House of Earth and Blood

As Bryce falls into the river, grappling with the demon, Ruhn and his friends rescue her. His comrades realize for the first time that Bryce is royalty.

The Summit begins with pomp and ceremony as the four magical houses send their representatives to the meeting. Hunt has been brought along in magic-negating handcuffs to watch the display. The two stars of the show are Sandriel, governor of northwest Pangera, and Micah, governor of Lunathion. Despite all the flamboyant posturing, everyone is cowed by the video appearance of the six Asteri. “Even from nearly six thousand miles away, Hunt could have sworn their power rippled into the conference room. Could have sworn it sucked out the warmth, the air, the life” (658).

The Asteri begin the meeting by acknowledging the new queen of the Valbaran witches, Hypaxia. To Ruhn’s surprise, this turns out to be none other than his medwitch friend. This is the same Hypaxia that his father is urging him to marry, though Hypaxia tells the prince that she isn’t in any hurry to marry anyone.

Having given their blessing, the Asteri exit the Summit. As the meeting drags on, Ruhn begins to communicate telepathically with Hunt. This is one of his Fae gifts. He wants to be sure the angel is alright and conveys his sympathy for Hunt’s plight. Hunt is only concerned that Bryce is safe.

While Jesiba is attending the Summit, Bryce is in charge of the gallery. She watches some of the news and goes back to research. Lehabah comforts her with the thought that they will get through this crisis together along with Syrinx.

The mundane procedural affairs of the Summit continue, with Sandriel and Micah riding down all objections to their policies. Hunt thinks, “None of it would matter, in the end. Sandriel and Micah would get what they wanted. And everything would remain the same” (669).

Three days into the Summit, Bryce is still minding the shop. With Jesiba away, she has left the security door unlocked and is spending most of her time with the books in the vault, trying to find a legal loophole to free Hunt.

Much to her surprise, Micah strolls down the stairs. Wary of the archangel’s presence, Bryce texts Jesiba and sends a video stream of everything happening in the vault. The video is broadcast on the monitors at the Summit so that everyone at the meeting can see what’s happening. Micah announces that he has come looking for Bryce because he believes she has Luna’s Horn.

The Summit attendees are riveted by the scene unfolding in the gallery vault. Micah explains that Bryce is the Horn, and he wants it. He plans to use its power to open a portal for his own advantage. “The one who possesses the Horn at full power can do anything. Perhaps establish oneself as an Asteri” (685).

Micah reveals that he has been searching for the Horn for years. He freely confesses to the bombing at the White Raven and the murders of most of the victims whose deaths Bryce and Hunt have been investigating. He also exploited Danika in his quest. Once she began working for Redner and saw the effects of synth, it occurred to her that it might be used to help the human rebels. Micah discovered her complicity in the rebellion and blackmailed her into stealing the Horn for him.

When she realizes that he wants to reconstitute the Horn using synth, Danika hides it with Bryce. She knows that Bryce’s amulet is powerful enough to cloak her from the kristallos beasts that Micah keeps releasing in the city to find the Horn. On the night Danika dies, Micah tries to force the secret from her, but she refuses to tell him, so he injects her with enough synth to kill her. It isn’t until Sandriel destroys Bryce’s amulet that the kristallos comes straight for her, and then Micah knows she is the target of his search.

Micah realizes that Danika hid the Horn by grinding it to dust and using the powder to ink the tattoo on Bryce’s back. The language of the tattoo is an arcane summoning command to awaken the Horn. After Micah injects Bryce with synth, the Horn will repair itself, and he can activate it. He wants to open a portal to bring in a new race of followers to shore up his power base. He expects the synth to ravage Bryce to the point where she will kill herself, but that isn’t his concern.

At these words, the Autumn King deploys all his troops to go and rescue Bryce, but it will take half an hour to cover the distance to the gallery. Meanwhile, Micah tries to inject Bryce with a syringe of synth. She shields herself with a magic book, but Micah takes Syrinx and throws him into the nøkk’s tank, knowing Bryce must drop the book to save her pet.

Micah is able to inject the drug into Bryce, but nothing happens. Meanwhile, both Lehabah and Bryce manage to seize magic books that temporarily stun Micah. Lehabah succeeds in locking him in the vault bathroom using enchantments. This gives Bryce enough time to dive into the nøkk’s tank to rescue Syrinx.

Bryce succeeds in getting the chimera to safety before the nøkk drags her under the water. They fight, and the creature slashes her calf. She escapes and pulls herself out of the water. Syrinx isn’t breathing, so Bryce resuscitates him and tries to carry him up the stairs to safety.

Lehabah stays behind to buy more time, knowing this will spell her doom. After the vault is sealed and enchanted, she stays to face the wrathful Micah. Lehabah uses her fire magic to crack the nøkk’s tank and send 100,000 gallons of water crashing into the archangel. She chants, “‘I am a descendant of Ranthia Drahl, Queen of Embers. She is with me now and I am not afraid.’ Lehabah glowed, bright as the heart of a star. ‘My friends are behind me, and I will protect them’” (702). The witnesses at the Summit are awestruck by the bravery of the little fire sprite.

Knowing that Micah will eventually escape the library, Bryce painfully drags herself and Syrinx into Jesiba’s upstairs office, where the Godslayer Rifle is kept. In the few moments it takes Micah to burst through the vault doors, Bryce assembles the rifle and unerringly shoots a bullet through his head. Even an archangel cannot survive such an injury.

For good measure, Bryce takes Danika’s sword out of its hiding place in the closet and chops Micah’s corpse into pieces. Then, she burns the remains to be sure he can never reach the Under-King’s domain. After that, she vacuums up the last of his ashes. Hunt watches Bryce with awe. He thinks:

She was his and he was hers, and he should have told her that, should have told her in the Comitium lobby that she was the only person who mattered, who would ever matter to him, and he’d find her again, even if it took him a thousand years, he’d find her (708).

Everyone witnessing the event expects the synth to destroy Bryce. Instead, it heals her wounds and does no harm. Hypaxia tells Hunt that she had slipped Bryce the antidote in a tonic weeks earlier and now remotely channeled her healing power into it.

When help arrives from the Fae and the wolf packs, Bryce slams the gallery door and tells them they aren’t needed. She explains the problem was a gas leak, but it’s under control. The enchantments in the basement have protected the sacred volumes from water damage, and the nøkk is dead.

Back at the Summit, Ruhn and Hunt speculate about what might happen to Bryce. “Ruhn rubbed his face. ‘They’ll kill her for this.’ For murdering a Governor. For proving a sprite and a half-human woman could take on a Governor and win. It was absurd. As likely as a minnow slaying a shark” (713). In all the mass confusion, Hypaxia releases Hunt from his magical handcuffs, saying his captors have bigger problems on their minds.