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

Hunt eyed the snarling pack. The thought of wasting his power to kill an ally’s beast rankled him.

But in the end, he didn’t have to decide—a wall of water crashed through the corridor.

And roared straight for him and Bryce.





91


There was no way out. No window, no exit, no place to breathe as water flooded the hall up to the ceiling.

Hunt grabbed Bryce, his lightning rendered useless in the water, and swam toward where he guessed the stairs might be in the tumbling dark. His helmet filled with water, warping his vision—

A light shone. He hadn’t thought Bryce had that kind of power left—but no. It wasn’t Bryce. Tharion was swimming toward them through the hall. Ketos had never commanded enough power to control this much water, and with such force, yet here he was, clearly the master of this flood.

An air bubble formed around Hunt and Bryce. He yanked off his helmet, splashing water down his front. “What the fuck,” Hunt spat, choking on the water.

But Bryce got it before Hunt did, and yelled at Tharion through the air bubble now saving their asses, “Don’t drown them all! We need them on the battlefield!”

“I had a bag of antidotes,” Tharion shouted, his powerful, tiger-striped tail thrashing, “but the force of the water snapped the strap. It’s down here somewhere, just wait for me to—”

“No time!” Bryce shouted back. “Find it, then find us!”

Bryce was right: to delay getting to that room, cutting off the Asteri’s power at the knees … it wasn’t a risk worth taking, even for the antidote.

The water roared past, into the stairwell. “Go!” Tharion called as the water vanished from the hall, the mer and the demons swept upward in its current. “I’ll be right behind you!”

Hunt and Bryce landed hard on the stones, soaking wet and sputtering, but they didn’t wait.

“Hurry,” Bryce said, grabbing his arm to haul him to his feet. “The firstlight core’s below us.”

It was all Hunt could do to shake the water from his eyes, grab his helmet, and race after her.



* * *



Ruhn had fucked up. In so many ways, he’d fucked up.

He could think of nothing else as he stood before Pollux, hands raised, before the door down to the hall with the firstlight core running underneath it.

There was no sign of Actaeon or Brann.

“Where’s Lidia?” Pollux sneered, pointing a gun at Ruhn’s face, his white wings glowing with power.

Ruhn had left her bleeding and wounded on the stairs, utterly vulnerable, hating him—

“Where are the boys?” he growled.

“Someplace else,” Pollux said, and Ruhn’s stomach churned at what that might imply. “Rigelus guessed you’d seek out his mystics, so he instructed them to feed the lie to you. Which you swallowed so fucking easily, because you’re a gullible fool.” The Hammer stepped forward and jerked his chin at Ruhn. “Move. I know Lidia’s around here somewhere.”

Ruhn had little choice but to obey. To let the Hammer lead him away from the firstlight core, out of the archives, then back down that hall to where Lidia would be lying bleeding on the stairs.

Pollux’s breathing hitched as the scent of her blood filled the hall. “Lidia,” he called in a singsong. Her scent became overpowering as they turned the corner to where Ruhn had left her—

There was no trace of her.



* * *



Tharion helped Lidia limp along, a band of living water wrapped around the hole in her thigh. Chasing down the satchel and antidotes, he’d found both bag and Hind on the stairs, right before they’d heard the Hammer snarling.

Only two vials had made it. The rest had burst, thanks to either the impact or the volatility of Athalar’s lightning. But Lidia had been shot—by Ruhn, she’d told him. Tharion didn’t know whether to admire or curse Danaan for it. The idiot had done it to keep her from harm, so he’d face Pollux alone.

Tharion hadn’t needed to ask what she and Ruhn were doing down here in the first place. Why they’d risked everything to be here, why they’d separated from Bryce and Hunt.

Pollux had gloated about Lidia’s sons to Ruhn, how the mystics had been ordered to lie about where they were, leading her into a trap. But that meant her sons remained captive elsewhere in this palace—and Pollux knew how to find them.

“Lidia …,” the Hammer crooned. “Lidia …” He practically sang her name.

Lidia gritted her teeth. With a surge upward, she launched for the hall, for the Hammer, but Tharion grabbed her, hauling her back down beside him.

“We need to regroup,” he hissed.

“I need to get to my sons,” she hissed back, and tried to move again. They spoke so quietly that their words were barely more than whispers of breath.

Tharion held her still. “You’re in no shape—”

She tried once more, and Tharion decided to Hel with it. He willed the water band around her thigh to push in tighter, to send a tendril into the hole in her skin for emphasis.

She clapped a hand over her mouth, swallowing a scream.

Tharion pulled back the tendril, hating himself for the pain he’d caused, but he held his magic in place to keep any hint of her blood from showing where she’d gone. Her eyes widened, surprise replacing pain as the water eased up at his command. A simple, normal bit of magic, but he knew his eyes blazed with power—with the raging rapids of the Istros itself.