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

He ran an eye over Bryce. The hilt of the Starsword rose above her ponytail, and Truth-Teller had been strapped on one thigh. She had a handgun on the other, only one clip for a reload.

Hel had brought its armies, but they fought with power and fangs and teeth and brute strength.

“Right,” Bryce said, “we all clear on the plan?”

“Which one?” Ruhn muttered. “You have, like, seven.”

“Better to over-prepare,” Bryce trilled. “Plan’s simple: keep the Asteri distracted by unleashing Hel and the Fallen … while Athalar and I sneak into the palace and destroy that firstlight core.”

“Don’t forget,” Hunt cut in wryly, “rescue Lidia’s sons, destroy Pollux, get close enough to the Asteri to eliminate them from the planet …” He ticked off the items on his fingers.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bryce said, waving a hand. She winked at Lidia, flashing a grin that Hunt knew was designed to put the Hind at ease. “You ready to beat the shit out of these assholes?”

Lidia’s chin lifted. She had a knife at her side and a handgun. That was it.

It was laughable that they were heading into the fucking Asteri’s palace armed so lightly, but it didn’t bear dwelling upon. They didn’t have a choice.

“The moment we leave this truck, we have two minutes until the street cameras alert the Asteri’s techs that we’re in the city if they identify us,” Lidia said.

“Which is why it’s my job,” Declan said from his station in the back of the van, “to keep those cameras away from you guys.”

“And my job,” Flynn said from the driver’s seat, “to keep us moving around the city to avoid detection.”

“As soon as I message you,” Ruhn said, “be ready for a pickup.”

“We did this once before, remember?” Flynn said to Ruhn. “Meeting up with Lidia once she’d sprung you and Athalar was a trial run for the big show.”

“I don’t care what you have to do,” Lidia said to Flynn, to Dec, “or who you have to leave behind. But you get my sons out of this city and to the coast.” She met their stare and added, “Please.”

Dec nodded. “We’ve got you covered, Lidia.” The name seemed to trip Dec up, but he got over it and said, “We’ll protect your kids. Just do what you have to do, and we’ll be where you need us.”

She nodded back, eyes glittering. “Thank you.”

Hunt glanced to Bryce, who was watching all this silently. Not a good sign.

Lidia noted Bryce’s look and said, “You remember the way to their throne room?”

“Yes,” Bryce said, and faced Hunt. “The wings were all still there a couple weeks ago—let’s hope Rigelus hasn’t redecorated.”

“He won’t have touched them,” Lidia answered. “He abhors change.”

The words hung in the air. Hunt swallowed against the dryness in his throat. They were doing this. He was doing this.

Hadn’t he learned his fucking lesson twice now? With the Fallen, then with recent events? To go back for a third helping …

“I remember,” Bryce said quietly—just to him, even with the others listening. “Every movement of Micah’s sword when he cut off your wings. How there was nothing we could do to stop him—stop them. I remember how they sold you back to Sandriel, and that time, too, there was nothing we could do to stop them. I remember every fucking moment of it, Hunt.” Her eyes glimmered with pure rage and focus. “But today we finally fucking stop them.”

Hunt held his mate’s stare, and let her courage be his courage, let her strength be his guiding light.

“I promised myself that day Micah cut off your wings,” Bryce said, still just for him, “that they’d pay for it. For what they’ve done.” Starlight flickered around her head in a shadow of that crown of stars.

No one spoke. Bryce got to her feet, heading for the back doors of the van. The world, the Asteri, the end waited beyond.

She looked back at all of them. Her eyes met Hunt’s.

And Bryce said before she stepped into the light, “Through love, all is possible.”





88


It was too easy to get into the Asteri’s palace. Lidia knew every entrance, but even with her unrivaled knowledge, it was too easy for them to get in through the service doors that led to the extensive garbage-processing dock.

Too easy to slip down one of the reeking chutes and land in a trash room a level below.

But only when the four of them were in the tiny, malodorous closet on the sublevel did they pause. Look at each other.

“Good luck,” Ruhn said to his sister, perhaps for the last time.

But Bryce smiled gently, softly, and though she had been all fierce determination in the van a few minutes ago, it was love in her face now as she said to him, “You brought so much joy into my life, too, Ruhn.”

He remembered, then, saying those words to her before she’d vanished through the Gate. You brought so much joy into my life, Bryce. It felt like a lifetime ago.

She said nothing more, and Ruhn had no words in him as Bryce, Athalar in tow, cracked open the door and slipped out.

Ruhn waited a moment in silence with Lidia, the reek of the trash threatening to send his meager breakfast of bread and olive oil back up. He met Lidia’s stare in the dimness, though.

And while she might need to be the Hind today, might need to become that stone-cold female again, he leaned in to brush his mouth to hers. Only once, and then he whispered, at last naming that feeling he hadn’t dared acknowledge until now, “If I don’t get the chance to tell you later … I love you.”

Lidia blinked, golden eyes glimmering. “Ruhn.”

But he didn’t wait for a response or a refusal or a denial. He eased open the door an inch and peered into the hallway.

“Clear,” he murmured, drawing his handgun. With any luck, Dec was doing his job.

Praying that the Asteri, distracted with trying to tamp down the effects of Bryce and Hunt’s message, wouldn’t even consider that Hel was about to be unleashed in their own home, Ruhn stepped into the hall, Lidia right behind them.

And then, wreathed in his shadows as they stole through the heart of the empire, they began the hunt to find her sons.



* * *



They had a few close calls, and Hunt wished again for his Umbra Mortis suit, if only for the helmet’s heightened hearing to detect any passing politicians or workers.

The politicians could get fucked for all Hunt cared. But the workers … Gods willing, when the time came, the workers would be able to escape. That when Declan hacked into the Asteri alert system, their phones would buzz with the evacuation order to get the fuck out of the palace, and they would heed the warning.

Hunt’s heart was thundering through every inch of him as he and Bryce hid in the shadows of a massive statue of Polaris, the female’s hands upraised in victory.

Beyond the statue rose a familiar set of doors. The whole hallway was precisely as it had been the last time Hunt had seen it, before his lightning and Rigelus’s power had blasted it to smithereens: busts of the Asteri lining one wall, the windows overlooking the seven hills of the Eternal City on the other. And somewhere out there, inching along the main road of the Sacra Via … Dec and Flynn would be waiting.

But not for them. Hunt knew he and Bryce might never come back from this fight.

If they succeeded in destroying the firstlight core and cutting off the Asteri’s renewable source of power, then they’d have to get close enough to those bastards for Bryce to use the sword and knife. To unite them using that star, and risk whatever might happen with a portal to nowhere.

Theia had been afraid of it. Aidas had warned them to choose life, for fuck’s sake, if the portal was too dangerous. It didn’t bode well. But what other options did they have?

There were too many ifs, too many unknowns. It was an even flimsier plan than the last time they’d snuck into this palace. And while they’d all agreed on the plan together, if it failed, if Bryce or any of them died …