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

His lightning crawled over her skin, but he didn’t let it hurt. He could never hurt her.

“You said you’re with me—all of you,” Bryce murmured, staring at him and only him. “Put the past behind you. Focus on what’s ahead. We have a world to save, and I need my mate at my side to do it. No one else—not a son of Hel, not the Umbra Mortis, not even Hunt fucking Athalar. I need my mate. Just Hunt.”

He saw it all in her eyes—that no matter what had happened, who he’d been and what he’d done … it really didn’t matter to her. Being made in Hel didn’t matter to her. But she’d captured who he was, deep down, in those photos last spring. The person she’d brought into the world. The person she loved.

Just Hunt.

So he let go. Let go of the lightning, of the death singing in his veins. Let go of Apollion’s and Thanatos’s smirking faces. Let go of his rage at the Archangel before him, and the Archangels who’d existed before her.

Just Hunt. He liked that.

His lightning faded, fizzling away entirely. And he said to Bryce, as if she were the only person on Midgard, in any galaxy, “I love you, Just Bryce.”

She snickered, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Now, if you don’t plan on killing Celestina anymore …” Bryce pulled the Mask from her jacket again. “We’re going to raise an army.”

“What army?” Isaiah whispered.

“We’re going to raise the Fallen,” Bryce said, tossing the Mask in the air and catching it like it was a fucking sunball.

Hunt’s knees buckled. “You said we were going to use the Mask to fight the Asteri.”

“And we are,” Bryce said, pitching the Mask up and catching it once more. “It’s your fault you didn’t ask for specifics on how we’d use it against them.”

No, he’d assumed she’d put it on and it would give her some edge to kill them.

Hunt shook his head. “You’re out of your mind.”

Bryce halted her tossing at that, voice gentling. “We need a distraction for the Asteri. Hel won’t be enough. But an army of the dead, an army of the Fallen, will work nicely. An army that won’t have to die again. And Isaiah and Naomi are going to lead them.”

“That’s why you sent Ruhn and Lidia to get them,” Hunt said quietly, fighting through his shock.

Isaiah gave him a questioning look, but Bryce replied, “Yes. I thought if we could get them, and get the Mask from Nesta … it might work.”

“But how can you raise them?” Hunt demanded. Nesta had used the bones of a beast, Bryce had told him. “Their bodies are gone—”

“The Asteri kept their wings,” Bryce said, disgust lacing every word. “They kept your wings, like trophies. But because they didn’t have Sailings, I think part of their souls might still be attached.”

Hunt rubbed at his frozen face. “And what—you’re just going to have a bunch of wings flying around?”

She cut him a sharp look. “No. Well, yes—but only to get them to where we need their souls.”

“You said the Mask can reanimate dead bodies—not give souls new ones.”

“That’s what I saw Nesta do,” Bryce said. “But Theia’s star …”

Cupping her hands before her chest, she drew out the blazing, beautiful star. It illuminated the mists, set the snow at their feet sparkling.

“Wow,” Naomi breathed.

What Bryce had taken from her chest that day during the attack last spring was a fraction of the star she now held between her palms.

“This,” Bryce said, face glowing in the starlight, “seems to recognize the Mask, somehow. When I put the Mask on, I could feel the pull between the two powers. Maybe it’s something about Theia’s star. I think it can command the Mask to do … different things.”

“This isn’t the time to experiment,” Hunt warned.

“I know,” Bryce conceded. “But I think all it would take is a bit of the deceased, and I could Make them anew. Not give them true life, but their souls would be returned—given new forms. Unlike … unlike what the Asteri did to the Harpy.”

“That mask can truly raise the dead, then,” Naomi said hoarsely.

Bryce nodded. “The Fallen wouldn’t be given new, breathing bodies, but yes—they’d be able to help us.”

“What sort of bodies, then?” Isaiah asked, glancing nervously at Hunt.

“Ones the Asteri already made for us,” Bryce said a shade quietly. “Perfect blends of magic and tech.”

“The new mech-suits,” Hunt realized. “The ones the Asteri stationed on Mount Hermon.”

Bryce nodded gravely. “I think Rigelus stationed those suits up there to taunt you guys, but it’s about to blow up in his stupid fucking face. Lidia said the suits don’t need pilots to operate, so we don’t have to worry about any physical interference. Dec can hack into their computer system and block imperial access while the souls of the Fallen fuse with the mech-suits and pilot them under Naomi and Isaiah’s command.”

But to do what she was suggesting …

“We can’t,” Hunt rasped, wings slumping. “I can’t ask them to die for us again. Even if they’re already dead. The Fallen have given too much.”