House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City Book 2)
House of Sky and Breath: Part 3 – Chapter 75

“You fucking cunt,” the Harpy cursed, rising to draw a long, wicked sword.

Ruhn couldn’t move from the floor as the Hind unsheathed her own slim blade. As her beckoning scent floated to him. A scent that was somehow entwined with his own. It was very faint, like a shadow, so vague that he doubted anyone else would realize the underlying scent belonged to him.

And her scent had been familiar from the start because Hypaxia was her half-sister, he realized. Family ties didn’t lie. He’d been wrong about her being in House of Sky and Breath—the Hind could claim total allegiance to Earth and Blood.

“I knew it. I always knew it,” the Harpy seethed, wings rustling. “Traitorous bitch.”

It couldn’t be.

It … it couldn’t be.

Bryce and Hunt were frozen with shock.

Ruhn whispered, “Day?”

Lidia Cervos looked over a shoulder. And she said with quiet calm in a voice he knew like his own heartbeat, a voice he had never once heard her use as the Hind, “Night.”

“The Asteri will carve you up and feed you to your dreadwolves,” the Harpy crooned, sword angling. “And I’m going to help them do it.”

The golden-haired female—Lidia, Day—only said to the Harpy, “Not if I kill you first.”

The Harpy lunged. The Hind was waiting.

Sword met sword, and Ruhn could only watch as the shifter deflected and parried the angel’s strike. Her blade shone like quicksilver, and as the Harpy brought down another arm-breaking blow, a dagger appeared in Lidia’s other hand.

The Hind crossed dagger and sword and met the blow, using the Harpy’s movement to kick at her exposed stomach. The angel went down in a pile of wings and black hair, but she was instantly up, circling. “The Asteri will let Pollux have at you, I think.” A bitter, cruel laugh.

Pollux—the male who’d … A blaring white noise blasted through Ruhn’s head.

“Pollux will get what’s coming to him, too,” the Hind said, blocking the attack and spinning on her knees so that she was behind the Harpy. The Harpy twirled, meeting the blow, but backed a step closer to Ruhn.

Their blades again met, the Harpy pressing. The Hind’s arms strained, the sleek muscles in her thighs visible through her skintight white pants as she pushed up, up, to her feet. She kept her black boots planted—the Harpy’s stance was nowhere near as solid.

Lidia’s golden eyes slid to Ruhn’s. She nodded shallowly. A command.

Ruhn crouched, readying.

“Lying filth,” the Harpy raged, losing another inch. Just a little further … “When did they turn you?”

Ruhn’s heart raced.

The two females clashed and withdrew with horrifying skill, then clashed again. “Liar I might be,” Lidia growled, smiling savagely, “but at least I’m no fool.”

The Harpy blinked as the Hind shoved her another inch.

Right to the edge of Ruhn’s reach.

Ruhn grabbed the Harpy’s ankle and yanked. The angel shouted, tumbling down again, wings splaying.

The Hind struck.

Swift as a cobra, Lidia plunged her sword into the top of the Harpy’s spine, right through her neck. The tip of her blade hit the floor before the Harpy’s body collided with it.

The Harpy tried to scream, but the Hind had angled the blow to pierce her vocal cords. The next blow, with her parrying dagger, plunged through the Harpy’s ear and into the skull beneath. Another move, and her head rolled away.

And then silence. The Harpy’s wings twitched.

Ruhn slowly lifted his gaze to the Hind.

Lidia stood over him, splattered with blood. Every line of the body he’d seen and felt was taut. On alert.

Hunt breathed, “You’re a double agent?”

But Lidia launched into motion, grabbing Ruhn’s chains, unlocking them with a key from her imperial uniform. “We don’t have much time. You have to get out of here.”

She’d sworn she wouldn’t come for him if he got into trouble. But here she was.

“Was this a trap?” Bryce demanded.

“Not in the way you’re thinking,” Lidia said. As the Hind, she’d kept her voice low and soft. Day’s voice—this person’s voice—sounded higher. She came close enough while she freed Ruhn’s feet that he could scent her again. “I tried to warn you that I believed Rigelus wanted you to come here, that he knew you would, but … I was interrupted.” By Pollux. “When I was finally able to reach out to you again, it was clear that only those of us in Sandriel’s triarii knew about Rigelus’s plan, and that Mordoc had been feeding him information regarding your whereabouts. To warn you off would have been to give myself away.”

Hunt glowered as Ruhn stared at the Hind. “And we couldn’t have that,” the angel said.

Mordoc—how had the bloodhound not noticed the subtle shift in Lidia’s scent? In Ruhn’s? Or had he, and been biding his time to spring the trap shut?

Lidia shot Hunt a glare, not backing down as she started on Bryce’s chains. “There is a great deal that you do not understand.”

