House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City Series)
House of Flame and Shadow: Part 1 – Chapter 24

Bryce’s breath came fast and shallow as she surveyed the crystal coffin in the center of the otherwise empty chamber.

There were no doors into the room. As far as she could discern, the only entrance was through the ceiling that had just collapsed beneath them.

In the crystal sarcophagus, the female lay preserved with unnerving detail.

No, not preserved. Her slim chest rose and fell. Sleeping.

The hair on the back of Bryce’s neck rose.

One of the inmates she’d been warned not to release from the Prison. Some ancient, strange being held down here, in a cell beneath their feet, so dangerous she’d been encased in crystal—

That crystal coffin revealed the features of the sleeping female: humanoid, pale-skinned, and slender. Her silky golden gown accentuated every delicate curve of her body.

Bryce had never seen skin that pale. It glowed like a full moon. Her dark hair … it was too dark, somehow. It didn’t reflect the light at all. It shouldn’t have existed in nature.

And—was she wearing lipstick? No one had lips that vibrantly red. Blow Job Red, Danika had once quipped about a similar shade Bryce had worn.

“What have you done?” Azriel rasped, and Bryce twisted to replace him on his feet, wings tucked in, Nesta leaning against him as if wounded, Ataraxia dangling from her grip. The male now held the Starsword at the ready, Truth-Teller gripped in his other hand.

He must have had some sort of Starborn blood in him, then—a distant ancestor, maybe. Or maybe his possession of the knife somehow allowed him to also bear the Starsword.

As if in answer to Azriel’s question, the female in the coffin opened her eyes. They were a crushing blue—and they glowed.

Bryce tried to scramble away, but she remained frozen in place as the female’s gaze slid toward hers. As those red lips curved upward in a small smile that held no joy. As the female lifted a long, slender hand to the lid of the crystal sarcophagus and said, “Release me, slave.”

Even muffled by the crystal, the voice was cold, merciless.

“Have you lost your senses?” Nesta seethed at Bryce, hobbling a step closer.

“I didn’t mean to open a cell—” Bryce started.

“This isn’t one of the cells,” Azriel snarled. “We didn’t even know this chamber existed.”

The female in the coffin ignored their arguing. “How long have I slumbered?” Again, she pushed against the crystal of her sarcophagus.

Or had it been a cage?

Azriel growled at Bryce, “Did you know she was down here?”

Bryce didn’t take her eyes off the coffin and the monster within it. “No.”

The female in the coffin banged on the lid, its dull thump echoing off the dark stone walls. “Slave, do as you are told.”

“Get fucked,” Bryce snapped toward the coffin.

“You dare defy me?” Through the quartz, Bryce could only watch as the encased female’s nostrils flared. Sniffing. “Ah. You are a mongrel. Both slave and the slave of our slaves. No wonder your manners are coarse.”

Nesta rasped, hefting Ataraxia higher, “What are you?”

The female’s long nails scraped along the lid of the coffin. She didn’t look at them as she tested the lid for weaknesses. “I am your god. I am your master. Do you not know me?”

“We don’t have any fucking master,” Bryce snarled.

The female’s nails gouged deep lines into the crystal, but the lid held. She searched beyond Bryce, her gaze falling upon Azriel. Her lips curled. “A foot soldier. Excellent. Kill this insolent female and free me.” She pointed to Bryce.

Azriel didn’t move. The caged female hissed, “Kneel, soldier. Make the Tithe so I may regain my strength and leave this cage.”

Bryce knew then. Knew what evil had been kept in this coffin all this time.

Beside Azriel, Nesta steadied her stance. Like she’d figured it out, too. The motion drew the creature’s gaze—and her eyes flared in pure rage. She glanced between Nesta and Bryce, and her white teeth flashed as she asked the latter, “Was it Theia who stole the Horn for you? Who put it in your flesh?” Her gaze slid back to Nesta. “And you—you are linked to the other parts of the Trove. Did she give them to you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nesta said flatly.

The creature snickered, and drawled to Nesta, “I can smell them on you, girl. Do you not think a blacksmith knows their own creation?”

Bryce’s mouth dried out.

The female in the sarcophagus was an Asteri.

Tharion had no words as they walked down the halls of the Meat Market to the car supposedly waiting for them in a side alley. None of them did.

Ithan hadn’t spoken since he’d torn out Sigrid’s throat.

It had been an accident. Tharion had seen Ithan aiming that blow for Sigrid’s shoulder, but the female had dodged so quickly—and chosen the wrong fucking direction, by stupid chance—that the blow had become fatal.

Silence had fallen as Ithan stared at the fist and claws he’d punched clean through Sigrid’s throat. His hand was the only thing keeping her body upright as her eyes went vacant—

“Remove your fist,” the Viper Queen had commanded.

Ithan’s face had gone dead, and the wolf snatched his claws and hand out of Sigrid’s throat.

It was the final indignity. The removal of his hand and claws severed what remained of her thin neck.

And as he yanked his bloody fist back, as her body collapsed to the ring floor … Sigrid’s head rolled away.

Ithan had just stared at what he’d done. And Tharion hadn’t been able to replace the words to say that they’d all seen what Holstrom had intended, all knew he hadn’t meant to kill her.

The Viper Queen’s assassins stood at the alley door, holding it open. As promised, a black sedan had been parked there.

Tharion took one step—only one—out into the night before the sweet, beckoning scent of the Istros hit him. Every muscle and instinct in his body came alive, begging him to go to the water, to submerge himself in its wildness and magic, to shed legs in favor of fins, to let the river ripple through his gills, into his very blood—

Tharion shut down the demand, the longing. Kept moving toward the sedan, one foot after another.

