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

Bryce’s chest tightened. The female had a story to tell, and one Bryce would, in any other circumstance, like to hear. But before she could even consider asking, something massive and white appeared ahead. A skeleton of enormous bones.

“The Wyrm?” Bryce asked, even as she realized it wasn’t. This thing was different, with a body like a sobek’s. Each tooth was as large as Bryce’s hand.

“No,” Azriel said from behind them, the rushing river muffling his soft words. “And I don’t think the Wyrm ate it, if its skeleton is intact like this.”

“Do you know what it is?” Bryce asked.

“No,” Azriel said again. “And part of me is glad not to.”

“You think there are more down here?” Nesta asked Azriel, scanning the dark.

“I hope not,” Azriel answered. Bryce shuddered and took the opportunity to continue onward, leading the way, leaving those ancient, terrifying bones far behind.

The river was still a thunderous roar when the carvings changed. Normally, they were full of life and action and movement. But this one was simple, clearly meant to be the sole focus. Something of great importance to whoever had carved it.

An archway had been etched, stars glimmering around it. And in that archway stood a male figure, the image created with impressive depth. His hand was upraised in greeting.

And Bryce might have looked closer, had the Middengard Wyrm not exploded from the river behind them.





14


The Middengard Wyrm had arrived at last. Precisely according to Bryce’s plan.

She’d been dripping blood for it all this way, leaving a trail, constantly scraping off her scabs to reopen her wounds—ones she’d intentionally inflicted on herself by “falling” into the stream. If the Wyrm relied on scent to hunt, then she’d left a veritable neon sign leading right to them. She hadn’t known when or how it would attack, but she’d been waiting.

And she was ready.

Bryce fell back as not only shadows, but blue light flared from Azriel—right alongside the ripple of silver flame from Nesta. Back-to-back, they faced the massive creature with razor-sharp focus. Ataraxia gleamed in Nesta’s hand. Truth-Teller pulsed with darkness in Azriel’s.

Now or never. Her legs tensed, readying to sprint.

Nesta’s eyes slid to Bryce’s for a heartbeat. As if understanding at last: Bryce’s “unhealing” hand. The blood she’d wiped on the walls. Her musing about the linked river system in these caves, sussing out what they knew regarding the terrain and the Wyrm. To unleash this thing—on them.

“I’m sorry,” Bryce said to her. And ran.

She meant them no harm—she hadn’t lied about that. They could undoubtedly face the Wyrm and live. Nesta had said her sister had done exactly that.

But Bryce needed to learn whatever Urd had sent her to discover. If it was intel that could help or harm her world … she didn’t want these people knowing. Using it against her. Offering it up to the Asteri. Or wielding it against Midgard for their own gain. Whatever lay ahead was for her alone.

Bryce raced down the tunnel, her path lit by flashes of silver flame and blue magic. Nesta’s and Azriel’s powers, flaring like lightning against the nightmare of the Wyrm.

The faces of the tunnel carvings watched Bryce’s flight with cold, damning eyes. Her breath sawed in her throat. She had no idea how far she had to run, but if she could get a little farther—

A shout bounced off the rocks behind her. Not one of pursuit, but of pain. Azriel. She glanced over a shoulder just as his blue light went out.

Then a female shout resounded through the cavern, and Nesta’s silver flame vanished, too, leaving Bryce’s starlight to illuminate the way. Leaving only darkness and silence behind her.

She had to keep going. They were seasoned warriors. They were fine.

But that silence, interrupted by Bryce’s breathing, her rushing steps …

She was the master of spinning bullshit. She’d kept them distracted, kept them from thinking her a manipulative little shit, but …

Bryce slowed to a stop. The darkness behind her loomed.

She found herself face-to-face with a scene depicting a great battlefield before the high walls of a city, Fae and winged horrors and snarling beasts all at war, entrenched in pain and suffering. One of the Fae stood in the foreground, spearing a fellow Fae warrior in the mouth.

Fae against Fae. It shouldn’t have bothered her. Shouldn’t have grabbed her as it did: the warrior-female’s merciless expression as she embedded her spear in the agonized face of the female soldier before her. It shouldn’t have unsettled something in Bryce to see it.

She’d long ago understood that this kind of thing wasn’t beyond the Fae. She took comfort in knowing she wasn’t like them, would never be that way.

Yet what she’d just done …

She wasn’t a monster. Was she?

Maybe she’d regret it. She knew Hunt would have yelled at her for setting a trap only to go help the people she’d ensnared.

But Bryce began running again, hurtling through the cave. Back toward Nesta and Azriel.

And prayed there was something left for her to save.



* * *



Bryce realized now, as she retraced her steps, that what she’d earlier thought to be the roaring of the river was in fact the thunderous movement of the Wyrm’s massive body. Azriel and Nesta must have made the same mistake.

In the dark, her starlight silvered the walls, casting the world into stark relief.

Her starlight hadn’t felt so … empty before. While it had been guiding them, it had been comforting, had brought some color and spark to this realm of eternal night. Now, bobbing with every sprinting step, it seemed harsh. Devoid of color.

Like even the light was disgusted by her.

Nesta and Azriel weren’t in the tunnel by the carving of the archway. From the shaking of the ground and the snapping of jaws ahead, they’d driven the Wyrm back to the river.

Bryce checked herself in time to slow to a walk before reaching the bank, reminding herself of Randall’s training.

Observe, assess, decide.

So she crept up the last few feet toward the rushing water, a hand over her star to dim it, and—

They weren’t there. No sign of the Wyrm or its meal. Her stomach dropped. They’d seemed supremely badass and capable. Surely that Wyrm couldn’t have …

It had.

Nesta lay sprawled on a large rock in the river not ten feet away. No sign of the Wyrm or Azriel. Perhaps it had eaten him already. And would soon return for the other part of its meal.

Oh gods, she’d done this, she’d fucked up beyond forgiveness—

Bryce raced to Nesta’s prone form, splashing through the icy water, slipping over stones, the river foaming around her waist in a strong current as she reached to turn the female over—

Nesta’s eyes were open. And blazing with fury.

A hand wrapped around Bryce’s throat. A blade poked into her back. And Azriel’s voice was whisper-soft as he snarled, “Give me one reason not to bury this knife in your spine.”

Bryce bared her teeth. “Because I came back to help?”

Nesta snorted, getting to her feet. Utterly unharmed.

“The Wyrm?” Bryce managed to ask, trying not to think about the knife angled to slide into her body. Or about the tug and thrum of the Starsword and the dagger, so near to her now.

“It’s hunting us,” Nesta seethed, eyeing the river, the tunnel.

“Then fucking run,” Bryce panted. “The tunnel’s open—”

“We’re not leaving that thing alive in the world,” Azriel said with quiet venom. Nesta unsheathed Ataraxia, the blade glowing faintly. Her demeanor was calm, as if this was all in a day’s work.

Solas burn her. Randall would kill her for being so stupid. “You lured me here.”

Nesta nodded to Azriel, who withdrew his blade but kept a hand on Bryce’s shoulder, either to prevent her from moving or to hold her steady in the river’s current. “You saved me from the traps in the walls. It only made sense that you’d have a guilty conscience to go with that soft heart.”

Scratch that: her mother would kill her for being so stupid.

“I—” Bryce began, but Nesta said, “Save it.”