House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City Series)

Ruhn’s life had become beeping machines and flickering monitors and an uncomfortable vinyl chair that served as both seat and bed.

He technically had a bed, but it was too far from this room. A few times, Flynn and Dec had come to sedate him and drag him there for a restorative treatment, as his hand was still recovering.

His fingers had formed again, but they were pale and weak. The medwitches had a small store of firstlight potions—a rarity on a ship where firstlight was banned and they relied on some sort of jacked-up bioluminescence to light everything—but Ruhn had refused them. Had demanded that they give every last drop to Lidia. His hand would heal the old-fashioned way. Whether he and Baxian would ever recover from the ordeal that had led to his hand being chewed off was another story.

But one he’d deal with later.

“Get some sleep,” Flynn said from the doorway, a cup of what smelled like coffee in hand. His friend nodded to the bed and wires and machines before Ruhn. “I can take watch.”

“I’m fine,” Ruhn rasped. He’d barely spoken since yesterday. Didn’t want to talk to anyone. Not even Flynn and Dec, though they’d come for him. Had saved him.

All because of this female before him.

While they’d been rebuilding what was left of her body, she’d flatlined twice. Even with the firstlight potion having healed the wounds to her heart. Both times, Ruhn had been sleeping in his own bed, halfway across the damned ship.

So he’d stopped leaving this room.

That there was anything left of Lidia at all was thanks to Tharion, whose cushioning plume of water had shielded her from the full impact of landing on the rocks—but the mer had still been far enough away that it hadn’t stopped her plunge entirely.

It didn’t matter though, because a hole as big as a fist had already been shot through her heart.

The hole was gone, healed now thanks to that rare, precious firstlight potion. And she had a functioning heart again, if the monitor marking every beat was any indication. Lungs: repaired. Ribs: rebuilt. Cracked skull: patched together. Brains stuffed back in.

Ruhn couldn’t stop seeing it. How Lidia had looked when Tharion had hauled her onto the Depth Charger. Her limp body. So … small. He’d never realized how much smaller she was than him.

Or what the world might be like without her living in it.

Because Lidia had been dead. When Tharion had carried her back from the coast, she’d been completely dead. Even her Vanir healing abilities had been overtaxed.

Something had broken in Ruhn at the sight of it. Something even Pollux and the Hawk and the Asteri’s dungeons hadn’t managed to reach.

So the ship’s medwitches had emptied their stores of firstlight potions on Lidia. Then Athalar had used his lightning to jump-start her heart, because even liquid miracles weren’t enough to get it beating again. Had used it three times now, because the crash cart had taken too long to fire up when she’d flatlined.

When Ruhn asked how he knew to try such a thing, the angel had muttered something about thanking Rigelus for the idea, and left it at that. Ruhn had been too relieved at the sound of Lidia’s thumping heart to ask more.

“Ruhn, buddy—you gotta sleep.” Flynn finally stepped into the room, dropping into the chair beside his. “If she gets up, I’ll call you. If she even moves, I will call you.”

Ruhn just stared at the too-pale female on the bed.

“Ruhn.”

“The last thing I said to her,” Ruhn whispered, “was that she was dead to me.”

Flynn blew out a breath. “I’m sure she knew you didn’t mean it.”

“I did mean it.”

His friend swallowed. “I didn’t realize things between you guys had become so … intense.”

“She did all this to save me anyway,” he said, ignoring Flynn’s unspoken request to fill him in.

The guilt of it would eat him alive. She’d done horrible things as the Hind, both before and after becoming Daybright, things he couldn’t forget, yet … his head was spinning with it. The rage and guilt and that other thing.

Flynn squeezed his shoulder. “Go sleep, Ruhn. I’ve got your girl.”

She wasn’t his girl. She wasn’t anything to him.

Yet he still ignored Flynn. Didn’t move from the chair, though he closed his eyes. Focused on his breathing until sleep loomed.

“Stubborn asshole,” Flynn muttered, but threw a blanket over Ruhn anyway.

Day, Ruhn said into the void between them, as he had nearly every hour now. Day—can you hear me?

No answer.

Lidia.

He’d never addressed her by her name before. Even in here.

He tried again, sending it out into the void like a plea. Lidia.

But the darkness only howled in answer.

“So,” Hunt said to Tharion as they sat in the empty mess hall of the Depth Charger, “the Viper Queen, huh?”

Tharion picked at his poached fish and fine strands of seaweed salad. “Let’s not get into it, Athalar.” They’d missed lunch, but had been able to scrounge up plates of leftovers from the cooks.

