House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City Series)

“Too narrow for me to fly,” Azriel said, assessing the seemingly endless chasm between them and the rest of the tunnel. No bridge this time. Only a narrow, endless drop. Far too slim for Azriel to spread his wings. Far too wide for any of them to jump.

“Is this another manipulation?” Bryce asked Nesta coolly.

Nesta snorted. “The rock doesn’t lie. He can’t even spread his wings halfway.”

To get this far and turn back with no answers, nothing to help her get home … The star still blazed ahead. Pointing to the tunnel across the chasm.

“No one’s got any rope?” Bryce asked pathetically. She was met with incredulous silence. Bryce nodded to Azriel. “Those shadows of yours could take form—they caused that cave-in. Can’t you, like, make a bridge or something? Or your blue light … you seemed to think it could have restrained the Wyrm. Make a rope with that.”

His brows rose. “Neither of those things is remotely possible. The shadows are made of magic, just very condensed. These”—he motioned to the blue stones in his armor—“concentrate my power and allow me to craft it into things that resemble weapons. But they’re still only magic—power.”

Bryce’s mouth twisted to the side. “So it’s like a laser?” With the language now imprinted on her brain, her tongue stumbled over laser like it was truly the foreign word it was for them. She spoke it like she did in Midgard, but with the accent of this world layered over it, warping the word slightly.

“I don’t know what that is,” Azriel said, at the same time Nesta declared, “This still doesn’t solve the issue of getting over there.”

But Bryce frowned deeply at Azriel. “Do you ever use that power to, uh, charge people up?”

“Charge?”

“Fuel. Um. Give your power to someone else to help their power.”

“Are you implying that I could do such a thing to you?”

“I’m pretty sure the concept of a battery won’t have much meaning here, but yeah. My magic can be amplified by someone else’s power.” The other untranslatable word—battery—lay heavy on her tongue.

But Nesta looked her over. “For what purpose?”

“So I can teleport.” Another word that didn’t translate. “Winnow.” She pointed to the other side of the divide. “I could winnow us over there.”

Azriel said, “Give me a reason to believe you won’t winnow out of here and leave us.”

“I can’t. You’ll have to trust me.”

“After what you just pulled?”

“Remember that I’ll be trusting you not to blast a hole through my heart.” She tapped the star. “Aim right there.”

“I told you already: we don’t want to kill you.”

“Then aim carefully.”

Azriel and Nesta exchanged a glance.

Bryce added, “Look, I’d offer you something in return if I could. But you literally took everything of value from me.” She pointed to the sword at Azriel’s back.

Nesta angled her head. Then reached into her pocket. “What about this?”

Her phone.

Her phone. With Nesta’s movement, the lock screen came on, blaring bright in the gloom, with Hunt’s face right there. His beautiful, wonderful face, so full of joy—

Azriel and Nesta were blinking at the bright light, the photo, and then the phone was gone, stashed in Nesta’s pocket again.

“There’s a portrait hidden inside its encasing,” Nesta added. “Of you and three females.”

The photo of Bryce, Danika, June, and Fury. She’d forgotten she’d put it in there before heading to Pangera. But there, in Nesta’s pocket, shielded by those fancy-ass waterproofing spells she’d purchased, was her only link back to Midgard. To the people who mattered. And if she was stuck in this fucking world … that might very well be all she had left of her own.

“Were you waiting to dangle that in front of me?” Bryce asked.

A shrug from Nesta. “I guessed you might find it valuable.”

“Who’s to say I’m not playing you? Making you think it means something to me so I can leave you down here anyway?”

“Same reason you came running back to see if we were alive,” Azriel said coolly.

Fine. She’d exposed herself with that one. So she said to Azriel, “Hit the star.”

“How much power?”

Gods, this was potentially a really bad idea. Experimenting with power she didn’t know or understand—

“A little. Just make sure you don’t deep-fry me.”

After the shit with the Wyrm, he’d probably like nothing more than to do exactly that. But Azriel’s lips tugged upward. “I’ll try my best.”

Bryce braced herself, sucking in a deep breath—

Azriel struck before she could exhale. Searing, sharp power, a bolt of blue right into her star. Bryce bent over, coughing, breathing around the burn, the alien strangeness of the power.

“Are you all right?” Nesta asked with something like concern.

Was it his power? Or something about this world? Even Hunt’s hadn’t felt like this—so undiluted, like one-hundred-proof liquor.

Bryce closed her eyes and counted to ten, breathing hard. Letting it ease into her blood. Her bones. It tingled along her limbs.

