House of Earth and Blood

Bryce contemplated the drawing. “It … There was never a mention of a fucking demon in the research I did on the Horn.” She met his gaze. “No one put this together two years ago?”

“I think it’s taken two years to put it together,” Ruhn said carefully. “This volume was deep in the Fae Archives, with the stuff that’s not allowed to be scanned. None of your research would have ever pulled it up. The entire damn thing was in the Old Language of the Fae.” And had taken him most of the night to translate. Throwing in the lingering fog of the mirthroot hadn’t helped.

Bryce’s brow furrowed. “But the Horn was broken—it basically became a dud, right?”

“Right,” Ruhn said. “During the final battle of the First Wars, Prince Pelias and the Prince of the Pit faced each other. The two of them fought for like three fucking days, until the Star-Eater struck the fatal blow. But not before Pelias was able to summon all the Horn’s strength, and banished the Prince of the Pit, his brethren, and their armies back to Hel. He sealed the Northern Rift forever—so only small cracks in it or summonings with salt can bring them over now.”

Athalar frowned. “So you mean to tell me this deadly artifact, which the Prince of the Pit literally bred a new demon species to hunt, was just sitting here? In this temple? And no one from this world or Hel tried to take it until that blackout? Why?”

Bryce met Hunt’s disbelieving stare. “The Horn cracked in two when Pelias sealed the Northern Rift. Its power was broken. The Fae and Asteri tried for years to renew it through magic and spells and all that crap, but no luck. It was given a place of honor in the Asteri Archives, but when they established Lunathion a few millennia later, they had it dedicated to the temple here.”

Ruhn shook his head. “That the Fae allowed for the artifact to be given over suggests they’d dismissed its worth—that even my father might have forgotten its importance.” Until it was stolen—and he’d gotten it into his head that it would be a rallying symbol of power during a possible war.

Bryce added, “I thought it was just a replica until Jesiba made me start looking for it.” She turned to Ruhn. “So you think someone has been summoning this demon to hunt for the Horn? But why, when it no longer has any power? And how does it explain any of the deaths? You think the victims somehow … had contact with the Horn, and it brought the kristallos right to them?” She went on before either of them could answer, “And why the two-year gap?”

Hunt mused, “Maybe the murderer waited until things calmed down enough to resume searching.”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Ruhn admitted. “It doesn’t seem like coincidence that the Horn went missing right before this demon showed up, though, and for the murders to be starting again—”

“Could mean someone is hunting for the Horn once more,” Bryce finished, frowning.

Hunt said, “The kristallos’s presence in Lunathion suggests the Horn is still inside the city walls.”

Bryce pinned Ruhn with a look. “Why does the Autumn King suddenly want it?”

Ruhn chose his words carefully. “Call it pride. He wants it returned to the Fae. And wants me to find it quietly.”

Athalar asked him, “But why ask you to look for the Horn?”

The shadows veiling them rippled. “Because Prince Pelias’s Starborn power was woven into the Horn itself. And it’s in my blood. My father thinks I might have some sort of preternatural gift to find it.” He admitted, “When I was browsing the Archives last night, this book … jumped out at me.”

“Literally?” Bryce asked, brows high.

Ruhn said, “It just felt like it … shimmered. I don’t fucking know. All I know is I was down there for hours, and then I sensed the book, and when I saw that illustration of the Horn … There it was. The crap I translated confirmed it.”

“So the kristallos can track the Horn,” Bryce said, eyes glittering. “But so can you.”

Athalar’s mouth curled in a crooked grin, catching Bryce’s drift. “We find the demon, we find who’s behind this. And if we have the Horn …”

Ruhn grimaced. “The kristallos will come to us.”

Bryce glanced to the empty-handed statue behind them. “Better get cracking, Ruhn.”

Hunt leaned against the entry pillars atop the steps leading into Luna’s Temple, his phone at his ear. He’d left Quinlan inside with her cousin, needing to make this phone call before they could sort out logistics. He would have made the call right there, but the moment he’d pulled up his contacts list, he’d earned a snipe from Bryce about mobile phones in sacred spaces.

Cthona spare him. Declining to tell her to fuck off, he’d decided to spare them a public scene and stalked out through the cypress-lined courtyard and to the front steps.

Five temple acolytes emerged from the sprawling villa behind the temple itself, bearing brooms and hoses to clean the temple steps and the flagstones beyond it for their midday washing.

Unnecessary, he wanted to tell the young females. With the misting rain yet again gracing the city, the hoses were superfluous.

Teeth gritted, he listened to the phone ring and ring. “Pick the fuck up,” he muttered.

A dark-skinned temple acolyte—black-haired, white-robed, and no more than twelve—gaped at him as she walked past, clutching a broom to her chest. He nearly winced, realizing the portrait of wrath he now presented, and checked his expression.

The Fae girl still kept back, the golden crescent moon dangling from a delicate chain across her brow glinting in the gray light. A waxing moon—until she became a full-fledged priestess upon reaching maturity, when she would trade the crescent for the full circle of Luna. And whenever her immortal body began to age and fade, her cycle vanishing with it, she would again trade the charm, this time for a waning crescent.

The priestesses all had their own reasons for offering themselves to Luna. For forsaking their lives beyond the temple grounds and embracing the goddess’s eternal maidenhood. Just as Luna had no mate or lover, so they would live.

Hunt had always thought celibacy seemed like a bore. Until Shahar had ruined him for anyone else.

Hunt offered the shrinking acolyte his best attempt at a smile. To his surprise, the Fae girl offered a small one back. The girl had courage.

Justinian Gelos answered on the sixth ring. “How’s babysitting?”

Hunt straightened. “Don’t sound so amused.”

Justinian huffed a laugh. “You sure Micah’s not punishing you?”

Hunt had considered the question a great deal in the past two days. Across the empty street, the palm trees dotting the rain-soft grasses of the Oracle’s Park shone in the gray light, the domed onyx building of the Oracle’s Temple veiled in the mists that had rolled in over the river.

Even at midday, the Oracle’s Park was near-empty, save for the hunched, slumbering forms of the desperate Vanir and humans who wandered the paths and gardens, waiting for their turn to enter the incense-filled hallways.

And if the answers they sought weren’t what they’d hoped … Well, the white-stoned temple on whose steps Hunt now stood could offer some solace.

Hunt glanced over his shoulder to the dim temple interior just visible through the towering bronze doors. In the firstlight from a row of shimmering braziers, he could just barely make out the gleam of red hair in the quiet gloom of the inner sanctum, shining like molten metal as Bryce talked animatedly with Ruhn.