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CHAPTER ONE

S he was wrath forged in the hottest fires of the chasm. She was pure, unending rage, so infinite that every exhale clouded the cold air in front of her face, pulling her skin tight over her bones. She was vengeance hewn into the shape of a fae woman, her anger eternal and as sharp as the legendary blades of old.

She was… getting fucking sick of her present company.

“I can hear your stomach grumbling from over here,” the gruff soldier she’d been locked up with remarked.

Maia didn’t bother to reply, tilting her head back against the cold stone of the cell and staring at a crack on the ceiling. If she thought she could use her power to exploit that crack, she would have already tried, but her magic was useless here. How would manipulating minds help when they’d been locked up, separated from the others, by monsters who her snaresong slid off like oil on water. Even her saints-given soul magic was useless.

She’d stopped glowing days ago, but even without it she could have sunk into her power the way Sephanae, saint of the living, had taught her and walked through the walls. She could have hunted down the bastard who collared her Jaromir, could have found her other mates, could have unleashed herself upon everyone in her path. She wanted to hurt someone, wanted to spear herself into their minds and rip people apart. The fury was infinite. It was all she’d become.

“There’s a perfectly acceptable sourdough roll beside you,” the grumpy bastard pointed out, as he’d been doing for hours. Days. She ignored him, staring at that fault line in the ceiling and wishing she could rip it apart. She didn’t even care if it brought the ceiling down on top of them. The destruction would be satisfying. This whole court belonged to the dark saints. It deserved to collapse around them for what they’d done to the people she loved.

Jaro, collared. Az, unconscious and maybe… maybe not even alive anymore. Ark sent to his knees with a scream when he tried to stop them grabbing her. Kheir pleading breathlessly, offering up every bargain he could think. It didn’t work. The saints and Vawn—emotionless, silent Vawn—shoved them through a crack in the monoliths that made up the saints' circle, into this dilapidated court.

Not that she knew where the dilapidated court actually was. Maia was woozy and glowing when they dragged her in, but she’d glimpsed crumbled white spires, bridges stretched between tall buildings cracked down the middle, pockmarked marble buildings overrun with plants and wildflowers, and temples scorched to blackened marks on the ground. A city left to ruin. She’d never heard of a lost city before. Even if people back home came looking for them, if Evrille and Zamanya mobilised Az’s rebel army, they wouldn’t stand a chance of finding them here.

“Fine, I lied,” said the soldier, Bryon, a fifty-something miserable bastard with a perpetually scowling face, sharp ears sticking up from his bald head, and shoulders wide enough to take up a large majority of the cell wall. He’d be useful in a circus; you could balance a whole troupe on those shoulders. Whenever she deigned to look at him, Maia refused to let her eyes go any higher, wouldn’t entertain the judgement and disapproval she’d find in glaring forest eyes. Fuck him. Fuck these attempts to break through her fury. If she wanted to calm down, she’d do it herself.

“It’s nowhere near acceptable,” he went on, his voice like the rumble of an earthquake and just as gravelly. “It’s dry as fuck and it tastes like dirt and salt instead of flour and yeast, but it’s food and you need to fucking eat, princess.”

Maia kept her eyes on the ceiling, through her upper lip curled. She’d eat when her mates were safe. She’d eat when they were back together. She just needed to find a chink in the dark saints’ armour first. She didn’t like thinking about the psycho fucker who’d dragged her into the cell, but she forced her mind to linger on him. Enryr, the hunchback saint of knowledge, a saint she’d worshipped all her life for his wisdom and freely shared education. What a joke. Everything they knew of the saints was a lie. They weren’t benevolent; they were monsters.

If you don’t listen to the Sentry, you will die.

Speaking of saints, the one who’d been reborn within Maia would not shut the fuck up. She gritted her teeth, sharp fangs grating against each other. Her head pounded, more from stress than Sephanae’s voice, but she blamed it on the Saint anyway.

