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

No. He wouldn’t go down that road again. He had made mistakes in the past, bad calls, but fighting against tyranny, against brutality, would never be the wrong choice.

Hunt glanced to his mate, her attention fixed on the hallway. On the Gate at its far end. Sensing his attention, she mouthed, Go, and motioned him along. And Hunt went, as he’d go anywhere, so long as it was with her.

For the first time in his life, it seemed that Urd was listening as he and Bryce slipped past the doors into the empty throne room.  He gazed at the towering wall of the Fallen’s wings behind the seven crystal thrones.

And there, at its center, pinned like a new trophy, was his Umbra Mortis helmet and suit.



* * *



Bryce held the Mask in her hands, its gold surface shimmering among the crystal of the sterile throne room. The wings of the Fallen hung on the wall, a fluttering array of colors and shapes and sizes. So many lives, given toward this moment.

Hunt buckled the last bit of his suit into place, fitting the Umbra Mortis helmet over his head. Bryce hadn’t questioned him when he took it off the wall. She knew why he wanted it.

Just as she knew that his wings, pinned right above Rigelus’s throne, could not remain.

He’d wear that suit and helmet one more time. It wouldn’t be the Umbra Mortis wearing that suit, but Hunt. Her Hunt.

And together they would end this.

She wished Ithan had made it in time with Hypaxia’s antidote. But they couldn’t delay this—not by a single minute.

Bryce ran her thumbs over the Mask’s smooth brow. It looked like a death mask for some long-dead king. Had it been crafted around the mold of some Asteri’s face? Fashioned after the hateful visage of a Daglan in that other world?

“Bryce,” Hunt warned, his voice low and warped through the helmet.

She beheld the Shadow of Death standing there. He drew his twin swords from the back of his suit, flipping them in his hands. “Do it now.”

All she’d ever done in her life, every step … it had led here.

Here, to this chamber, with the wings of the noble Fallen around her. With Hunt, one of the few remaining warriors.

But no longer.

Bryce lifted the Mask to her face, and closed her eyes as she slid it on. The metal adhered to her skin. It sucked at her face, her soul—

The world diluted again. Alive, not-alive. Breathing, not-breathing. Dead … undead.

The star inside her flared brightly, as if to say, Hello, old friend. Yes, the ancient magic knew the Mask. It understood its deepest secrets.

Bryce turned to the wings. And in the shadow-vision of the Mask, where the wings were pinned, most held a twinkling light. The kernel of a soul. The last scraps of their existences, shining like a wall of stars.

She’d been right: They had never been given Sailings. It had been the final insult to the dead warriors, the shame of being denied a blessed afterlife. It would prove to be the Asteri’s downfall. These souls, left to wander for centuries, were now hers to claim.

A thought, and her will was their will. The Mask called, and the souls of the Fallen answered, drifting from the wall like a swarm of fireflies.

Rustling filled the air. The wings began to beat slowly at first, like butterflies testing out their new bodies. The flapping of wings filled the throne room, the world. A storm wind from Hunt had the pins ripping free. All but two sets—one a familiar gray, one shiningly white—loosed into the world.

And then the throne room was full of wings—white and gray and black, soaring, their sparks of soul shining brightly within them, visible only to Bryce as she looked through the Mask.

Hunt and Bryce stood in the center of the storm, her hair whipped about by their wind, skin grazed by their downy feathers.

A spark of Hunt’s lightning struck the two pairs of wings still pinned to the wall. His own wings, and Isaiah’s. They caught fire, burning until they were nothing but ashes floating on the breeze of a thousand wings, freed at last from this place.

Another storm wind from Hunt and the doors to the hall opened. The windows lining the hall exploded.

And the wings of the Fallen soared for the open blue sky beyond.

The throne room emptied of them, like water down a drain, leaving a lone figure in the doorway. Staring at them.

Rigelus.

Feathers floated in the air around him.

“What,” the Bright Hand seethed, glowing with power, “do you think you’re doing?”

He stepped in, and his eyes went right to Bryce’s face. Maybe it was the Mask, maybe she had been pushed beyond her limits, but she felt no fear, absolutely none, as she looked at the Bright Hand of the Asteri and said, “Righting a wrong.”

But Rigelus narrowed his eyes at the Mask. “You bear a weapon you have no business wielding.”

In the streets beyond, people were shouting at the sight of the host of wings flying overhead.

Dead and undead—Rigelus’s nature confused the Mask. Alive and not-alive. Breathing and not-breathing. It couldn’t get a grip on the Bright Hand, and it seemed to be recoiling, pulling away from Bryce—

She focused. You obey me.

The Mask halted. And remained in her thrall.

Rigelus eyed Hunt in his battle-suit and helmet. But he said to Bryce, “You traveled a long way from home, Bryce Quinlan.” He advanced one step. That he hadn’t attacked yet was proof of his wariness.

Hunt’s lightning slithered over the floor.

But Bryce pointed behind Rigelus. To one of the hills beyond the city walls, where the wings had landed in the dry grass. They coated the hilltop, wings flapping idly, a flock of butterflies come down to rest.

And Bryce commanded them, Rise, as you once were.

Ice colder than that in Nena flowed through her, toward the now-distant wings. She could sense Hunt’s pain, but Bryce didn’t take her eyes from Rigelus.

“You have no idea what powers you toy with, girl,” Rigelus said. “The Mask will curse your very soul—”

“Let’s spare ourselves the idle threats this time,” Bryce said, and pointed out the window again. This time to the army that had crept up to stand among the wings bearing those souls. “I think you have bigger issues to deal with.”

She smiled then—a predator’s smile, a queen’s smile—as the armies of Hel crested the hill.

“Right on time,” Bryce said.

Rigelus said nothing as more and more of those dark figures appeared atop the hill. Spilling out from the portal she’d opened for them just over its other side, hidden from view.

At the sight of the teeming hordes cresting the hills, seemingly from nowhere, at the sight of the three princes marching at their front …

People began screaming in the streets. Another signal—for Declan. To get the evacuation order out under the guise of an Imperial Emergency Alert. Every phone in this city would buzz with the command to escape beyond the city walls—to the coast, if they could.

Rigelus stared toward the armies of Hel now assembled on his doorstep.

“Surprise,” Hunt said.

Rigelus slowly, slowly turned back toward Bryce and Hunt. And smiled.

“Did you think I didn’t know the moment you opened the Northern Rift?” Bryce braced herself, rallied her power as Rigelus lifted a glowingly bright hand and said, “I have been waiting for your arrival. And have prepared accordingly.”

A horn sounded, a clear note echoing across the city.

And in answer, the Asterian Guard exploded into the streets of the Eternal City.





89


“I knew as soon as you reached the Rift—my Harpy told me, and I watched you through her eyes before you ended her.” Rigelus advanced another step into the throne room, power brewing in his hand, dancing along the golden rings on each long finger.

Bryce and Hunt tensed, eyeing the distance to the exit. A smaller door lay behind the thrones, but to reach it they’d have to put their backs to Rigelus.