House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City) (73 page)

91

S
he should be dead.

But those were her fingers, curling on the rubble. That was her breath, sawing in and out.

The brimstone had decimated the square, the city was now in smoldering ruins, yet the Gate still stood. Her light had gone out, though, the quartz again an icy white. Fires sputtered around her, lighting the damage in flickering relief.

Clumps of ashes rained down, mixing with the embers.

Bryce’s ears buzzed faintly, yet not as badly as they had after the first blast.

It wasn’t possible. She’d spied the shimmering golden brimstone missile arcing past, knew it’d strike a few blocks away, and that death would soon find her. The Gate must have shielded her, somehow.

Bryce eased into a kneeling position with a groan. The bombardment, at least, had ceased. Only a few buildings stood. The skeletons of cars still burned around her. The acrid smoke rose in a column that blotted out the first of the evening stars.

And—and in the shadows, those were stirring demons. Bile burned her throat. She had to get up. Had to move while they were down.

Her legs wouldn’t cooperate. She wiggled her toes inside her sneakers, just to make sure they could work, but … she couldn’t rise off the ground. Her body refused to obey.

A clump of ash landed on the torn knee of her leggings.

Her hands began to shake. It wasn’t a piece of ash.

It was a gray feather.

Bryce twisted to look behind herself. Her head emptied out. A scream broke from her, rising from so deep that she wondered if it was the sound of the world shredding apart.

Hunt lay sprawled on the ground, his back a bloodied, burned mess, and his legs …

There was nothing left of them but ribbons. Nothing left of his right arm but splattered blood on pavement. And through his back, where his wings had been—

That was a bloody, gaping hole.

She moved on instinct, scrambling over concrete and metal and blood.

He’d shielded her against the brimstone. Had somehow escaped Sandriel and come here. To save her.

“
Pleasepleasepleaseplease
”

She turned him over, searching for any hint of life, of breathing—

His mouth moved. Just slightly.

Bryce sobbed, pulling his head into her lap. “Help!” she called. No answer beyond an unearthly baying in the fire-licked darkness. “Help!” she yelled again, but her voice was so hoarse it barely carried across the square. Randall had told her about the terrible power of the Asterian Guard’s brimstone missiles. How the spells woven into the condensed angelic magic slowed healing in Vanir long enough for them to bleed out. To die.

Blood coated so much of Hunt’s face that she could barely see the skin beneath. Only the faint flutter of his throat told her he still lived.

And the wounds that should have been healing … they leaked and gushed blood. Arteries had been severed. Vital arteries—

“
HELP!
” she screamed.

But no one answered.

The brimstone’s blasts had downed the helicopter.

Only Fury’s skill kept them alive, though they’d still crashed, flipping twice, before landing somewhere in Moonwood.

Tharion bled from his head, Fury had a gash in her leg, Flynn and Amelie both bore broken bones, and Ruhn … He didn’t bother to think about his own wounds. Not as the smoke-filled, burning night became laced with approaching snarls. But the brimstone had halted—at least they had that. He prayed the Asterian Guard would need a good while before they could muster the power to form more of them.

Ruhn forced himself into movement by sheer will.

Two of the duffels of weapons had come free of their bindings and been lost in the crash. Flynn and Fury began divvying out the remaining guns and knives, working quickly while Ruhn assessed the state of the one intact machine gun he’d ripped from the chopper’s floor.

Hypaxia’s voice cracked over the miraculously undamaged radio, “We have eyes on the Old Square Gate,” she said. Ruhn paused, waiting for the news. Not daring to hope.

The last Ruhn had seen of Athalar was the angel plunging toward Bryce while the Asterian Guard fired those glowing golden missiles over the walls like some sick fireworks show. Then the citywide explosions had sundered the world.

“Athalar is down,” Declan announced gravely. “Bryce lives.” Ruhn offered up a silent prayer of thanks to Cthona for her mercy. Another pause. “Correction, Athalar made it, but barely. His injuries are … Shit.” His swallow was audible. “I don’t think there’s any chance of survival.”