The Sentry. It wasn’t the first time Sephanae had said that. So Bryon was the saint of crossroads and rivers, so fucking what? He was as useless here as Maia was. Stuck in a stone square of a cell with the door thoroughly sealed and only a crack on the ceiling to exploit.

You will waste away before you ever see your mates again. The Saintlands will be overrun with darkness and poison. Everyone you’ve ever loved will die.

Maia was so angry she could taste blood on her tongue, as if she’d already thrust her teeth into the throats of her enemies and ripped them out.

You’ve bitten your own lip. Listen to the Sentry. It is not only roads and rivers he guards.

Maia rolled her eyes, following the jagged line of that crack. It had been days since Enryr threw them in here and left them to rot. There were no windows to mark the passage of time, but Sephanae existed both within Maia and outside her; she seemed to know everything, even if she refused to tell Maia anything useful.

“Enough,” Bryon snapped, the crack of dominance in his voice ripping the air from Maia’s lungs, painting a rush of goosebumps down her arms. She blinked and Bryon was in front of her, snatching her hand off her lap and, well, that was annoying. She’d curled her hands into fists so tight that her fingernails had sliced half-moons on her palm, weeping blood. “Enough,” he repeated, his dominance so strong that she choked on it.

“Dick,” she managed to say through gritted teeth, glaring at where his large, calloused hands gripped hers so she couldn’t do any more damage to herself.

“You’re a danger to yourself,” he muttered, narrowing his eyes in warning before he let go. “Eat the fucking bread, princess.”

“You look like shit,” she threw back with some satisfaction, her voice rough with disuse. Her throat felt raw, probably from all the screaming.

“Right back at you, princess,” Bryon grunted, his mouth twisting into a disapproving scowl; his default expression. His nose had been broken and reset crookedly, although Maia doubted it was the first time that had happened. His lip had split, a cut arced through his eyebrow that had bled all over the floor and since dried there, and there were bruises under his facial hair. Others probably under the battered leathers he wore; there was a dark blue splotch on his collarbone when she scowled at him, so there was at least that. Maia ignored the twinge in her chest. “How’s your cut?”

“Which one?” she laughed bitterly.

The cursed wound that had bled since she’d been dealt it in Vassalaer? Or the new one the bastard saints had manipulated Jaro into giving her?

Bryon sucked on a tooth, his anger evidence. “Either. Fuck, I don’t know. The cursed one.”

“Fine,” she bit out. Her wound was still bleeding, still painful. Maia didn’t have the treatment they got from the strange little healer in Eosantha, so the cursed wound would only grow worse and worse. Fuck knows what happened to all their possessions.

“And the other?”

Maia shook her head. She hadn’t even looked at it, didn’t particularly want to acknowledge it. The fury was like an ocean inside her. Every time it ebbed, it flowed right back to the surface until she wanted to rip out someone’s throat. Jaro was collared. Collared.

“Show me.”

“Fuck you.” She thrust her hand out, ignoring the stinging crescents she’d punched into her own skin. “Give me the fucking bread, then leave me alone. Or better yet, use your air magic and widen that crack.” She stabbed a finger at the ceiling.

“And bring the whole thing down on us?” Bryon gave her a scathing look as he dropped the bread into her hand then settled with his back against the wall opposite. They’d sat like this for days now, in hostile silence interrupted only by arguments. “You’re smarter than that.”

“You could at least try,” she snarled, and bit into the bread roll. The taste of it made her retch, and he shot the big, mean bastard a filthy look.

“I told you I lied,” he remarked with a little scoff, crossing his arms over his broad chest as he watched her. “And I’m not widening that crack. Neither are you, so find something else to obsess over.”

“Then I’ll obsess over murdering you,” she replied sweetly.

His nostrils flared when he exhaled a hard, pissed off breath. “I couldn’t work magic if I wanted to, unless you’ve forgotten.” He lifted his wrist where a solid pewter cuff clamped to his skin, beautifully elaborate but abhorrent.

