House of Earth and Blood

Everyone in the room, the two Governors included, blew out a breath. Someone puked, by the sound and reek from the far corner. Sure enough, a leopard shifter bolted through the doors, a hand over his mouth.

Micah leaned back in his chair, his eyes on the wood table before him. For a moment, no one spoke. As if they all needed to reel themselves back in. Even Sandriel.

Then Micah straightened, his wings rustling, and declared in a deep, clear voice, “I hereby commence this Valbaran Summit. All hail the Asteri and the stars they possess.”

The room echoed the words, albeit half-heartedly. As if everyone remembered that even in this land across the sea from Pangera, so far from the muddy battlefields and the shining crystal palace in a city of seven hills, even here, there was no escaping.

74

Bryce tried not to dwell on the fact that Hunt and the world knew what and who she really was. At least the press hadn’t caught wind of it, for whatever small mercy that was.

As if being a bastard princess meant anything. As if it said anything about her as a person. The shock on Hunt’s face was precisely why she hadn’t told him.

She’d torn up Jesiba’s check, and with it the centuries of debts.

None of it mattered now anyway. Hunt was gone.

She knew he was alive. She’d seen the news footage of the Summit’s opening procession. Hunt had looked just as he had before everything went to shit. Another small mercy.

She’d barely noticed the others arriving: Jesiba, Tharion, her sire, her brother … No, she’d just kept her eyes on that spot in the crowd, those gray wings that had now regrown.

Pathetic. She was utterly pathetic.

She would have done it. Would have gladly traded places with Hunt, even knowing what Sandriel would do to her. What Pollux would do to her.

Maybe it made her an idiot, as Ruhn said. Naïve.

Maybe she was lucky to have walked out of the Comitium lobby still breathing.

Maybe being attacked by that kristallos was payment for her fuckups.

She’d spent the past few days looking through the laws to see if there was anything to be done for Hunt. There wasn’t. She’d done the only two things that might have granted him his freedom: offered to buy him, and offered herself in his stead.

She didn’t believe Hunt’s bullshit last words to her. She would have said the same had she been in his place. Would have been as nasty as she could, if it would have gotten him to safety.

Bryce sat at the front desk in the showroom, staring at the blank computer screen. The city had been quiet these past two days. As if everyone’s attention was on the Summit, even though only a few of Crescent City’s leaders and citizens had gone.

She’d watched the news recaps only to catch another glimpse of Hunt—without any luck.

She slept in his room every night. Had put on one of his T-shirts and crawled between the sheets that smelled of him and pretended he was lying in the dark beside her.

An envelope with the Comitium listed as its return address had arrived at the gallery three days ago. Her heart had thundered as she’d ripped it open, wondering if he’d been able to get a message out—

The white opal had fallen to the desk. Isaiah had written a reserved note, as if aware that every piece of mail was read:

Naomi found this on the barge. Thought you might want it back.

Then he’d added, as if on second thought, He’s sorry.

She’d slid the stone into her desk drawer.

Sighing, Bryce opened it now, peering at the milky gem. She ran her finger over its cool surface.

“Athie looks miserable,” Lehabah observed, floating by Bryce’s head. She pointed to the tablet, where Bryce had paused her third replay of the opening procession on Hunt’s face. “So do you, BB.”

“Thank you.”

At her feet, Syrinx stretched out, yawning. His curved claws glinted.

“So what do we do now?”

Bryce’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

Lehabah wrapped her arms around herself, floating in midair. “We just go back to normal?”

“Yes.”

Her flickering eyes met Bryce’s. “What is normal, anyway?”

“Seems boring to me.”

Lehabah smiled slightly, turning a soft rose color.

Bryce offered one in return. “You’re a good friend, Lele. A really good friend.” She sighed again, setting the sprite’s flame guttering. “I’m sorry if I haven’t been such a good one to you at times.”

Lehabah waved a hand, going scarlet. “We’ll get through this, BB.” She perched on Bryce’s shoulder, her warmth seeping into skin Bryce hadn’t realized was so cold. “You, me, and Syrie. Together, we’ll get through this.”

Bryce held up a finger, letting Lehabah take it in both of her tiny, shimmering hands. “Deal.”

75

Ruhn had anticipated that the Summit would be intense, vicious, flat-out dangerous—each moment spent wondering whether someone’s throat would be ripped out. Just as it was at every one he’d attended.

This time, his only enemy seemed to be boredom.

It had taken Sandriel all of two hours to tell them that the Asteri had ordered more troops to the front from every House. There was no point in arguing. It wasn’t going to change. The order had come from the Asteri.

Talk turned to the new trade proposals. And then circled and circled and circled, even Micah getting caught in the semantics of who did what and got what and on and on until Ruhn was wondering if the Asteri had come up with this meeting as some form of torture.

He wondered how many of the Asterian Guard were sleeping behind their masks. He’d caught a few of the lesser members of the various delegations nodding off. But Athalar was alert—every minute, the assassin seemed to be listening. Watching.

Maybe that was what the Governors wanted: all of them so bored and desperate to end this meeting that they eventually agreed to terms that weren’t to their advantage.

There were a few holdouts, still. Ruhn’s father being one, along with the mer and the witches.

One witch in particular.

Queen Hypaxia spoke little, but he noticed that she, too, listened to every word being bandied about, her rich brown eyes full of wary intelligence despite her youth.

It had been a shock to see her the first day—that familiar face in this setting, with her crown and royal robes. To know he’d been talking to his would-be betrothed for weeks now with no fucking idea.

He’d managed to slip between two of her coven members as they filed into the dining hall the first day, and, like an asshole, demanded, “Why didn’t you say anything? About who you really are?”

Hypaxia held her lunch tray with a grace better suited to holding a scepter. “You didn’t ask.”

“What the Hel were you doing in that shop?”

Her dark eyes shuttered. “My sources told me that evil was stirring in the city. I came to see for myself—discreetly.” It was why she’d been at the scene of the temple guard’s murder, he realized. And there the night Athalar and Bryce had been attacked in the park. “I also came to see what it was like to be … ordinary. Before this.” She waved with a hand toward her crown.

“Do you know what my father expects of you? And me?”