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

by Sarah J. Maas

“It is in our history, Rhysand,” Amren said gravely. “But the Asteri were not known by that name. Here, they were called the Daglan.”

“The glowing letters inked on her back … they’re the same as those in the Book of Breathings.”

“What you were born to do—to accomplish the task for which your father brought you into existence,” Apollion said before fading into nothing, leaving Aidas standing alone before the prisoners. Shock reared up in Hunt, dampened by the weight of an old, unbidden hurt. “I have no father.” Aidas’s expression was sad as he stepped out of the shadows. “You spent too long asking the wrong questions.” “What the fuck does that mean?” Aidas shook his head. “The black crown once again circling your brow is not a new torment from the Asteri. It has existed for millennia.”

Showing a masked queen, a crown upon her head, bearing instruments in her hand and standing before an adoring crowd.

Azriel said softly, voice tinged with pain, “She looks like Rhysand’s sister.”

We knew who our true masters were. We were forced to make the Tithe to them once a year. To offer up kernels of our power in tribute. To fuel their own power—and to limit our own.

My mother served at that monster’s side for a century, a slave to her every sick whim. Bryce knew who it was before Silene spoke again. Knew whose truth she’d been led here, across the stars, to learn at last. Theia.

But my mother, Theia, used the time she served the Daglan to learn all she could about their instruments of conquest. The Dread Trove, we called it in secret. The Mask, the Harp, the Crown, and the Horn.

They were Fae like us, but not. The ears, the grace, the strength were identical, but they were shape-shifters, all of them. Each capable of turning into an animal. And each, even in their humanoid body, equipped with elongated canine teeth.

These new Fae bore elemental magic, strong enough to make Pelias wary of them. They were more aggressive than the Fae we knew—wilder. And they answered directly to Rigelus.

“So destroy the Cauldron …” “And you destroy this world. One cannot exist without the other.” Behind them, Nesta sucked in a sharp breath. But Bryce said, “You gave this world a kill switch.”

“The Starsword is Made, as you called it.” He waved an idle hand, sparks at his fingertips. “The knife can Unmake things. Made and Unmade. Matter and antimatter. With the right influx of power—a command from the one destined to wield them—they can be merged. And they can create a place where no life, no light exists. A place that is nothing. Nowhere.”

world where people loved and valued books and learning so much that they were willing to die for them.

“They can read minds … whether you want them to or not.”

“I think Danika was reckless and willful, and the Asteri knew they could never control her as they could Sabine. I think they realized that with Danika, they’d produced a wolf so powerful she rivaled the ones I faced in the First Wars. True wolves. And she was not on their side. She had to be eliminated.”

“Because the Princes of Hel cannot be contained by the black crowns. The Asteri learned that—it was their downfall. As you were made by Hel’s princes, it should not be able to hold you.”

Since the Starsword and the knife were both Made by Theia at the same moment, their bond has always linked them.

“But what sort of threat do they pose?” Bryce said, practically shouting with impatience. “The Autumn King said they can open a portal to nowhere—is that it?” “Yes,” Aidas confirmed. “And together, they can unleash ultimate destruction. Theia separated them to keep the Asteri from ever having that ability. She did not know of a way they could be united by someone not of her bloodline, but the Asteri have been known to be … creative.”

Theia’s power, when whole, is the only thing that can unite and activate the true power of those blades and stop the Asteri’s tyranny.”

“Our four other brothers are currently engaged in other conflicts, helping other worlds.”

“And she,” the Under-King went on, gesturing to that unusual depiction of Urd towering above him, “was not a goddess, but a force that governed worlds. A cauldron of life, brimming with the language of creation. Urd, they call her here—a bastardized version of her true name. Wyrd, we called her in that old world.”

“An old bloodline,” and got to her feet.

Freed of any secrets, of any need to keep them, Lidia seemed to unleash all that she was. Ruhn could only watch as fire poured down Pollux’s throat. Into his body. Roasting him from the inside out until he was nothing but smoldering cinders, a pillar of brimstone standing mid-strike, mouth still open. She’d incinerated him.

The shifters were Fae from another world, Danika had explained. Blessed with a Fae form and a humanoid one, gifted with elemental powers.

It confirmed what Lidia had long guessed. Why she had named Brannon after the oldest legends from her family’s bloodline: of a Fae King from another world, fire in his veins, who had created stags with the power of flame to be his sacred guards.

The friends they’d made were what mattered in the end. Not the enemies.

“The amulets first belonged to the librarian-priestesses of Parthos. Each was imbued with Midgard’s innate magic—the very oldest. The sort every world has, for those who know where to look.”