send his meager breakfast of bread and olive oil back up. He met Lidia’s stare in the dimness, though.

And while she might need to be the Hind today, might need to become that stone-cold female again, he leaned in to brush his mouth to hers. Only once, and then he whispered, at last naming that feeling he hadn’t dared acknowledge until now, “If I don’t get the chance to tell you later … I love you.”

Lidia blinked, golden eyes glimmering. “Ruhn.”

But he didn’t wait for a response or a refusal or a denial. He eased open the door an inch and peered into the hallway.

“Clear,” he murmured, drawing his handgun. With any luck, Dec was doing his job.

Praying that the Asteri, distracted with trying to tamp down the effects of Bryce and Hunt’s message, wouldn’t even consider that Hel was about to be unleashed in their own home, Ruhn stepped into the hall, Lidia right behind them.

And then, wreathed in his shadows as they stole through the heart of the empire, they began the hunt to find her sons.

They had a few close calls, and Hunt wished again for his Umbra Mortis suit, if only for the helmet’s heightened hearing to detect any passing politicians or workers.

The politicians could get fucked for all Hunt cared. But the workers … Gods willing, when the time came, the workers would be able to escape. That when Declan hacked into the Asteri alert system, their phones would buzz with the evacuation order to get the fuck out of the palace, and they would heed the warning.

Hunt’s heart was thundering through every inch of him as he and Bryce hid in the shadows of a massive statue of Polaris, the female’s hands upraised in victory.

Beyond the statue rose a familiar set of doors. The whole hallway was precisely as it had been the last time Hunt had seen it, before his lightning and Rigelus’s power had blasted it to smithereens: busts of the Asteri lining one wall, the windows overlooking the seven hills of the Eternal City on the other. And somewhere out there, inching along the main road of the Sacra Via … Dec and Flynn would be waiting.

But not for them. Hunt knew he and Bryce might never come back from this fight.

If they succeeded in destroying the firstlight core and cutting off the Asteri’s renewable source of power, then they’d have to get close enough to those bastards for Bryce to use the sword and knife. To unite them using that star, and risk whatever might happen with a portal to nowhere.

Theia had been afraid of it. Aidas had warned them to choose life, for fuck’s sake, if the portal was too dangerous. It didn’t bode well. But what other options did they have?

There were too many ifs, too many unknowns. It was an even flimsier plan than the last time they’d snuck into this palace. And while they’d all agreed on the plan together, if it failed, if Bryce or any of them died …

No. He wouldn’t go down that road again. He had made mistakes in the past, bad calls, but fighting against tyranny, against brutality, would never be the wrong choice.

Hunt glanced to his mate, her attention fixed on the hallway. On the Gate at its far end. Sensing his attention, she mouthed, Go, and motioned him along. And Hunt went, as he’d go anywhere, so long as it was with her.

For the first time in his life, it seemed that Urd was listening as he and Bryce slipped past the doors into the empty throne room. He gazed at the towering wall of the Fallen’s wings behind the seven crystal thrones.

And there, at its center, pinned like a new trophy, was his Umbra Mortis helmet and suit.

Bryce held the Mask in her hands, its gold surface shimmering among the crystal of the sterile throne room. The wings of the Fallen hung on the wall, a fluttering array of colors and shapes and sizes. So many lives, given toward this moment.

Hunt buckled the last bit of his suit into place, fitting the Umbra Mortis helmet over his head. Bryce hadn’t questioned him when he took it off the wall. She knew why he wanted it.

Just as she knew that his wings, pinned right above Rigelus’s throne, could not remain.

He’d wear that suit and helmet one more time. It wouldn’t be the Umbra Mortis wearing that suit, but Hunt. Her Hunt.

And together they would end this.

She wished Ithan had made it in time with Hypaxia’s antidote. But they couldn’t delay this—not by a single minute.

Bryce ran her thumbs over the Mask’s smooth brow. It looked like a death mask for some long-dead king. Had it been crafted around the mold of some Asteri’s face? Fashioned after the hateful visage of a Daglan in that other world?

“Bryce,” Hunt warned, his voice low and warped through the helmet.

She beheld the Shadow of Death standing there. He drew his twin swords from the back of his suit, flipping them in his hands. “Do it now.”

All she’d ever done in her life, every step … it had led here.

Here, to this chamber, with the wings of the noble Fallen around her. With Hunt, one of the few remaining warriors.

But no longer.

Bryce lifted the Mask to her face, and closed her eyes as she slid it on. The metal adhered to her skin. It sucked at her face, her soul—

The world diluted again. Alive, not-alive. Breathing, not-breathing. Dead … undead.

