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

by Sarah J. Maas

The Helhound gave him a look that pretty much said: Well, I’m shitting my pants.

“I suspect you’ll find out the answers in the most dramatic way possible.”

“You could, uh, talk to her,” Flynn said from beside Ruhn, shutting yet another useless drawer full of catalog cards. “I can literally feel you brooding.” “I’m not brooding.” “You’re brooding,” Declan said from Ruhn’s other side. “You’re brooding,” Ruhn said, nodding to Dec’s taut face.

“But right now,” Bryce said, “I’m Queen of the Valbaran Fae.” She nodded to the Autumn King’s body cooling on the ground, then smirked at Morven. “And of Avallen.” Morven hissed, “You’ll be Queen of Avallen over my dead …” He trailed off at the smile on her face. And paled. “As I was saying,” Bryce drawled, “for the moment, I’m queen. I’m judge, jury …” Bryce looked to Sathia, still shaken and wide-eyed from the twins’ attack—yet unafraid. Unbroken, despite what the males in her life, what this male, had tried to do to her. So Bryce peered down at Morven and finished sweetly, “And I’m your motherfucking executioner.”

“I’m sorry about your mother,” he offered. “Most people tell me I should be over her passing. But …” Her shoulders bowed. “I don’t know if there will ever come a day when I don’t feel like there’s a hole in my heart where she used to be.”

“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.”

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.”

He had made mistakes in the past, bad calls, but fighting against tyranny, against brutality, would never be the wrong choice.

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.

“The books are yours,” Jesiba said again. “And so is the gallery’s collection. The paperwork’s done.” “But how did you know I’d wind up—” “You’ve got one of the worst self-sacrificing streaks I’ve ever encountered,” Jesiba said. “I had a feeling an intervention might be needed here today.” She peered up at the blue sky, and smiled to herself. “Go home, Bryce. This will all be here when you’re ready.”