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

by Sarah J. Maas

“Can we please rewind for a moment?” Bryce cut in. “You guys made the thunderbirds to complement my power—in case I never got the sword and knife, and if I ever needed a boost to open the Rift. But when they were hunted down, you … made Hunt, and then I was born …

Bruh

“No true son of Hel can be caged.”

“If you find that final piece of Theia’s power … if the cost of uniting the sword and knife is too much, Bryce Quinlan, then don’t do it. Choose life.” He glanced to Hunt. “Choose each other. I have lived with the alternative for millennia—the loss never gets easier to bear.”

Fire met starlight met shadows, and Bryce loosed herself on the world. It ended today. Here. Now. This had nothing to do with the Asteri, or Midgard. The Fae had festered under leaders like these males, but her people could be so much more.

The Fae of Midgard were capable of more. Ruhn proved it. Flynn and Dec proved it. Even Sathia proved it, in the short time Bryce had known her.

She was already whole. What she had—who she was … it was enough. She’d always been enough to take on these bastards, power or no power. Starborn crap or no. She was enough.

YAAASSS

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.

HOLY SHIT

But I am going to live, he said to his father. And I am going to live well—without you. Even Morven’s shadows weren’t fast enough as Ruhn whipped the Starsword through the air again. And sliced clean through his father’s neck.

Their friends were instantly on their feet, Hunt putting a hand on Sathia’s back to steady her. Then they all came to stand, as one, behind Bryce and Ruhn. And she saw it, for a glimmering heartbeat. Not a world divided into Houses … but a world united.

“Our people,” she said to Ruhn, to the others. “The people of Midgard. United against the Asteri.” It had taken all this time, a journey through the stars and under the earth … but here they were.

The King of Avallen was still blazing with hate when Bryce slid Truth-Teller into his heart.

And as she rose to her feet, it was a Fae Queen who stood before Ruhn, wreathed in starlight, unflinching before her enemies. From the love shining on Athalar’s face as he beheld Bryce, Ruhn knew the angel saw it as well. But it was Sathia who approached Bryce. Who knelt at her feet, bowing her head, and declared, “Hail Bryce, Queen of the Midgardian Fae.”

Light it up.

None of what the Princes of Hel had said about him scared her. They hadn’t made Hunt’s soul. That was all hers, just as her own soul was his.

So much life, so much magic, freed at last of Vanir control. A place not only for the Fae, but for everyone. All of them.

“We’ll do it together. You and me—we’ll end it together.” He brushed a strand of her hair behind a delicately pointed ear. “I’m with you. All of me. You and I, we’ll finish this.”

“I’m so proud of you,” Ember whispered. “Not for … dealing with him, but for all of it. I’m so, so proud, Bryce.”

Wolves didn’t have magic like this. Never had, as far as he’d heard. Shifting and strength, yes, but this elemental power … it shouldn’t exist in a wolf, yet there it was. Rising in him, filling the place where he’d never realized the parasite had existed.

Cuz they’re really Fae shifters like in ToG!!!

“Ithan Holstrom is my heir.”

“Hail Ithan,” Amelie said, loud enough for all to hear, “Prime of the Valbaran Wolves.” In answer, a chorus of howls went up from around the Den. Then the city. Then the wilderness beyond the city walls. As if all of Midgard hailed him. When it ceased, Ithan tipped his wolf’s head to the sky and loosed a howl of his own. Triumph and pain and mourning. 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.

“Hello, Nesta.”

Again?!!!!

Holy gods, his wife had balls. Tharion wisely wiped any sort of reaction from his face, but Ogenas damn him, if they survived this meeting, he wanted Sathia to teach him everything she knew.

Nesta. She could have sworn the very world—all worlds—shuddered as Nesta’s hand crossed into Midgard and passed the Mask to Bryce.

It should have been a relief, to know her parents were in that other world, with people who she had learned were decent and kind, but her mom would never forgive her. Randall would never forgive her. Not just for throwing them into that world, but for leaving Cooper behind.

Damn it Bryce 😭😭😭

Bryce finally peeled the Mask off—

The Mask doesn’t control Bryce—is it because she has all of Theia’s power? Unlike Nesta??

“I don’t think I’d ever been truly awake,” she said, “until I met you.”

Hunt reached a mental hand toward the black thorns of the halo. Wreathed his fingers in lightning, in Helfire, in the power that was his and only his. And sliced through it.

He saw it all in her eyes—that no matter what had happened, who he’d been and what he’d done … it really didn’t matter to her. Being made in Hel didn’t matter to her. But she’d captured who he was, deep down, in those photos last spring. The person she’d brought into the world. The person she loved. Just Hunt. So he let go. Let go of the lightning, of the death singing in his veins. Let go of Apollion’s and Thanatos’s smirking faces. Let go of his rage at the Archangel before him, and the Archangels who’d existed before her. Just Hunt. He liked that.

those symbols running from the bowl onto her skin … they were like tattoos.

Wyrdmarks!!

“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.”

The Maasiverse!!!!

Jesiba said to Hypaxia. “You are now, for all intents and purposes, Head of the House of Flame and Shadow. And this place.”

“All of our secondlight, from every soul here,” Connor said quietly. “It’s yours to put in that bullet. Use it well.”

Connor said to Ithan, “You do make me proud, you know. Every day before now, and every day after. Nothing you do will ever change that.”

“Tell Bryce,” Connor said, eyes shining as he stepped toward the glowing Gate, a wall of light now shimmering in the empty arch, “to make the shot count.”

“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.” She ran her fingers over his strong jaw, his cheeks. “After Danika, I didn’t think …” Her eyes prickled, and she reached up to kiss him again. “You’re my best friend, too, Hunt. You saved me—literally, I guess, but also …” She tapped her heart, the glowing star. Another reference to this past spring, to all that had grown between them, the words spoken during what she’d thought had been her final phone call. “In here.”

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.

as Tharion left the House of Flame and Shadow, then Lunathion itself, he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Ugh

she was his and he was hers, and there was a word for it, but it eluded him.

They’re Mates

He wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug, her cinnamon-and-strawberry scent washing over him. Just as it always had—like she hadn’t taken the antidote. He set aside his curiosity about it again.

What’s this about???

where his Helfire met starfire, where lightning met blades, it bloomed with blinding light.

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.

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.

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

Erilea!!!

Her fire a song in her blood, Lidia walked across the battlefield. Bullets melted before they could reach her.

Now her fire flowed and flowed. Her truth was freed.

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

Bryce had a heartbeat to take in what—where—she’d opened a portal to: a black, airless place, dotted with small, distant stars. A heartbeat, and then she was yanked in, too. Straight to deep space.

She had given everything for Midgard. For him. That day last spring, when all hope had been lost, she had made the Drop alone. To save him, and to save the city—and she had done it from pure love. She had done it without expecting to come back. Just as she must have jumped through this portal suspecting she’d never return.

Bryce had given him a life, and a beautiful one. He didn’t need all the photo evidence that had streamed in front of his face when he’d been in the Comitium’s holding cell to realize it. She had brought joy, and laughter, and love, had pried him free of that cold, dark existence and pulled him into the light. Her light. He wouldn’t let it be extinguished.

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