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

by Sarah J. Maas

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

They demanded that she shut the door and leave this madness behind her.

My mother did not recognize the enemy when they wore a friendly face,

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.

our exodus into Midgard began.

We found cities in Midgard carved by human hands.

City to city, we moved. Taking the land as we wished. Taking human slaves to build for us. But some humans resisted, their city-states uniting as we Fae had once united against our masters.

We were still waging our war on the humans when the door between worlds opened again. More Fae appeared—from another world this time.

There were two types of Fae. From two seemingly unconnected and distant worlds. 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.

Rigelus and his companions were not Fae at all, but parasites who conquered world after world, feeding off the magic and lives of their citizens. The Daglan, now under their true name: the Asteri.

The Viper Queen had wanted him to be presented with this choice—this true amusement: deciding between saving his friends, saving Athalar and Ruhn and possibly Bryce … and Sigrid. The future of the Fendyr line. An alternative to Sabine.

His claws hadn’t gone through her shoulder. They’d punched straight through her throat.

Aidas had been assigned to hunt for the Asteri ever since. So their evil might never triumph again. On his world, or any other.

The Asteri had infected the water we consumed with a parasite. They’d poisoned the lakes and streams and oceans. The parasites burrowed their way into our bodies, warping our magic.

The Asteri created a coming-of-age ritual for all magical creatures who had entered Midgard, and their descendants. A blast of magic would be released and then contained—and then fed to the Asteri. It was a greater, more concentrated dose than the seeds of power they’d sucked off us for years in the Tithe.

And though Hel’s armies fought valiantly, our people with them, it was not enough.

Surrender, and we would be spared. Fight, and we would be slaughtered.

We’d open it and be gone before he would even catch wind of what we’d done—and then we would seal the door between worlds forever.

She warned that Pelias was coming. For both of us. Rigelus had made him Prince of the Fae, and Pelias would use us to legitimize his reign. He meant to father children on us.

At Pelias, stooping to pick up the Starsword. With an easy, almost graceful flip of his hand, he plunged the sword through Theia’s head.

That this knowledge would die with me. This world would continue as if the Fae who had gone into Midgard had never been.

One after another, I hunted monsters—the remaining pets of the Daglan—until many of the lowest rooms were filled with them.

I told him, when he was old enough, what I had left here for him. So that someone might be able to access this record, to know the risks of using the Trove and the threat of the Asteri, always waiting to return here. I made sure he knew that the buried weapon he’d need against the Asteri was down here.

A secret shame, a secret history, a secret weapon—all hidden within our bloodline.

He’d do it—the Bright Hand would do this, make him choose between his friends, or just kill both of them.

Like a switch being flipped, only darkness filled him. His lightning sank back into him, but in Rigelus’s hands, the crystal now glowed, full of the lightning he’d wrenched from Hunt’s body. Like a firstlight battery—like the scrap of power extracted during the Drop.

“I think two out of three will still be a good incentive for Miss Quinlan to return, don’t you? Executioner’s choice.”

I think you need to learn the consequences of your defiance, however short-lived it was.”

A shot of a medwitch healing potion, laced with firstlight, would regrow their wings within a day or two, even under the repressive power of the gorsian shackles.

This place, this Prison and the court it had once been, was Bryce’s inheritance. Hers to command, as Silene had commanded it.

Not firstlight, not as she knew it on Midgard—but raw Fae power from a time before the Drop. The power ascended toward her through the stone, like a glimmering arrow fired into the dark—

From far away, she could sense it: the things lurking within the mountain, her mountain. Twisted, wretched creatures. Some had been here since Silene had trapped them. Had been contemplating their escape and revenge all this time. She’d let them out if she restored the mountain to its former glory.

In the crystal sarcophagus, the female lay preserved with unnerving detail. No, not preserved. Her slim chest rose and fell. Sleeping.

The female in the sarcophagus was an Asteri.

This female before them … she was the Asteri who’d ruled here. Theia’s mistress.

We pooled our power, and imbued those gifts into the Cauldron so that it would work our will. We Made the Trove from it. And then bound the very essence of the Cauldron to the soul of this world.”

“So destroy the Cauldron …” “And you destroy this world. One cannot exist without the other.”

“We gave many worlds … kill switches. To protect our interests.”

“There is a natural order to the universe, girl. The strong rule the weak, and the weak benefit from it. Everything in nature preys and is preyed upon. You Fae somehow consider this an affront only when it is applied to you.”

There was a fucking firstlight core here, far beneath their feet—

Nesta had plunged Ataraxia right through Vesperus’s chest.

Ithan had killed the one person who might have led the Valbaran wolves to a different future, an alternative to Sabine.

She willed it into Truth-Teller, and shadows flowed— And where the two blades met, where Bryce’s light merged at their nexus, power met power. Her ears hollowed out. Magic like lightning surged through her, from her. The chamber rippled, a muffled boom echoing through Bryce.

No, that was time slowing, rippling, as it had with Micah, as if the blades were killing the Asteri, a great world power—

Vesperus’s dark head tumbled to the stones. Silver fire wreathed Ataraxia as Nesta plunged the blade into the Asteri’s fallen head. Again. And again. Ichor and light leaked from the broken body, and between one stab and the next, Nesta’s arm slowed, slowed, slowed— That was time slowing again. Bryce could see every spark of silver flame coiling about the blade, see it reflected in Nesta’s eyes.

Vesperus, the only Asteri left on this world, lay dead.

Nesta slashed her hand and the creature’s body burned with that strange silver fire.

And then the light from Nesta’s silver flame winked out as the gate shut above Bryce, nothing but darkness surrounding her as she plunged deeper and deeper into the pit. Toward home.

The same thing Sofie Renast’s lightning was hunted for: to resurrect the dead.”

“Perhaps they’ve at last learned what your father bred you to be.”