“Fair enough.” Hunt flexed his wings, now fully back to their usual strength, thanks to that firstlight Lidia had manipulated her way into giving him. “Thanks for coming to pick us up.”

Tharion lifted his stare—bleak, empty.

Hunt knew the feeling. Was trying not to feel that way every second of every minute. Was drowning under it, now that he and his friends were here, safe, without the physical torture to distract him.

“Holstrom said we’re a pack,” Tharion said. “I don’t necessarily appreciate the canine comparison, but I like the sentiment. As soon as Lidia told us you guys were days away from being executed … we had to do what was necessary.” Sort of. It hadn’t been as easy as that, of course, but once he’d been out of the Meat Market, he’d been all in.

Hunt had gotten the rundown yesterday of all that had happened. Or at least some of it. Considering that Lidia remained unconscious, he still had no idea what she’d done on her end to organize everything.

It was all so unlikely, so impossible.

He’d awoken last night, drenched in sweat, convinced he was back in those dungeons. It had taken him switching the lights on to accept the reality of his surroundings. Those initial seconds in the pitch black, when he couldn’t tell where he was, were unbearable.

He wished Bryce were with him. Not just to sleep beside him, and to remind him that he’d made it out, but … he needed his best friend.

Bryce was gone, though. And that fact, too, woke him from slumber. Dreams of her tumbling through space, alone and lost forever.

Tharion seemed to sense the shift in his thoughts, because he asked quietly, “How you holding up, Athalar?”

“Wings are back to normal,” Hunt said, folding them tightly behind him. “Emotionally …?” He shrugged. He’d sat in the shower for an hour last night, the water near-scalding as it rinsed away the filth and blood of the dungeon. As he had in those days before Bryce, he’d let the water scourge the dirt and the darkness from him. But there was one marking that couldn’t be washed away.

Tharion’s eyes now drifted to Hunt’s brow. “They’re monsters to do that to you again.” Hot anger sharpened the mer’s face.

“They’re monsters with or without putting the halo back on me.” Hunt lifted his wrist, exposing the brand. The C that had been stamped there, negating it, was gone. “You think a slave can still be a prince?”

“I’m sure those Fae assholes have some regulations forbidding it,” Tharion said with a wry smile, “but if there’s anyone who could get around them, it’s Bryce.”

Hunt blocked out the pain in his chest. He couldn’t bear to imagine the look of sorrow and rage that would creep over her face when she saw the halo, the brand. If she ever came back.

That last thought was more unbearable than any other.

Hunt forced himself past it and asked Tharion, “How are you doing?”

“About the same as you, but hanging in there.” Tharion picked at his food again. Shadows seemed to swim in his brown eyes. “Taking it hour by hour.”

“No word from Holstrom?”

Tharion shook his head, dark red hair shifting with the motion. The mer set down his fork at last. “What now?”

“Honestly?” Hunt braced his forearms on the metal table. “I don’t know. Yesterday, my main goal was not dying. Today? All I can think about is where Bryce is, how to find her.” And how he’d live with himself in the meantime.

“You really think she’s in some other world?”

The blazing lights of the mess hall bounced off the metallic surface of the table in a bright blur. “If she’s not in Hel, then yes—I hope she’s in another world, and safely so.”

“We’ll figure out some way to get her back here.”

Hunt didn’t bother telling the mer it was likely impossible. Bryce was the one person on Midgard who could open a portal capable of bringing her home.

He just said, “Bryce would want me to get the word out—about what she learned regarding the Asteri. So I figure I’ll start with the Ocean Queen. She’s not allied with Ophion, but she seems to … help them.” He gestured to the ship around them.

“Ah,” Ketos said wryly. “And I thought you found me in my bunk to do lunch.”

“I did. I wanted to see how you were,” Hunt said, then admitted, “but I also wanted to see if you had any sort of in.”

“With the Ocean Queen?” Tharion laughed, cold and hollow. “Might as well ask if I’ve got an in with Ogenas herself.”

“She’s gone to all this trouble to help the enemies of the Asteri,” Hunt said, drumming his fingers on the table. “I want to know why.”

Tharion studied his face with a scrutiny that reminded Hunt why Ketos had been made the River Queen’s Captain of Intelligence. Hunt let the mer see the pure determination that flowed through him.

“All right,” Tharion said gravely. “I’ll see what I can do. Though …” He winced.

“What?”