She was so beautiful. And utterly soulless.

You remind me that I’m alive, she’d told him.

“You killed Sofie,” Bryce hissed.

“No.” Lidia shook her head. “I called for the city-ship to save her. They arrived too late.”

“What?” Athalar blurted.

Ruhn blinked as the Hind pulled a white stone from her pocket. “These are calling stones—beacons. The Ocean Queen enchanted them. They’ll summon whatever city-ship is closest when dropped into the water. Her mystics sense when the ships might be needed in a certain area, and the stones are used as a precise method of location.”

She’d done it that day in Ydra, too. She’d summoned the ship that saved them.

“Sofie drowned because of you,” Ruhn growled, his voice like gravel. “People died at your hands—”

“There is so much to tell you, Ruhn,” she said softly, and his name on her tongue …

But Ruhn looked away from her. He could have sworn the Hind flinched.

He didn’t care. Not as Hunt asked Bryce, “Did you replace out the truth?”

Bryce paled. “I did. I—”

Steps sounded down the hall. Far away, but approaching. The Hind went still. “Pollux.”

Her hearing had to be better than his. Or she knew the cadence of the bastard’s steps so well she could tell from a distance.

“We have to make it appear real,” she said to Bryce, to Ruhn, voice pleading, utterly desperate. “The information lines can’t be broken.” Her voice cracked. “Do you understand?”

Bryce did, apparently. She smirked. “I shouldn’t enjoy this so much.”

Before Ruhn could react, his sister punched the shifter in the face. Sent her sprawling. He shouted, and those footsteps down the hall turned into a run.

Bryce leapt upon the Hind, fists flying, and the Harpy’s blood on the floor smeared all over them both. Hunt struggled against his chains, and Ruhn got to his feet, lunging toward the females—

Pollux appeared in the doorway.

He beheld the dead Harpy, beheld Bryce bloodied with the Hind beneath her, being pummeled, beheld Ruhn advancing, and drew his sword.

Ruhn could have sworn the Hind whispered something in Bryce’s ear before Pollux grabbed Bryce by the neck and hauled her off the other female.

“Hello, Princess,” the monster crooned.

Hunt had no words in his head as the male he hated above all others grabbed his mate by the neck. Held her off the floor so that the tips of her sneakers dragged on the bloodied stone.

“Look what you did to my friend,” Pollux said in that dead, soulless voice. “And to my lover.”

“I’ll do the same to you,” Bryce managed to say, feet kicking blindly.

“Put her the fuck down,” Hunt snarled.

Pollux sneered at him, and did no such thing.

The Hind had managed to pull her sword from the Harpy’s body and point it at Ruhn. “Back against the wall or she dies.” Her voice was flat and low—as Hunt had always heard it. Not at all like the softer, higher register of a moment before.

Agent Daybright hadn’t needed saving after all. And the Hind … the female that Hunt had seen so mercilessly stride through the world …

She was a rebel. Had saved their asses that day in the waters off Ydra by summoning the city-ship with the calling stone. It hadn’t been Bryce’s light at all. We got your message, they’d said.

Ruhn looked like he’d been punched in the gut. In the soul.

But Pollux finally lowered Bryce to the ground, an arm wrapping around her middle as he grinned at Hunt. He sniffed Bryce’s hair. Hunt’s vision went black with rage as Pollux said, “This is going to be so satisfying.”

Bryce was shaking. She knew—whatever the truth was about the Asteri, about all of this, she knew. They had to get her out, so that information wouldn’t die here.

So she wouldn’t die here.

The next few minutes were a blur. Guards flowed in. Hunt found himself being hauled to his feet, Bryce chained beside him, Ruhn on her other side, the Hind stalking next to Pollux as they walked from the dungeons to an elevator bay.

“Their Graces await you,” the Hind said with such unfeeling ice that even Hunt bought it, and wondered if he’d imagined the female helping them. Imagined that she’d risked everything to save Ruhn from the Harpy.

From the way Ruhn was glaring at the Hind, Hunt could only guess what the prince was thinking.

They entered the elevator, the Hind and Pollux facing them. The Hammer smirked at Hunt.

If they could kill Pollux … But cameras monitored this elevator. The halls. The Hind would be revealed.

Bryce was still shaking beside him. He hooked his fingers through hers, sticky with blood—as much movement as his chains would allow.

He tried not to glance down when he felt her own chains. The manacles were loose. Unlocked. Only Bryce’s fingertips held them in place—the Hind hadn’t secured them. Bryce met Hunt’s stare. Pained and full of love.

The Hind had known it, too. That Bryce, with the intel she carried, had to get out.

Was the Hind planning something? Had she whispered a plan in Bryce’s ear?

Bryce said nothing. Just held his hand—for the last time, he realized as the elevator shot up through the crystal palace.

