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

“Tell me about the Daglan.” Bryce’s voice echoed too loudly in the otherwise silent cave from where she sat against the tunnel wall, a carving of three dancing Fae females above her. The scent of her blood filled the cave, the wounds on her hands still open and bleeding. Not enough to be alarming, but a small, steady ooze every now and then.

Azriel and Nesta, sitting beside each other with the ease of familiarity, both frowned. Nesta said, “I don’t know anything about them.” She considered, then added, “I slew one of their contemporaries, though. About seven months ago.”

Bryce’s brows rose. “So not an Asteri—Daglan, I mean?”

Azriel shifted. Nesta glanced sidelong at him, marking the movement, but said to Bryce, “I don’t think so. The creature—Lanthys—was a breed unto himself. He was … horrible.”

Bryce angled her head. “How did you kill him?”

Nesta said nothing.

Bryce’s gaze lifted to the sword hilt peeking above the warrior’s shoulder. “With that?”

Nesta just said, “Its name is Ataraxia.”

“That’s an Old Language word.” Nesta nodded. Bryce murmured, “Inner Peace—that’s your sword’s name?”

“Lanthys laughed when he heard it, too.”

“I’m not laughing,” Bryce said, meeting the female’s stare.

She found nothing but open curiosity on Nesta’s face. Nesta said, “The scar your light comes from … it’s shaped like an eight-pointed star. Why?”

Bryce peered at where the light was muffled by her T-shirt. “It’s the symbol of the Starborn, I think.”

“And the magic marked you in this way?”

“Yes. When I … revealed who I was, what I am, to the world, I drew the star out of my chest. It left that scar in its wake.” She glanced to Azriel. “Like a burn.”

His face was an unreadable mask. But Nesta asked, “So you have a star within you? An actual star?”

Bryce shrugged with one shoulder. “Yeah? I mean, not literally. It’s not like a giant ball of gas spinning in space. But it’s starlight.”

Nesta didn’t seem particularly impressed. “And you said these Asteri of yours … they also have stars within them?”

Bryce winced. “Yes.”

“So what’s the difference between you and them?” Nesta asked.

“Aside from the fact that I’m not an intergalactic colonialist creep?”

She could have sworn Nesta’s mouth kicked up at a corner. That Azriel chuckled, the sound soft as shadow. “Right,” Nesta said.

“I, uh … I don’t know.” Bryce considered. “I never really thought about it. But …” Those final moments running from Rigelus flashed in her memory, the bursts of his power rupturing marble and glass, searing past her cheek—

“My light is just that,” Bryce said. “Light. The Asteri claim their powers are from holy stars inside themselves, but they can physically manipulate things with that light. Kill and destroy. Is starlight that can shatter rock actually light? Everything they’ve told us is basically a lie, so it’s possible they don’t have stars inside them at all—that it’s merely bright magic that looks like a star, and they called it a holy star to wow everyone.”

Azriel said, wings rustling, “Does it matter what their power is called, then?”

“No,” Nesta admitted. “I was only curious.”

Bryce chewed on her lip. What was the Asteri’s power? Or hers? Hers was light, but perhaps theirs was actually the brute force of a star—a sun. So hot and strong it could destroy all in its path. It wasn’t a comforting thought, so Bryce asked Nesta, in need of a new subject, “What kind of sword is that, anyway?” Its simple, ordinary hilt jutted above Nesta’s shoulder.

“One that can kill the unkillable,” Nesta answered.

“So is the Starsword,” Bryce said quietly, then nodded to Azriel’s side. “Can your dagger kill the unkillable, too?”

“It’s called Truth-Teller,” he said in that soft voice, like shadows given sound. “And no, it cannot.”

Bryce arched a brow. “So does it … tell the truth?”

A hint of a smile, more chilling than the frigid air around them. “It gets people to do so.”

Bryce might have shuddered had she not caught Nesta rolling her eyes. It gave her enough courage to dare ask the winged warrior, “Where did the dagger come from?”

Azriel’s hazel eyes held nothing but cool wariness. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because the Starsword”—she motioned to the blade he had down his back—“sings to it. I know you’re feeling it, too.” Let it be out in the open. “It’s driving you nuts, right?” Bryce pushed. “And it gets worse when I’m near.”

Azriel’s face again revealed nothing.

“It is,” Nesta answered for him. “I’ve never seen him so fidgety.”

Azriel glowered at his friend. But he admitted, “They seem to want to be near each other.”

Bryce nodded. “When I landed on that lawn, they instantly reacted when they were close together.”

“Like calls to like,” Nesta mused. “Plenty of magical things react to one another.”

“This was unique. It felt like … like an answer. My sword blazed with light. That dagger shone with darkness. Both of them are crafted of the same black metal. Iridium, right?” She jerked her chin to Azriel, to the dagger at his side. “Ore from a fallen meteorite?”

Azriel’s silence was confirmation enough.

“I told you guys back in that dungeon,” Bryce went on. “There’s literally a prophecy in my world about my sword and a dagger reuniting our people. When knife and sword are reunited, so shall our people be.”

Nesta frowned deeply. “And you truly think this is that particular dagger?”

“It checks too many boxes not to be.” Bryce lifted a still-bloody hand, and she didn’t miss the way they both tensed. But she furled her fingers and said, “I can feel them. It gets stronger the closer I get to them.”

“Then don’t get too close,” Nesta warned, and Bryce lowered her hand.

Bryce surveyed the carved walls, pivoting. “These reliefs tell a narrative, too, you know.”

Nesta peered up at the images: the three dancing Fae in the foreground, the stars overhead, the scattered islands. The mountain island with the castle atop its highest peak. And again, always the reminder of that suffering underworld beneath it. Memento mori. Et in Avallen ego. “What sort of narrative?”

Bryce shrugged. “If I had a few weeks, I could walk the whole length and analyze it.”

“But you don’t know our history,” Nesta said. “It’d have no context for you.”

“I don’t need context. Art has a universal language.”

“Like the one tattooed on your back?” Nesta said.

All right. Their turn to ask questions. “Your friend—Amren. She said it was the same as the language in some book?”

Azriel asked, stone-faced, “What do you call it in your world—that language?”

Bryce shook her head. “I don’t know. I told the truth earlier. My friend and I got … We had a lot to drink one night.” And smoked a fuck-ton of mirthroot, but they didn’t need to know that, or need an explanation about the drugs of Midgard. “I barely remember it. She said it meant Through love, all is possible.”

Nesta clicked her tongue, but not with disdain. Something like understanding.

Bryce went on, “She claimed she picked the alphabet out of a book in the tattoo shop, but … I don’t think that was the case.” She needed to steer this away from the Horn. Quickly. Especially since Nesta had been the one they’d called to inspect her tattoo.

Azriel asked, “How did your friend know the language?”

“I still don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure out what she knew for months now.”

“Why not just ask her?” Nesta countered.

“Because she’s dead.” The words came out flatter than Bryce had intended. But something cracked in her to say them, even if she’d lived with that reality every day for more than two years now. “The Asteri had her assassinated, then had it framed as a demonic murder. She was getting close to discovering some major truth about the Asteri and our world, so they had her killed.”

“What truth?” This from Azriel.