Page 15

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I sak tossed and turned on the tiny sofa in Anzhelika’s living room, his leg protesting the cramped position, whatever ease draining the ground had given him earlier long gone. It was the middle of the night, and dark enough both inside and outside that Isak had cracked open the curtains across the small, square window opposite him so he could check for stars. It allowed a filter of silvery light to fall across the tidy, charming room and its well-loved furniture.

The sofa needed restuffing or replacing entirely, the chairs were kept together with bits of twine and hope, and the rug on the floor was worn thin in well-tread places, and Isak surprised himself by loving it. This was a small, shitty house, but it smelled of drying lavender and the honey biscuits Sunisida—Anzhelika’s wife and mate—had made when she learned they’d have a guest. That scent soaked into his lungs and eased a knot he’d carried between his shoulder blades since the saints' circle. Isak didn’t even remember the last time he’d been in a proper home. The manor he’d been raised to serve didn’t count. Nothing with a gilded chamber pot could be called a home.

With a groan, he adjusted himself on the small sofa again, a spring stabbing into a sore spot on his back. Even that was a gift, his irritation an equal blessing. He was free, and had new friends who seemed decent enough, and a roof over his head. His stomach was full of spicy meat, red sausage, pumpkin bread, and homemade biscuits. He wasn’t being tortured by fucked-in-the-head enforcers for their saints.

For the first time in weeks, Isak could relax, and his mind took full advantage of that to attack him. He’d been a fucking dick to his brother, had looked down on him, as if he was any better. He’d been a dick to every one of them, especially to Maia, even if the fae princess gave as good as she got. Some of the things he’d said to them, and his tone … He turned over again with a sigh, gritting his teeth at a sharp twinge that shot up his leg. He was lucky to still have the damn leg.

Could you shut the fuck up? Viskae demanded. Even saints want to rest.

If you want rest, you’ll have to knock me out, Isak replied, rubbing his eyes. He was exhausted. His body was drained and long overdue unconsciousness, but his mind would not stop throwing thoughts at him, one after the other.

The island, the people he’d delivered to their slaughter, those things in the water, the orders handed down by his superiors. Everything that happened after, when he tried to run from the monsters. When he failed. Isak sometimes thought it would have been better to be ripped open and left to die by those things. Instead, he’d been chosen, saved, cut apart, put back together again, and twisted into what he’d become. Not that anyone knew that, of course. Only him and the saint who’d saved him.

Just tell me if they’re doing the same to my brother. I can handle it.

I know as much as you do.

“You’re a fucking saint,” he snapped, teeth gnashing.

A saint who knows as much as you about what has become of your brother, your mate, and their friends.

Isak massaged the dry itch in the corner of his eye, wondering if his new friends would mind if he helped himself to their booze cabinet. He couldn’t stop seeing the look on Jaro’s face when Isak called his name for the first time in seven years. He couldn’t stop hearing Maia’s snarling voice when she broke into his room and laid into him so thoroughly that guilt still ate at his insides.

And after all that, he laid in the muck and let them be taken.

They will survive.

You don’t know that, he argued, but all his energy had fled. Instead of snarling, he just sounded tired.

They will survive. Saints do not choose weak stock, and you and I made it to Saintsgarde. The answer to freeing them, to blasting those wicked bastard saints from the face of the earth is within our reach.

Cool. Where is it?

Tomorrow, you shall begin the search.

She didn’t know. What fucking use was having a saint twittering in his ear when she was as useless as he was? Isak knew they were looking for a box, that it was made of solid gold, and would likely be so full of power that it set his teeth on edge—his superiors wouldn’t have given a shit about it unless it was deadly—but it could be anywhere.

Do you even know it’s in Saintsgarde, or is this all one big bullshit guess?

There is… something here. It calls to me.

If you’re wrong, I’ll stab myself in the head just to reach you, he grumbled, turning onto his side and pulling up the blanket Sunny had draped over him until it covered his eyes. He’d never been able to sleep by counting sheep or recalling good memories, so he fell into a daydream.

Isak imagined he’d succeeded in convincing Jaro and Maia to stay away from the island, imagined they’d stayed in Eosantha and helped him renovate the apothecary. He imagined the shop was a resounding success and they bought the building next door and knocked the top floor through, so everyone had rooms. So Jaro was just next door and Maia was close. He imagined sitting at a table to eat breakfast with a family, imagined watching Maia flirt with her men and bicker with Isak, imagined the hatred in her pretty gold eyes turning to desire when she looked at him.

