House of Sky and Breath

Danika realized that the shifters are Fae.”

Pages of notes on Midgard had been pinned to the wall, along with drawings of creatures.

Ideal world located. Indigenous life not sustainable, but conditions prime for colonization. Have contacted others to share bounties.

“We did unspeakable things during the First
Wars. We yielded our true nature. Lost sight of it, then lost it forever. Became what we are now. We say we are free wolves, yet we have the collar of the Asteri around our necks. Their leashes are long, and we let them tame us. Now we do not know how to get back to what we were, what we might have been. That was what my grandfather told me. What I told Sabine, though she did not care to listen. What I told Danika, who …” His hand shook. “I think she might have led us back, you know. To what we were before we arrived here and became the Asteri’s creatures inside and out.”

Luna guard me, your bow bright against the darkness, your arrows like silver fire shooting into Hel—”

“She was here. She and all of the newly dead from the past several centuries. Just long enough that their living descendants and loved ones either forget or don’t come asking. They dwell here until then in relative comfort—unless they make themselves a nuisance and I decide to send them into the Gate sooner. But when the dead are forgotten, their names no longer whispered on the wind … then they are herded through the Gate to become firstlight. Or secondlight, as it is called when the power comes from the dead. Ashes to ashes and all that.

Like a long-dead king of old left to rot in some barrow, who had emerged to make himself master of this land.

The darkness paused. “You are impertinent as well. Do you not know where I come from? My father was the Void, the Being That Existed Before. Chaos was his bride and my dam. It is to them that we shall all one day return, and their mighty powers that run in my blood.”

and his favorite subject in school had been lunch.

Ruhn snarled, getting in her face. “What the fuck is your point?”

She snarled right back. “My point is that if you are not careful, if you are not smart, you will find yourself giving up pieces of your soul before it’s too late. You will wind up dead.”

“And?”

She stilled. “How can you ask that so cavalierly?”

He shrugged. “I’m nobody,” he said.

“Yes.” Hypaxia smiled sadly at Ithan. “I’m sorry for your loss. And that you’ve learned the truth.”

“How do you know the truth?” Ithan asked.

“The dead have little reason to lie.”