He was holding his mate’s hand for the last time.

Ruhn stared at the female he’d thought he knew. At her impassive, beautiful face. Her empty golden eyes.

It was a mask. He’d seen the real face moments ago. Had joined his body and soul with hers days ago. He knew what fire burned there.

Night.

Her voice was a distant, soft plea in his mind. Like Lidia was trying to replace a way to link their thoughts again, like the crystal in his pocket had yet again forged a path. Night.

Ruhn ignored the begging voice. The way it broke as she said, Ruhn.

He fortified the walls of his mind. Brick by brick.

Ruhn. Lidia banged on the walls of his mind.

So he encased it with iron. With black steel.

Pollux smiled at him. Slid a hand around the Hind’s blood-splattered throat and kissed under her ear. “Do you like the way my lover looks, princeling?”

Something lethal snapped free at that hand on her neck. The way it squeezed, and the slight glimmer of pain in Lidia’s eyes—

He’d hurt her. Pollux had hurt her, again and again, and she’d voluntarily submitted so she could keep feeding the rebels intel. She’d endured a monster like Pollux for this.

“Maybe we’ll put on a show for you before the end,” Pollux said, and licked up the column of Lidia’s neck, lapping up the blood splattered there.

Ruhn bared his teeth in a silent snarl. He’d kill him. Slowly and thoroughly, punishing him for every touch, every hand he’d put on Lidia in pain and torment.

He had no idea where that landed him. Why he wanted and needed that steel-clad wall between him and Lidia, even as his blood howled to murder Pollux. How he could abhor her and need her, be drawn to her, in the same breath.

Pollux laughed against her skin, then pulled away. Lidia smiled coolly. Like it all meant nothing, like she felt nothing at all.

But that voice against the walls of his mind shouted, Ruhn!

She banged against the black steel and stone, over and over. Her voice broke again, Ruhn!

Ruhn locked her out.

She’d taken countless lives—but she’d worked to save them, too. Did it change anything? He’d known Day was someone high up—he’d have been a fool to think anyone with that level of clearance with the Asteri would come without complications. But for it to be her … What the Hel did it even say about him, that he was capable of feeling what he did for someone like her?

His ally was his enemy. His enemy was his lover. He focused on the gore splattered on her.

Lidia had so much blood on her hands that there would never be any washing it away.

Bryce knew no one was coming to save them. Knew it was likely her fault. She could barely stand to feel Hunt’s fingers against hers as they walked down the long crystal hallway. Couldn’t stand the stickiness of the Harpy’s blood as it dried on her skin.

She’d never seen a hall so long. A wall of windows stretched along one side, overlooking the palace grounds and ancient city beyond. On the other side, busts of the Asteri in their various forms frowned down upon them from atop pedestals.

Their masters. Their overlords. The parasites who had lured them all into this world. Who had fed off them for fifteen thousand years.

Rigelus wouldn’t have told her so much if he planned to ever let her go again.

She wished she’d called her mom and Randall. Wished she could hear their voices one more time. Wished she’d made things right with Juniper. Wished she’d lain low and been normal and lived out a long, happy life with Hunt.

It wouldn’t have been normal, though. It would have been contented ignorance. And any children they had … their power would one day have also been siphoned off to fuel these cities and the monsters who ruled them.

The cycle had to stop somewhere. Other worlds had managed to overthrow them. Hel had managed to kick them out.

But Bryce knew she and Hunt and Ruhn wouldn’t be the ones to stop the cycle. That task would be left to others.

Cormac would continue to fight. Maybe Tharion and Hypaxia and Ithan would pick up the cause. Perhaps Fury, too.

Gods, did Jesiba know? She’d kept Parthos’s remaining books—knowing the Asteri would want to wipe out the narrative that contradicted their own sanctioned history. So Jesiba had to know what kind of beings ruled here, didn’t she?

The Hind led their group down the hall, Pollux at their backs. At the far, far end of the passage, Bryce could make out a small arch.

A quartz Gate.

Bryce’s blood chilled. Did Rigelus plan to have her open it as some sort of test before cracking wide the Rifts?

She’d do it. Rigelus had Hunt and Ruhn in his claws. She knew her mate and brother would tell her that their lives weren’t worth it, but … weren’t they?

The Hind turned a third of the way down the hall, toward a pair of colossal open doors.

Seven thrones towered on a dais at the far end of the cavernous, crystal space. All but one lay empty. And the center throne, the occupied one … it glowed, full of firstlight. Funneling it right into the being who sat atop it.

Something feral opened an eye in Bryce’s soul. And snarled.

“I suppose you’re pleased to have added yet another angel to your kill list with the death of the Harpy,” the Bright Hand of the Asteri drawled to Bryce, stare sweeping over the blood caked on her. “I do hope you’re ready to pay for it.”