He imagined he and his mate slept curled up like a pile of puppies in a cold, dreary stone room in serious need of some soft furnishings. The room smelled of sharp, acrid magic and mould, and it was bare of everything except a scowling, bald man with tanned skin, dirty leather armour, and a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp. Ah, Bryon. Isak had forgotten his particular charms.

“This is a shit fantasy,” Isak huffed, and the sleeping beauty at his side startled, her moon-silver hair whipping his face as she spun to stare at him. “Damn, dove, whipping is not my kink, and definitely not to the face.”

Maia flinched hard, and Isak went very, very still. “Don’t call me that.”

“Got it. What should I call you instead?” He kept his voice light. Forced it light.

“My name?” she suggested so dryly her voice was a desert.

Isak smirked, and completely ignored the fact this wasn’t his fantasy, his apothecary, or anywhere he’d ever seen before. It was also a much clearer image than his usual fantasies, so he was obviously dreaming. “You want me to call you Maia? How dull.”

“It’s a prettier name than Isak,” she replied with her usual bite.

“Strangely,” he said with a wistful sigh, “I missed this.”

A frown furrowed the spot between her pale brows. She looked like shit, not that he would kick a woman while she was so clearly down by telling her that. Her skin was covered in a layer of grime, her clothes had seen better days—better months —and there was a heaviness that clung to her, depression in the slump of her shoulders, the bleakness of her eyes.

“You snarling at me,” he said with a little smile. “This is the bleakest dream I’ve had yet, and the room could use a serious upgrade—”

“Like your shithole apothecary was any better—” she muttered.

“But I’m actually quite happy to see you. In my worst dreams you’re dead, or being twisted into the same hellish thing I am.”

Maia narrowed her eyes, shifting further around until she faced him. “You’re not a hellish thing.” At his smile, she asked, “Are you?”

“Absolutely, babygirl.”

“No,” she said in a voice like iron.

He shrugged. He’d find something. “You know what would improve a cold, stark room like this…?”

Maia pinched the bridge of her nose, dirt under her fingernails, most of them snapped off instead of the pretty, long nails she’d had in Eosantha. As fantasies went, this could have used some work. It reminded him of Maia being taken by the saints, reminded him what could be happening this very moment, while he snored on Anzhelika and Sunny’s sofa.

“What?” Maia sighed finally.

“Sharing body heat. We could warm this place right up.”

Her expression flattened. “I’ve made enough mistakes for one night, thank you very much.”

“Ah, but you haven’t made mistakes with the reborn saint of them. It’s a whole other level, sweetheart.”

“Az calls me that,” she murmured, her throat bobbing with a swallow.

“Where is he anyway?” Isak asked, casting another look around the small stone room. Cell. “Don’t tell me you’ve been left with that unfriendly oaf for company. It’s a wonder you aren’t throwing yourself at me for salvation.”

“I will never,” she said, meeting his eyes with a sharp smile on her face, “throw myself at you, dickhead.”

“See, you’ve got a sweet pet name for me,” he sighed. “And I don’t have one for you, honeybun.”

Maia shuddered in revulsion. “What do you want? Why are you, of all people, in my dream?”

“Excuse you very much,” Isak said, hand to his chest. “You are intruding on my fantasy. I had a very nice image of the apothecary in my head, and we were all playing happy families.”

“That’s what you fantasise about?” she asked, a little too heavy on the judgement if you asked him. “Family?”

Isak crossed his arms over his chest, affecting a casual shrug. “I was taken from my only living relative and cast into the chasm. I spent years waiting to see him at a dinner party, or maybe serving at a ball my owners visited, or even in the army ranks. So yeah, I fantasise about having a family,” he said bitterly. “What’s your darkest desire, North?”

She was looking at him, but he didn’t turn to meet that stare. “North?”

“The star in the north. It’s what Nysavion means. According to legend, your family were a travelling band of warriors with no name until one night they came across a forgotten den that belonged to a wyvern pair. The wyverns had been slain, their bodies stripped of meat and hide, but two eggs remained, hidden beneath a tiny crack in the wall. The stars shone bright that night, and by sheer coincidence—or fate—the light fell on the crack, almost as if the saints had led them there. As the legend goes, the family made their home there and guarded the eggs until they hatched. Their family name comes from the star that guided them to the wyverns—the star in the north.”

He chanced a look at the princess and found her watching him with a stark, open expression. Unguarded for the first time. He looked into those golden eyes which held an endless well of suffering.