Tharion cocked a rifle to his shoulder, peering through the scope into the darkness. “We’ve got about a dozen demons sizing us up from that brick building over there.”

“Six more over here,” Fury said, also using the scope on her
rifle. Amelie Ravenscroft limped badly as she shifted into wolf form with a flash of light and bared her teeth at the darkness.

If they didn’t shut the portals in the other Gates, only two options existed: retreat or death.

“They’re getting curious,” Flynn murmured without taking his eye from the scope of his gun. “Do we have a plan?”

“The river’s at our backs,” Tharion said. “If we’re lucky, my people might come to our aid.” The Blue Court lay far enough below the surface to have avoided the brimstone’s wrath. They could rally.

But Bryce and Hunt remained in the Old Square. Ruhn said, “We’re thirty blocks from the Heart Gate. We go down the river-walk, then cut inland at Main.” He added, “That’s where I’m headed, at least.” They all nodded, grim-faced.

Tell Ruhn I forgive him—for all of it
.

The words echoed through Ruhn’s blood. They had to keep going, even if the demons picked them off one by one. He just hoped they’d reach his sister in time to find something to save.

Bryce knelt over Hunt, his life spilling out all around her. And in the smoldering, acrid quiet, she began whispering.

“I believe it happened for a reason. I believe it all happened for a reason.” She stroked his bloody hair, her voice shaking. “I believe it wasn’t for nothing.”

She looked toward the Gate. Gently set Hunt down amid the rubble. She whispered again, rising to her feet, “I believe it happened for a reason. I believe it all happened for a reason. I believe it wasn’t for nothing.”

She walked from Hunt’s body as he bled behind her. Wended her way through the debris and rubble. The fence around the Gate had been warped, peeled away. But the quartz archway still stood, its bronze plaque and the dial pad’s gems intact as she halted before them.

Bryce whispered again, “I believe it wasn’t for nothing.”

She laid her palm on the dial pad’s bronze disk.

The metal was warm against Bryce’s fingers, as it had been
when she’d touched it that final day with Danika. Its power zinged through her, sucking the fee for the usage: a drop of her magic.

The Gates had been used as communication devices in the past—but the only reason words could pass between them was the power that connected them. They all sat atop linked ley lines. A veritable matrix of energy.

The Gate wasn’t just a prism. It was a conduit. And she had the Horn in her very skin. Had proved it could close a portal to Hel.

Bryce whispered into the little intercom in the center of the pad’s arc of gems, “Hello?”

No one answered. She said, “If you can hear me, come to the Gate. Any Gate.”

Still nothing. She said, “My name is Bryce Quinlan. I’m in the Old Square. And … and I think I’ve figured out how we can stop this. How we can fix this.”

Silence. None of the other gems lit up to indicate the presence or voice of another person in another district, touching the disk on their end.

“I know it’s bad right now,” she tried again. “I know it’s so, so bad, and dark, and … I know it feels impossible. But if you can make it to another Gate, just … please. Please come.”

She took a shuddering breath.

“You don’t need to do anything,” she said. “All you need to do is just put your hand on the disk. That’s all I need—just another person on the line.” Her hand shook, and she pressed it harder to the metal. “The Gate is a conduit of power—a lightning rod that feeds into every other Gate throughout the city. And I need someone on the other end, linked to me through that vein.” She swallowed. “I need someone to Anchor me. So I can make the Drop.”

The words whispered out into the world.

Bryce’s rasping voice overrode the sounds of the demons rallying again around her. “The firstlight I’ll generate by making the Drop will spread from this Gate to the others. It’ll light up
everything
, send those demons racing away. It’ll heal everything it touches. Every
one
it touches. And I—” She took a deep breath. “I am
Starborn Fae, and I bear Luna’s Horn in my body. With the power of the firstlight I generate, I can shut the portals to Hel. I did it here—I can do it everywhere else. But I need a link—and the power from my Drop to do it.”

Still no one answered. No life stirred, beyond the beasts in the deepest shadows.

“Please,” Bryce begged, her voice breaking.

Silently, she prayed for any one of those six other gems to light up, to show that just one person, in any district, would answer her plea.

