House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City Series)

Bryce opened her eyes to fire. Blazing, white-hot fire.

Hunt’s lightning instantly surrounded her, but it was too late.

The Autumn King and Morven stood in the chamber, somehow having caught up with them. Shadows wreathed the latter, but her father raged with flame.

And in the center of the room, surrounded by fire that even Tharion’s water could not extinguish, stood her friends.

Bryce gave herself one breath to take in the sight: Tharion, Baxian, Sathia, Flynn, and Declan, all huddled close and ringed by fire. There was no sign of the ghouls in the shadows, but the Murder Twins stood just outside the perimeter, smirking like the assholes they were.

The Autumn King didn’t bother to encircle her and Hunt with fire, knowing that even Hunt’s lightning couldn’t stop him if he chose to burn their prisoners to ashes. It was protection enough.

“Get up,” Morven ordered Bryce, shadows like whips in the Stag King’s hands. “We’ve been waiting long enough for you to snap out of that stupor.”

Hunt hissed, and Bryce glanced over to find angry, blistered weals along her mate’s forearm. They’d been burning Hunt to try to wake him up—

Bryce lifted her eyes to the shadow-crowned King of Avallen. To her sire, standing cold-faced beside him despite the fire at his fingertips. “What did you do with that black salt?” the Autumn King asked quietly. “Who did you see?”

Bryce drew the Starsword and Truth-Teller.

“Relinquish those weapons,” Morven snapped. “You’ve sullied them long enough.”

The fire closed in tighter around their friends. Baxian swore as a lick of it singed his black feathers.

“Sorry,” Bryce said to the kings, not lowering her weapons, “but the blades don’t work for rejected losers.”

The Autumn King sneered, “Their taste is questionable. We shall remedy that at last.”

“Right,” Bryce said thoughtfully. “I forgot that you killed the last Starborn Prince because you couldn’t deal with how jealous you were of him.”

The Autumn King, as he had the last time she’d accused him of this, only chuckled. Morven glanced at him, as if in sudden doubt.

But the Autumn King said, “Jealous? Of that sniveling whelp? He was unworthy of that sword, but no more unworthy than you.”

Bryce flashed him a winning smile. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

The Autumn King went on, “I killed the boy because he wanted to put an end to the bloodline. To all that the Fae are.” The male jerked his chin at Bryce. “Like you, no doubt.”

She shrugged. “Not gonna deny it.”

“Oh, I know your heart, Bryce Quinlan,” the Autumn King seethed. “I know what you’d do, if left to your own devices.”

“Binge an obscene amount of TV?”

His flame rose higher, herding her friends closer together. Dangerously little space remained between their bodies and the fire. “You are a threat to the Fae. Raised by your mother to abhor us, you are not fit to bear the royal name.”

Bryce let out a harsh, bitter laugh. “You think my mom turned me against you? I turned against you the moment you sent your goons after us to kill her and Randall. And every moment since then, you pathetic loser. You want someone to blame for me thinking the Fae are worthless pieces of shit? Look in the mirror.”

“Ignore her hysterical prattling,” Morven warned the Autumn King.

The Autumn King bared his teeth at her. “You’ve let a little bit of inherited power and a title go to your head.”

Morven’s shadows rose behind him, ready to obliterate all in their path. “You’ll wish for death when the Asteri get their hands on you.”

Bryce tightened her grip on the blades. They hummed, pulling toward each other. Like they were begging her for that final reunification. She ignored them, and instead asked the Fae Kings, “Finally going to hand us over?”

“The worms you associate with, yes,” the Autumn King said without an ounce of pity. “But you …”

“Right, breeding,” Bryce said, and didn’t miss Hunt’s incredulous look at her tone. Her arms strained with the effort of keeping the blades apart. “I’m assuming Sathia, Flynn, and Dec will be kept for breeding, too, but any non-Fae are out of luck. Sorry, guys.”

“This is not a joke,” Morven spat.

“No, it’s not,” Bryce said, and met his stare. “And I’m done laughing at you fools.”

Morven didn’t flinch. “That little light show might have surprised us last time, but one spark from you, and your friends burn. Or shall we demonstrate an alternate method?” Morven gestured with a shadow-wreathed hand to the Murder Twins.

