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

Wings fluttered nearby, and Isaiah and Naomi touched down beside Hunt.

“Ready?” Isaiah asked, clad in the black battle-suit of the 33rd.

“Soon,” Aidas said. The angels still maintained a healthy distance from him, but had at least lost their disbelieving, wary expressions in his presence.

The Asterian Guard swept out into the hills and valleys below, their mech-suits marching among them, and where they struck, demons died.

“Do you think,” Aidas mused, “that they have any idea what’s about to happen to them?”

“No,” Hunt said, smiling darkly. “And neither does Rigelus.”

Bryce slid the Mask back on, and its ungodly, leeching presence ate into her soul. But the star inside her seemed to hold the Mask at bay.

“That’ll teach him to think he can outsmart us,” Naomi said.

The Asterian Guard, white plumes of horsehair on their helmets shining bright in the daylight, advanced through the field of demons. The feet of the scores of mech-suits among them shook the earth.

“I think the three legions he sent to Nena,” Naomi said, “will be in for quite a surprise when they find that half of Hel’s army is still there and waiting for them.”

Isaiah said, with no small amount of satisfaction, “They should be getting word to the Asteri right about”—he checked his phone—“now.”

“Perfect,” Aidas purred. “Then we’re ready.”

“Messaging Declan,” Naomi said, typing into her phone. The Fae warrior was waiting in the van, the hacked imperial military network laid bare at his fingertips.

The Asteri’s mech-suits halted mid-stride. The Asterian Guard paused, glancing at the fancy new machines that had malfunctioned all at once. The glowing eyes of the mech-suits faded and died out.

“Magic and machines,” Isaiah said. “Never a good combination.”

“It’s a go,” Naomi said, reading a message on her phone. “Do your thing, Quinlan.”

They all looked to Bryce.

Alive and not-alive. Dead and undead. Bryce reached out a hand toward the stilled metal army below. Cold, awful power went through her. But her will was their will. Her will was everything.

Rise, Bryce said, blasting the thought out. Fight. Obey Isaiah Tiberian and Naomi Boreas. Hel is your ally—you fight beside them.

Only she could see the twinkling souls of the Fallen, drifting toward those suits from the nearby hilltop, alighting on them one by one by one.

The eyes of the suits blazed again. Bryce saw the nearest mech-suit lift its metal arm in front of its face. Watch its fingers wriggle with something like wonder.

Then it turned to the closest Asterian Guard and bashed the soldier’s head in.

“Holy gods,” Naomi breathed as the mech-suits, one after another, began to march away from the Asterian Guard.

The souls of the Fallen had waited for the moment the Asterian Guard and their mech-suits had begun to march toward the city below.

And the remaining souls of the Fallen that didn’t have a mech-suit to slip into … Well, there were plenty of dead demons and Asterian Guards with bodies intact enough for occupying. Twitching, as if adjusting to the new limbs, those corpses lurched to their feet. Came to stand beside their Fallen brethren in their mech-suit hosts.

“You’re up,” Hunt said to Isaiah and Naomi. “Time to get into the city.”

The angels bowed their heads. And with a great thrust of their wings, they launched skyward. Isaiah’s voice boomed out. “Fallen, you are now Risen! To the gates!”

Isaiah looked back at Hunt, his eyes brimming with pride and determination. The warrior touched his heart and flew off. Hunt lifted his arm in salute and farewell, as if beyond words.

It was indeed a sight beyond words—beyond any description. An army of the undead, of machines and demons, marched for the city walls.

“Incoming,” Hunt said. “Seems like that footage kept them distracted until now.”

“Right on time,” Aidas confirmed, as the glowing figures approached the battlefield spread before the northern gates of the Eternal City, come to exterminate this threat themselves.

The Asteri.

And walking toward them, the armies parting before him, was the Prince of the Ravine, with the Prince of the Pit trailing close behind.





90


Hunt refrained from heaving a sigh of relief, even if his helmet would have masked the sound.

Bryce had freed the souls of the Fallen from the throne room and placed them into those mech-suit bodies, but the hardest and most dangerous part of their plan started now. Hunt fought to keep his breathing steady, his focus on the unfolding battle and chaos. His helmet blared with alerts and assessments.

Aidas unsheathed a shining silver blade that seemed to glow with bluish light. “My turn,” the demon prince said, the dry breeze whipping his pale blond hair. He asked Bryce, “A ride?”

Hunt had only a moment to glimpse the worry, the fear in her eyes as she grabbed Aidas’s hand, then Hunt’s, and teleported them. With the power of Theia’s star, it barely took a moment. Barely seemed to drain her. But what arose around them as they reappeared on the battlefield was a scene straight from a nightmare.

Kristallos demons, deathstalkers, hounds like the Shepherd, and worse … the pets of Thanatos, all racing past the Asteri and into the city itself. Hunt’s helmet turned them all into distant figures, the world awash in red and black.