“Considering what happened with her sister and niece … it might not go well.”

“You’re on this ship, and no one has tried to kill you or send you back to the River Queen—that must mean something.”

“I think it has more to do with Lidia’s importance than mine, much as that kills me to say.” Tharion sighed through his nose. “And believe me, from the moment I got onto this ship, I’ve taken no shortage of shit about defecting from the River Queen. I’m pretty much a pariah.”

“Well … maybe there’s a way to use it to your advantage to lure the Ocean Queen here for a meeting.”

Tharion crossed his muscular arms. “I’d rather not.”

“Think about it,” Hunt said. “Whatever you can stomach doing … I’d appreciate it.”

Tharion dragged his long fingers through his red hair. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.” Tharion shifted on the metal bench to pull a phone from his skintight wetsuit. He began typing. “I’ll see if Sendes is free to talk.” He got to his feet with fluid grace. “I’ll let you know if I get anywhere.”

Not an ember of the mer’s usual spark lit his eyes.

“Thanks,” Hunt said. “Keep me posted.” Tharion nodded and strode off, still typing away.

Hunt finished his own plate of fish, then the rest of Tharion’s, before he left the mess hall. The ship halls were quiet. Using the walk to stretch and test the strength of his healed wings, he strode in silence along the glass-lined corridors, nothing but dark ocean beyond. All that crushing water held back by the Ocean Queen’s magic. Hunt could only marvel.

He hadn’t gone back to the biodome a few levels up. Couldn’t bear to see where he and Bryce had officially become mates.

He found Baxian in the gym they’d been assigned—one of dozens on this ship, and the closest to their living quarters—doing chest presses.

“You need a spotter for that much weight,” Hunt warned, pausing near the bench where the angel shifter grunted under the bar, dark wings splayed beneath him. “You should have asked.”

“You weren’t in your room,” Baxian said as he lowered the bar to his bare, muscled chest. Sweat dribbled down the groove between his pecs, his brown skin gleaming. Shreds of the tattoo across his heart—Through love, all is possible, inked in Danika’s handwriting—remained. How he’d ever get it replaced … Hunt’s own heart strained.

Baxian went on, “And when I asked the sprites if they’d seen you, they said you were off doing lunch.”

Hunt had stopped by the small interior room where Malana, Sasa, and Rithi had holed up since arriving, to ask if they wanted to join him and Tharion. They were at a low, constant level of panic being down here, under the water. But they hadn’t wanted to come to lunch. Didn’t want to see the ship, or any indication that an endless ocean was all around them. So they stayed in their windowless room, binge-watching some inane reality TV show about realtors selling beach villas in the Coronal Islands, and pretended they weren’t surrounded by a giant death trap for their kind.

It had pained him to see them gathered around the TV earlier. Lehabah would have loved them. Lehabah should have been there, with them. With all of them.

Baxian kept his eyes on the weights he’d been lifting. “I needed to get in here for a bit.”

“Why?”

“Bad thoughts” was all Baxian said.

“Ah.” Likely ones that included the taste of Ruhn’s blood in his mouth. Hunt silently stepped behind the bench, within reach of the bar as Baxian lifted it again, arms shaking. He easily had six hundred pounds on it. “What number is this?”

“Eighty,” Baxian grunted, arms straining, wings splayed beneath him. Hunt took it upon himself to guide the bar back to its posts. “I want to get to a hundred.”

“Baby steps, buddy.”

Baxian panted up at the ceiling, then his eyes slid toward Hunt, watching him upside down. “What’s up?”

“Just checking in on a friend.”

“I’m fine,” Baxian said, curling upward and bracing his hands on his thighs. His wings drooped to the black plastic tiles.

Hunt knew it was a lie, but he nodded anyway. If Baxian wanted to talk, he’d talk.

He’d told Baxian everything while they’d lain in the medwitch’s room yesterday, in between stitches and potions and pain. Told him about Bryce, and the Hind, and all the shit they’d learned.

Baxian had taken it well, though he clearly remained in shock about the Hind’s involvement. Hunt didn’t blame him. He still had trouble believing it himself. But Baxian had been working with Lidia for even longer than Hunt—it’d probably take longer to adjust his image of her.

Baxian nodded to Hunt’s face. “Any luck getting that shit removed?”

Hunt didn’t dare look at the wall of mirrors behind the Helhound. Hadn’t been able to stand the sight of his face with that halo once again marring his brow. He could have sworn its ink seared him every now and then. It had never done that before—but this halo, inked by Rigelus, felt different. Worse. Alive, somehow.

