House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2) by Sarah J. Maas

“Honestly? I think you don’t know how special you are, Ruhn.”

His blue eyes flickered. “Thanks.”

“I mean it.” She grabbed his hand, and light flared from her chest. “The sword came to you first for a reason. When was the last time two Starborn royals lived peacefully side by side? There’s that dumb prophecy that the Fae have: When knife and sword are reunited, so shall our people be. You have the Starsword. What if … I don’t know. What if there’s a knife out there for me? But beyond that, what’s Urd playing at? Or is it Luna? What’s the end goal?”

“You think the gods have something to do with all this?”

Again, the hair on her arms rose; the star on her chest dimmed and went dark. She turned to the rain-lashed street. “After this spring, I can’t help but wonder if there is something out there. Guiding all this. If there’s some game afoot that’s … I don’t know. Bigger than anything we can grasp.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hel is another world. Another planet. Aidas said so—months ago, I mean. The demons worship different gods than we do, but what happens when the worlds overlap? When demons come here, do their gods come with them? And all of us, the Vanir … we all came from elsewhere. We were immigrants into Midgard. But what became of our home worlds? Our home gods? Do they still pay attention to us? Remember us?”

Ruhn rubbed his jaw. “This is some seriously sacrilegious shit for a lunchtime conversation. The postcards with your mom, I can handle. This? I need some coffee.”

She shook her head and closed her eyes, unable to suppress the chill down her spine. “I just have this feeling.” Ruhn said nothing, and she opened her eyes again.

Ruhn was gone.

A rotted, veilless Reaper, black cloak and robes clinging to its bony body, rain sluicing down its sagging, grayish face, was dragging her unconscious brother across the drenched street. Its acid-green eyes glowed as if lit by Helfire.

The rain must have covered the creature’s approach. The hair on her arms had been raised but she’d chalked it up to their dangerous conversation. No one was on the street—was it because everyone had somehow sensed the Reaper?

With a roar, Bryce darted into the driving rain, but she was too late. The Reaper shoved Ruhn into the gaping sewer drain with too-long fingers that ended in cracked, jagged nails, and slithered in after him.





24

Ruhn drifted.

One breath, he’d been talking to Bryce about gods and fate and all that shit. The next, something cold and rotting had breathed in his ear and he’d found himself here in this black void, no up or down.

What the fuck had happened? Something had jumped him and fuck, Bryce—

Night.

The female voice flitted in from everywhere and nowhere.

Night, open your eyes.

He twisted toward the voice. Daybright?

Open your eyes. Wake up.

What happened? How did you find my mind? I don’t have the crystal.

I have no idea what happened to you. Or how I found your mind. I simply felt … I don’t know what I felt, but the bridge was suddenly there. I think you’re in grave danger, wherever you are.

Her voice echoed from above, from below, from within his bones.

I don’t know how to wake up.

Open your eyes.

No shit.

She barked, Wake up! Now!

Something familiar echoed in her voice—he couldn’t place it.

And then she was there, burning flame, as if the link between their minds had solidified. Bright as a bonfire, her hair floated around her head. Like they were both underwater.

Get up! she roared, flames crackling.

Why do I know your voice?

I can assure you, you don’t. And you are about to be dead if you don’t wake up.

Your scent—

You can’t smell me.

I can. I know it.

I have never met you, and you have never met me—

How can you know that, if you don’t know who I am?

OPEN YOUR EYES!

There was blackness, and the bellow of pouring water. That was Bryce’s first, pathetic assessment of the sewer as she plunged into the subterranean river rushing beneath the city.

She didn’t let herself think of what swam or floated in the water as she splashed for the stone path running along its side, hauling herself up as she scanned for the Reaper. For Ruhn.

Nothing but dimness, the faint trickle of light from the sewer grates overhead. She peered inward, to the star in her chest. Inhaled sharply. And when she exhaled, light bloomed.

It cast the sewer in stark relief, silvering the stones, the brown water, the arched ceiling—

Well, she’d found her brother.

And five Reapers.

The Reapers floated over the sewer’s river, black robes drifting. Ruhn, unconscious, dangled between two of them. The Starsword was still strapped to him. Either they were too stupid to disarm him, or they didn’t want to touch it.

“What the fuck do you want?” Bryce stepped closer. Water poured from the grates above, the river rising swiftly.

“We bear a message,” the Reapers intoned together. Like they were of one mind.

“Easier ways to send it than this,” she spat, advancing another step.

“No further,” they warned, and Ruhn dropped an inch for emphasis. Like they’d dump his unconscious ass into the water and let him drown.