Slowly, she straightened, opening her eyes. From the way the others’ faces were illuminated, she knew her gaze had turned incandescent.

They tensed, reaching for their weapons, bracing for her to flee or attack. But Bryce extended her hands—now glowing white—to them.

Nesta took one first. Then Azriel’s hand, battered and deeply scarred, slid around hers. Light leaked from where their skin met. She could have sworn his shadows hovered, watching like curious snakes.

Bryce pictured the tunnel mouth. She wanted to go there—

A blink, and it was done.

The raw power in her faded with the jump. Enough that the incandescence vanished and her skin returned to its normal state. Until only her star remained glowing once more.

But she found Azriel and Nesta observing her with different expressions than before. Wariness, yet something like respect, too.

“Let’s go,” Azriel said, and released her hand. Because the sword and dagger weren’t merely tugging now. They were singing, and all she had to do was reach out for them—

But before she could give in to temptation, Azriel stalked into the dark.

Staying a few feet behind him still wasn’t enough to block out the blades’ song. But Bryce tried to ignore it, well aware of Nesta’s watchful gaze. Tried to pretend that everything was totally fine.

Even if she knew that it wasn’t. Not even close. And she had a feeling that whatever waited at the end of these tunnels would be way worse.

“The Cauldron,” Nesta said hours later, pointing to yet another carving on the wall. It indeed showed a giant cauldron, perched atop what seemed to be a barren mountain peak with three stars above it.

Azriel halted, angling his head. “That’s Ramiel.” At Bryce’s questioning look, he explained, “A mountain sacred to the Illyrians.”

Bryce nodded to the carving. “What’s the big deal about a cauldron?”

“The Cauldron,” Azriel amended. Bryce shook her head, not understanding. “You don’t have stories of it in your world? The Fae didn’t bring that tradition with them?”

Bryce surveyed the giant cauldron. “No. We have five gods, but no cauldron. What does it do?”

“All life came and comes from it,” Azriel said with something like reverence. “The Mother poured it into this world, and from it, life blossomed.”

Nesta said quietly, “But it is also real—not a myth.” Her swallow was audible. “I was turned High Fae when an enemy shoved me into it. It’s raw power, but also … sentient.”

“Like that mask you put on earlier.”

Azriel folded his wings tightly, clearly wary of discussing such a powerful instrument with a potential enemy. But Nesta asked, “You detected a sentience in the Mask?”

Bryce nodded. “It didn’t, like, talk to me or anything. I could just … sense it.”

“What did it feel like?” Nesta asked quietly.

“Like death,” Bryce breathed. “Like death incarnate.”

Nesta’s eyes grew distant, grave. “That’s what the Mask can do. Give its wearer power over Death itself.”

Bryce’s blood chilled. “And this is a … normal type of weapon here?”

“No,” Azriel said from ahead, shoulders tense. “It is not.”

Nesta explained, “The Mask is one of three objects of catastrophic power, Made by the Cauldron itself. The Dread Trove, we call it.”

“And the Mask is … yours?”

“I was also Made by the Cauldron,” Nesta said, “which allows me to wield it.” She spoke with no pride or boasting. Merely cold resignation and responsibility.

“Made,” Bryce mused. “You said that my tattoo was Made.”

“It is a mystery to us,” Nesta said. “You’d need to have had the ink Made by the Cauldron, in this world, for it to be so.”

The Horn had come from here. Had been brought by Theia and Pelias into Midgard. Perhaps it, too, had been forged by the Cauldron.

Bryce tucked away the knowledge, the questions it raised. “We don’t have anything like the Cauldron on Midgard. Solas is our sun god, Cthona his mate and the earth goddess. Luna is his sister, the moon; Ogenas, Cthona’s jealous sister in the seas. And Urd guides all—she’s the weaver of fate, of destiny.” Bryce added after a moment, “I think she’s the reason I’m here.”

“Urd,” Nesta murmured. “The Fae say the Cauldron holds our fates. Maybe it became this Urd.”

“I don’t know,” Bryce said. “I always wondered what happened to the gods of the original worlds, when their people crossed into Midgard. Did they follow them? Did I bring Urd or Luna or any of them with me?” She gestured to the caves. “Are they here, or am I alone, stranded in your world with no gods to call my own?”

They began walking again, the questions hanging there unanswered.

Bryce asked, because some small part of her had to know after what she’d seen of the Mask, “When you die, where do your souls go?” Did they even believe in the concept of a soul? Maybe she should have led with that.

