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

by Sarah J. Maas

Ruhn said into his mind, into all their minds, I lied about what the Oracle said to me. His father’s eyes flared with shock at Ruhn’s voice in his head, the secret his son had kept all these years. Ruhn didn’t care what Morven made of it, didn’t even bother to look at the Stag King. Bryce and Athalar could handle the shadows, if Morven was dumb enough to attack. So Ruhn stared into his father’s hateful face and said, The Oracle didn’t tell me that I would be a fair and just king. She told me that the royal bloodline would end with me. He had the sense that his friends were watching with wide eyes. But he only had words for the pathetic male before him. I thought it meant your bloodline. Ruhn lifted the bloodied Starsword. Flame simmered along his father’s body, limning his powerful form. But Ruhn was no longer a cowering boy, inking himself with tattoos to hide the scarring. I was wrong. I think the Oracle meant all of them, Ruhn went on, mind-to-mind. The male lines. The Starborn Princes included—all you fucks who have corrupted and stolen and never once apologized for it. The entire system. This bullshit of crowns and inheritance. His father’s sneering voice filled his mind. You’re a spoiled, ungrateful brat who never deserved to carry my crown— I don’t want it, Ruhn snapped, and shut down the bridge between their minds that allowed his father to speak. He’d had enough of listening to this male. Blood trickled from his father’s lips as his Vanir body sought to heal him—t...