House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City Series)

As it had that day at the Asteri’s palace, when she had leapt from her own world to another, Hunt’s lightning lanced through Bryce’s back, through the Horn, into the star on her chest—and out into the Gate.

Ember shouted in fear, and even Randall stumbled back a step, but Hunt let his lightning flow into Bryce, kept a steady stream of it surging between them.

“Open,” Bryce said, her voice carrying on the wind. A sliver of darkness began to spread in the middle of the Gate.

Hunt funneled more lightning into her, and the sliver widened, inch by inch.

The Northern Rift had been fixed on Hel—until now. Until his power had passed through not only the Horn on Bryce, but the star on her chest, too—that link to a different world. Reorienting the Gate, as it had that day in the Eternal Palace, to open elsewhere. That was their theory, at least. No one had ever tried to manipulate the Northern Rift to open somewhere other than Hel, but—

“That’s enough, Hunt,” Ember warned.

Hunt ignored her and sent another spike of power into his mate. Bryce’s hair floated up, snow and ice drifting with it, but she maintained an eerie calm until the void filled the entirety of the massive Gate.

Hunt cut off his lightning, running to where Bryce stood before the wall of darkness.

Darkness—flecked by starlight.

A female with golden-brown hair sat in an armchair before a fireplace on the other side of it. All that darkness was the starry night beyond her windows.

And her face was a portrait of pure shock as Bryce lifted a hand in greeting and said, “Hello, Nesta.”

The River Queen sat in a chair before a computer panel in the control room connected to the west air lock, a makeshift throne in the sterile, utilitarian space. The tech who operated the computer had vacated the chamber in a near-sprint at the queen’s snapped command.

Tharion was well aware that the air lock could be easily hosed down to remove any and all traces of blood. A body flushed out through it would go straight to the sobeks circling outside like Reapers.

If Sathia noted those details, if she understood that she and Tharion had been brought here purely for the convenience of getting rid of his corpse, she didn’t let on.

His wife simply curtsied, a graceful swoop downward, at odds with her casual leggings and white sweater, the cashmere now streaked with dirt and torn along the bottom hem. “Your Majesty,” Sathia said, her voice cultured yet unthreatening. “It is an honor to meet you.”

The River Queen’s dark eyes swept over Sathia. “Am I supposed to open my arms to the female who usurped my daughter?”

Sathia didn’t so much as flinch. “If my union with Tharion has brought you grief or offense, then I offer my wholehearted apologies.”

A beat, too long to be comforting. Tharion lifted his gaze to the River Queen and found her watching him. Her gaze was cold, cruel. Unimpressed.

“I take it,” the River Queen said, “you want something very badly from me, if you have come back to risk my wrath.”

Tharion bowed his head. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“And yet you have brought your wife—for what? To soften me? Or as a shield to hide behind?”

“Considering she’s barely up to my chest,” Tharion said dryly, “I don’t think she’d make much of a shield.”

Sathia glared at him, but the River Queen frowned. “Always making jokes. Always playing the fool.” She waved a hand adorned in rings of shell and coral toward Sathia. “I suppose I should wish you congratulations on your nuptials, but I instead wish you luck. With a male like that for a husband, you’ll need it in droves.”

“I thank you,” Sathia said with such sincerity that Tharion nearly bought it, too. “May your good wishes fly straight to Urd’s ears.”

Okay, maybe he’d underestimated his wife. She seemed more comfortable in this setting than he was.

Indeed, the River Queen seemed intrigued enough by Sathia’s grace under fire that she said, “Well, Tharion. Let’s hear what was so important that you dared enter my realm again.”

He clasped his hands behind his back, exposing his chest like he knew the River Queen preferred. He didn’t see her jagged sea-glass knife anywhere, but she always had it on her. “I am here on behalf of Bryce Quinlan, Queen of the Fae of Valbara and Avallen, to request asylum in the Blue Court for the people of Crescent City.”

Another long pause.

“Queen, is it?” the River Queen said. “Of Valbaran and Avallen Fae?” Her eyes slid to Sathia—the Fae representative, he supposed.

Sathia’s chin dipped. “Bryce Quinlan now rules both territories. I serve her, as does Tharion.”

Eyes as black and depthless as a shark’s slid to Tharion. The same eyes as her sister, the Ocean Queen, he realized. “Am I supposed to be pleased to hear you have yet again defected?”

“I did what my morals demanded,” Tharion said.

“Morals,” the River Queen mused. “What morals do you have other than ensuring your own survival at any cost? Was it your morals that guided you when you took my daughter’s maidenhead, swearing to love her until you died, and then toyed with her affections for the next decade?”

Fuck. But Sathia answered for him with that unflinching calm, “These are the mistakes of youth—ones Tharion has reflected upon and learned from.”

