House of Flame and Shadow: The INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER third instalment in the Crescent City series
House of Flame and Shadow: Part 2 – Chapter 61

“So,” Bryce said slowly, as if letting the words sink in, “why not use the Horn to open the portal to nowhere?”

“Because no one knows what that is—where it is. The sword and knife are pinpointed to its location, somehow. They are the only way to get to that nowhere-place.”

Hunt’s head spun. Hel, his head had been spinning nonstop for the past ten minutes. But Bryce was having none of it. “What if I never got the knife back? What if I never came to Avallen? What if I never got the chance, or refused to come here, or whatever?”

Apollion and Thanatos shifted in their seats, either bored or on edge, but Aidas continued speaking. “I do not know how Helena hoped you would be able to retrieve the knife from her home world. As for Avallen … Helena wanted me to nudge you along. But you harbored such hatred for the Fae—you would never have trusted me if I had pushed you to travel to their stronghold.”

“That’s true,” Bryce muttered.

“My brothers and I had doubts about Helena’s plans. We continued to rest our hopes on reopening the Northern Rift so that we could continue the fight against the Asteri. If someone like you, a world-walker, did come along and Avallen was somehow not accessible for you to claim Theia’s power, we still needed a way to … fuel you up, as it were.” He faced Hunt at last.

Hunt could barely breathe. Here—after all this waiting … here were the answers.

“You are the son of my two brothers only in the vaguest sense,” Aidas said.

Something in Hunt’s chest eased—even as his stomach roiled.

“Thanatos refused to help at first,” Apollion added, glaring at his brother.

“I did not approve of the plan,” Thanatos snapped, gripping his helmet tight. “I still do not.”

“My brother,” Aidas said, nodding to Thanatos, “has long excelled at crafting things.”

“Funny,” Bryce said, “I didn’t take you for a quilter.”

Hunt gave her an incredulous look, but Aidas smiled before he said to Hunt, “During the First Wars, as you call them, Thanatos helped Apollion breed new types of demons to fight on our side. The kristallos, designed to hunt for the Horn—so we might replace a way into Midgard unobstructed. The Shepherd. The deathstalkers.” A nod to Hunt, like he knew of the scar down Hunt’s back from one of them. “They were but a few of my brothers’ creations.”

Bryce shook her head. “But the kristallos venom can negate magic. If you knew how to do that, why did you not use it against the Asteri in the war?”

“We tried,” Aidas said. “It did not have the same effect on their powers.”

“I’m sorry,” Hunt interrupted, “but are you implying that I was made by you two assholes? As some sort of pet?” He pointed to Thanatos, then to Apollion.

“Not a pet,” Apollion said darkly. “A weapon.” He nodded to Bryce. “For her, whenever she might come along.”

“But you didn’t know the timelines would overlap,” Bryce said a bit breathlessly.

“No. There were previous experiments,” Apollion said. “We hoped they would spread and multiply throughout Midgard, but the Asteri caught wind of our plan and removed them.”

“The thunderbirds,” Bryce said, gaping. “You guys made them, too?”

“We did,” Aidas said matter-of-factly, “and sent them through the cracks in the Northern Rift. But they were hunted to near-extinction generations ago. Blessing an angel with their power, a perfect soldier … it was a gift of poisoned honey. The Asteri believed they had somehow, through their selective breeding of the malakim, finally achieved a flawless soldier to serve them. That it was their own brilliance that brought someone like Hunt Athalar into the world.”

“But you rebelled,” Apollion said to Hunt with no small hint of pride. “You were too valuable to kill, but they wanted you broken. Your servitude was that attempt.”

Hunt could barely feel his body.

“Can we please rewind for a moment?” Bryce cut in. “You guys made the thunderbirds to complement my power—in case I never got the sword and knife, and if I ever needed a boost to open the Rift. But when they were hunted down, you … made Hunt, and then I was born …”

“Athalar was already enslaved by then,” Aidas said, “but we kept a close watch.”

Apollion nodded to Hunt. “Why do you think you’re so adept at hunting demons? It’s in your blood—part of me is in your blood.”

Nausea clawed its way up Hunt’s throat. The thought of owing anything at all to the Prince of the Pit …

“Just as he gave over some of his essence for the kristallos,” Thanatos said, “so he gave something to me for you. His Helfire.”

“Helfire?” Bryce demanded.

“The lightning,” Thanatos said, waving an irritated hand. “Capable of killing almost anything. Even an Asteri.”

“That’s how you killed Sirius?” Bryce asked. “With your … Helfire?”

“Yes,” Apollion said, then added to Hunt, “Your name was a nod to that, whispered in your mother’s ear as you were born. Orion … master of Sirius.”

“Clever,” Hunt snapped, then demanded, “Wait—my lightning can kill the Asteri?” Hope bloomed, bright and beautiful in his chest.

“No,” Apollion said. “It is … diluted from my own. It could harm them, but not kill them. I believe your mother’s angelic blood tempered my power.”

That hope withered. And something darker took its place as he asked, “How did my mother play into this?” He could handle some genetic meddling, but—

“There was a scientist at the Asteri Archives,” Aidas said. “An angel who was delving into the origins of the thunderbirds, how strange their power was. He named the project after a near-forgotten god of storms.”

“Project Thurr,” Bryce said. “Was Danika investigating it, too? I found mentions of it, after she died.”

“I don’t know,” Aidas said, “but the angel was researching thunderbirds at the behest of the Asteri, who worried they might return. It led him to us instead. When we told him the truth, he offered to help in whatever way he could. Thanatos was finishing up his work then. And with a male volunteer, only a female to breed with was needed.”

Hunt couldn’t breathe. Bryce laid a hand on his knee.

