House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City) Read Online Free PDF

circa 125 V.E.
    Bryce lifted her mobile and snapped a photo, pulling up her messaging thread with Hunt Athalar Is Better at Sunball Than I Am .
    She couldn’t deny that. They’d gone to the local sunball field one sunny afternoon last week to play, and Hunt had promptly wiped the floor with her. He’d changed his name in her phone on the way home.
    With a few sweeps of her thumbs, the picture zoomed off into the ether, along with her note: Long-lost relative of yours?
    She slid her phone into her clutch to find her mother watching. “What?” Bryce muttered.
    But Ember only motioned toward the frieze. “Who does it depict?”
    Bryce checked the sliver of writing in the lower right corner. “It just says The Making of the Sword .”
    Her mother peered at the half-faded etching. “In what language?”
    Bryce tried to keep her posture relaxed. “The Old Language of the Fae.”
    “Ah.” Ember pursed her lips, and Randall wisely drifted off through the crowd to study a towering statue of Luna aiming her bow toward the heavens, two hunting dogs at her feet and a stag nuzzling her hip. “You stayed fluent in it?”
    “Yep,” Bryce said. Then added, “It’s come in handy.”
    “I’d imagine so.” Ember tucked back a strand of her black hair.
    Bryce moved to the next frieze dangling from the distant ceiling on near-invisible wires. “This one’s of the First Wars.” She scanned the relief carved into the ten-foot expanse of marble. “It’s about …” She schooled her expression into neutrality.
    “What?” Ember stepped closer to the depiction of an army of winged demons swooping down from the skies upon a terrestrial army gathered on the plain below.
    “This one’s about Hel’s armies arriving to conquer Midgard during the First Wars,” Bryce finished, trying to keep her voice bland. To block out the flash of talons and fangs and leathery wings—the boom of her rifle resounding through her bones, the rivers of blood in the streets, the screaming and screaming and—
    “You’d think this one would be a popular piece these days,” Randall observed, returning to their sides to study the frieze.
    Bryce didn’t reply. She didn’t particularly enjoy discussing the events of the past spring with her parents. Especially not in the middle of a packed theater lobby.
    Randall jerked his chin to the inscription. “What’s this one say?”
    Keenly aware of her mother marking her every blink, Bryce kept her stance unaffected as she skimmed the text in the Old Language of the Fae.
    It wasn’t that she was trying to hide what she’d endured. She had talked to her mom and dad about it a few times. But it always resulted in Ember crying, or ranting about the Vanir who’d locked out so many innocents, and the weight of all her mother’s emotions on top of all of hers …
    It was easier, Bryce had realized, to not bring it up. To let herself talk it out with Hunt, or sweat it out in Madame Kyrah’s dance classes twice a week. Baby steps toward being ready for actual talk therapy, as Juniper kept suggesting, but both had helped immensely.
    Bryce silently translated the text. “This is a piece from a larger collection—likely one that would have wrapped around the entire exterior of a building, each slab telling a different part of the story. This one says: Thus the seven Princes of Hel looked in envy upon Midgard and unleashed their unholy hordes upon our united armies .”
    “Apparently nothing’s changed in fifteen thousand years,” Ember said, shadows darkening her eyes.
    Bryce kept her mouth shut. She’d never told her mom about Prince Aidas—how he’d helped her twice now, and had seemed unaware of his brothers’ dark plans. If her mom knew she’d consorted with the fifth Prince of Hel, they’d have to redefine the concept of going berserk .
    But then Ember said, “Couldn’t you get a job here ?” She gestured with a tan hand to the CCB’s grand entrance, its ever-changing art exhibits in the