Maia ripped her eyes away. He wasn’t beastkind, had no animal form to suppress, but he was cuffed regardless. “Why are you doing this anyway? What do you stand to gain by forcing me to eat?”

“Other than not being alone with the fucking saints?” he huffed. “The Sapphire Knight’s a good man. I owe him, and letting his mate waste away seems like a piss poor way of repaying him for everything he’s given me.”

Maia shouldn’t have replied. She should have let the conversation die, but she chewed the stale, disgusting bread, choked it down, and then asked, “What has he given you?”

“A roof over my head for starters,” Bryon said with a deepening of that perpetual scowl. “A place to train, and other people to fight with. I’ve got more chance of watching that bitch on the throne burn with the rebels than I have alone.” He glanced at Maia. “No offense.”

The laugh that burst from her was twisted and dark. “She locked me up and crucified me. I want her to burn, too. Or lose her head. Or get ripped apart by wolves. I’m not picky.”

She didn’t look to see what expression Bryon wore, but he was quiet enough that she ripped through the rest of the roll and choked it down. Saints, it was awful.

“So you’re keeping me alive because Az gave you a purpose,” she mused, staring at his shoulder again. “How noble of you.”

“Thanks. Can you catch?”

Now she did look at his face. Well, frowned at it. “Are you having a mental break?” When he just scowled deeper, Maia rolled my eyes and sighed, “Yes, I can catch.”

Without further explanation he hurled a projectile at her. She was lucky to pluck it from the air before it nailed her in the face.

“You can just about catch,” he grumbled. “You should practise.”

“I highly doubt catching would help me fight saints,” she said archly, inspecting what she’d caught: a chunk of cheddar half as big as her hand. With a shrug, she bit into it and chewed. If he wanted to give up his food, who was Maia to complain? “I’ll be sure to put in a good word for you with Az if we ever get out of here, since he’s the only reason you’re being nice to me. Maybe you’ll get a nice promotion from grumpy soldier to grumpy captain.”

“I’m already a captain.”

She polished off the cheese and settled back against the wall. “No other reason you’re giving me food?”

“No,” he all but growled.

“Coward,” she said with a laugh. She should have been kinder. He’d lost his wife and child to Ismene and her insane vendetta against beastkind.

“Says the woman who won’t even touch her bonds,” he threw right back at her.

She bared her canines in a vicious snarl, the sound echoing off the stone walls. Arsehole. She could barely feel her bonds, the place where their souls flowed into hers completely numb, clouded with distance or weakness or… she didn’t want to think about anything else. What if the bonds weren’t just clouded, but gone? She was so furious, the glade at the heart of her soul bending under a constant onslaught of mate fury that she could barely sense anything at all. Would she have felt it if they died?

“At least I admit they—” she began, more than happy to take out her fear and rage on Bryon. The heavy stone door inset into the wall swung open with a horrific grating of stone on stone before she could finish. Maia’s whole body trembled as she scrambled to her feet. Fuck, she was weak. She swayed into the wall, gritting her teeth as blood flowed into her legs, deciding to stab every bit of skin and muscle on its way there. Her tender wing scraped stone.

“Careful,” Bryon growled under his breath.

She gave him a finger. A specific one reserved just for him. “Bother about yourself, old man.”

He ground his teeth together with so much force that she heard them grate. Or maybe that was the door opening the rest of the way.

Maia forced herself to stand on her own merit, pushing off the wall and honestly surprised when her body didn’t fail her. She didn’t fancy slamming into solid stone face-first. Today was already bad enough without a concussion. But she refused to show weakness to the bastard on the other side of that door.

“Get the fuck away—” Bryon growled, his voice so rich with dominance and rage that Maia shrank back. “What the chasm?”

Yeah, what the chasm summed it up perfectly.

She’d expected a saint in the doorway, maybe Ismene’s bestie or psychotic Enryr. Instead three children stood blinking at them.

“Maia Isellien Nysavion,” they said in unison. “Come with us.”