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CHAPTER ELEVEN

I sak had spied the Nysavion Hold for miles out, but now he was in the shadow of Saintsgarde’s enormous crystal walls, he could no longer see the stronghold of the royal Sainsan family. Maia’s family by blood and birth. He could smell the Hold though; magic hung in the air, tickling the back of his nose like pepper until he wanted to sneeze. Every powerful magic-wielder in the kingdom was trained in that place, under the watchful eye of the fae royals and their master tutors. Its sister building housed the army. Neither of which Isak was too keen on getting close to.

So, he said to Viskae as he disembarked, not risking speaking aloud when there were so many people around him. How the chasm do we get in?

Fifty others had caught the omnibus from Bevhyre through the rolling, gem-green fields heavily dominated by cows, dew-sparkling glades, and marshland, the huge cart rattling its way along the road. The bus’s journey began in Rysendaur on the border, so it was packed by the time it reached the port town where Isak boarded. And the passengers were fragrant. Delightfully, unavoidably fragrant. This tingle of magic was much preferable.

Do you ever stop complaining? Viskae sighed heavily. And follow the others; there’s a gate just ahead. Even I can see that.

Isak, who genuinely did never stop complaining, didn’t bother to reply to that. He hitched his liberated leather pack up his shoulder—okay fine, stolen pack—and nearly jumped out of his skin when the omnibus set off again with a loud clattering sound, the benches packed full of strapping fae warriors with brutal braided hair and massive swords, heading for the border.

He’d never been to Sainsa before, and at every point he tried not to gawk at the fae, so different to the haughty, elite bastards of Vassalaer. Fae weren’t just the upper echelon here; they were scholars and bakers and warriors and innkeepers and masons and, Isak’s personal favourite, uncouth drunks who sang off-key ballads about bearded sailors and their big-titted paramours. He’d only ever known the fae who flounced around with their noses in the air; even in Venhaus the fae had an air to them.

The fae who’d got off the bus with him were road-weary or bubbling with excitement; common as muck or educated; couples bickering with each other; a family clearly in the midst of an argument with a surly teenager; a red-faced, sharp-eared man regaling a twenty-something woman with a story of his youth—probably made up. Determined, practical looking sorts. Normal people. It had made the bus bearable, at least. Even if they were noisy as fuck.

“I’ve told you three times already,” the woman growled—really, truly growled in the way the fae could, “to piss off. I could not give two fucks if you rode a wyvern in the first war and shit fire from your backside. I’m not going to sleep with you.”

Isak grinned, eavesdropping. See, this was why he liked Sainsa.

“Oh come on, beauti—”

Isak snorted when the raven-haired fae punched the guy in the stomach, dropped him to the ground, and left him there.

“I was going to ask if you needed assistance but I see that’s not the case,” Isak remarked with a half-smile.

“Oh, don’t you start,” the fae snarled, stomping past Isak. “I’m not fucking you, either.”

“I’m not asking.” He should have been. Usually would have been. He’d have already made a suggestive comment and brought out his charm offensive. The thought made him a little sick. “Just complimenting on a punch well done.”

“Thanks,” she said dryly, casting him a wary look. “Let me put this very clearly. You’re lacking tits and a pussy and I’m not interested.”

Isak raised one palm, gripping the handle of his walking stick with the other. “Really, truly not asking. Well. I was going to ask if you know much about this checkpoint since it’s my first time visiting and you seem to know where you’re going.”

“Great,” she muttered, stalking past him along the well-trodden dirt road that wound between fields of lush, verdant grasses up to the crystal walls. “A fucking tourist.”

“Ah, but a tourist with a gallant mission to save a pretty woman.” No. Nope. To save his brother. This had nothing to do with Maia, who’d smirked and snapped and taunted in the way he loved. It had nothing to do with the spark he felt deep in his core when she glared at him, or the way she made magic fizz in his veins when it had only ever been poison.

