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

Their silence was heavy.

“We’re here,” Azriel said, motioning to the darkness ahead. The reason, it turned out, that he had halted.

A massive metal wall now blocked their way, thirty feet high and thirty feet wide at least, with a colossal eight-pointed star in its center.

The carvings continued straight up to it: battle and suffering, two females running on either side of the passage, as if running for this very wall … Indeed, around the star, an archway had been etched. Like this was the destination all along.

Bryce glanced back at Nesta. “Is this where you saw my star?”

Nesta slowly shook her head, eyeing the wall, the embossed star, the cave that surrounded them. “I don’t know where this place is. What it is.”

“Only one way to find out,” Bryce said with a bravado she didn’t feel, and approached the wall. Azriel, a live wire beside her, approached as well, a hand already on Truth-Teller.

The lowest spike of the star extended down, right in front of Bryce. So she laid a hand on the metal and pushed. It didn’t budge.

Nesta stalked to Bryce’s side, tapping a hand on the metal. A dull thud reverberated against the cave walls. “Did you really think it’d move?”

Bryce grimaced. “It was worth a shot.”

Nesta opened her mouth to say something—to make fun of Bryce, probably—but was silenced by groaning metal. She staggered back a step. Azriel threw an arm in front of her, blue light wreathing his scarred hand.

Leaving Bryce alone before the door.

But she couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted. Couldn’t take her eyes away from the shifting wall.

The spikes of the star began to expand and contract, as if it were breathing. Metal clicked behind it, like gears shifting. Locks opening.

And in the lowest spike of the star, a triangle of a door slid open.





17


Only dry, ancient darkness waited beyond the star door. No sound or hint of life. Just more darkness. Older, somehow, than the tunnel behind them. Heavier. More watchful.

Like it was alive. And hungry.

Bryce stepped into it anyway.

“What is this place?” Bryce breathed, daring another step into the tunnel that lay on the door’s other side. Azriel and Nesta quickly fell into step behind her.

A shriek of metal sliced through the air, and Bryce whirled—

Too late. Even Azriel, now mid-stride, hadn’t been fast enough to stop the door from sliding shut. Its thud echoed through her feet, up her legs. Dust swirled.

They’d been sealed in.

Bryce’s star flared … and went out.

A chill rippled up her arms, some primal instinct screaming at her to run without knowing why—

Light flared at Azriel’s hand—faelight, he’d told her earlier. Two orbs of it drifted ahead, illuminating a short passageway. At its other end lay a vast, circular chamber, its floor carved with symbols and drawings akin to those on the walls of the tunnel.

Nesta whispered, voice breathy with fear, “This is the place I last saw the star on your chest.” She drew Ataraxia, and the blade gleamed in the dimness. “We call it the Prison.”



* * *



It was like game day, Ithan told himself. The same restlessness coursing through his body, the same razor-sharp focus settling into place.

Except there would be no ref. No rules. No one to call a time-out.

He stood at the edge of the empty ring in the center of the fighting pit, surrounded by his friends and Sigrid. The sprites, unable to stomach the violence, had opted to stay away.

There was no sign of the dragon.

He hadn’t dared research how bad third-degree burns were. If he’d be in any shape to go help free Athalar and Ruhn. And the Helhound, apparently—what was that about?

Focus. Survive the fight, win, and they could be out of here tonight. He was good at winning. Or he had been, once upon a time.

“She’ll try to distract you,” Flynn said from beside him, staring at the empty ring. “But get around her flames, and I think you can take her.”

“I thought you had the hots for the dragon,” Declan muttered. “No pun intended.”

“Not when she’s about to toast my friend.”

Ithan tried and failed to smile.

“Ari won’t go easy on you,” Tharion finally chimed in. He’d returned to the suite an hour ago, but he’d gone into his bedroom and shut the door. At least he’d come down for the fight.

“So he’s supposed to—what, Ketos?” Flynn asked. “Stand there and be burned to a crisp?”

“I bet the Viper Queen would find that highly amusing,” Declan said grimly.

Ithan, despite himself, finally smiled at that.

Tharion’s face remained grave, though, as he said to Ithan, “Odds are, Ari’s going to hurt you. Badly. But she’s arrogant—use it against her.”

Ithan felt Sigrid’s gaze on him, but he nodded at the mer. “Promise to wield that water magic of yours to douse the flames and I’ll be fine.”

Tharion was in no mood to joke, though. “Holstrom, I … Look, I said some shit earlier that I—” He shook his head. “If you can get me out of here, I’ll make it count. It means a lot that you’d even try. That you care.”

“We’re a pack,” Ithan said to Tharion, Flynn, and Dec. “It’s what we do for each other.” None of them contradicted it. His heart strained.

Tharion’s eyes glimmered with emotion. “Thanks.”

The double doors on the other side of the space creaked open to reveal the Viper Queen in a metallic gold jumpsuit and matching high-tops.

“She’ll probably have Ari jump down from the rafters in a ball of flame,” Tharion murmured as the snake shifter moved across the chamber with sinuous, unhurried grace. Ithan looked up, but the shadowed top of the ring remained empty as far as his wolf-sharp eyes could see.

The Viper Queen halted a few feet away and frowned at Ithan. “That’s what you chose to wear?” He examined his T-shirt and jeans. The same ones he’d been wearing since arriving in this Helhole. But she nodded to Tharion. “You should have spruced him up a bit.”

Tharion said nothing, his face like stone.

The Viper Queen turned, jumpsuit glimmering like molten gold, and strutted toward the nearest riser. She plunked herself down and waved an elegant hand to Ithan. “Begin.”

Ithan glanced to the empty ring. “Where’s the dragon?”

The Viper Queen pulled out her phone and typed into it, the screen casting her already pale face in an unearthly pallor. “Ariadne? Oh, she’s no longer in my employ.”

“What?” Tharion and Flynn blurted at the same time.

The Viper Queen didn’t look up from her phone, thumbs flying. The light bounced off her long nails, also painted a metallic gold. “An offer too good to refuse came in an hour ago.”

“She’s not your slave,” Tharion snapped, face more livid than Ithan had ever seen. “You don’t fucking own her.”

“No,” the Viper Queen agreed, typing away, “but the arrangement was … advantageous to us both. She agreed.” She at last lifted her head. Nothing remotely kind lay within her green eyes as she surveyed Tharion. “If you ask me, I think she said yes in order to avoid having to toast Holstrom to a crisp. I wonder who might have made her feel bad about that?”

They all turned to the mer, who gaped at the Viper Queen.

“Of course,” the Vipe went on, typing again on her phone, “I didn’t inform her new employer that the dragon’s a softhearted worm. But given her new surroundings, I think she’ll harden up quickly.” The swish of a message being sent punctuated her words.

Tharion looked like he was going to be sick. Ithan didn’t blame him.

But Ithan willed himself to focus, his breathing to steady. She wanted him off-balance. Wanted him reeling. He squared his shoulders. “So who am I fighting, then?”

The Viper Queen slid her phone into her pocket and smiled, revealing those too-white teeth.

“The Fendyr heir, of course.”



* * *



“We should get Rhys.”

“We’d have to hike up through the mountain, climb down past the wards, then hope we’re not too far to reach him mind-to-mind.”