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

Debris skittered toward Bryce, toward Polaris. Like whatever was happening at that intersection of the blades was drawing the world in, in, in.

To the portal to nowhere.

A primal chill sang down Hunt’s spine. Theia had been right; Aidas was right. That portal to nowhere, opening somehow inside Polaris, was dangerous not just to the Asteri, but to anyone in its reach.

He had to stop it. He had to shut it fast, or else he knew, instinctively, that all of them would perish—

Time dripped by as Polaris contorted in pain. Bryce’s hair was sucked toward the Asteri, toward the blades and wherever they were opening to—

Too slow. Whatever Theia’s star was summoning, the portal was opening too slowly, and every second that it yawned wider threatened to swallow Bryce, too.

He’d been made by Hel to help her. To end this. Helfire and starfire: a potent combination, Bryce had said in Hel.

It was pure instinct. Pure desperation, too. Hunt unleashed his lightning, directed it toward the nexus where those blades met. It flowed like a sizzling ribbon through the world, past the deathstalkers, past the Princes of Hel, past the mech-suits—

Hunt watched it collide with the sword and dagger right where they crossed, where Theia’s star still glowed between them, binding them in unholy union. And where his Helfire met starfire, where lightning met blades, it bloomed with blinding light.

Polaris’s face twisted with agony. And still the world kept slowing, slowing—

Tendrils of Hunt’s Helfire twined down the blade, into Polaris herself. Lightning danced over Bryce’s teeth, over her shocked eyes.

He expected an outward explosion, expected to see every last bit of Asteri bone and brain rupture, shard by shard.

But instead, Polaris imploded. Her chest caved in, sucked into the blades as if by a powerful vacuum. Followed by her abdomen and shoulders, and Polaris was screaming and screaming—

Until he saw it, just a flash, so fast that in real time he’d never have witnessed it: the tiny, inky dot the two blades had made, right where they met.

The thing Polaris had been sucked into. A black dot.

It was there and then gone as Bryce stumbled forward, and the blades separated, and time resumed, so fast Hunt lost his breath. He touched a button on the side of his helmet, raising his visor, offering him lungfuls of fresh air.

One of the Asteri roared, and the world itself shook, the city walls with it.

But Bryce was staring down at the place where Polaris had been. At the blades in her hands, still wreathed in his Helfire and her starlight.

A portal to nowhere. To a black hole.

No wonder it had started to suck in Bryce as well. And the rest of the world. No wonder Theia had hesitated, if that was what she’d suspected would happen at the joining of the blades.

Hunt’s body was vibrating with power as Bryce lifted her face to his. Pure, savage delight lit her eyes. She’d seen it, too—she knew she’d sent Polaris straight into the nothingness of a black hole.

And—there. A kernel of worry sparked. Like it was setting in how dangerous it would be to open another one, let alone five more. What they’d risk each time.

Still, they stared at each other, just for a moment. They’d killed a gods-damned Asteri.

Hunt’s power buzzed through him again, in his very bones—

No. That wasn’t his power buzzing through him. It was his phone. The interior speakers on his helmet patched Ruhn through.

“Danaan.”

“You need to get to the hall with the firstlight core,” Ruhn said. “We’ve … We need help.” The line went dead.

“Bryce—” Hunt began, but when he turned to her, he found that pure light had again filled her eyes.

He’d seen that face only once before—the day she’d killed Micah. When she’d looked at the cameras and shown the world what lurked under the freckles and smile: the apex predator beneath. Wrath’s bruised heart.

Whatever it took to end this … she’d do it. His blood pumped through him, sparking at that look, at what she had done—

“Go,” shouted the thing Aidas had become, identifiable only by those blazing blue eyes as he faced Octartis beside Apollion.

The princes looked like the worst of horrors, but Hunt knew their true nature now. They had come to help. And for a single heartbeat, pride at being a son of Hel threaded through him.

Hunt looked back to Bryce, shutting the helmet’s visor over his eyes again. “We have to get to the hall with the firstlight core,” he said, but she was already reaching for him. Grabbing his hand, primal fury blazing on her face, the Starsword and Truth-Teller again sheathed.

A blink, and they were gone.

She was draining fast. They landed in a hallway three levels up, if the number on the nearby stairwell entrance was any indication.

Blood leaked from her nose, and Hunt might have fretted had he not heard the snarls surrounding them. Had his helmet not blared with alerts.

They’d teleported into a corridor full of deathstalkers.

Thanatos had sent his pets into the palace to distract and occupy any Asteri who might have stayed away from the battlefield, but his grip on them must have been weak, or he simply did not care.

Taking on just one had left a scar down Hunt’s back. Granted, he’d been bound by the halo, but even at full power, taking on this many would be no mean feat. Beside him, Bryce panted. She needed a breather. After her fight with Polaris, after managing to avoid the black hole she’d opened, after the teleporting … his mate needed rest.