#House of Flame and Shsdow

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"You said you had an eight-pointed star tattooed on you," Bryce explained. "And you found the chamber with the eight-pointed star in the Prison, too."

Nesta lifted her head. "So?"

"So I want you to take the Starsword." Bryce held the blade between them. "Gwydion- whatever you call it here. The age of the Starborn is over on Midgard. It ends with me."

"I don't understand."

But Bryce began backing toward the portal, taking Hunt's hand, and smiled again at the female, at her mate, at their world, as the Northern Rift began to close. "I think that eight-pointed star was tattooed on you for a reason. Take that sword and go figure out why."

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"You're a badass," Brann said, and added, "Mom."

Even as her heart glowed with joy at the word, Lidia dared glance over his shoulder to find that Renki and Davit were grinning as broadly as Brann. Happy for her-for all of them. Her boys had a beautiful family, and perhaps, if everyone was all right with it, it was one she could find a place in. Find joy in.

Brann leaned in, pressing a kiss to Lidia's cheek that she knew she'd cherish for the rest of her existence. Then he walked over to Ruhn, and Lidia could only blink as Brann threw his arms around Ruhn, too, hugging him tight.

"Thanks," Brann said. "For what you were gonna do. To save us—and our mom."

Ruhn clapped Brann on the back, and Lidia's chest filled with so much brightness she could barely contain it all.

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Lidia screamed as Pollux unleashed a lethal spear of his power toward Brann.

But Lidia ran, swift as the wind. Swifter than a bullet.

Ruhn didn't understand what he saw next: How Lidia reached Brann in time. How she threw herself over her son, knocking him to the ground as she burst into white-hot flames.

They erupted from her like a brimstone missile, blasting Pollux off his feet. Not some freak accident or bomb, but fire magic, pouring out of Lidia. Searing from her.

"Brann," she was panting down at her son, the boy untouched by the flame, scanning his stunned face, tugging the gag from his mouth. "Brannon." She stifled a sob around the boy's full name, but then Actaeon was there, hauling his brother away as best he could with the bonds still restraining them.

"What are you?" Ace breathed.

Still panting, blazing with fire, Lidia said, "An old bloodline," and got to her feet.

It was Daybright, as Ruhn had seen her in his mind. She'd presented herself—her true self—to him all this time.

"Get them out of here," Lidia said to Ruhn, hair floating up in a golden halo, embers swirling around her head. "Get the mer to a healer." It was a miracle that Tharion wasn't already dead, given the hole blasted through him.

Pollux got to his feet. "What the fuck is this?"

"Shifters, as they used to be," Lidia said, fire rippling from her mouth. "As Danika Fendyr told me we were. Now free of the Asteri's parasite." Lidia was glorious, wreathed in flame and blazing with fury.

Pollux's power surged again. "I'll kill you all the same, bitch."

"You can try," Lidia said, smiling.

Pollux ran at her, striking with his magic. The hallway shook, debris raining down—A wall of blue fire leapt between them. Pollux collided with it, then stuck. A fly in a burning web. Lidia stalked toward the angel as Pollux struggled against the flames.

"You signed your death warrant when you touched my sons," she said. And exhaled a breath. Flame rippled from her mouth into Pollux's flesh. Freed of any secrets, of any need to keep them, Lidia seemed to unleash all that she was.

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She had given everything for Midgard. For him.

That day last spring, when all hope had been lost, she had made the Drop alone. To save him, and to save the city-and she had done it from pure love. She had done it without expecting to come back.

Just as she must have jumped through this portal suspecting she'd never return.

Demons were spilling into the streets, and the Asterian Guard was still fighting, unaware that their remaining masters were headed toward obliteration. The mech-suits of the Fallen and their enemies clashed. Bryce had gone into death itself for him that day in the spring.

Hunt could do no less for her.

To escape death, he'd don its trappings. The Umbra Mortis in truth.

Not to be some instrument of Hel, but because Urd knew that there would be a female who would be kind and selfless and brave, who would give everything for her city, for her planet. And that she would need someone to give everything back to her.

Bryce had given him a life, and a beautiful one.

He didn't need all the photo evidence that had streamed in front of his face when he'd been in the Comitium's holding cell to realize it. She had brought joy, and laughter, and love, had pried him free of that cold, dark existence and pulled him into the light. Her light.

He wouldn't let it be extinguished.