Bryce checked that her mental wall of starlight was intact, but like the bullies they were, the twins struck the person they assumed was weakest.

One heartbeat, Sathia was wide-eyed and monitoring the showdown. The next, she’d snatched a knife from Tharion’s side.

And held it against her own throat.

“Stop it,” Tharion snarled toward the twins, who were snickering.

Sathia’s hand shook, and she pressed the dagger into her neck a little harder, drawing a trickle of blood.

“You make one move toward her, fish, and that knife slides home,” Morven said.

“Leave her alone,” Bryce said, and stepped forward—just one foot. The sword and dagger in her hands now seemed to tug forward, too—toward the center of the room. She tightened her grip on them.

Fire blazed brighter around her friends. One of Baxian’s feathers caught fire, and Dec only just managed to pat it out before it could spread. “Drop the blades, and they’ll release her mind,” the Autumn King countered.

Bryce glanced to the sword and knife, fighting that tug from both weapons toward the center of the room.

Sathia stood on the other side of that burning ring, pure, helpless terror on her face, blood streaming down her neck. One thought from Seamus or Duncan, one motion, and that knife would slide into her throat.

Bryce tossed the blades to the ground.

Their dark metal clanked against the stone with brutal finality as they skittered to a stop nearly atop the eight-pointed star. Out of reach.

Neither king advanced, though, as if afraid to pick them up—or even walk over to them.

The Murder Twins pouted at their spoiled fun, but Sathia lowered the knife. Her fingers still clenched it at her side, though—clearly at the twins’ direction. None of the others dared to pry it from her fingers.

But Bryce only stared at the Autumn King as she snarled, “You were giving me all that bullshit about how much you loved my mom and regretted having hit her—yet this is what you’re doing to your own daughter? And to the daughter of one of your Fae buddies?”

“You stopped being my daughter the moment you locked me in my own home.”

“Ouch,” Bryce said. “That hit me right in the heart.” She tapped on her chest for emphasis, and the star glowed in answer.

“She is stalling for time,” the Autumn King said to Morven. “She did precisely this with Micah—”

“Oh yeah,” Bryce said, advancing a step, “when I kicked his ass. Did he tell you?” she asked Morven. “It’s supposed to be a big secret.” She stage-whispered, taking another step closer, “I cut that fucker into pieces for what he did to Danika.”

The Murder Twins seemed to start in surprise.

Bryce smiled at them, at Morven, at the Autumn King, and said, “But what I did to Micah is nothing compared to what I’ll do to you.”

She extended her hands. Starsword and Truth-Teller flew to them, as they had in the Fae world. Like calling to like.

But she hadn’t been stalling for time for herself. She’d been stalling for Hunt.

As the sword and dagger flew to her, Hunt’s lightning, gathering in a wave behind her, launched for the Murder Twins.

They had a choice, then: let go of their hold on Sathia to intercept the two whips of lightning that lashed for them, or allow Hunt’s lightning to obliterate them.

The twins opted to live. A shield of shadows slammed against the reaching spears of lightning. It was all Bryce needed to see before she burst into motion.

The Autumn King shouted in warning, but Bryce was already running for them. For him.

She didn’t hold back as she erupted with starlight.

The entire cave shook as lightning and shadow collided. Hunt gritted his teeth.

Tharion had managed to get the knife away from Sathia before she dropped it and impaled her own foot, and now the female crouched in the circle of fire, head gripped in her hands.

The blast of starlight that shot from Bryce as she ran for their enemies threatened to bring down the cavern. Her hair rose above her head, her fingertips shining white-hot with starfire.

Hunt gaped at her power, the beauty and condensed might of it.

But one of the Murder Twins laughed, a spiteful sound that promised his mate would suffer. Six ghouls burst from the shadows, little more than shadows themselves in their dark, tattered robes and reaching, scabbed hands.

What unholy things had the twins done, to become masters of these wretched beings?

Hunt glimpsed jaws stocked with three-inch, curving teeth opening wide, aiming for a distracted Bryce—

With a roar of fury, he sent half a dozen spears of lightning crackling for the ghouls and a seventh—a lucky one—for the twins’ shadows.