Still silent, they filed into the car, Flynn taking the wheel, Dec sliding into the passenger seat. Tharion sat in the back beside the male who’d taken on this unholy burden for him.

“You, ah …,” Flynn began as he started the car and peered over his shoulder to reverse out of the alley. “You all right, Holstrom?”

Ithan said nothing.

Declan announced quietly, looking down at his phone, “Marc’s handling our family stuff. Making sure everyone’s safe.”

Small fucking consolation.

Three bright lights slammed into the windshield, and they all jumped. But—the sprites. They’d forgotten the sprites.

Flynn rolled down his window and Rithi, Sasa, and Malana sped in. Sasa breathed, “Go, go, go,” and Flynn didn’t waste time questioning as they reversed out of the alley at full speed. In a smooth shift, he pulled onto a main street and switched into drive—and then they were zooming off through the labyrinth of streets Tharion had thought he’d never see again.

“What’s happening?” Declan asked the sprites, who had nestled into the drink holders up front.

“We burned it,” Sasa said, a deep orange.

“Burned what?” Flynn demanded.

Tharion could only gape as Malana pointed through the rear window, to where flames were now licking the night sky above the Meat Market.

“She’ll kill you.” Tharion’s voice was hoarse. Like he’d been screaming. Maybe he had been. He didn’t know.

“She’ll have to replace us to do that,” said Rithi grimly, then turned to Ithan. “She engineered that perfectly. She used you.”

“I played right into her hands.” Ithan’s voice was soft, broken.

No one spoke. No one seemed inclined to. So Tharion figured he might as well ask, “How so?”

Ithan shook his head and looked out the window, face blank, still blood-splattered. He said nothing more.

They drove on through the city, somehow unchanged despite what had just occurred. Drove all the way to the Rose Gate and the Eastern Road beyond it. To the coast, and the ship that would be waiting for them.

And all the consequences that would follow.

Bryce backed away as Azriel advanced a step toward the crystal coffin, Truth-Teller now glowing with black light in his left hand.

Bryce had seen the gold-clad creature who now slumbered in the coffin before, she realized: when Silene had related her mother’s story. This female before them … she was the Asteri who’d ruled here. Theia’s mistress.

The Asteri’s blue eyes lowered to the dagger. “You dare draw a weapon before me? Against those who crafted you, soldier, from night and pain?”

“You are no creator of mine,” Azriel said coldly. The Starsword gleamed in his other hand. If they bothered him, if they called to him, he didn’t let on. Neither hand so much as twitched.

The Asteri’s eyes flared with recognition at the long blade. “Did Fionn send you, then? To slay me in my sleep? Or was it that traitor Enalius? I see that you bear his dagger—as his emissary? Or his assassin?”

The words must have meant something to Azriel. The warrior let out a small noise of shock.

“Fionn indeed sent us to finish you off,” Nesta lied with impressive menace. “But it looks like now we’ll have the pleasure of killing you awake.”

The Asteri smiled again. “You’ll have to open this sarcophagus to get me.”

Bryce smiled back at her, all teeth. “Fionn sent them. But Theia sent me.”

Blue fire simmered in the creature’s eyes. “That traitorous bitch will be dealt with after I handle you.”

Azriel started to move along the coffin. Assessing the best way to attack the Asteri, no doubt. “Unfortunately for you,” Bryce taunted, “Theia’s been dead for fifteen thousand years. So have the rest of your buddies. Your people are little more than a half-forgotten myth in this world.”

For a heartbeat, it was the creature’s turn to blink. As if a memory had cleared, she said, more to herself than them, “Theia was so charming that day. Told me I looked tired, and to replenish myself in the crystal here, above the well. But she sealed me within instead. To let me starve to death over the eons.” Teeth, white as snow, flashed. “And in my dreams, she danced upon the stones above me. Danced upon my grave while I starved beneath her feet.”

“Give me the Starsword,” Bryce murmured to Azriel. The blade had killed Reapers. Maybe it could kill an Asteri. Maybe that was what she’d come here to learn.

“No,” Azriel snarled. “You brought this terror upon us.”

“I had no idea she was here—”

“Release me, slaves,” the Asteri cut in. “I grow impatient.”

Why hadn’t Theia warned her daughters that this thing was down here? Why be so irresponsible, so reckless—

Et in Avallen ego. Even here, on this island that had been a paradise during Theia’s reign, this evil had existed. And Theia had warned her children about it—that evil was always lurking beneath them, waiting to grab them. Literally.

The taint of the Asteri who had ruled here, Silene had claimed, had lingered about this place—a terrible, ancient power. Enough so that it had needed to be concealed by the Prison’s wickedness. Silene just hadn’t figured out that it remained because an Asteri was still present.

And here, against all odds, was a living link to the past, to answers Bryce needed. If Urd had guided her this far …

Bryce said calmly, “I have questions for you. If you don’t answer them, I’m happy to leave you down here until the end of eternity.”

“Oh, this planet will be long dead before eternity has ended. Its star will expand, and expand, and eventually devour everything in its path. Including this world.”

“Thanks for the astronomy lesson.”

A slow smile. “I shall answer your questions … if you release me from this tomb.”

Bryce held her stare.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Azriel murmured.

But time pressed down on her. With every minute, Hunt suffered. She was sure of it.

The very stones and wards of this place answered to her will …

Azriel lunged for Bryce, but she’d already pointed to the crystal coffin. “Get up, then.”

A click, loud as thunder, and the lid unlocked.