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

The portal shut, sealing the black hole and all of space behind it.

The Asteri were gone.

Hunt was out of the mech-suit in a heartbeat, shattering the metal panel, swinging down to where Bryce lay on the ground. She wasn’t moving. Wasn’t breathing.

And he finally let the Mask say the word he’d been ignoring since he’d grabbed her in the depths of space.

Dead.





99


“It was too long,” Declan was saying as Hunt worked on Bryce’s heart, his lightning slamming into her, over and over. “She was without oxygen for too long, even for Vanir. There’s nothing my healing magic can do if she’s already—”

Hunt blasted his lightning into her chest again.

Bryce arced off the ground, but her heart didn’t start beating.

Their friends were gathered around them, shadows to his grief, this unfathomable pain.

Get up, he willed the Mask, willed her. Get the fuck up.

But it did not respond. Like one final fuck you, the Mask tumbled off his face. As if her Made essence had faded from him with her death.

“Bryce,” he ordered, voice cracking. This wasn’t happening, this couldn’t be happening to him, not when they’d been so close—

“Blessed Luna, so bright in the sky,” Flynn whispered, “spare your daughter—”

“No prayers,” Hunt growled. “No fucking prayers.”

She couldn’t be dead. She had fought so hard and done so much …

Hunt crashed his lightning into her heart again.

It had worked before. That day of the demon attack in the spring—he’d brought her back to life.

But her heart did not answer this time.

Rigelus had used his gods-damned lightning to resurrect the Harpy—why the fuck didn’t it work now? What had Rigelus known about Hunt’s own power that Hunt didn’t?

“Do something,” Hunt snarled up at Apollion and Aidas. “You’ve got a black hole in your fucking mouth—you’ve got all the power in the galaxy,” he spat at the Prince of the Pit. “Save her.”

“I cannot,” Apollion said, and Hunt had never hated anything more than he hated the grief in the prince’s eyes. The tears on Aidas’s face. “We do not have such gifts.”

“Then find Thanatos,” Ruhn ordered. “He goes around calling himself the Prince of Souls or whatever bullshit. Find him and—”

“He cannot save her, either,” Aidas said softly. “None of us can.”

Hunt looked down at his mate, so still and cold and lifeless.

The scream that came out of him shook the very world.

There was nothing but that scream, and the emptiness where she had been, where the life they were supposed to have had together should have been. And when his breath ran out, he was just … done. There was nothing left, and what the fuck was the point of it all if—

A gentle hand touched his shoulder. “I might be able to try something,” said a female voice.

Hunt looked up to find Hypaxia Enador somehow standing beside him, the Bone Crown of the House of Flame and Shadow atop her shining black curls.



* * *



His sister was gone. Ruhn looked at Bryce’s face and knew she was dead. Beyond dead.

He had no sound in his mind. Lidia stood beside him, her hand in his, her sons behind them. The boys had been the ones who’d convinced him to come back—had refused to go another step until they helped in some way.

But none of it had made a difference. Even Athalar’s lightning hadn’t revived Bryce.

And then Hypaxia had stepped forward, wearing that crown of bones. Somehow, she was now the Head of the House of Flame and Shadow. Offering to help.

“She’ll never forgive me if you raise her into some shadow of herself,” Hunt said, voice strained with tears, with his screams.

“I’m not proposing to raise her,” Hypaxia assured him.

Hunt dragged his hands through his hair. “She doesn’t have a soul—I mean, she does, but she sold it to the Under-King, so if that’s what you need, then you’re shit out of luck—”

“The Under-King is gone,” Hypaxia said. Ruhn’s knees wobbled. “Any bargains he made with the living or the dead are now null and void. Bryce’s soul is hers to do with as she wills.”

“Please—help her,” Ruhn blurted, desperate. “Help her if you can.”

Hypaxia met his eyes, then looked to Lidia beside him, their hands linked. She smiled.

Athalar whispered, “Anything. Whatever you need, I’ll give anything.”

The witch looked down at Bryce, and said to Athalar, “Not a sacrifice. A trade.”

She beckoned behind her, summoning Jesiba Roga to her side.



* * *



Hunt stared at the sorceress, but Roga was only gazing at Bryce.

“Oh, Quinlan,” Roga said, and there were tears gathering on her lashes.

“Priestess,” Apollion hissed, and Roga lifted eyes brimming with disdain and disgust to the Prince of the Pit.

“Still wondering if I’m going to do anything with those books?” Roga snapped at Apollion. She pointed to Bryce, dead on the ground. “Don’t you think if they had some power, I’d be using it right now to save that girl?”