Where lightning met ancient malice, the ghouls exploded into sizzling dust. But his lightning fractured against the twins’ wall of darkness. It kept them from joining the fight with Bryce, though it didn’t destroy their shield.

“Help her,” Baxian hissed over the crackling flame, but Hunt shook his head, throwing more of his lightning at the twins, who were now pushing back with a slowly advancing wall of shadow. Hunt dared a glance at Sathia, who watched with wide eyes as Bryce launched herself at the two Fae Kings.

Bryce flew like a shooting star through the dim cavern.

“She doesn’t need my help,” Hunt whispered.

Fire met starlight met shadows, and Bryce loosed herself on the world.

It ended today. Here. Now.

This had nothing to do with the Asteri, or Midgard. The Fae had festered under leaders like these males, but her people could be so much more.

Bryce carried the weight of that with each punch of starfire toward the Autumn King that had him dancing away, with each smothering spate of shadows Morven sent to herd her back toward the stream.

She hadn’t gone to that other world only because of the sword and knife, or to find some magic bullet to stop the rot in her own world. She knew that now.

Urd had sent her there to see, even in the small fraction of their world that she’d witnessed, that Fae existed who were kind and brave. She might have had to betray Nesta and Azriel, trick them … but she knew that at their cores, they were good people.

The Fae of Midgard were capable of more.

Ruhn proved it. Flynn and Dec proved it. Even Sathia proved it, in the short time Bryce had known her.

Bryce launched a line of pure starfire at Morven, gouging deep in the black-salt floor. He dodged, rolling out of reach with a warrior’s skill.

It stopped today.

The pettiness and chauvinism and arrogance that had been the hallmarks of the Fae of Midgard for generations. Pelias’s legacy.

It all fucking stopped today.

The starlight flared around Bryce, the darkness of Silene’s—Theia’s—dusk power giving it shape, transforming it into that starfire. If she could find that final third piece and make the star whole—

She was already whole. What she had—who she was … it was enough. She’d always been enough to take on these bastards, power or no power. Starborn crap or no.

She was enough.

The Murder Twins were returning Hunt’s ambush now. From his angle, Bryce knew Hunt couldn’t see what they were up to behind their wall of shadows, pushing his way, blasting apart his lightning.

But from over here … Bryce could see how they used that wall against Hunt. Used it to shield themselves from view as they turned her way.

Even Hunt’s lightning wasn’t fast enough as the Murder Twins sprang for her with swords drawn. Right as their shadowy talons scraped down the wall of her mind.

It stopped today.

Bryce exploded—into the twins’s minds, their bodies. Flooding them with starfire. A part of her recoiled in horror as their huge forms crumpled to the ground, steaming holes where their eyes had been. Where their brains had been. She’d melted their minds.

Morven screamed in fury—and something like fear.

She’d done that. With only two-thirds of Theia’s star, she’d managed to—

“Bryce!” Hunt shouted, but he was too late—Morven had sent a whip of shadow, hidden beneath a plume of the Autumn King’s flame, for her. It wrapped around her legs and yanked. Bryce slammed into stone, starlight blinking out.

The impact cracked through her skull, setting the world spinning. Or maybe that was the shadows, dragging her closer to the wall of flame.

Bryce slashed down at the leash of shadows with a hand wreathed in starfire.

It tore the darkness into ribbons. Bryce was up in a heartbeat, but not fast enough to dodge the punch of flame the Autumn King sent toward her gut—

Bryce teleported, swift and instinctive as a breath. Right to the Autumn King.

It ended now.

The Autumn King staggered in shock as she grabbed his burning fist in one hand. As she held firm, her nails digging in hard. His fire singed into her skin, blinding her with pain, but she dug her nails in deeper and sent her starfire blasting into him.

Her father roared in agony, falling to his knees. Morven, so stunned he’d been frozen in place, swore brutally.

Bryce stared at what she had done to the Autumn King’s fist. What had once been his hand.

Only melted flesh and bone remained.

The Autumn King retched at the pain, bowing over his knees, hand cradled to his chest.

“Do you think those gifts make you special?” Morven raged, shaking free of his stupor. A swarming nest of shadows teemed around him. “My son could do the same—and he was trash in the end. Just like you.”

Morven’s shadows launched for her like a flock of ravens.