But Azriel said softly, “They return to the Mother, where they rest in joy within her heart until she finds another purpose for us. Another life or world to live in.” He glanced sidelong at her. “What about your world?”

Bryce’s gut twisted. “It’s … complicated.”

With nothing else to do as they walked, she explained it: the Bone Quarter and other Quiet Realms, the Under-King and the Sailings. The black boats tipping or making it to shore. The Death Marks that could purchase passage. And then she explained the secondlight, the meat grinder of souls that churned their lingering energy into more food for the Asteri.

Her companions were silent when she finished. Not with contemplation, but with horror.

“So that is what awaits you?” Nesta asked at last. “To become … food?”

“Not me,” Bryce said quietly. “I, ah … I don’t know what’s coming for me.”

“Why?” Azriel asked.

“That friend I mentioned—the one who learned the truth about the Asteri? When she died, I worried that she might not be given the honor of making it to shore during her Sailing. I … couldn’t let her bear that final disrespect. I didn’t know then about the secondlight. So I bargained with the Under-King: my soul, my place in the Bone Quarter in exchange for hers.” Again, that horrified quiet. “So when I die, I won’t rest there. I don’t know where I’ll go.”

“It has to be a relief,” Nesta said, “to at least know you won’t go to the Bone Quarter. To be harvested.” She shuddered.

“Yeah,” Bryce agreed. “But what’s the alternative?”

“Do you still have a soul?” Nesta asked.

“Honestly? I don’t know,” Bryce admitted. “It feels like I do. But what will live on when I die?” She blew out a breath. “And if I were to die in this world … what would happen to my soul? Would it find its way back to Midgard, or linger here?” The words sounded even more depressing out loud.

Something glaringly bright blinded her—her phone. Hunt’s face smiled up at her.

“Here,” Nesta said. Bryce wordlessly took the phone, blinking back her tears at the sight of Hunt. “You kept your word and winnowed us. So take it.”

Bryce knew it was for more than that, but she nodded her thanks all the same.

She flashed the screen at Nesta and Azriel. “That’s Hunt,” she said hoarsely. “My mate.”

Azriel peered at the picture. “He has wings.”

Bryce nodded, throat unbearably tight. “He’s an angel—a malakh.” But talking about him made the burning in her eyes worse, so she slid the phone into her pocket.

As they walked on, Nesta said, “When we stop again … can you show me how that contraption works?”

“The phone?” The word couldn’t be translated into their language, and it sounded outright silly in their accent.

But Nesta nodded, her eyes fixed on the tunnel ahead. “Trying to figure out what it does has been driving us all crazy.”

Tharion cornered the dragon in the pit’s bathroom. He could barely stand on his left leg thanks to a gash he’d taken in his thigh from the claws of the jaguar shifter he’d faced as the lunchtime entertainment. No prime time for him tonight, though—not with Ithan in the pit.

“Do not fucking kill Holstrom,” he warned Ariadne.

She tilted her head back, eyes flashing as they met his. “Oh? Who said I’m facing him?”

Tharion and the others had spent most of the last twenty-four hours debating who the Viper Queen would select to face Ithan. And now, with less than an hour left until the fight and no opponent announced … “Who else would the Vipe unleash on him? You’re the only one here who’s stronger. The only one worth a fight.”

“So flattering.”

“Don’t kill him,” Tharion snarled.

She batted her eyelashes. “Or what?”

Tharion clenched his teeth. “He’s a good male, and a valuable one to a lot of people, and if you kill him, you’ll be playing into the Vipe’s hands. Make the fight fast, and make it as painless as you can.”

Ari let out a cool laugh that belied the blazing heat in her eyes. “You don’t give me orders.”

“No, I don’t,” Tharion said. “But I’m giving you advice. You kill Ithan, you hurt him beyond repair, and you will have more enemies than you know what to do with. Starting with Tristan Flynn—who might seem like an irreverent idiot, but is fully capable of ripping you apart with his bare hands—and ending with me.”

Ariadne let out a snort and tried to stride around him. Tharion gripped her by the arm, the claws at the tips of his fingers digging into her soft flesh. “I mean it.”

“And what about me?” she sneered.

“What about you?”

“Are you warning Ithan Holstrom not to harm me?”

He blinked. “You’re a dragon.”

Another one of those humorless laughs. “I have a job to do. I swore oaths, too.”

“Always looking out for number one.”

