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

“I know who you are,” she said quietly, her soft tone belied by the steely calm in her eyes.

He arched a brow. “Oh? Good or bad?”

She shook her head. “I’m Sathia Flynn, daughter of Lord Hawthorne.”

“And?”

She cocked her head to the side, strands of her long hair slipping over a shoulder. “What else is there?”

He feigned contemplation. “Favorite color?”

“Blue.”

“Favorite food?”

“Raspberry tarts.”

He let out a laugh. “Really?”

She frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” he said, then added, “Mine’s cheese puffs.”

She let out a hint of a laugh. But it faded as she said, “Why?”

He ticked the reasons off on his fingers. “They’re crispy, they’re cheesy—”

“No. I mean—why did you do this?” She gestured between them.

Tharion debated how to spin his story, but … “This arrangement of ours might as well be an honest one.” He sighed. “I’m a wanted male. The Viper Queen has a bounty of five million gold marks on my head.”

She choked. “What?”

“Surprise,” he said. Then added, “Sorry. I feel like … maybe I should have mentioned that before.”

“You think?” But she mastered herself, a practiced, calm demeanor stealing over her pale features before she said for a third time, “Why?”

“I … may have been indirectly responsible for burning down the Meat Market, and now she wants to kill me. That was after I defected from the River Queen, who, uh, also wants to kill me. And then the Ocean Queen harbored me and forbade me from leaving her ship, but I disobeyed her order and bailed, and now here I am and … I’m really not doing a good job of making myself seem appealing, am I?”

“My father is going to keel over dead,” Sathia said. Something like wicked amusement glinted in her eyes.

He could work with a sense of humor.

“As glad as I am to hear that,” Tharion said, earning another few millimeters of smile, “it’s a long way of saying … I’ve fucked up a lot.” Sigrid’s dead body flashed before his eyes, and he shoved it away. “Too much,” he amended.

“So this is some attempt at redemption?” Any amusement faded from her face.

“It’s an attempt to be able to look at myself in the mirror again,” he said plainly. “To know I did something good, at some point, for someone else.”

“All right,” she said, then looked back at the fire.

“You seem, uh … relatively cool with this whole marriage thing.”

“I’ve grown up knowing my fate would lead me to the marriage altar.” The words were flat.

“But you thought that would be marriage to a Fae—”

“I don’t particularly want to talk about the things that have been expected of me my entire life,” she said with the imperiousness of a queen. “Or the doors that are now closed to me. I am alive, and I didn’t have to marry Goon One or Goon Two, so—yes, I’m cool with that.”

“The mind-prying thing didn’t woo you, huh?”

“They’re brutes and bullies, even without their mind gifts. I abhor them.”

“Good to know you have standards.” Tharion extended his hand to her. “It’s nice to meet you, Sathia.”

She gingerly took the offered hand, her fingers delicate against his. But her handshake was firm—unflinching. “It’s nice to meet you, too … husband.”



* * *



Dawn broke over Avallen, though Lidia had never seen such a gloomy sunrise. Granted, given her fitful sleep last night, she wasn’t exactly in the mood to appreciate any sunrise, clear or cloudy. But as she stood on one of the small castle balconies overlooking the hilly countryside, her arms braced against the lichen-crusted stone rail, she couldn’t help but wonder if Avallen ever saw sunshine.

The city—more of a town, really—had been built atop a craggy hill, and offered views from every street of the surrounding green countryside, the land a patchwork of small farms and quaint homesteads. A land lost in time, and not in a good way.

Even Ravilis, Sandriel’s former stronghold, had been more modern than this. There wasn’t so much as a trace of firstlight anywhere. The Fae here used candles.

And had apparently been given an order, considering the unusually quiet streets, to shun the visitors at every turn. But she could have sworn that countless Fae were watching her from the shuttered windows of the ancient-looking town houses flanking the streets winding up to the castle. She’d always known Morven ruled with an iron fist, but this submission was beyond what she’d expected.

She’d barely been able to sleep last night. Hadn’t been able to stop seeing her sons’ faces as she’d left that room, or how they’d blended with the memory of their faces as babies, how they’d been sleeping so peacefully, so beautifully, in their cribs that last night, when she’d looked at them one final time and left. Walked off the Depth Charger and into the submersible pod.

It had felt like dying, both then and now. Felt like Luna had shot her with a poisoned arrow and she was bleeding out, an invisible wound leaking into the world, and there was nothing that could ever be done to heal it.