Bryce blasted out a wall of starlight, destroying those shadow birds, but more came, from everywhere and nowhere, from below—

The Autumn King got to his feet, face gray with agony, cradling his charred remnant of a hand. “I’m going to teach you a new definition of pain,” he spat.

And there was no amount of training that could have prepared Bryce, no time to teleport to avoid the two swift attacks from the Fae Kings, matched in power.

She dodged the bone-searing blast of fire from her father, only to have Morven’s shadows grab her again. Hands of pure darkness hurled her onto the stone so hard the breath went out of her. The Starsword and Truth-Teller flew from her fingers.

A female cried out, and for a moment, Bryce thought it might have been Cthona, maybe Luna herself.

But it was Sathia.

It was Sathia, on her feet again, and yet it wasn’t. It was every Fae female who’d come before them.

Bryce exploded her light outward, shredding Morven’s shadows apart. They cleared to reveal the Autumn King standing above her, a sword of flame in his undamaged hand.

“I should have done this a long time ago,” her father snarled, and plunged his burning sword toward her exposed heart.

The Autumn King only made it halfway before light burst from his chest.

Hunt’s lightning had—

No.

It wasn’t Hunt’s lightning that shone through the Autumn King’s rib cage.

It was the Starsword. And it was Ruhn wielding it, standing behind him.

Ruhn, who had driven the sword right through their father’s cold heart.

Ruhn knew in his bones why he’d walked through these caves. He was a Starborn Prince, and he’d come to right an ancient wrong.

With the Starsword in his hand, piercing his father’s heart … Ruhn knew he was exactly where he was meant to be.

The Autumn King let out a shocked grunt, blood dribbling from his mouth.

“I know every definition of pain thanks to you,” Ruhn spat, and yanked out the sword.

His father collapsed face-first onto the stone floor.

Even Morven’s shadows halted as the Autumn King struggled to raise himself onto his hands. Lidia, guarding Ruhn’s back against the Stag King, said nothing.

No pity stirred in Ruhn’s heart as his father gurgled blood. As it dribbled onto the stones. The Autumn King lifted his head to meet Ruhn’s stare.

Betrayal and hatred burned in his face.

Ruhn said into his mind, into all their minds, I lied about what the Oracle said to me.

His father’s eyes flared with shock at Ruhn’s voice in his head, the secret his son had kept all these years. Ruhn didn’t care what Morven made of it, didn’t even bother to look at the Stag King. Bryce and Athalar could handle the shadows, if Morven was dumb enough to attack.

So Ruhn stared into his father’s hateful face and said, The Oracle didn’t tell me that I would be a fair and just king. She told me that the royal bloodline would end with me.

He had the sense that his friends were watching with wide eyes. But he only had words for the pathetic male before him.

I thought it meant your bloodline.

Ruhn lifted the bloodied Starsword. Flame simmered along his father’s body, limning his powerful form. But Ruhn was no longer a cowering boy, inking himself with tattoos to hide the scarring.

I was wrong. I think the Oracle meant all of them, Ruhn went on, mind-to-mind. The male lines. The Starborn Princes included—all you fucks who have corrupted and stolen and never once apologized for it. The entire system. This bullshit of crowns and inheritance.

His father’s sneering voice filled his mind. You’re a spoiled, ungrateful brat who never deserved to carry my crown—

I don’t want it, Ruhn snapped, and shut down the bridge between their minds that allowed his father to speak. He’d had enough of listening to this male.

Blood trickled from his father’s lips as his Vanir body sought to heal him—to rally his strength to attack.

The line will end with me, you fucking prick, Ruhn said into his father’s mind, because I yield my crown, my title, to the queen.

True fear turned his father’s face ashen. And out of the corner of his eye, Ruhn saw Bryce’s star begin to glow.

A serene peace bloomed in him. I always assumed the Oracle’s prophecy meant that I would die. He let his kernel of starlight flicker down the blade, an answer to Bryce’s beckoning blaze. One last time.

But I am going to live, he said to his father. And I am going to live well—without you.

Even Morven’s shadows weren’t fast enough as Ruhn whipped the Starsword through the air again. And sliced clean through his father’s neck.

Bryce had no words as Ruhn severed the Autumn King’s head. As her brother skewered the skull on the Starsword before it even hit the stone.