The River Queen fixed her attention on Sathia again. “Has he? Or was that the poisoned honey he poured into your ear to woo you?”

“He brought me before you,” Sathia countered. “Proof that he is willing to own up to his actions.”

It took a special sort of person to talk like that to the River Queen. To not back down one inch, not tremble at her power, her ageless face.

The River Queen’s eyes narrowed, clearly thinking along the same lines. “And this Queen Bryce thought Tharion the best emissary to beg me for such an enormous favor?”

Sathia’s chin didn’t lower. “She remembered how Tharion and your people so bravely and selflessly carried innocents down here to safety during the attack this spring.”

Damn, she was good.

The River Queen waved a hand toward the window overlooking the depths and the monsters prowling beyond. “And does she have a good reason why I shouldn’t kill Tharion where he stands and send his body out to the river beasts?”

Sathia didn’t even glance toward the circling sobeks. “Because he is now in Queen Bryce’s employ. You strike him down, and you shall have the Fae to deal with.”

A flash of little pointed teeth. “They’ll have to get Beneath first.”

Sathia didn’t miss a beat. “I believe it would not be in your best interest to become a city under siege.”

Holy gods, his wife had balls. Tharion wisely wiped any sort of reaction from his face, but Ogenas damn him, if they survived this meeting, he wanted Sathia to teach him everything she knew.

The River Queen scoffed, but angled her head before changing the subject. “How does the girl suddenly wield such power?”

“That is her own story to tell,” Sathia said, folding her hands behind her back, “but she has powerful allies. In this world and in others.”

“Others?”

Tharion dared say, turning his voice into a mirror of his wife’s poised calm, “Bryce counts the Princes of Hel as allies.”

“Then she is an enemy to Midgard. And an imbecile as well, if she is seeking to hide the people of this city from the demons she’d ally with.”

“She doesn’t seek to hide people from Hel,” Tharion said, “but from the Asteri’s wrath.”

The River Queen blinked slowly. “You ask me to take a stand against the Republic itself.”

“What happened in Asphodel Meadows was a disgrace,” Tharion said, voice dangerously low. “If you don’t stand against the Republic for something of this nature, then you’re complicit in their slaughter.”

Sathia cut him a warning glance, but the River Queen studied him. Like she hadn’t really seen him until this point.

She opened her mouth, and hope surged in Tharion’s chest—

But then the interior door to the room hissed open, and the River Queen’s daughter was charging in, rage and sorrow crumpling her beautiful face as she screamed, “How could you?”

“Is that a Prince of Hel?” Ember whispered from a few steps behind Bryce, her teeth clacking with cold.

“Does she look like a prince?” Randall hissed back, snow crunching as he hopped from one foot to another to keep warm.

“Bryce said Aidas appeared to her as a cat, so who’s to say—”

“Guys,” Bryce murmured as Nesta slowly, slowly rose from her chair by the fireplace. A dagger had somehow appeared in the female’s hand, as if it had been concealed under the cushion.

It had worked. They’d managed to make the Northern Rift open to a place other than Hel.

“What are you doing?” Nesta said, and it occurred to Bryce in that moment that none of the others could understand her. Which left Bryce as translator.

So Bryce muttered to Hunt, wide-eyed but poised to leap into action, “Give me a minute,” and faced Nesta.

“I’m not going to harm you, or your world,” Bryce said in Nesta’s own language.

“Then why is there a giant portal in my living room?” Nesta’s blue-gray eyes were gleaming with predatory violence. Some of that silver flame was starting to build at her fingertips. Would it withstand Bryce’s starfire? Especially with the force of that leveled-up power in her body behind it?

But she hadn’t come here for that. “I needed to talk to you.”

“How did you know I’d be alone?”

“I didn’t. Urd threw me a bone.”

The dagger and the silver flame didn’t vanish. “Shut that portal.”

“Not until I say what I need to say.”

The silver flame now flickered in Nesta’s eyes. “Then say it, and be gone.” Her gaze lowered to Bryce’s side. “And leave the dagger you stole.”

Bryce ignored that and swallowed hard.

Ember hissed to Randall, “I don’t think it’s going well.” Randall hushed her.

But Nesta’s eyes slid to Hunt—to the feathered wings, the lightning dancing at his hand, the halo on his brow. “Is that your mate?”

Bryce nodded, and motioned Hunt to step forward. “Hunt Athalar.” She’d never fucking use Danaan again. For either of them.

Hunt approached and inclined his head. Bryce could have sworn lightning lashed across his eyes, as if the power he’d summoned, enough to open the Northern Rift, was riding him hard.

But Nesta only observed him imperiously, then turned to Bryce. “What do you want?”

Bryce squared her shoulders. “I need you to give me the Mask.”