“Your father knew your mother briefly,” Aidas said. “And he knew having a partner would help lift her from her poverty. He had every intention of staying. Of leaving behind his life and raising you in secret.”

Hunt could barely ask, “What happened?”

“The mystics told Rigelus of your father’s connection to us. They didn’t discover everything—nothing about you or your mother. Only that he had been speaking to us. Rigelus had him brought in, tortured, and executed.”

Hunt’s heart stalled.

“He didn’t break,” Apollion said with something like kindness. “He never mentioned your mother, or her pregnancy. The Asteri never knew you were tied to him in any way.”

“What … what was his name?”

“Hyrieus,” Aidas answered. “He was a good male, Hunt Athalar. As you are.”

Bryce squeezed his knee, her hand so warm—or was he unnaturally cold? “Okay, so Hunt was made to be a backup battery for me—”

“Can I do the same for Ruhn, then?” Hunt interrupted.

“No,” Thanatos said. “The prince’s light, his affinity for these thin places, isn’t strong enough. Not like hers.”

Hunt gripped Bryce’s hand atop his knee. “Is it in my DNA that Bryce and I are mates? Was that engineered, too?”

“No,” Aidas said quickly, “that was never intended. I think that was left to higher powers. Whatever they may be.”

Hunt turned to Bryce and found nothing but love in her eyes. He couldn’t stand it.

Horror cracked through him, as chilled as hoarfrost. He’d been created by these males to give and to suffer, and where the fuck did that leave him? Who the fuck did that make him?

“Okay,” Bryce said, “Helfire and starfire: a potent combination. But Helena left all this shit to help end this conflict. It sounds like you guys just want me to open a gods-damned door for you to come in and save the day instead.”

“Is it so bad,” Thanatos purred, “to have us do your dirty work?”

Bryce glowered at him. “This is my world. I want to fight for it.”

“Then fight alongside us,” Thanatos challenged.

Tense silence stretched between them. Hunt had no idea how to even begin processing this insanity. But that cold in his veins … that felt good. Numbing.

“I could have used a bit more time to prepare,” Bryce muttered.

Aidas only shook his head. “You weren’t ready before. And what if you had told the wrong person? You know what the Asteri do to those who challenge their divinity. I could not risk it. Risk you. I had to wait for you to replace the answers for yourself. But haven’t I told you from the start to replace me? That I will help you? That is what Apollion was attempting to do, too, in his misguided way: to ready you both for all this—to battle the Asteri.”

“But how,” Hunt asked, fighting past that numbing, blissful chill in his chest, “did you kick the Asteri out of Hel the first time?”

“They had trouble feeding off our magic,” Thanatos said, voice thick with disgust. “And found that our powers rivaled their own. They fled before we could kill them.”

Bryce swallowed audibly as she surveyed Apollion. “And you really ate Sirius? Like, ingested her?”

But it was Aidas who answered, pride flaring on his face. Apollion slew her with his Helfire when she attacked him—he pulled her burning heart from her chest and ate it.”

Hunt shuddered. But Bryce said, “How is that even possible?”

“I am darkness itself,” Apollion said softly. “True darkness. The kind that exists in the bowels of a black hole.”

Hunt’s bones quaked. The male wasn’t boasting.

“So why can’t you just … eat the rest of them?” Bryce asked.

“It requires proximity,” Aidas said. “And the Asteri are well aware of my brother’s talents. They will avoid him at all costs.”

The princes flickered, like they were on a screen that had glitched.

“We’re running low on time,” Thanatos said. “The black salt is wearing off.”

Bryce focused on Apollion. “You guys have been telling me nonstop about having your armies ready to go.” She gestured to the temple, the dead city beyond. “This place looks pretty empty.”

Apollion’s eyes grew ever darker. “We have allowed you to see only a fraction of Hel. Our lands and armies are elsewhere. They are ready.”

“So if I open the Northern Rift with the Horn …,” Bryce said. Hunt cleared his throat in warning. “All seven of you and your armies will come through?”

“The three of us,” Aidas amended. “Our four other brothers are currently engaged in other conflicts, helping other worlds.”

“I didn’t realize you guys were, like, intergalactic saviors,” Bryce said.

Aidas’s mouth quirked upward. She could have sworn Apollion’s did, too.

“But yes,” Aidas went on, “opening the Northern Rift is the only way for our armies to fully and quickly enter Midgard.”

“After what happened this spring,” Hunt said to his mate, “you trust them not to fucking eat everyone?”

“Those were our pets,” Aidas insisted, “not our armies. And they have been severely punished for it. They will stay in line this time, and follow our orders on the battlefield.”

Bryce glanced to Hunt, but he couldn’t read the expression on her face. The princes flickered once more, the temple shimmering and paling. A tug pulled at Hunt’s gut, yanking him back toward the body he’d left in Avallen.

“I’ll think about it,” Bryce answered.

“This is no game, girl,” Thanatos snapped.

Bryce leveled a cool look at the Prince of the Ravine. “I’m sick and tired of people using girl as an insult.”

Thanatos opened his mouth to respond, but abruptly vanished—his connection had been severed.

Apollion said to Hunt, “Do not squander the gifts that have been given to you—by me, by my brother.” His gaze drifted to the halo on Hunt’s brow. “No true son of Hel can be caged.”

Then he was gone, too.

Son of Hel. Hunt’s very soul iced over at the thought.

Only Aidas remained, seeming to cling to the connection as he spoke to Bryce, his blue eyes intense on her face. “If you replace that final piece of Theia’s power … if the cost of uniting the sword and knife is too much, Bryce Quinlan, then don’t do it. Choose life.” He glanced to Hunt. “Choose each other. I have lived with the alternative for millennia—the loss never gets easier to bear.”

Bryce reached a ghostly hand toward Aidas, but the Prince of the Chasm was gone.

And all of Hel with him.