She got to her feet. Came up beside Ruhn where he stood rigid, still holding the bloodied sword, their father’s head impaled on it.

The fire around their friends remained, an impenetrable prison. As if the Autumn King had imbued the flames with energy he’d cast outside himself, to linger even past his death. A final punishment. Lidia rushed over, as if she could somehow find a way to undo the flames—

“Let them go,” Bryce said to Morven in a voice she didn’t entirely recognize. “Before we skewer you as well.”

Morven bared his teeth. But despite the blazing hate in his eyes, he lowered himself to his knees and lifted his hands in submission. “I yield.”

The fire vanished. Morven blinked, as if surprised, but said nothing.

Their friends were instantly on their feet, Hunt putting a hand on Sathia’s back to steady her. Then they all came to stand, as one, behind Bryce and Ruhn. And she saw it, for a glimmering heartbeat. Not a world divided into Houses … but a world united.

Bryce walked a few steps to pick up Truth-Teller from where it lay near the Autumn King’s decapitated corpse. She didn’t look at the body, at the blood still pooling outward, as she said to Ruhn, “Helena created the prophecy to explain what these weapons could do, the power needed to take on the Asteri. But I think, in her own way, the prophecy was also her hope for me. What I might do, beyond wielding the power.”

Confusion swirled in Ruhn’s bright blue eyes.

“Sword,” Bryce said, nodding to the Starsword in his hand. She lifted Truth-Teller in her own. “Knife.” And then she pointed to their friends, to the Fae and angel and mer and shifter behind them. “People.”

“It wasn’t only about the Fae,” Ruhn said quietly.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Bryce amended. “It can mean what we want it to.” She smiled slightly. “Our people,” she said to Ruhn, to the others. “The people of Midgard. United against the Asteri.”

It had taken all this time, a journey through the stars and under the earth … but here they were.

Morven spat on the ground. “If you plan to fight the Asteri, you will fail. It doesn’t matter if you unify every House. You will be wiped from the face of Midgard.”

Bryce surveyed the king on his knees. “I appreciate your confidence.”

Morven’s shadows began to seethe along his shoulders again. Rippling down his arms. “I yield now, girl, but the Fae shall never accept a half-breed by-blow as queen, even a Starborn one.”

Ruhn lunged for him, Starsword angling, but Bryce blocked him with an arm. For a long moment, she stared down into Morven’s face. Really, truly looked at it. At the male beneath the crown of shadows.

She found only hate.

“If we win,” Bryce said quietly, “this new world will be a fair one. No more hierarchies and bullshit.” The very things Hunt had fought for. That he and the Fallen had suffered for. “But right now,” Bryce said, “I’m Queen of the Valbaran Fae.” She nodded to the Autumn King’s body cooling on the ground, then smirked at Morven. “And of Avallen.”

Morven hissed, “You’ll be Queen of Avallen over my dead …” He trailed off at the smile on her face. And paled.

“As I was saying,” Bryce drawled, “for the moment, I’m queen. I’m judge, jury …”

Bryce looked to Sathia, still shaken and wide-eyed from the twins’ attack—yet unafraid. Unbroken, despite what the males in her life, what this male, had tried to do to her.

So Bryce peered down at Morven and finished sweetly, “And I’m your motherfucking executioner.”

The King of Avallen was still blazing with hate when Bryce slid Truth-Teller into his heart.

It was a matter of a few strokes of Truth-Teller through Morven’s neck for Bryce to behead him. And as she rose to her feet, it was a Fae Queen who stood before Ruhn, wreathed in starlight, unflinching before her enemies. From the love shining on Athalar’s face as he beheld Bryce, Ruhn knew the angel saw it as well.

But it was Sathia who approached Bryce. Who knelt at her feet, bowing her head, and declared, “Hail Bryce, Queen of the Midgardian Fae.”

“Oof,” Bryce said, wincing. “Let’s start with Avallen and Valbara and see where we wind up.”

But Flynn and Declan knelt, too. And Ruhn turned to his sister and knelt as well, offering up the Starsword with both hands.

“To right an old wrong,” Ruhn said, “and on behalf of all the Starborn Princes before me. This is yours.”