I resent that remark, you ungrateful dick, Viskae muttered. I blessed you with glorious power and you call it poison?

“I don’t need saving,” the raven-haired fae snarled, clearly thinking he spoke of her.

“My mate does,” Isak replied in a plain voice before he could stop himself. Saints fucking dammit, he hadn’t meant to claim her. He’d only teased Maia with the truth because she so clearly despised it, and he was safe from her womanly wiles and advances. She wouldn’t get close to him, wouldn’t see him, because she had no interest in him. What the fuck was he doing using the M word?

The fae woman ground to a halt and whipped around to stare at him with wide green eyes. “Your mate needs saving? From who?”

“Ah. That’s a bit complicated,” he said, regretting starting a conversation. But fuck, he was lonely. And going mad from his own company—and Viskae’s, which usually hindered rather than helped keep his sanity straight. Sleeping around in Eosantha had staved off the worst of the memories and lonesomeness, but something in his soul soured at the thought of finding someone to lose himself in now. Fucking mate bond. “She’s in immediate mortal peril, and so is my brother. I’m in Sainsa on a fool’s errand to find a mysterious relic to save them. It’s their only hope of survival. If they’re not already dead.”

It was the fear that haunted him in the silence of night. He hadn’t meant to confess it to this random woman.

She sighed. Heavily. “You can tag along with me, but you’re not staying with us. You can find your own fucking lodgings on the other side of the gate.”

“Us?” he asked, peering around for a companion. But he knew she was alone; the man had been nattering her ear off for hours.

“Me and my wife,” she huffed, giving him a sharp sidelong glance as they strode down the path, Isak ignoring the irritating voice in his head. “My mate. You seem pathetic, and no doubt you’ll need help to find this mystery item to save your mate. I’m Anzhelika.”

“Not to be a total cynic, and don’t get me wrong I’m grateful, but why would you help me?”

Her mouth pressed thin. “I know what it’s like to fear for the life of your mate. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

He decided not to tell her that he and Maia weren’t an item, and she didn’t even like him. In fact, she might find him abhorrent. He’d left them there, on that island. Viskae had kept him weak and trapped in the mud but… he left them there. Let them be taken. Watched as they were dragged through the crack in the saints stone. Isak ran a rough hand through his hair, tangling his fingers on knots. He ripped them free and didn’t care that it hurt.

“You’d better get your papers out,” Anzkelika sighed, retrieving a folded wad of paper from inside her beaten up coat. “The gatekeepers are suspicious of newcomers for obvious reasons.”

“The ominous wave of Vassalian soldiers creeping its way closer?”

“Not to mention the darkness.”

Isak jolted. “The darkness?”

Anzhelika made a distracted noise of confirmation, her eyes on the tall, crystal gate rising above them. It had a large archway for carts and wagons and a smaller checkpoint where two guards stood checking the papers of everyone who’d got off the omnibus. The whole thing looked like the grand front of a cathedral or temple, rising above their heads in towers, tiny windows clearly made for arrows or bolts. An intimidating sight, especially for a dumbass who didn’t have papers.

You better have a plan, he warned Viskae.

You have magic; we don’t need a plan.

“The darkness,” the raven-haired fae repeated, craning her neck to see over the heads of the crowd gathered in front of the pedestrian gate. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed there are no stars out at night anymore, and you can’t even see the moon. In some places it’s pitch black from three in the afternoon.”

Isak’s stomach tangled, bile burning his throat. He hadn’t noticed, but her description fit what had happened the night the saints came through for the first time. The whole world had paused, silent as if it was holding still in the presence of a predator. He’d heard stories of the same thing happening in Lisille, Calvo, and the other villages the dark saints had sacked. In their search for him, he’d presumed.

Correctly, Viskae input. They know we’re out here and we pose a serious threat. Even more of a threat now they have your mate captive. A beastkind male will go to the ends of the earth to save his mate and eviscerate anyone who threatens her. Everyone knows that.

