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

“Give me the Starsword,” Bryce murmured to Azriel. The blade had killed Reapers. Maybe it could kill an Asteri. Maybe that was what she’d come here to learn.

“No,” Azriel snarled. “You brought this terror upon us.”

“I had no idea she was here—”

“Release me, slaves,” the Asteri cut in. “I grow impatient.”

Why hadn’t Theia warned her daughters that this thing was down here? Why be so irresponsible, so reckless—

Et in Avallen ego. Even here, on this island that had been a paradise during Theia’s reign, this evil had existed. And Theia had warned her children about it—that evil was always lurking beneath them, waiting to grab them. Literally.

The taint of the Asteri who had ruled here, Silene had claimed, had lingered about this place—a terrible, ancient power. Enough so that it had needed to be concealed by the Prison’s wickedness. Silene just hadn’t figured out that it remained because an Asteri was still present.

And here, against all odds, was a living link to the past, to answers Bryce needed. If Urd had guided her this far …

Bryce said calmly, “I have questions for you. If you don’t answer them, I’m happy to leave you down here until the end of eternity.”

“Oh, this planet will be long dead before eternity has ended. Its star will expand, and expand, and eventually devour everything in its path. Including this world.”

“Thanks for the astronomy lesson.”

A slow smile. “I shall answer your questions … if you release me from this tomb.”

Bryce held her stare.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Azriel murmured.

But time pressed down on her. With every minute, Hunt suffered. She was sure of it.

The very stones and wards of this place answered to her will …

Azriel lunged for Bryce, but she’d already pointed to the crystal coffin. “Get up, then.”

A click, loud as thunder, and the lid unlocked.





25


Opening the coffin had been as easy as commanding the stones of the mountain to move.

“What have you done?” Nesta said, silver fire flaring in her eyes, down Ataraxia’s blade.

The Asteri laid a hand on the unlocked coffin lid and began to push.

Like Hel would she face this thing unarmed. Bryce extended a hand toward Azriel, casting her will with it.

The Starsword flew from his hand and into hers.

Azriel started, shadows flashing at his shoulders, readying to strike, but Bryce said, “Theia showed me that trick in Silene’s little memory montage.” It was the feeling she’d been sensing, of the blade calling to her. Being willing to leap into her hand.

Azriel bared his teeth, but drew another sword that had been sheathed in a concealed panel at his back and hefted Truth-Teller in his other hand as Nesta lifted Ataraxia—

Bryce twisted to the coffin in time to see the Asteri slowly climb out, like a hatching spider.

Bryce’s chest provided the only light, making the monster’s pale skin even whiter, deepening the red of her lips to a near-purple hue. Her long black hair draped down her slim form, pooling on the stone beneath her like liquid night.

But she remained on the floor, hunched over herself. Like she didn’t have the strength to stand.

“You go left,” Azriel murmured to Nesta, power blazing around them.

“No,” Bryce said, not looking back as she approached the Asteri on the floor and sat down, setting the Starsword on the cold stone beside her.

To her shock, Azriel and Nesta didn’t attack. But they remained only a step away, weapons at the ready.

“Your companions think you mad for releasing me,” the Asteri said, picking at an invisible speck on her golden silk gown as she settled herself into a proper seated position.

“They don’t realize that you haven’t fed in thousands of years, and I can kick your ass.”

“We realized it,” Nesta muttered.

“Let’s start with the basics, leech,” Bryce said to the Asteri. “Where did—”

“You may call me Vesperus.” The creature’s eyes glowed with irritation.

“Are you related to Hesperus?” Bryce arched a brow at the name, so similar to one of Midgard’s Asteri. “The Evening Star?”

“I am the Evening Star,” Vesperus seethed.

Bryce rolled her eyes. “Fine, we’ll call you the Evening Star, too. Happy?”

“Is it not fitting?” A wave of long fingers capped in sharp nails. “I drank from the land’s magic, and the land’s magic drank from me.”

“Where did you come from, before you arrived here?”

Vesperus folded her hands in her lap. “A planet that was once green, as this one is.”

“And that wasn’t good enough?”

“We grew too populous. Wars broke out between the various beings on our world. Some of us saw the changes in the land beginning—rivers run dry, clouds so thick the sun could not pierce them—and left. Our brightest minds found ways to bend the fabric of worlds. To travel between them. Wayfarers, we called them. World-walkers.”

“So you trashed your planet, then went to feed off others?”

“We had to find sustenance.”

Bryce’s fingers curled against the rock floor, but her voice remained steady. “If you knew how to open portals between worlds, why did you need to rely on the Dread Trove?”