House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3)

Hunt didn’t let his guard down, not for one second. Even with every word of his fight with Quinlan hanging in the air like the residue of fireworks. Lightning flickered in one fist; his sword was clenched in another. He didn’t put either aside as they entered a chamber at the other end of the tunnel.

He scanned its intricately carved walls of black stone, the exquisite landscapes depicted there, as they stepped in—

Stone grated against itself, and before Hunt could whirl, faster even than his lightning, the triangular door shut behind them. Tharion, a step ahead, let out a low whistle.

Baxian just swapped a look with Hunt that told him the Helhound suspected the same thing he did: only Bryce could get that door to open. It wasn’t a calming thought. Not as Hunt surveyed what lay ahead.

The lone object in the chamber was a sarcophagus carved from white marble, the hue striking against the deep black of the stone walls. A statue of an armored Fae male lay atop the sarcophagus, hands clasped around a missing object.

Bryce nodded to it. “That must be where the Starsword lies when not in use.” Her voice was flat, as if drained from their argument.

Sathia staggered a step closer. “Prince Pelias’s tomb,” she breathed.

“Ruhn told me his creepster descendants line the walls of the main passages in here,” Bryce said, pointing to the only other way out: another archway of stone across the chamber, barely visible through the mists. She adjusted the Starsword across her back, and a hand fidgeted with Truth-Teller at her side—like the blades were bothering her.

Hunt surveyed the domed space, examining the stories told on the walls: an archipelago nestled above a sea of starlight, an idyllic, serene land—all that the world believed Avallen to be. “I don’t see anything about the Starsword or Truth-Teller, let alone how to unify them,” Hunt admitted. “Or the mists. The islands are here, but nothing else.” Maybe this was a dead end for information.

“There could be something out in the main passage,” Tharion offered.

But Bryce approached the sarcophagus. Peered down at the perfectly carved, handsome face of the first Starborn Prince.

“Hello, you rapist fuck,” she said, her voice cold with fury.

Hunt barely breathed. He wondered if Urd were watching, if the heaviness in the room wasn’t the mists, but rather the goddess’s presence, having guided them here.

“You thought you won,” Bryce whispered to the sarcophagus. “But she got one over on you in the end. She got the last laugh.”

“Bryce?” Hunt ventured.

She looked up from Pelias’s carved rendering, and there was nothing of her human heart in those eyes. Only icy, Fae hatred for the long-dead male before her.

Offering a rope of neutral ground, Hunt said, “Can you, uh, fill us in?”

Yet it was Tharion who gestured to the empty death chamber. “Maybe Pelias built another chamber around here that’s actually got something about the sword and dagger and that portal to nowhere—”

“No,” Bryce said quietly. “We’re exactly where we need to be.” She pointed to the floor, the carving of rivers of stars winding throughout. “And this place wasn’t built by Pelias. He had nothing to do with these tunnels, the carvings.” She laid a hand on the floor. Her starlight flowed through the carvings in the stone, the walls, the ceiling—

What had looked like etched seas or rivers of stars now filled in with starlight, became … alive. Moving, cascading, coursing. A secret illustration, only for those with the gifts and vision to see it.

The rippling river of starlight flowed right to the sarcophagus in the center of the chamber. Swirled around it like an eddy.

Bryce threw herself against the coffin, legs straining as she pushed—

And the sarcophagus slid away. Revealing a small, secret staircase beneath.

Bryce panted for a moment, and then smiled grimly. “This place was built by Helena.”





57


The sword and knife pulsed more strongly with each step downward into the secret stairwell. Like they wanted to be here—needed to be here. Just when Bryce thought she honestly might chuck them off her for a moment of relief, her feet touched the bottom.

Amid the mists, trickling water sounded from a narrow stream in the center of the chamber. Some offshoot of the river a level up, filtered through the black rock. And beside the stream, a black ewer and bowl rested upon an etching of an eight-pointed star.

“What the fuck is this?” Hunt murmured, sticking close to her. As if, despite their fight, he still wanted to protect her. But maybe it was that need to protect her that was leading to the guilt, the fear devouring him whole.

She’d meant every word she’d said to him—it wasn’t good enough for him to go along with things. She needed Hunt, all of him, fighting at her side. She didn’t know how to convey that. How to make him understand and embrace that.

Her teeth chattered with the cold, but even that seemed secondary as Bryce surveyed the stream and pitcher and bowl. The eight-pointed star. Two of its points had been hollowed out into slits—one small, one larger.

There was nothing else in the room.

“You don’t know what this is?” she asked Hunt. She could play Situation Normal with him—at least for now.

“I’m getting really fucking sick of surprises,” Tharion burst out, arriving at the bottom of the stairs with Sathia in tow.

Bryce held up a finger, and let her light condense there.

“And then there’s that,” Tharion said, but Bryce held Hunt’s stare as she pointed it at the ground and sliced a small line. An inch, and that was it.

“Helena used the same gifts to carve this place as her sister, Silene, used in their home world. But there’s one big difference. One reason why she chose this place for the caves.”

She knelt, and rubbed her fingers through the debris she’d left on either side of the cut. Brought it up to Hunt’s face. “Do you recognize it?”

Hunt studied the black, glittering dust on her fingers and paled. “That’s black salt.”

Bryce nodded slowly. Baxian blew out a breath that sounded suspiciously like Oh fuck.

“These caves are made entirely of black salt,” Bryce said. She’d seen it as soon as the ghoul had gouged lines in the wall. Knew its smell, its rotting, oily feel. A taste of it had confirmed her suspicions.

Hunt frowned. “You think Helena was trying to summon her sister from their home world?”

“No,” Bryce said, shaking her head. “She sent Silene back to be safe—she was an asshole, but she would never have done anything to jeopardize that.”

“So what is this place, then?” Tharion asked.

It was Sathia who got it first. “It’s to summon demons. To commune with Hel.”

Stunned silence rocked the room.

“They were her only remaining allies,” Bryce explained.

Helena might have done some unforgivable things, but Bryce could admit the female had been a fighter. Until the very end, if this chamber was any indication.

Hunt asked, wings twitching, “But why make an entire underground warren of caves? And why dedicate it to her rapist husband?”

Bryce shrugged. “As a reason to keep coming here. She built him a tomb that would last, where his sword might lie forever until a worthy successor came along.”

“You can’t possibly know that,” Hunt said carefully. Like he was afraid of getting into another fight.

It did something to her heart, that caution, but Bryce said, “The caves are nearly identical to the ones in her home world—caves she grew up navigating. And Avallen, like her childhood home, is wreathed in mist. It’s a thin place as well. Judging by all the mists in here, maybe Avallen, these caves, are an even stronger thin place than the one in the Fae world. The Prison—the court it had been before that … Vesperus said that she chose it originally because it was a thin place, good for traveling between worlds. Theia knew this, too. She must have told Helena.”