She tried to pry her arm free, but he dug his fingers in further. She hissed, “I’m not a part of your little cabal, and I don’t want to be. I don’t give a shit about you, or whatever you’re trying to pull against the Asteri. It’s clearly going to get you all killed.”

“Then what do you want, Ari? A life of this?”

Her skin heated, searing his palm, and he had no choice but to release her. She stalked toward the hall door that led to the eerily quiet pit. As the Viper Queen had promised, only she would watch.

Ariadne opened the door, but tossed over a shoulder, “Do you like your wolf cooked with barbecue sauce or gravy?”

“So a phone,” Nesta said, overpronouncing the word as they crossed yet another small stream, hopping from stone to stone, “can take these photographs that capture a moment in time, but not the people in it?”

“Phones have cameras,” Bryce answered, “and the camera is the thing that … yeah. It’s like an instant drawing of the moment.” Gods, so many words and terms from her own language to explain. She forged ahead. “But with all the details rendered perfectly. And don’t ask me more than that, because I seriously have no idea how it actually works.”

Nesta chuckled as she landed gracefully on the opposite bank. Azriel strode ahead into the dark, the carvings around him lit by Bryce’s star: more war, more death, more suffering … this time on a larger scale, entire cities burning, people screaming in pain, devastation and grief on a whole new level. No paradise to counter the suffering. Just death.

Nesta paused on the stream bank to wait for Bryce to finish crossing. “And it also holds music. Like a Symphonia?”

“I don’t know what that is, but yes, it holds music. I’ve got a few thousand songs on here.”

“Thousand?” Nesta whirled as Bryce jumped from the last stone onto the bank, pebbles skittering from beneath her sneakers. “In that tiny thing? You recorded it all?”

“No—there’s a whole industry of people whose job it is to record it, and again, I don’t know how it works.” Finding her footing, Bryce followed Azriel, now a hulking shadow silhouetted against the larger dark.

Nesta fell into step beside her. “And it’s a way of talking mind-to-mind with other people.”

“Sort of. It can connect to other people’s phones, and your voices are linked in real time …”

“And let me guess: you don’t know exactly how it works.”

Bryce snorted. “Pathetic, but true. We take our tech and don’t ask what the Hel makes it operate. I couldn’t even tell you how the flashlight in the phone works.” To demonstrate, she hit the button and the cave illuminated, the battle scenes and suffering on the walls around them even more stark. Azriel hissed from up ahead, whirling their way with his eyes shielded, and Bryce quickly turned it off.

Nesta smirked. “I’m surprised it can’t cook you food and change your clothes, too.”

“Give it a few years, and maybe it will.”

“But you have magic to do these things?”

Bryce shrugged. “Yeah. Magic and tech kind of overlap in my world. But for those of us without much in the way of the former, tech really helps fill the gap.”

“And that weaponry you showed us,” Azriel said quietly, pausing his steps to let them catch up. “Those … guns.”

“That’s tech,” Bryce said, “not magic. But some Vanir have found ways to combine magic and machine to deadly effect.”

Their silence was heavy.

“We’re here,” Azriel said, motioning to the darkness ahead. The reason, it turned out, that he had halted.

A massive metal wall now blocked their way, thirty feet high and thirty feet wide at least, with a colossal eight-pointed star in its center.

The carvings continued straight up to it: battle and suffering, two females running on either side of the passage, as if running for this very wall … Indeed, around the star, an archway had been etched. Like this was the destination all along.

Bryce glanced back at Nesta. “Is this where you saw my star?”

Nesta slowly shook her head, eyeing the wall, the embossed star, the cave that surrounded them. “I don’t know where this place is. What it is.”

“Only one way to find out,” Bryce said with a bravado she didn’t feel, and approached the wall. Azriel, a live wire beside her, approached as well, a hand already on Truth-Teller.

The lowest spike of the star extended down, right in front of Bryce. So she laid a hand on the metal and pushed. It didn’t budge.

Nesta stalked to Bryce’s side, tapping a hand on the metal. A dull thud reverberated against the cave walls. “Did you really think it’d move?”

Bryce grimaced. “It was worth a shot.”

Nesta opened her mouth to say something—to make fun of Bryce, probably—but was silenced by groaning metal. She staggered back a step. Azriel threw an arm in front of her, blue light wreathing his scarred hand.

Leaving Bryce alone before the door.

But she couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted. Couldn’t take her eyes away from the shifting wall.

The spikes of the star began to expand and contract, as if it were breathing. Metal clicked behind it, like gears shifting. Locks opening.

And in the lowest spike of the star, a triangle of a door slid open.