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

The River Queen’s daughter seethed.

Tharion said, voice breaking, “But if you take in the people of this city, if you shelter them against whatever storm the Asteri might bring … when this is over, if I am alive …” He held her stare. “I will divorce my wife and marry you.”

Sathia whirled to him, but he couldn’t face her, couldn’t bear to see her reaction to how he’d abandon her, too—

The River Queen’s daughter sniffed, a child calming from a tantrum. “I accept. I shall marry you once you’re rid of her.”

“You shall not.” The River Queen’s voice shook the room, the river. “My daughter does not accept this offer. Nor do I.”

Tharion’s chest crumpled. “Please,” he begged. “If you could just—”

“I am not done speaking,” she said, and held up a hand. Tharion obeyed. “I no longer wish my daughter to be tied to the likes of you, in truth or in promise. As far as marriage between you is concerned, it shall never happen.”

“Mother—”

“You are your wife’s problem now,” the River Queen said to Tharion.

Tharion shut his eyes against the stinging in them, hating this, hating that he’d lost this opportunity, this safe haven for the people of Crescent City, due to his own bullshit.

“But your willingness to sacrifice your freedom to live Above is no small thing,” the River Queen went on. She tilted her head to the side, and one of the shells in her hair sprouted legs and skittered under the tresses. A hermit crab. “You never asked me why I sent you to look for Sofie Renast’s body, and to find her brother.”

Tharion opened his eyes and found her staring curiously at him. Not with kindness, but with something like respect. “It … it wasn’t my place to question,” he said.

“You are frightened of me, as all wise beings are,” she said a shade smugly. “But I have fears, too. Of this world, at the mercy of the Asteri.”

Tharion tried not to gape.

“Our people are ancient,” the River Queen said. “My sisters and I remember a world before the Asteri arrived and caused the land’s magic to wither. Entire islands vanished into the sea, our civilizations with them. And though we were limited in our power to stop them … we have tried, each in our own way.”

Her daughter was staring at her like she didn’t know her.

But the River Queen went on, “We remember the power the thunderbirds wielded. How the Asteri hunted them down. Because they feared them. And when I learned one had been killed, her thunderbird brother on the loose … I knew those were assets the Asteri would seek to recover at any cost. I might not have known why, but I had no intention of letting them attain either Sofie or her brother.”

Tharion blinked. “You … you wanted them in order to stop the Asteri?”

A shallow nod. “It might not have made a difference in the greater sense, but keeping them safe was my attempt, however small, at thwarting the Asteri’s plans.”

Tharion had no idea what to do other than bow his head and admit, “Emile wasn’t a thunderbird. Only a human. He’s in hiding now.”

“And yet you kept this from me.” The river shuddered at her displeasure.

“I thought it would be best for the boy to disappear from the world completely.”

The ruler scanned his face again for a long, long moment.

“I see the male that you are,” the River Queen said, and it was more gentle than he’d ever heard her. “I see the male that you shall become.” She nodded to Sathia. “Who sees a female in trouble and does not think of the consequences to his own life before helping.” A nod, grave and contemplative. “I wish I had seen more of that male here. I wish you had been that male for my daughter. But if you are that male now, and you are that male for the sake of this city …”

She waved a hand, and the sobeks swam away on a silent command.

“Then the Blue Court shall help. Any who we can bring down here before the warships catch wind of it … any person, from any House: I shall harbor them.”



* * *



The Harpy was a horror. Hunt could feel her lack of presence. The emptiness leaking from her.

The Asteri had raised her from the dead, but left her soul by the wayside.

They’d bypassed the necromancers, who used one’s soul for resurrection, and instead created a perfect soldier to station here: one who did not feel cold, who did not need to eat, and who had no scruples whatsoever.

And it had all come from his lightning. His Helfire. He knew, deep down, that it wasn’t his fault, but … he’d given Rigelus that lightning.

And it had created this nightmare.

Rigelus had to have guessed they’d come to the Northern Rift, and planted the Harpy to lie in wait.

Hunt rallied his lightning, making the mists glow eerily around him, but Bryce said, “What did they do to you?”

The Harpy didn’t answer. She didn’t show any sign that she’d heard or cared. As if she’d lost her voice. Her very identity.

“Fry the bitch,” Bryce muttered to Hunt, and he didn’t wait before sending a plume of lightning for the Harpy.

She dodged it, those white-painted wings as fast as they had ever been—