“How do you know so much about my family?”

It was the first time he’d heard her acknowledge them as hers. “I don’t,” he replied with another shrug. “I know stories. Legends. Growing up where I did, I was banned from most rooms, but my master wanted his beastkind to be educated, mostly so he could parade us out at parties and show us off. A my slave’s better than yours kinda thing. Books were all I had. And then I had training, and fighting, and war.”

“And a shit apothecary,” she reminded him.

“I’ll have you know that apothecary will be the success of the town by the time I’m finished fixing it up.”

Maia’s expression fell. Her eyes tracked a guilty trail away from him. “It’s gone.”

“Ah, shit, I forgot,” he sighed, resting his head back against the wall. The cold stone bled its temperature into his skull and he shivered. “Well, I’m not one to be deterred. I’ll find a nice shop here in Saintsgarde. Maybe a brothel.”

Maia snorted, the bleakness leaving her. “A brothel suits you. Just—not a pillow room.”

Isak bared teeth sharper than they’d been seconds ago. “None of my whores would be indentured. The practise makes me physically fucking sick.” And his own brother had been forced into that work. Isak’s face twisted as he imagined how torturous and violating it must have been for Jaro. Isak jumped when something landed on his knee, and gave Maia’s gold, elegant hand a baffled glance.

“I know,” she murmured. And she did. If Isak felt like this, how must she feel knowing that had happened to her soulmate?

“I was there,” she said, removing her hand. “When Eosantha was destroyed. I—I killed everyone inside. Enryr turned everything else to ruins.”

Isak’s jaw dropped. “What do you mean you killed everyone inside?”

“They’re dead,” she twisted her hands together in her lap, her shoulders curled inward. “Every last one.”

Every person Isak had seen, spoken to, argued with, fucked, brawled with—every person was dead. If he’d still been in the city, would he have been murdered, too? Saints. Holy fucking saints, that was a lot of power. He waited for Viskae to chime in but like in all his dreams she was silent.

“Well,” he said finally, after a too-long pause. “Guess I don’t have to pay Scraggy Stahra that money I owe her.”

Maia’s head snapped up and she just stared at him. Searching for the same things he often did—disgust, revulsion, fear, hatred. He didn’t let her see them. Not a single one.

“Scraggy Stahra?” she asked finally, her voice thick and raw.

“Tall woman, as thin as a streetlight, scraggy blonde hair.”

“Right,” Maia said, pinching the bridge of her nose again. “Could you have a normal reaction for once in your life?”

“Nah. Goes against my personal beliefs.”

She shook her head, but she was almost, almost smiling. Isak could not explain why he wanted to see her smile again quite so badly.

“So. No apothecary,” he murmured.

“No,” she agreed. “And—did you say Saintsgarde?”

“So far I’m not a fan,” he told her sadly. “I know it’s your birthplace, but the gatekeepers are far too good at their job and the people stank of sweat and unwashed bodies on the bus here. Possibly because they’d been travelling for hours. And I might not have been sweet-smelling myself, but that’s beside the point.”

She laughed. Small and rusty but a laugh undeniably. “What the hell are you doing in Saintsgarde?”

“Rescuing you and my brother, and the rest of your merry band.”

Her face fell, vulnerability making her eyes round, a deeper shade of gold. “You can’t save us, Isak. One man against saints? I’m not delusional enough to think that’d work even in my dreams.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” he replied, nudging his shoulder against hers. “I might rally an army, you never know. I’m very charismatic. I could sell sin to a priest.”

She wasn’t smiling. “Don’t. If you’re really in Saintsgarde, stay there.”

“I can—”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” she hissed, her body knotted with tension. “You don’t know how it feels to be near the saints, all that power, the pressure, the screaming inside your own mind. Their magic is endless. Stay in Saintsgarde.”

She turned away from him, curling up again, and Isak’s hands twitched, eager to touch her. But this fantasy had spun out of control, more upsetting than it was comforting, no longer a distraction from his fears but a reminder of them.

“It’s just a dream,” she murmured to herself, her head bowed. “Just a dream.”

Isak reached for his stick to run his thumb over the groove in the handle, the motion familiar and reassuring, but it hadn’t come here with him. It was still propped against the sofa in his new friends’ small front room.

“You never told me your darkest desire, North,” he said as a last attempt to recover the fantasy.

“Freedom,” she whispered, her back to him. “I just want to be free.”