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

by Sarah J. Maas

“Here I was, thinking you had a real father in Randall Silago and didn’t have any need of me whatsoever.” She nearly dropped her plate. “Are you—are you jealous of Randall?” His face was like stone, but his voice hoarsened as he said, “He got your mother in the end. And got to raise you.” “That sounds awfully close to regret.” “I have already told you: I live with that regret every day.” He surveyed her, the plate of food in her hands. “But perhaps we might eventually move past it.” He added after a moment, “Bryce.”

Ithan’s mouth dried out. He whispered, “What—who are you?” Jesiba burst out laughing, and several of the books on the shelf shuddered. Ithan was barely breathing as Jesiba snapped her fingers. Her short hair flowed out—down into long, curling tresses that softened her face. Her makeup washed away, revealing features that somehow seemed younger … more innocent. It was Jesiba, yet it wasn’t. It was Jesiba, as if she’d been trapped in the bloom of youth. Of innocence. But her voice was as jaded as he’d always heard it as she said, “Lest you think me lying … This is the state I will always revert to—can revert to, at a mere wish.” “So you’re … able to do magical makeovers?” She didn’t smile. “No. I was cursed by a demon. By a prince who intercepted my ship and the books on it.” Ithan’s heart thundered. “We had almost reached the Haldren Sea when Apollion found the Griffin.” Her voice was flat. “He’d heard about the doomed stand at Parthos, and the ships, and the priestesses burned with their books. He was curious about what might be so valuable to the humans that we were willing to die for it. He didn’t understand when I told him it was no power beyond knowledge—no weapon beyond learning.” Her smile turned bitter. “He refused to believe me. And cursed me for my impudence in denying him the truth.” Ithan swallowed hard. “What kind of a curse?” She gestured to her longer hair, her softer face. “To live, unchanging, until I showed him the true power of the books,”

“You … you were a priestess at Parthos?” She nodded. “Priestess, witch … and now sorceress.” “But if you were human, where’d your magic come from?” She’d said Apollion granted her long life, not power. Her gray eyes darkened like the stormy sea she’d sailed across long ago. “When Apollion found my ship, he was ripe with power. He’d just consumed Sirius. I don’t think he intended it, but when his magic … touched me, something transferred over.” From the way she said touched, Ithan knew exactly how she viewed what he’d done to her. “It took me a while to realize I had powers beyond the stasis of eternal youth,” she said blandly. “And fortunately, I’ve had fifteen thousand years to master them. To let them become part of me, take on a life of their own, as the books did.”

Home. Wherever that was in Midgard. Because her home was no longer just a physical place, but a person, too. Silene had claimed as much when she spoke of Theia and Aidas—their souls had found each other across worlds, because they were mates. They were each other’s homes. And for Bryce, home was—and always would be—Hunt.

The ground slid out from under Ruhn. The boy had Lidia’s face. Her coloring. Another boy to his left, also not mer, had dark hair and golden eyes. Lidia’s eyes. Behind them, Flynn grunted with surprise. “You’ve got brothers on this ship?” “They’re not my brothers,” Lidia whispered. Her fingers curled on the glass. “They’re my sons.”

WHAT

Bryce Quinlan swept through the doorway and winked at the Ocean Queen. “Tharion serves me.”

Bryce Danaan, Queen of the Valbaran Fae.”

“With Lehabah’s help,” Bryce said. “Because of Lehabah’s help.”

Lehabah ; ;

It took Hypaxia seven hours, seven minutes, and seven seconds to raise Sigrid.

The lost Fendyr heir opened her eyes. They burned an acid green. “Reaper,” Jesiba breathed.

OMG

“This place was built by Helena.”

The sword and knife pulsed more strongly with each step downward into the secret stairwell. Like they wanted to be here—needed to be here.

Aidas was smiling faintly—joy and hope brightening his remarkable eyes. “It seems you got a little lost on your way to find me, Bryce Quinlan. But welcome to Hel.”

Apollion lifted a hand. Pure, sizzling lightning danced around it, arcing out to meet Hunt’s. “Welcome, son,” said the Prince of the Pit.

Thanatos scoffed. “You are no son of his.” He yanked off his war helmet, cradling it under an arm. “If anything, you are mine.”

“The black crowns were collars in Hel,” Thanatos answered darkly. His powerful body seemed primed to leap across that pit to attack. Hunt monitored his every breath. “Spells, crafted by the Asteri to enslave us. They were a binding, one the Asteri adapted in their next war—upon Midgard.”

“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.

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.”

It wasn’t Hunt’s lightning that shone through the Autumn King’s rib cage. It was the Starsword. And it was Ruhn wielding it, standing behind him. Ruhn, who had driven the sword right through their father’s cold heart.

The line will end with me, you fucking prick, Ruhn said into his father’s mind, because I yield my crown, my title, to the queen.

“Hail Bryce, Queen of the Midgardian Fae.”

Her brother only pressed a kiss to her brow and said, “Long live the queen.”

“I’m some weird demonic test-tube baby.”

LOL

Maybe back in that other world … maybe I woke up the land around the Prison, too.”

The Prime looked down at the wolf kneeling at his feet. “But it must be broken.” He extended the sword to Ithan. “Ithan Holstrom is my heir.”

And shattered the Fendyr sword between his teeth.

Make your brother proud. And as his howl finished echoing, he could have sworn he heard a male wolf’s cry float up from the Bone Quarter itself.

“Pollux,” Lidia breathed, and Ruhn stilled. Her eyes lifted to his, and pure panic filled them as she whispered, “He’s taken my sons.”

Bryce pulled the Mask from her jacket again. “We’re going to raise an army.” “What army?” Isaiah whispered.

The Fallen?

“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.”

It stared down this creature, this thing from his people’s home world, and it knew the Under-King for what he truly was. Enemy, his blood sang, and it spoke of caves beneath hills, of plundered graves and musty darkness. Enemy

Under-king =barrow wight from ToG??

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.

Bryce Gives Me Magical Orgasms, Literally

“I think that eight-pointed star was tattooed on you for a reason. Take that sword and go figure out why.”

Tharion inclined his head. “Hello, Ariadne.”