House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City, #2)

“Who’s that?” Ruhn asked, glancing at her sidelong as thunder grumbled. People began clearing the streets, darting into shops and buildings to avoid the downpour. With the arid climate, summer storms were usually violent and swift, prone to flooding the streets.

“My mom,” Bryce said. “I’ll call her later.” She fished out a postcard from her purse and waved it at Ruhn. “She’s probably calling about this.”

“A postcard?” On the front, it said Greetings from Nidaros! in a cheery font.

Bryce slid it back into her purse. “Yeah. It’s a thing from when I was a kid. We’d get into a huge fight, and my mom would send me postcards as a weird kind of apology. Like, we might not be talking in person, but we’d start communicating again through postcards.”

“But you were living in the same house?”

Bryce laughed again. “Yeah. She’d put them under my door and I’d put them under hers. We’d write about everything but the fight. We kept doing it when I went to CCU, and afterward.” Bryce riffled through her bag and pulled out a blank postcard of an otter waving that said, Keep It Fuzzy, Lunathion! “I’m going to send her one later. Seems easier than a phone call.”

He asked, “Are you going to tell her about … everything?”

“Are you crazy?”

“What about the engagement being a ruse? Surely that’d get her off your back.”

“Why do you think I’m avoiding her calls?” Bryce asked. “She’ll say I’m playing with fire. Literally, considering Cormac’s power. There’s no winning with her.”

Ruhn chuckled. “You know, I would have really liked to have her as my stepmom.”

Bryce snickered. “Weird. You’re, like, twenty years older than her.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t need a mom to kick my ass every now and then.” He said it with a grin, but … Ruhn’s relationship with his own mother was strained. She wasn’t cruel, merely out to lunch. Ruhn took care of her these days. He knew his father certainly wouldn’t.

Bryce spoke before she had the chance to consider it. “I’m thinking of going home to Nidaros for the Winter Solstice. Hunt’s coming. You want to join?” Now that she and Hunt had adjusted their timeline, Bryce supposed she could be a decent human being and go home for the holiday.

That is, if her mom forgave her for the engagement. And not telling her about it.

Rain splattered the pavement, but Ruhn stopped. His eyes filled with such hope and happiness that Bryce’s chest hurt. But he said, “Bringing Hunt home, huh?”

She couldn’t help her blush. “Yep.”

“Big step, bringing home the boyfriend.”

She waved him off, but cringed at the rain that now became a deluge. They still had five blocks to the training center. “Let’s wait it out,” she said, ducking under an empty restaurant’s awning. The Istros lay a block away, close enough that Bryce could see the veils of rain lashing its surface. Even the mer weren’t out in this.

Rain streamed off the awning, thick as a waterfall, joining the veritable river already flowing down to the gaping sewer entrance at the corner of the block. Ruhn said over the din, “You really want me to come home with you?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.” Assuming they were still alive by December. If this rebellion shit hadn’t killed them all.

Ruhn’s tattooed throat bobbed. “Thanks. I normally spend it with Dec and his family, but … I don’t think they’ll mind if I skip this year.”

She nodded, awkward silence setting in. They usually had the training to occupy them during any tense silences, but now, trapped by the rain … she kept quiet, waiting to see what Ruhn might say.

“Why won’t you touch the Starsword?”

She twisted, gesturing to the black hilt of the blade peeking over his shoulder. “It’s yours.”

“It’s yours, too.”

“I’ve got Danika’s sword. And you found it first. Doesn’t seem fair of me to claim it.”

“You’re more Starborn than I am. You should have it.”

“That’s bullshit.” She backed up a step. “I don’t want it.” She could have sworn the rain, the wind, paused. Seemed to listen. Even the temperature seemed to drop.

“Aidas said you’ve got the light of the true Starborn Queen. I’m just the heir to some rapist asshole.”

“Does it matter? I like that you’re the Chosen One.”

“Why?”

“Because …” She hooked her hair behind her ears, then fiddled with the hem of her T-shirt. “I already have this star on my chest.” She touched the scar gently. The hair on her arms rose as if in answer. “I don’t need a fancy sword to add to it.”

“But I do?”

“Honestly? I think you don’t know how special you are, Ruhn.”

His blue eyes flickered. “Thanks.”

“I mean it.” She grabbed his hand, and light flared from her chest. “The sword came to you first for a reason. When was the last time two Starborn royals lived peacefully side by side? There’s that dumb prophecy that the Fae have: When knife and sword are reunited, so shall our people be. You have the Starsword. What if … I don’t know. What if there’s a knife out there for me? But beyond that, what’s Urd playing at? Or is it Luna? What’s the end goal?”

“You think the gods have something to do with all this?”

Again, the hair on her arms rose; the star on her chest dimmed and went dark. She turned to the rain-lashed street. “After this spring, I can’t help but wonder if there is something out there. Guiding all this. If there’s some game afoot that’s … I don’t know. Bigger than anything we can grasp.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hel is another world. Another planet. Aidas said so—months ago, I mean. The demons worship different gods than we do, but what happens when the worlds overlap? When demons come here, do their gods come with them? And all of us, the Vanir … we all came from elsewhere. We were immigrants into Midgard. But what became of our home worlds? Our home gods? Do they still pay attention to us? Remember us?”

Ruhn rubbed his jaw. “This is some seriously sacrilegious shit for a lunchtime conversation. The postcards with your mom, I can handle. This? I need some coffee.”

She shook her head and closed her eyes, unable to suppress the chill down her spine. “I just have this feeling.” Ruhn said nothing, and she opened her eyes again.

Ruhn was gone.

A rotted, veilless Reaper, black cloak and robes clinging to its bony body, rain sluicing down its sagging, grayish face, was dragging her unconscious brother across the drenched street. Its acid-green eyes glowed as if lit by Helfire.

The rain must have covered the creature’s approach. The hair on her arms had been raised but she’d chalked it up to their dangerous conversation. No one was on the street—was it because everyone had somehow sensed the Reaper?

With a roar, Bryce darted into the driving rain, but she was too late. The Reaper shoved Ruhn into the gaping sewer drain with too-long fingers that ended in cracked, jagged nails, and slithered in after him.





24

Ruhn drifted.

One breath, he’d been talking to Bryce about gods and fate and all that shit. The next, something cold and rotting had breathed in his ear and he’d found himself here in this black void, no up or down.

What the fuck had happened? Something had jumped him and fuck, Bryce— Night.