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

Flynn didn’t back down one inch, his teeth flashing. “She is the daughter of Lord Hawthorne. She’s always going to want to marry within the Fae.”

“She accepted my offer.” With the quietest and blandest yes he’d ever heard, but still. A clear acceptance.

Flynn snapped, “Because she’s desperate and scared—you think that’s a good state of mind to make an informed decision?”

Tharion held the male’s stare. “I don’t see anyone else stepping forward to help her.”

Flynn growled. “Look, she’s spoiled and petty and mean as a snake, but she’s my little sister.”

“So find some alternative that doesn’t involve her death to get her out of this.”

Flynn glared, and Tharion glared right back.

Across the way, Sathia shoved past Dec and Ruhn and stormed toward them. She was short—but stood with a presence that commanded the room. Her dark eyes were pure fire as they met Tharion’s. “Are we doing this?”

Gone was that quiet, bland tone.

Bryce, Athalar, and Baxian were watching from the rear of the room, the Hind a few steps to the side.

None of them had expected the day to go this way. Starting with Tharion bailing on the Ocean Queen, and culminating in this shitshow. But if it had been Lesia in Sathia’s stead … he would have wanted someone to step up to help her, faithless soldier or no.

So Tharion said to Sathia, “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

Morven wasted no time in summoning a Priestess of Cthona. Like the bastard was trying to call Tharion’s bluff.

Not five minutes later, Tharion found himself with a wife.



* * *



“You,” Sigrid growled at Ithan, her rasping voice barely more than a whisper.

Ithan could hardly process what he was hearing—seeing.

“What happened?” Jesiba shouted at Hypaxia, who was still clinging to Ithan—who, in turn, was backing them toward the door.

But it was Sigrid who answered, more stitches popping as her neck moved, revealing a brutal scar now etched there. “We came to a doorway. She wanted to go one way …” A smile twisted her face. “I went the other.”

Hypaxia shook her head, frantic. “She wouldn’t come, she slipped through my fingers—”

“I had no interest in letting such a prize go,” intoned a cold voice.

Even Jesiba got to her feet as the Under-King appeared in the morgue doorway.

As he had on the night of the Autumnal Equinox, he wore dark, fraying robes that floated on a phantom breeze.

“You had no right,” Hypaxia challenged, pushing past Ithan as his every sense went into overdrive at the Under-King’s unearthly presence, his ageless might. “No right to turn her—”

“Am I not lord of the dead?” He remained in the doorway, hovering as if standing on air. “She had no Sailing. Her soul was there for the claiming. You offered her one option, witch. I gave her another.”

He beckoned to Sigrid, who moved off the table as if she were alive. As if she had never been dead. Were it not for the acid-green eyes, the scars, Ithan might have believed it.

A Fendyr was a Reaper. A half-life, a walking corpse—

It was sacrilege. A disgrace.

And it was all his fault.

“Which is the more attractive choice?” the Under-King mused as Sigrid took his hand. “To have been raised by you, Hypaxia, to be under your command and thrall … or to be free?”

“To be your servant,” Hypaxia corrected with impressive steel.

“Better mine than yours,” the Under-King countered. He then inclined his head to Ithan. “Young Holstrom. You have my gratitude. Her soul might have drifted forever. She’s in capable hands now.”

“What—what are you going to do?” Ithan dared ask.

The Under-King peered down at Sigrid and smiled, revealing too-large, brown teeth. “Come, my pet. You have much to learn.”

But Sigrid turned to Ithan, and he’d never known such self-loathing as he did when she said in that rasping Reaper’s voice, “You killed me.”

“I’m sorry.” The words didn’t even cover it. Would never cover it.

“I won’t forget this.”

Neither would he. As long as he lived. He held her stare, hating those acid-green eyes, the deadness in them—

“We will speak soon,” the Under-King said to Jesiba, more warning than invitation. Before Jesiba could reply, the Under-King and Sigrid vanished on a dark wind.

Only when its scraps of shadow had faded from the morgue did Jesiba say, “What a disaster.”

Hypaxia was staring at her hands, as if trying to walk herself through her mistake.

Ithan couldn’t stop the shaking that overtook him from head to toe, right down to his very bones. “Fix this.”

Hypaxia didn’t look up.

Ithan growled, his heart racing swiftly, “Fix this.”

Jesiba clicked her tongue. “What’s done is done, pup.”

“I don’t accept that.” Ithan bared his teeth at her, then pointed at Hypaxia. “Undo what you just did.”

Slowly, Hypaxia lifted her eyes to his. Bleak, pleading, tired. “Ithan—”

“FIX IT!” Ithan roared, the witch’s necromantic instruments rattling in the wake of the sound. He didn’t care. Nothing fucking mattered but this. “FIX HER!” He whirled on Jesiba. “Did you know this would happen?” His voice broke.