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

by Sarah J. Maas

“You’re my best friend, you know that?” He pulled away, staring down at her, and she couldn’t stop her star from flaring with light. “I mean, you’re my mate and wife—fuck, that still sounds weird—but you’re my best friend, too. I never thought I’d have one of those.”

Home—he was home. Her ability to teleport to him had only proved that. Home wasn’t a place or a thing, but him. Wherever Hunt was … that was where home was. She’d find him across galaxies, if need be.

She looked back at all of them. Her eyes met Hunt’s. And Bryce said before she stepped into the light, “Through love, all is possible.”

Tearing up

“Good luck,” Ruhn said to his sister, perhaps for the last time. But Bryce smiled gently, softly, and though she had been all fierce determination in the van a few minutes ago, it was love in her face now as she said to him, “You brought so much joy into my life, too, Ruhn.” He remembered, then, saying those words to her before she’d vanished through the Gate. You brought so much joy into my life, Bryce. It felt like a lifetime ago.

So he said to her, mind-to-mind, I love you. I fell in love with you in the depths of my soul, and it’s my soul that will find yours again in the next life.

“Brann,” she was panting down at her son, the boy untouched by the flame, scanning his stunned face, tugging the gag from his mouth. “Brannon.” She stifled a sob around the boy’s full name, but then Actaeon was there, hauling his brother away as best he could with the bonds still restraining them. “What are you?” Ace breathed. Still panting, blazing with fire, Lidia said, “An old bloodline,” and got to her feet. It was Daybright, as Ruhn had seen her in his mind. She’d presented herself—her true self—to him all this time.

Oh my goddd related to Aelin

Lidia had known, even as a child, that she was pure power, and she’d kept that power buried in her veins. Not witch-power. She knew her flames were … different. Her father didn’t have them, either. 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. Then she had run into Danika Fendyr, who had somehow learned things about Lidia’s paternal bloodline, and wanted to know if Lidia had any strange gifts. Fae-like, elemental gifts. She’d debated killing Danika then and there to keep the gift secret. And what else did Danika know—could she know about her sons? The shifters were Fae from another world, Danika had explained. Blessed with a Fae form and a humanoid one, gifted with elemental powers.

Yesssss

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.

Oh my god descended from aelin!!!

It had been a short life, as far as Vanir were concerned, and a bad one, but there had been moments of joy. Moments that she now gathered and held close to her heart: cradling her newborn sons, smelling their baby-sweet scents. Talking with Ruhn for hours, when she knew him only as Night. Lying in his arms. So few happy memories, but she wouldn’t have traded them for anything. Would have done it all again, just for those memories. Lidia dove deep, all the way into the simmering dregs of her power.

“Let’s burn it all down.”

“With pleasure,” Irithys said, and even from a few feet away, Lidia’s skin seared with the heat of the queen’s flame. “We shall build a new world atop their ashes.”

For a better world

And as one flame, one unified people, as Bryce Quinlan had promised, their fire struck the enemy line.

I believe it all happened for a reason. I believe it wasn’t for nothing.

And then Ruhn was there. Starlight flaring. Pushing back against the impossible. Lidia was beside him, crackling with fire. Tharion. Holstrom. Flynn and Dec. A fire sprite, her small body bright with flame. Isaiah and Naomi. So many hands, so many powers, from almost every House. The friends they’d made were what mattered in the end. Not the enemies. Through love, all is possible. It was love that was holding the portal open. That held it open until the very end, until Hunt and Bryce were through, crashing into the dirt of Midgard, the blue sky filling his sight and all that beautiful air filling his lungs— The portal shut, sealing the black hole and all of space behind it.

Through love all is possible

Apollion threw him a half smile, then glanced to Bryce. “You did better than expected.” Bryce snapped her fingers, the sound muffled by her gloves. “That is what I want on my new business cards. Bryce Quinlan: Better than Expected.”

“Whoever said normal isn’t complicated?” he countered. “All I know is that whatever tomorrow or next year or the next millennium has in store for this world, I want to face it at your side.”

the former Fae Prince said, “So, first things first: I think it sucks that we save the world and still have to be back at work two days later.”

And thanks to Hunt, there had been a day straight of thunderstorms. Of course, he was fined by the city for illegal and improper weather manipulation, but He blew his magical load didn’t really seem to hold sway when Bryce tried to explain it to the authorities.