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

Vesperus peered at her bare feet, the rock beneath. “Theia never learned how to access the power I cached beneath my palace. She had no choice but to leave it there, buried in the veins of this mountain. Her loss—and my gain.”

Oh gods. There was a fucking firstlight core here, far beneath their feet—

Vesperus smiled. “You really should have killed me when you had the chance.”

Light shot up the Asteri’s legs, into her body. A blinding flash, and then—

Vesperus’s red mouth opened in joy and triumph, but no sound came out. Only black blood.

Bryce blinked at the crunch. The wet spray. The glint of silver that appeared between Vesperus’s shining breasts.

The firstlight flowing up the Asteri’s body shivered—and vanished.

Nesta had plunged Ataraxia right through Vesperus’s chest.





26


Ithan didn’t deserve to exist. To breathe.

And yet here he was, sitting in the back of a car as they approached the docks at Ionia. Here he was, praying the Hind hadn’t sold them out and that the ship would be waiting to bring them to Pangera.

Kin-slayer. Murderer. The thoughts echoed through his very bones.

Ithan had killed the one person who might have led the Valbaran wolves to a different future, an alternative to Sabine.

It didn’t matter that it had been accidental. He’d ripped out her throat. And decapitated her in the process of removing his fist.

To save his friends, he’d done this unspeakable, unforgivable thing. He was no better than the Hind.

Ithan caught a glimpse of his reflection in the car window, and hastily turned away.



* * *



Ataraxia had slain the Middengard Wyrm—but there was no indication the blade could also kill an Asteri. That anything, in any world, could do that except for Apollion.

“Get out of range—” Bryce warned Nesta, but the warrior snarled at Bryce, “She was keeping you talking until she got an opportunity to kill you with that cache of light, you fool.”

Black blood dribbled from Vesperus’s lips. “You are indeed a fool, girl.”

The power slipped from Bryce’s grip as Vesperus placed a hand at Ataraxia’s tip and shoved. The sword punched back through her chest. The movement was hard enough that Nesta stumbled, shock whitening her face.

Slowly, Vesperus turned. Smiled at Nesta. Then down at the gaping hole between her breasts, already healing. All that firstlight was grade A healing magic. Taken in such a big dose—

“Ataraxia didn’t work,” Nesta breathed, shock still stark on her face. “The Trove—”

“Do not summon the Trove,” Azriel ordered. “Don’t bring it near her.”

Nesta shook her head. “But—”

“Not even for our lives,” Azriel snarled.

“Oh, I’ll get the Trove soon enough,” Vesperus said, and peered at the hole above her coffin, the ruined chamber beyond.

For a heartbeat, Bryce wasn’t in the tomb, but back in Griffin Antiquities. A heartbeat, and she was in the library below the gallery, Micah held at bay, Lehabah begging her to go—

She’d found a way then. She’d killed a fucking Archangel.

There were two blades practically screaming for her to use them. Bryce again reached out a hand, her will, toward Azriel. And as surely as the Starsword had done, Truth-Teller flew from his grip. He tried to grab it, but even his swift lunge wasn’t fast enough to stop it. To stop Bryce as the knife soared for her fingers.

The dagger’s hilt landed in her palm, cool and heavy.

Her body began to hum. Like having one blade in each hand—the Starsword and Truth-Teller—electrified her.

Bryce stepped toward Vesperus. Vesperus swayed back slightly. Just as Bryce had suspected.

Behind her, Nesta and Azriel unleashed twin bolts of magic, one silver, one blue—arcing toward Vesperus from two directions. Splitting Vesperus’s attention for a heartbeat—

The heartbeat Bryce had used to kill Micah.

The heartbeat that she used now to spring at the Asteri, sword in one hand, dagger in the other.

Bone collided with metal, and Vesperus screeched in rage as Bryce plunged Truth-Teller and the Starsword into her chest.

Bryce threw her power into the Starsword, light ripping through the black blade, willing it to tear this fucking monster apart—

She willed it into Truth-Teller, and shadows flowed—

And where the two blades met, where Bryce’s light merged at their nexus, power met power.

Her ears hollowed out. Magic like lightning surged through her, from her. The chamber rippled, a muffled boom echoing through Bryce.

Her blood roared, a beast howling at the moon. She was vaguely aware of a glow, of radiating light that flowed through the Starsword, the dagger—

Vesperus thrashed, falling beyond Bryce’s grip, sinking to her knees.

The Asteri hunched over, hands grappling on the hilts of the blades. She hissed as her skin touched the black metal. “I shall kill you for this.”

But the words were slow … dragged out.

No, that was time slowing, rippling, as it had with Micah, as if the blades were killing the Asteri, a great world power—

A whip of blue magic shot through the world, a ribbon of cobalt piercing the starlight and darkness. She could see every loop and coil as it wrapped around Vesperus’s neck.