“No,” Hunt said. “Hypaxia Enador got rid of it the last time. So unless there’s a witch-queen hiding on this ship, I’ve gotta learn to live with it for the time being.”

“Rigelus is a fucking asshole. Always was.” Baxian wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

Hunt angled his head. “What changed with you, really? Is this new Baxian Argos just the result of learning Danika was your mate?”

It was a potential minefield, to bring up his dead mate. To lose a mate was to lose half of your soul; to live without them was torture.

“I don’t want to talk about the past,” Baxian said, wings snapping in tight to his body, and Hunt let it drop.

“Then let’s talk about next steps,” Hunt said, folding his own wings with a lingering whisper of tightness. Another day and he’d be totally back to normal.

“What’s there to talk about? Big picture: the Asteri have to go.”

Hunt snorted. “Glad we’re on the same page.” He could only pray that Tharion was able to get Sendes to contact the Ocean Queen—and that she might be on the same page as them, too.

He surveyed the male he thought he’d known for so many years. “Is it too much to hope that some of Sandriel’s old triarii might also be secret anti-imperialists?”

“Don’t push your luck. Two’s already huge. Three, if we include you.”

Thankfully, he’d never been in her actual triarii—just had to put up with their shit while surviving the years he’d been shackled to Sandriel. Hunt ignored the familiar shiver of dread at the memory of those years and asked, “But you and Lidia never had any idea that you both were—”

“No. None. I thought she was no better than Pollux.” Baxian wiped more sweat from his brow, his breath steadying. “You think Lidia will make it?”

Hunt rubbed his jaw. “I hope so. We need her.”

“For what?”

Hunt gave his old enemy—now friend, he supposed—a slash of a smile. “To make these fuckers pay for what they’ve done.”

Tharion told himself to snap out of it. To focus on the fact that, against all odds, they’d succeeded in rescuing their friends from the Asteri dungeons—had even gone a step beyond and saved Lidia Cervos from certain death.

It didn’t matter, though. Holstrom had stayed behind. Holstrom, whose life Tharion had wrecked.

And not only Holstrom’s life, but the future of the wolves, too. That Fendyr heir was dead because of him. Technically because of Holstrom, but … none of it would have happened if it weren’t for Tharion’s own choices.

He hadn’t let anyone catch wind of the past day he’d spent since getting on this ship puking up his guts. Partially from the withdrawal to the Viper Queen’s venom, but also from sheer disgust at all he’d done, what he’d become.

Ariadne had been sold off, the gods knew where. To whom. And fine, she hadn’t been technically sold, because the Viper Queen hadn’t owned her, but … she’d left to avoid having to kill Holstrom. Or so the Viper Queen had let her believe, getting the advantageous trade while planning all along to put Sigrid in the ring against Ithan.

If there was a level below rock bottom, Tharion had found it.

He forced himself to stop grinding his teeth and concentrate on Sendes. She stood in the center of the bridge, taking a report from one of her soldiers.

None of the other technicians or officers on the bridge spoke to him. None even looked his way.

At least no one here called him a traitor. But they all knew he’d defected from the River Queen. And given how little she was liked on this ship, he knew it had more to do with the fact that he’d defected from the mer. From them.

He wanted to shout to this whole bridge that if he could, he’d defect from himself.

Sendes turned at last when she’d dismissed her soldier. “Sorry about that.”

Tharion waved her off. Considering how much they owed Sendes and this ship, she never needed to apologize to him for anything. “I feel like this is all I say these days, but I wanted to ask for a favor.”

She smiled faintly. “Go ahead.”

He braced himself. “If I wanted to get in touch with the Ocean Queen, arrange a meeting between her, me, and Hunt Athalar … could you facilitate it?”

Sendes’s throat bobbed. Not a good sign.

“If it’ll put you in a weird position,” Tharion amended, “don’t worry about it. But I told Athalar I’d ask you, and—”

“You’ll get your wish,” she said ruefully. “The Ocean Queen is coming here tomorrow.”

Tharion swallowed his surprise. “Okay,” he said carefully. “You sound … worried?”

Sendes tugged at the neck of her collar. “She wants to see you. All of you.”

His brows rose. “Then problem solved.”

“I got the sense from her call that she isn’t … entirely pleased you’re here.” Sendes grimaced. “Something to do with the Viper Queen and the River Queen threatening war for harboring you?”

Well, shit.