But there was only the crackling nothingness.

She was alone. And Hunt was dying.

Bryce waited five seconds. Ten seconds. No one answered. No one came.

Swallowing another sob, she took a shuddering breath and let go of the disk.

Hunt’s breaths had grown few and far between. She crawled back to him, hands shaking. But her voice was calm as she again slid his head into her lap. Stroked his blood-soaked face. “It’s going to be all right,” she said. “Help is coming, Hunt. The medwitches are on their way.” She shut her eyes against her tears. “We’re going to be all right,” she lied. “We’re going to go home, where Syrinx is waiting for us. We’re going to go home. You and me. Together. We’ll have that afterward, like you promised. But only if you hold on, Hunt.”

His breathing rattled in his chest. A death rattle. She bent over him, inhaling his scent, the strength in him. And then she said it—the three words that meant more than anything. She whispered them into his ear, sending them with all she had left in her.

The final truth, the one she needed him to hear.

Hunt’s breathing spread and thinned. Not much longer.

Bryce couldn’t stop her tears as they dropped onto Hunt’s cheeks, cleaning away the blood in clear tracks.

Light it up
, Danika whispered to her. Into her heart.

“I tried,” she whispered back. “Danika, I tried.”

Light it up
.

Bryce wept. “It didn’t work.”

Light it up.
Urgency sharpened the words. As if … As if …

Bryce lifted her head. Looked toward the Gate. To the plaque and its gems.

She waited. Counted her breaths.
One. Two. Three.

The gems remained dark.
Four. Five. Six.

Nothing at all. Bryce swallowed hard and turned back to Hunt. One last time. He’d go, and then she’d follow, once more brimstone fell or the demons worked up the courage to attack her.

She took another breath.
Seven
.

“Light it up.” The words filled the Old Square. Filled every square in the city.

Bryce whipped her head around to look at the Gate as Danika’s voice sounded again. “Light it up, Bryce.”

The onyx stone of the Bone Quarter glowed like a dark star.

92

B
ryce’s face crumpled as she lurched to her feet, sprinting to the Gate.

She didn’t care how it was possible as Danika said again, “
Light it up
.”

Then Bryce was laughing and sobbing as she screamed, “
LIGHT IT UP, DANIKA! LIGHT IT UP, LIGHT IT UP, LIGHT IT UP
!”

Bryce slammed her palm onto the bronze disk of the Gate.

And soul to soul with the friend whom she had not forgotten, the friend who had not forgotten her, even in death, Bryce made the Drop.

Stunned silence filled the conference room as Bryce plunged into her power.

Declan Emmett didn’t look up from the feeds he monitored, his heart thundering.

“It’s not possible,” the Autumn King said. Declan was inclined to agree.

Sabine Fendyr murmured, “Danika had a small kernel of energy left, the Under-King said. A bit of self that remained.”

“Can a dead soul even serve as an Anchor?” Queen Hypaxia asked.

“No,” Jesiba replied, with all the finality of the Under-King’s emissary. “No, it can’t.”

Silence rippled through the room as they realized what they were witnessing. An untethered, solo Drop. Utter free fall. Bryce might as well have leapt from a cliff and hoped to land safely.

Declan drew his eyes from the video feed and scanned the graph on one of his three computers—the one charting Bryce’s Drop, courtesy of the Eleusian system. “She’s approaching her power level.” Barely a blip past zero on the scale.

Hypaxia peered over his shoulder to study the graph. “She’s not slowing, though.”

Declan squinted at the screen. “She’s gaining speed.” He shook his head. “But—but she’s classified as a low-level.” Near-negligible, if he felt like being a dick about it.

Hypaxia said quietly, “But the Gate is not.”

Sabine demanded, “What do you mean?”

Hypaxia whispered, “I don’t think it’s a memorial plaque. On the Gate.” The witch pointed to the sign mounted on the glowing quartz, the bronze stark against the incandescent stone. “
The power shall always belong to those who give their lives to the city.
”

Bryce dropped further into power. Past the normal, respectable levels.

