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

Theia extended her hands toward the water, the offered blades. And on phantom wings, sword and dagger soared for her. Summoned to her hands.

Starlight flared from Theia as she snatched the sword and knife out of the air, the blades glowing with their own starlight.

My mother returned that day with only Pelias and my father’s blades. As she had helped Make them, they answered to the call in her blood. To her very power.

Bryce knew that call. Had been hearing it since she arrived in this world. A chill rippled down her spine.

And then she took the Trove for herself.

Theia sat, enthroned, the Harp and Horn beside her, the Mask in her lap, and the Crown atop her head.

Unchecked, limitless power sat upon that throne. Bryce could barely get a breath down.

The Theia who Aidas had spoken so highly of … she was a murdering tyrant?

As if in answer, Silene said, Our people bowed—what other option did they have in the face of such power? And for a short span, she ruled. I cannot say whether the years were kind to my people—but there was no war. At least there was that.

“Yeah,” Bryce seethed, more to Silene than the others, “at least you guys had that.”

My sister and I grew older. My mother educated us herself, always reminding us that though the Daglan had been vanquished, evil lived on. Evil lurked beneath our very feet, always waiting to devour us. I believe she told us this in order to keep us honest and true, certainly more than she had ever been. Yet as we aged and grew into our power, it became clear that only one throne could be inherited. I loved Helena more than anything. Should she have wanted the throne, it was hers. But she had as little interest in it as I did.

It was not enough for my mother. Possessing all she had ever wanted was not enough.

“Classic stage mom,” Bryce muttered.

My mother remembered the talk of the Daglan—their mention of other worlds. Places they had conquered. And with two daughters and one throne … only entire worlds would do for us. For her legacy.

Bryce shook her head again. She knew where this was going.

Remembering the teachings of her former mistress, my mother knew she might wield the Horn and Harp to open a door. To bring the Fae to new heights, new wealth and prestige.

Bryce rolled her eyes. Same corrupt, delusional Fae rulers, different millennium.

Yet when she announced her vision to her court, many of them refused. They had just overthrown their conquerors—now they would turn conqueror, too? They demanded that she shut the door and leave this madness behind her.

But she would not be deterred. There were enough Fae throughout her lands, along with some of the fire-wielders from the south, who supported the idea, merchants who salivated at the thought of untapped riches in other worlds. And so she gathered a force.

It was Pelias who told her where to cast her intention. Using old, notated star maps from their former masters, he’d selected a world for them.

Bryce’s gut churned. The Asteri must have kept archives and records on this world, too. Exactly like the room Bryce had found in the palace, full of notes on conquered planets. Dusk, they’d labeled the room—as if out of all the worlds mentioned within, this world remained their focus. This place.

Pelias told her it was a world the Daglan had long coveted but had not had the chance to conquer. An empty world, but one of plenty.

She had no way of knowing that he had spent our era of peace learning ancient summoning magic and searching the cosmos for whatever remained of the Daglan on other worlds. What he wanted from them, I can only guess—perhaps he knew that to wrest the Trove from Theia and seize power for himself, he needed someone more powerful than he was.

“You idiot,” Bryce spat at the image of Pelias and Theia hovering over a table full of star charts. “Both of you: fucking idiots.”

And after all that searching, someone finally answered. A Daglan who had been using his army of mystics to scour galaxies for our world. The Daglan promised him every reward, if only he could nudge my mother toward this moment, to use the Dread Trove to open a portal to the world he indicated.

A step beside her, Nesta clicked her tongue in disgust.

My mother did not question Pelias, her conspirator and ally, when he told her to will the Horn and Harp to open a doorway to this world. She did not question how and why he knew that this island, our misty home, was the best place to do it. She simply gathered our people, all those willing to conquer and colonize—and opened the doorway.

In a chamber—this chamber, if the eight-pointed star on the floor was any indication, though the celestial carvings had not yet been added—beside red-haired Fae who looked alarmingly like Bryce’s father, Helena and Silene appeared, grown and beautiful, and yet still young—gangly. Teenagers.

In the center of the chamber, a gate opened into a land of green and sunshine. And standing there among the greenery, waiting for them …

“Oh fuck.” Bryce’s mouth dried out. “Rigelus.”

The teenage Fae boy, appearing no older than Helena and Silene, smiled at Theia. Raised a hand in greeting.

My mother did not recognize the enemy when they wore a friendly face, beckoning her and the others through the portal. Had she any hesitations upon finding that the empty world she’d been promised was indeed populated, they were calmed when the strangers claimed to be Fae as well, long separated from our world by the Daglan, whom they too claimed to have overthrown. And they had waited all this time to reunite our people.

With a few words from the Daglan, my mother’s doubts melted away, and our exodus into Midgard began.

Long lines of Fae passed through the chamber, through the portal, and into Midgard.

Nausea twisted through Bryce. “She opened the front door to the Asteri. Brought the Trove right to them.”

“Fool,” Nesta growled at the image. “Power-hungry fool.”

But if Theia had opened the door to this realm, if she had the Horn and Harp, why hadn’t the Asteri immediately pounced on both? They’d wanted this world, wanted the Trove, and Theia had practically hand-delivered both to them. The Asteri were too smart, too wicked, to have forgotten either fact. So there must have been some plan in place—

By the grace of the Mother, she was paranoid enough about any new allies or companions that she hid the Horn and Harp. She created a pocket of nothingness, she told me, and stashed them there. Only she could access that pocket of nothingness—only she could retrieve the Horn and Harp from its depths. But she remained unaware that Pelias had already told the Daglan of their presence. She had no idea that she was allowed to live, if only for a time, so they might figure out where she’d concealed them. So Pelias, under their command, might squeeze their location out of her.

Just as she had no idea that the gate she had left open into our home world … the Daglan had been waiting a long, long time for that, too. But they were patient. Content to let more and more of Theia’s forces come into the new world—thus leaving her own undefended. Content to wait to gain her trust, so she might hand over the Horn and Harp.

It was a trap, to be played out over months or years. To get the instruments of power from Theia, to march back into our home world and claim it again … It was a long, elegant trap, to be sprung at the perfect moment.

And, distracted by the beauty of our new world, we did not consider that it all might be too easy. Too simple.