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

Yet even with the crowd, an air of quiet reverence and serenity filled the space. As if it were a temple.

Bryce had the creeping sensation that the various ancient statues of the gods flanking the long lobby watched her. Or maybe that was the well-dressed older shifter couple standing by a reclining statue of Cthona, the earth goddess, naked and awaiting the embrace of her lover, Solas. The shifters—some sort of big cats, from their scents, and rich ones, judging by their watches and jewelry—blatantly ogled her.

Bryce offered them a bland, close-lipped smile.

Some variation of this had happened nearly every single day since the attack this past spring. The first few times had been overwhelming, unnerving—people coming up to her and sobbing with gratitude. Now they just stared.

Bryce didn’t blame the people who wanted to speak to her, who needed to speak to her. The city had been healed—by her—but its people …

Scores had been dead by the time her firstlight erupted through Lunathion. Hunt had been lucky, had been taking his last breaths, when the firstlight saved him. Five thousand other people had not been so lucky.

Their families had not been so lucky.

So many dark boats had drifted across the Istros to the mists of the Bone Quarter that they had looked like a bevy of black swans. Hunt had carried her into the skies to see it. The quays along the river had teemed with people, their mourning cries rising to the low clouds where she and Hunt had glided.

Hunt had only held her tighter and flown them home.

“Take a picture,” Ember Quinlan called now to the shifters from where she stood next to a marble torso of Ogenas rising from the waves, the ocean goddess’s full breasts peaked and arms upraised. “Only ten gold marks. Fifteen, if you want to be in it.”

“For fuck’s sake, Mom,” Bryce muttered. Ember stood with her hands on her hips, gorgeous in a silky gray gown and pashmina. “Please don’t.”

Ember opened her mouth, as if she’d say something else to the chastised shifters now hurrying toward the east staircase, but her husband interrupted her. “I second Bryce’s request,” Randall said, dashing in his navy suit.

Ember turned outraged dark eyes on Bryce’s stepfather—her only father, as far as Bryce was concerned—but Randall pointed casually to a broad frieze behind them. “That one reminds me of Athalar.”

Bryce arched a brow, grateful for the change of subject, and twisted toward where he’d pointed. On it, a powerful Fae male stood poised above an anvil, hammer raised skyward in one fist, lightning cracking from the skies, filling the hammer, and flowing down toward the object of the hammer’s intended blow: a sword.

Its label read simply: Unknown sculptor. Palmira, circa 125 V.E.

Bryce lifted her mobile and snapped a photo, pulling up her messaging thread with Hunt Athalar Is Better at Sunball Than I Am.

She couldn’t deny that. They’d gone to the local sunball field one sunny afternoon last week to play, and Hunt had promptly wiped the floor with her. He’d changed his name in her phone on the way home.

With a few sweeps of her thumbs, the picture zoomed off into the ether, along with her note: Long-lost relative of yours?

She slid her phone into her clutch to find her mother watching. “What?” Bryce muttered.

But Ember only motioned toward the frieze. “Who does it depict?”

Bryce checked the sliver of writing in the lower right corner. “It just says The Making of the Sword.”

Her mother peered at the half-faded etching. “In what language?”

Bryce tried to keep her posture relaxed. “The Old Language of the Fae.”

“Ah.” Ember pursed her lips, and Randall wisely drifted off through the crowd to study a towering statue of Luna aiming her bow toward the heavens, two hunting dogs at her feet and a stag nuzzling her hip. “You stayed fluent in it?”

“Yep,” Bryce said. Then added, “It’s come in handy.”

“I’d imagine so.” Ember tucked back a strand of her black hair.

Bryce moved to the next frieze dangling from the distant ceiling on near-invisible wires. “This one’s of the First Wars.” She scanned the relief carved into the ten-foot expanse of marble. “It’s about …” She schooled her expression into neutrality.

“What?” Ember stepped closer to the depiction of an army of winged demons swooping down from the skies upon a terrestrial army gathered on the plain below.

“This one’s about Hel’s armies arriving to conquer Midgard during the First Wars,” Bryce finished, trying to keep her voice bland. To block out the flash of talons and fangs and leathery wings—the boom of her rifle resounding through her bones, the rivers of blood in the streets, the screaming and screaming and—

“You’d think this one would be a popular piece these days,” Randall observed, returning to their sides to study the frieze.

Bryce didn’t reply. She didn’t particularly enjoy discussing the events of the past spring with her parents. Especially not in the middle of a packed theater lobby.

Randall jerked his chin to the inscription. “What’s this one say?”

Keenly aware of her mother marking her every blink, Bryce kept her stance unaffected as she skimmed the text in the Old Language of the Fae.

It wasn’t that she was trying to hide what she’d endured. She had talked to her mom and dad about it a few times. But it always resulted in Ember crying, or ranting about the Vanir who’d locked out so many innocents, and the weight of all her mother’s emotions on top of all of hers …

It was easier, Bryce had realized, to not bring it up. To let herself talk it out with Hunt, or sweat it out in Madame Kyrah’s dance classes twice a week. Baby steps toward being ready for actual talk therapy, as Juniper kept suggesting, but both had helped immensely.

Bryce silently translated the text. “This is a piece from a larger collection—likely one that would have wrapped around the entire exterior of a building, each slab telling a different part of the story. This one says: Thus the seven Princes of Hel looked in envy upon Midgard and unleashed their unholy hordes upon our united armies.”

“Apparently nothing’s changed in fifteen thousand years,” Ember said, shadows darkening her eyes.

Bryce kept her mouth shut. She’d never told her mom about Prince Aidas—how he’d helped her twice now, and had seemed unaware of his brothers’ dark plans. If her mom knew she’d consorted with the fifth Prince of Hel, they’d have to redefine the concept of going berserk.

But then Ember said, “Couldn’t you get a job here?” She gestured with a tan hand to the CCB’s grand entrance, its ever-changing art exhibits in the lobby and on a few of the other levels. “You’re qualified. This would have been perfect.”

“There were no openings.” True. And she didn’t want to use her princess status to get one. She wanted to work at a place like the CCB’s art department on her own merit.

Her job at the Fae Archives … Well, she definitely got that because they saw her as a Fae Princess. But it wasn’t the same, somehow. Because she hadn’t wanted to work there as badly.

“Did you even try?”