No words had ever sounded so right. Nor had anything felt so right as when Bryce took the Starsword from him, a formal claiming, and weighed it in her hands.

Ruhn watched his sister glance between the Starsword and Truth-Teller, one blade blazing with starlight, the other with darkness. “What now?” she asked quietly.

“Other than taking a moment to process the deaths of those two assholes over there?” Ruhn said. He nodded toward Morven and his father.

Bryce offered a watery smile. “We learned some things, at least.”

“Yeah?” The others were all crowding around them now, listening.

“Turns out,” Athalar said with what Ruhn could have sworn was forced casualness, “Theia did some weird shit with her star magic, divvying it up between herself and her daughters. Long story short, Bryce has two of those pieces, but Helena used Avallen’s nexus of ley lines and natural magic to hide the third piece somewhere on Avallen. If Bryce can get that piece, the sword and knife will be able to open a portal to nowhere, and we can trap the Asteri inside it.”

Bryce gave Hunt a look as if to say there was a lot more to it than that, but she said, “So … new mission: find the power Helena hid. Aidas claimed that Helena used Midgard’s ley lines to hide it in these caves after Pelias died.” She sighed, scanning all their faces. “Any thoughts on where it might be?”

Ruhn blinked at her. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “I do have a thought.”

“Really?” Athalar said, frowning.

“Don’t look so shocked,” Ruhn grumbled.

Lidia came up to his side, adding, “After Pelias died, you say?”

“Yeah. It’s complicated—”

“I think it’s part of the land,” Lidia interrupted. “In the very bones of Avallen.”

Bryce and Athalar raised their eyebrows, but Ruhn glanced to Lidia and nodded. “It explains a lot.”

Bryce cut in, “Like …?”

“Like why Avallen was once part of an archipelago, but now it’s only one island,” Ruhn said. “You said Helena drew upon Avallen’s ley lines to contain her mother’s star—to hide it here, right? I think doing so drained all the land’s magic from its ley lines, and repurposed it to encage Theia’s power. It made the land wither. Just as you said Silene’s own lands withered around the Prison while it held her own share of power.”

Bryce mused, “Silene had the Horn, but Helena had to use the ley lines instead. Yet both had a disastrous effect on the land itself.” She peered down at the blades again.

“How do you propose getting the magic out?” Lidia challenged. “We have no idea how to access it.”

No one answered. And, fuck, Morven and the Autumn King were lying there, dead and dismembered, and—

“Anyone got any bright ideas?” Tharion asked into the fraught silence.

Ruhn stifled his laugh, but Bryce slowly turned toward the mer, as if in surprise.

“Bright,” she murmured. Then looked at Athalar, scanning his face. “Light it up,” she whispered. As if it was the answer to everything.

Bright.

Light.

Light it up.

The world seemed to pause, as if Urd herself had slowed time as each thought pelted Bryce.

She glanced at the walls. At the river of starlight that Helena had depicted at the bottom of every carving.

Mere hours ago, she’d thought it was the bloodline of the Starborn in artistic form.

But Silene had depicted the evil running beneath the Prison in her carvings, unwittingly warning about Vesperus … Perhaps Helena, too, had left a clue.

A final challenge.

Bryce peered down at the eight-pointed star in the center of the room. The two strange slits in the points. One small, one larger.

She looked at the weapons in her hands: a small dagger, and a large sword. They’d fit right into the slits in the floor, like keys in a lock.

Keys to unlock the power stored beneath. The last bit of power she needed to open the portal to nowhere.

That power had originally belonged to the worst sort of Fae, but it didn’t have to. It could belong to anyone. It could be Bryce’s for the taking.

To light up this world.

“Bryce?” Hunt asked, a hand on her back.

Bryce rallied herself, breathing deep. Bits of debris and rock from her battle with the Fae Kings began drifting upward.

She walked through it, right to that eight-pointed star on the ground, identical to the one on her chest. The debris and rock swirled, a maelstrom with her at its center.

Bryce inhaled deeply, bracing herself as she whispered, “I’m ready.”

“For what?” Hunt demanded, but Bryce ignored him.

On an exhale, she plunged the weapons into the slits in the eight-pointed star. The small one for the knife. The larger one for the sword.

And like a key turning in a lock, they released what lay beneath.