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

by Sarah J. Maas

“You have no idea what powers you toy with, girl,” Rigelus said. “The Mask will curse your very soul—

At the sight of the teeming hordes cresting the hills, seemingly from nowhere, at the sight of the three princes marching at their front … People began screaming in the streets. Another signal—for Declan. To get the evacuation order out under the guise of an Imperial Emergency Alert.

have been waiting for your arrival. And have prepared accordingly.”

A horn sounded, a clear note echoing across the city. And in answer, the Asterian Guard exploded into the streets of the Eternal City.

knew you’d leave an escape route for yourselves and your allies. Right to Hel. I knew you’d leave the Rift open.”

“So I sent three legions of my Asterian Guard to the Rift last night. I think they and their brimstone missiles will find Hel quite unguarded, with all its armies here.”

“Pollux has got them under the palace,”

“In the hall with the firstlight core that your sister discovered—under the archives.”

The Asterian Guard swept out into the hills and valleys below, their mech-suits marching among them, and where they struck, demons died.

“I think the three legions he sent to Nena,” Naomi said, “will be in for quite a surprise when they find that half of Hel’s army is still there and waiting for them.”

They needed to destroy the firstlight core, or else all this would be pointless. With it still functional, the Asteri could run back to the palace, regenerate their powers, their bodies.

the particles of dust drifting by, the droplets of Polaris’s blood rising upward like a red rain as Bryce shoved her blades deeper and deeper— The demon princes were turning toward them, their Asteri opponents with them.

those two black blades meeting in the Asteri’s chest, Theia’s star uniting them in power and purpose—

Polaris imploded. Her chest caved in, sucked into the blades as if by a powerful vacuum. Followed by her abdomen and shoulders, and Polaris was screaming and screaming—

He willed the water band around her thigh to push in tighter, to send a tendril into the hole in her skin for emphasis.

he held his magic in place to keep any hint of her blood from showing where she’d gone. Her eyes widened, surprise replacing pain as the water eased up at his command.

Sirius and Polaris were now dark. But the others were nearly full. One of them, the seventh, was at full power. And standing before it was its bearer, smiling faintly at them. Rigelus.

beneath it, a tunnel to the core of firstlight began to form.

Catch a mer spy, threaten to fillet them, and they’ll tell you anything. Including where the Depth Charger is headed. And the two very interesting children aboard it—their true heritage at last revealed and the talk of the ship.”

Tharion struck. A blast of water, so concentrated it could have shattered stone, speared for Pollux. Ruhn darted to the left as Pollux fired his gun. But not for him, he realized as the bullet raced, faster than it should have, borne on a wave of angelic power—

I suppose I can make one allowance: you can choose which boy dies first.”

She’d do it. Give Pollux whatever he wanted. Her boys stiffened. Seeing that, too. Perhaps finally understanding what—who—their mother was. What had guided her all these years, and would continue to guide her in her final moments.

“you hand over the boys unharmed, you let them and Lidia and Tharion go, and I’ll walk right up to you. With no guns, no magic. You can pull me apart piece by piece. Take all the time you want.”

He knew she hated him for putting that bullet in her thigh—but it had been to save her. To keep them from this terrible fate that they’d all arrived at anyway.

Pollux pivoted to the boys. Fixed his stare on Brann. Pure, brute power flared around the angel. Lidia screamed as Pollux unleashed a lethal spear of his power toward Brann.

Ruhn didn’t understand what he saw next: How Lidia reached Brann in time. How she threw herself over her son, knocking him to the ground as she burst into white-hot flames.

fire magic, pouring out of Lidia. Searing from her.

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.

Lidia had known, even as a child, that she was pure power, and she’d kept that power buried in her veins.

She’d kept them secret, even from the Asteri. Especially from the Asteri. No other shifters had them, to her knowledge, and she knew what revealing them would mean: becoming an experiment to be pulled apart by the Asteri.

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

Lidia turned Mordoc and the two snipers into ashes with a thought. Until all that remained of them was the molten silver from the darts in their collars,

Another thought, and the pack of dreadwolves, now skidding to a halt in panic, met the same fate.

In the Cave of Princes, it had taken nearly all her concentration to douse the flames of the Autumn King around her companions. Only Morven had seemed to be surprised—the others hadn’t questioned how the flames had disappeared. There had been too much chaos for anyone to piece it together.

Rithi, Sasa, and Malana turned blue, matching their queen’s fire with their own. The four fire sprites unleashed their power on the war-machines and the Vanir powering them. Lidia’s white-hot flames joined theirs, twining and dancing around it, as if every moment of recognition until now had built toward this, as if her flames had known theirs for millennia.

Warm, bright magic answered. Healing magic, rising to the surface as if it had been dormant in his blood.

In answer, light poured from his hands, and he could feel Tharion’s flesh and bone knitting back together beneath his fingers, mending, healing

“Get out of the palace,” Bryce warned, and teleported. Alone. Taking the Godslayer Rifle with her, and leaving the Mask in Hunt’s hand.

One shot, straight down into the tunnel that Hunt had made, to blast apart the last of the crystal around the core and release all that firstlight.

Knew that in the second it took to aim, Rigelus would launch his power at her, and there would be no wall of Hunt’s lightning to keep it at bay.

But Rigelus was not alone. The three other remaining Asteri now stood with him, the four of them a solid wall between Bryce and the firstlight core.

“That core is tied to Midgard’s very soul,” Rigelus said. “You destroy it, and this entire planet will wink out of existence.”

“You made the core a kill switch for this world,” Bryce breathed.

You kill our source of nourishment, and you doom every living soul on Midgard as well.”

there is no purpose to your existence, if not to sustain us. You are chattel.”

“You have my word that if you do not fire that bullet, you and yours shall go free. And remain so.”

She fired the Godslayer Rifle into the firstlight core.

the dead sacrificing for the sake of the living. The dead, yielding eternity so Midgard might be free.

And as the bullet erupted in the firstlight core, as Rigelus’s hand wrapped around her wrist and pure acid burned her skin and bones where he touched her— Like the battery she was, she grabbed his power. Sucked it into herself. Light met light and yet—Rigelus’s starlight wasn’t light at all.

His light was not his own. His light had been stolen from the people of Midgard. He was a living gate, storing that power, and just as she’d taken it from the Gates this spring, just as it had fueled her Ascent, fueled her own power to new levels … now it became hers. Without the firstlight, without the people of Midgard and every other planet they’d bled dry … without the power of the people, these Asteri fuckers were nothing