The star inside her flared brightly, as if to say, Hello, old friend. Yes, the ancient magic knew the Mask. It understood its deepest secrets.

Bryce turned to the wings. And in the shadow-vision of the Mask, where the wings were pinned, most held a twinkling light. The kernel of a soul. The last scraps of their existences, shining like a wall of stars.

She’d been right: They had never been given Sailings. It had been the final insult to the dead warriors, the shame of being denied a blessed afterlife. It would prove to be the Asteri’s downfall. These souls, left to wander for centuries, were now hers to claim.

A thought, and her will was their will. The Mask called, and the souls of the Fallen answered, drifting from the wall like a swarm of fireflies.

Rustling filled the air. The wings began to beat slowly at first, like butterflies testing out their new bodies. The flapping of wings filled the throne room, the world. A storm wind from Hunt had the pins ripping free. All but two sets—one a familiar gray, one shiningly white—loosed into the world.

And then the throne room was full of wings—white and gray and black, soaring, their sparks of soul shining brightly within them, visible only to Bryce as she looked through the Mask.

Hunt and Bryce stood in the center of the storm, her hair whipped about by their wind, skin grazed by their downy feathers.

A spark of Hunt’s lightning struck the two pairs of wings still pinned to the wall. His own wings, and Isaiah’s. They caught fire, burning until they were nothing but ashes floating on the breeze of a thousand wings, freed at last from this place.

Another storm wind from Hunt and the doors to the hall opened. The windows lining the hall exploded.

And the wings of the Fallen soared for the open blue sky beyond.

The throne room emptied of them, like water down a drain, leaving a lone figure in the doorway. Staring at them.

Rigelus.

Feathers floated in the air around him.

“What,” the Bright Hand seethed, glowing with power, “do you think you’re doing?”

He stepped in, and his eyes went right to Bryce’s face. Maybe it was the Mask, maybe she had been pushed beyond her limits, but she felt no fear, absolutely none, as she looked at the Bright Hand of the Asteri and said, “Righting a wrong.”

But Rigelus narrowed his eyes at the Mask. “You bear a weapon you have no business wielding.”

In the streets beyond, people were shouting at the sight of the host of wings flying overhead.

Dead and undead—Rigelus’s nature confused the Mask. Alive and not-alive. Breathing and not-breathing. It couldn’t get a grip on the Bright Hand, and it seemed to be recoiling, pulling away from Bryce—

She focused. You obey me.

The Mask halted. And remained in her thrall.

Rigelus eyed Hunt in his battle-suit and helmet. But he said to Bryce, “You traveled a long way from home, Bryce Quinlan.” He advanced one step. That he hadn’t attacked yet was proof of his wariness.

Hunt’s lightning slithered over the floor.

But Bryce pointed behind Rigelus. To one of the hills beyond the city walls, where the wings had landed in the dry grass. They coated the hilltop, wings flapping idly, a flock of butterflies come down to rest.

And Bryce commanded them, Rise, as you once were.

Ice colder than that in Nena flowed through her, toward the now-distant wings. She could sense Hunt’s pain, but Bryce didn’t take her eyes from Rigelus.

“You have no idea what powers you toy with, girl,” Rigelus said. “The Mask will curse your very soul—”

“Let’s spare ourselves the idle threats this time,” Bryce said, and pointed out the window again. This time to the army that had crept up to stand among the wings bearing those souls. “I think you have bigger issues to deal with.”

She smiled then—a predator’s smile, a queen’s smile—as the armies of Hel crested the hill.

“Right on time,” Bryce said.

Rigelus said nothing as more and more of those dark figures appeared atop the hill. Spilling out from the portal she’d opened for them just over its other side, hidden from view.

At the sight of the teeming hordes cresting the hills, seemingly from nowhere, at the sight of the three princes marching at their front …

People began screaming in the streets. Another signal—for Declan. To get the evacuation order out under the guise of an Imperial Emergency Alert. Every phone in this city would buzz with the command to escape beyond the city walls—to the coast, if they could.

Rigelus stared toward the armies of Hel now assembled on his doorstep.

“Surprise,” Hunt said.

Rigelus slowly, slowly turned back toward Bryce and Hunt. And smiled.

“Did you think I didn’t know the moment you opened the Northern Rift?” Bryce braced herself, rallied her power as Rigelus lifted a glowingly bright hand and said, “I have been waiting for your arrival. And have prepared accordingly.”

A horn sounded, a clear note echoing across the city.

And in answer, the Asterian Guard exploded into the streets of the Eternal City.