Queen Hypaxia said, “The plaque is a blessing.”

Declan’s breathing was uneven as he murmured, “The power of the Gates—the power given over by every soul who has ever touched it … every soul who has handed over a drop of their magic.”

He tried and failed to calculate just how many people, over how many centuries, had touched the Gates in the city. Had handed over a drop of their power, like a coin tossed in a fountain. Made a wish on that drop of yielded power.

People of every House. Every race. Millions and millions of drops of power fueled this solo Drop.

Bryce passed level after level after level. The Autumn King’s face went pale.

Hypaxia said, “Look at the Gates.”

The quartz Gates across the city began to glow. Red, then orange, then gold, then white.

Firstlight erupted from them. Lines of it speared out in every direction.

The lights flowed down the ley lines between the Gates, connecting them along the main avenues. It formed a perfect, six-pointed star.

The lines of light began to spread. Curving around the city walls. Cutting off the demons now aiming for the lands beyond.

Light met light met light met light.

Until the city was ringed with it. Until every street was glowing.

And Bryce was still making the Drop.

It was joy and life and death and pain and song and silence.

Bryce tumbled into power, and power tumbled into her, and she didn’t care, didn’t care, didn’t care, because it was Danika falling with her, Danika laughing with her as their souls twined.

She was here, she was here, she was here—

Bryce plunged into the golden light and song at the heart of the universe.

Danika let out a howl of joy, and Bryce echoed it.

Danika was here. It was enough.

“She’s passing Ruhn’s level,” Declan breathed, not believing it. That his friend’s party-girl sister had surpassed the prince himself. Surpassed Ruhn fucking Danaan.

Declan’s king was still as death as Bryce smashed past Ruhn’s ranking. This could change their very order. A powerful half-human princess with a star’s light in her veins … Fucking Hel.

Bryce began slowing at last. Nearing the Autumn King’s level. Declan swallowed.

The city was awash with her light. Demons fled from it, racing back through the voids, opting to brave the glowing Gates rather than be trapped in Midgard.

Light shot up from the Gates, seven bolts becoming one in the heart of the city—above the Old Square Gate. A highway of power. Of Bryce’s will.

The voids between Midgard and Hel began to shrink. As if the light itself was abhorrent. As if that pure, unrestrained firstlight could heal the world.

And it did. Buildings shattered by brimstone slid back into place. Rubble gathered into walls and streets and fountains. Wounded people became whole again.

Bryce slowed further.

Declan ground his teeth. The voids within the Gates became smaller and smaller.

Demons rushed back to Hel through the shrinking doorways. More and more of the city healed as the Horn closed the portals. As
Bryce
sealed the portals, the Horn’s power flowing through her, amplified by the firstlight she was generating.

“Holy gods,” someone was whispering.

The voids between worlds became slivers. Then nothing at all.

The Gates stood empty. The portals gone.

Bryce stopped at last. Declan studied the precise number of her power, just a decimal point above that of the Autumn King.

Declan let out a soft laugh, wishing Ruhn were here to see the male’s shocked expression.

The Autumn King’s face tightened and he growled at Declan, “I would not be so smug, boy.”

Declan tensed. “Why?”

The Autumn King hissed, “Because that girl may have used the Gates’ power to Drop to unforeseen levels, but she will not be able to make the Ascent.”

Declan’s fingers stilled on the keys of his laptop.

The Autumn King laughed mirthlessly. Not from malice, Declan realized—but something like pain. He’d never known the prick could feel such a thing.

Bryce slumped to the stones beside the Gate. Declan didn’t need medical monitors to know her heart had flatlined.

Her mortal body had died.

A clock on the computer showing the Eleusian system began counting down from a six-minute marker. The indicator of how long she had to make the Search and the Ascent, to let her mortal, aging body die, to face what lay within her soul, and race back up to life, into her full power. And emerge an immortal.

If she made the Ascent, the Eleusian system would register it, track it.

The Autumn King said hoarsely, “She made the Drop alone. Danika Fendyr is dead—she is not a true Anchor. Bryce has no way back to life.”