House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City #3) by Sarah J. Maas

“Did you know it was about to change?” White, blinding fury filled her head, her eyes. Even as part of her wondered if he, too, had needed some distance between them after their conversation, and revealing this truth … it was his best way to shove her away again.

“I answered your questions, as you stipulated. You asked where the Asteri took them after your encounter. I told you the truth. You didn’t ask for an update today, so—”

One heartbeat, the plate and sandwich were in her hands. The next, they were hurling through the air toward his head. “You asshole.”

Her father blasted away both plate and food with a wall of fire. Cinders of crisped bread and meat fell to the floor among shards of broken ceramic.

“Such tantrums,” he said, surveying the mess on the carpet, “from someone who just learned her brother and mate are free.”

“How about this,” Bryce seethed, hating the gorsian shackles around her wrists more than ever. “You let me go right now, and I’ll toss your ass straight through a portal and into the original Fae world. Go pack your bags.”

He chuckled. “You’ll bring me to that Fae world whether I let you go or not.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I hear your mother and Randall have adopted a son. It’d be a shame if something happened to the boy.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t come crying to me when Mom and Randall kick your ass. They did it once—I’m sure they’ll be happy to remind you what they’re capable of.”

“Oh, it wouldn’t be me darkening their doorstep.” He smirked, wholly confident. “A whisper to Rigelus, let’s say, of your parents harboring a rebel boy …”

Bryce rolled her eyes again. “Did you take some sort of class in school? Intro to Bad Guys? Get fucking serious. You’re not going to conquer any world.”

“If you should open a door between worlds at my behest, Rigelus may be grateful enough to me that he grants me a good chunk of it.”

Bryce eyed the shards of broken plate. Sharp enough to slit his throat.

He gave her a condescending smile, like he knew what she was contemplating.

Her father wasn’t for or against the Asteri. He was just an opportunist. If removing them got him more power, he’d fight them. If bowing to the Asteri proved more lucrative, he’d prostrate himself before their crystal thrones. For all his talk of helping the Fae, he believed in nothing except advancing himself.

She said tightly, “You’re already a king here.”

“Of a continent. What is that to an entire planet?”

“You know, you might not be the Starborn Chosen One, but I think out of all of us, you’ve got the most in common with Theia. She thought the same damn thing. But she learned too late that Rigelus doesn’t share.”

“With the knife you brought back in play, he might find himself willing to bargain.”

Bryce gave him a flat look. “What makes you think the blades will do anything to him?”

“Those blades, united, would end him.”

“Trust me: I tried it on an Asteri and it didn’t do anything.” At least, not before Nesta had interfered.

If he was shocked by her confession, he didn’t let on. “Did you order them to work?”

“Hard to order them, shithead, when I don’t know what they can even do.”

“Open a portal to nowhere,” the Autumn King said, the flame guttering in his eyes.

“What do you mean?” Bryce demanded.

“The Starsword is Made, as you called it.” He waved an idle hand, sparks at his fingertips. “The knife can Unmake things. Made and Unmade. Matter and antimatter. With the right influx of power—a command from the one destined to wield them—they can be merged. And they can create a place where no life, no light exists. A place that is nothing. Nowhere.”

Her knees wobbled. “That’s not … that’s not possible.”

“It is. I read about it in the Avallen Archives centuries ago.”

“Then how do I do it? Just say ‘merge into nowhere’ and that’s that?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “My research has not revealed the steps to merge the blades. Only what they could do.”

Bryce stared at the male before her for a long moment. Glanced down the steps to the lower level—toward his study. “I want to see this research myself.”

“It is on Avallen, and females are not allowed beyond the lobby of the archives.”

“Yeah, our periods would probably get all over the books.”

His lip curled. “Perhaps it is lucky you weaseled out of your engagement to Cormac. Your coarseness wouldn’t have been well tolerated in Avallen.”

“Oh, they’d warm up to me once they saw me swinging around the Starsword and remembered who and what I am.”

“That would be an affront all on its own. A female has never possessed the blade.”

“What?” She barked a laugh that echoed off the stone walls. “In fifteen thousand years, you mean to tell me only males have claimed it?”

“As females are not allowed in the Cave of Princes, they had no opportunity to attempt to claim it, even if they had the starlight in their veins.”

Bryce gaped at him. “Are you fucking kidding me? They banned females from the Cave of Princes to keep us from getting our hands on the sword?”