“Can’t say I’ve noticed,” he said, affecting a levity he didn’t feel. A noose closed around his throat, cutting off his air, creating a huge pressure in his chest. It was bad enough that he’d have to talk his way through a gate—and there were now only two people ahead of them—without the saints’ darkness spreading further through the Saintlands. He thought of that red wave across the map printed in the paper, and wondered if darkness had fallen over every city, town, and village under it.

“There’s rumours that the darkness falls from the sky in funnels like a storm,” Anzhelika said with a shudder she couldn’t repress. “It’s said to… do things to people caught in them.”

“Do things,” Isak echoed, his heart drumming now that only one person stood between them and the gate. A tremor ran across the back of his neck. “It makes monsters, you mean.”

“So they say. It’s probably nothing.”

But even with the scorn and dismissal in her voice, Isak knew she didn’t believe that. So, a dark wave was spreading, and anyone caught in its twisted magic was made into one of those dark, scaled things. Isak sucked down a deep breath of tingling Sainsan air and told himself that dark wave wouldn’t reach him beyond the gleaming crystal walls of Saintsgarde.

“Papers,” the guard grunted. He’d clearly been handsome in his youth and still had some charm and suaveness to him, not dimmed at all by the gold-buttoned white uniform. Enhanced by it, actually. Isak hoped he’d be as devilishly handsome as the guard at his age, hoped he’d—

Stop stalling, Viskae barked. You’re a new saint, so use some of that saintly magic and make the man think you have the documentation you need to enter the capital.

Can I even do that? Isak demanded as the guard looked over Anzhelika’s papers and waved her through. She paused just on the other side to wait for him, as if she really meant her vow of help. She wouldn’t have been so sympathetic if she knew he laid on his belly in the dirt while Maia was taken.

We’re about to find out.

“Papers,” the guard barked, giving Isak a passing glance and waiting.

“About that, my handsome fellow—”

“No papers, no entry,” the guard said with a threaded growl in his voice. Isak’s own beast rose in challenge. He hoped his eyes didn’t darken; that was the last thing he needed.

He reached for the place inside him where Viskae sat, grumpy and judging and annoying inside him, and surrounded himself in the buzz of magic he sensed every now and then. “I have an urgent message for the Nysavion family.” He lowered his voice and leaned closer. “It’s from Princess Maia Nysavion. She fled Vassal with information about how to defeat the darkness—and the Vassalian army.”

The guard scoffed, grabbing the collar of Isak’s grimy coat. Isak had been thrown out of enough pubs—and through enough windows—to recognise the stance of a man about to toss him on his arse.

“The darkness took her,” he whispered urgently, grabbing the man in return. “The whole fucking fate of the Saintlands rests on getting her back, and the only way that’s going to happen is if you let me inside so I can save her. Your princess is the captive of saints.”

The guard scoffed and gave Isak a shove. “Fucking lunatic.”

“I’m serious. Maia—”

“So where is she then?”

“I just told you!” His voice was rising now, panic’s noose tightening until his breathing wheezed. “The saints took her, and my brother, and everyone else who matters to the delicate fate of this whole fucking world—”

By this point the second guard had noticed he was being refused entry, and she muscled over, as broad and brawny as any warrior he’d seen in the army. She’d snap him like a twig, even if he was faster, sharper, and more adept. They always did.

“Isak,” Anzhelika shouted from the other side of the crystal gate. Her eyes locked with his, intense and pointed. “The opal star.”

“What in the chasm…?” he muttered.

“Trust me,” she yelled. “The opal star.”

He might have responded but the second guard grabbed him from the first, picked him up like he weighed nothing, and threw him so soundly into the grass beyond the gate that his wrist snapped.

He landed on his bad leg with a growl so deep and bestial that the small crowd from the omnibus backed off with gasps, cries, or answering snarls.

He fucking knew that guard would snap him like a twig.