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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“ S o… funny story,” Isak laughed nervously to the woman bedecked in the black and gold uniform of most guards, soldiers, and peacekeepers of Sainsa. There were little swirls on the sleeve and lapel of her jacket, a ribbon of gold streaming down the outside of each leg. A very jaunty outfit that Isak liked immensely. He’d have liked it even more if he wasn’t being dragged across a paved courtyard towards the looming building of a gate tower. At least he hoped it was a gate tower. It could have been a prison and he wouldn’t have been surprised.

“You take your filthy fucking hands off her or I will use my fingernails to pull your brain out through your nostril,” Anzhelika snarled, struggling against the three peacekeepers who hauled her behind Isak. He was a little miffed to find he warranted fewer guards than his new friend. He only had one, as did Sunny, who was currently sighing in disappointment at the silver-haired man who shoved her into a faster walk. Isak was a lesser man than the guard; that sigh would have killed him.

“Actually,” he continued, returning to face his guard, his feet dragging over neat cobbles as he was frog-marched, “it’s not a funny story at all. It’s terrifying. A true end-of-the-world tale.”

“Shut up,” barked the stoic guard—a middle aged woman with a severe braid and shoulders that made Isak look like a kid.

“May I inquire as to where we’re being carted off to?”

The glower she turned on him made Isak laugh again, a nervous habit. “To the general enforcer.”

“Oh, that doesn’t sound good.” Isak craned his neck to make out her other hand, making sure she wasn’t manhandling Isak’s walking stick. “Hey, careful with that. It’s been with me through thick and thin.”

The guard holding him rattled his arms until his head shook on his neck.

“I’m serious,” he said with a little slur of dizziness. “That stick’s been with me through torture, death, rebirth, and a whole buttload of dark saint stuff you would never believe.”

“You’re right,” she said flatly. “I don’t believe you. Get inside.”

Oh good, the Hold’s grey tower rose above them, its roof made of the same crystal as the wall around the city. It was too pretty to be something as ordinary as a prison, right? Right? he asked Viskae.

Keep your wit about you, was her uplifting reply.

You mean wits.

Assuming you have more than one seems generous.

Wow, she was in rare form today.

“This was all my idea,” Isak said in a rush of altruistic heroism. “The lovely ladies behind me had nothing to do with it. They don’t even know me.”

“You all tried to break into the Hold, so you’ll be punished as one.”

“Fuck,” Isak hissed, regret pinching his heart as the peacekeeper shoved him through an open door and into a circular stone room where a man already waited. This one wore teal and gold. Not good. Isak wasn’t an expert in Sainsan customs and military by any means but even he knew this was a high ranking member.

The man was in his mid-twenties but with a hard gleam to his eyes that told Isak he’d fought in battles. The fact he was still standing assured Isak he’d won every last one of them. He was ruggedly handsome, with moon-silver hair pulled into a ponytail, baring sharp fae ears, and facial hair that roughened features that would probably be quite pretty and feminine without it. The teal uniform stretched across his shoulders and large biceps, his body comically broad on top and slim on the lower half. Isak might have whistled if he hadn’t been so worried for the fate of his new friends.

He could use his magic against this general enforcer, but it would be a crying shame.

The peacekeeper shoved Isak with a rough hand on his back, sending him stumbling across the grey stone tiles. By sheer luck he managed not to collapse into a heap at the general enforcer’s feet. When he regained his balance and looked up, he found the man watching him with a steady, unsettling calm. He wasn’t a man to get easily ruffled, Isak guessed. That was worse than guards with hot tempers; he never quite knew what types like these were capable of.

“These are the three you found trying to break in?” he asked, his voice low and gravelly but quite lovely, his eyes cutting towards the guards as they brought in Anzhelika and Sunny.

“They broke through the rear gate,” the stern woman who’d manhandled Isak informed the general enforcer.

“That’s what she said,” Isak muttered.

Anzhelika laughed.

Both their smiles were wiped from their faces when the dangerous gold eyes of the general enforcer landed on them. There was a gravity and weight to that look that made Isak’s heart quicken, a sense of doom crushing all levity from his chest.

He held those gold eyes, familiar gold eyes, for a beat. Shock was a star in his chest, glowing and luminous. He launched into a frantic explanation before the guards could say anything else. “We weren’t breaking in to steal anything or to spy. I need help. Badly. You’ve seen the Vassalian army spreading, and the wave of darkness that follows it. That darkness is the dark saints that were defeated by the fae a thousand years ago. They’ve escaped their prison, and they want this entire continent for themselves. Or they want to kill us as revenge, I don’t fucking know. I was there when the Venhausian circle shattered. I saw what came out, I felt them, like my bones were being crushed inside my body, magic worse and stronger than anything I’ve felt before.”

The general enforcer blinked, the only sign of surprise he showed. Clearly, he’d been expecting a different explanation, so Isak forged on, breathless now.

“They sacrificed hundreds of beastkind and fae to open the circle at Venhaus, and they used soldiers in the army to do their dirty work. Soldiers like the ones getting closer to your borders day by day. Monsters were made in the water around the saints' circle, and I’ll bet even more have been made since, but the saints are the true threat. My brother, my mate, and their friends tried to seal the circle, to repair the stones the saints shattered, but they were overcome. The dark saints are too powerful, impossible to beat. They were taken. My brother, my mate, and the others—they were kidnapped, and they’re imprisoned and being tortured and—help me. Please.”

It was a useless, impotent finish, but Isak was begging now.

“An interesting story,” the general enforcer said eventually, looking between the three of them with an expression too composed to read.

Isak dragged a hand through his hair, restless, desperate. “You’re not going to believe a single thing I say, but some of the saints were reborn in ordinary fae and beastkind, like me. That’s the natural way of things, a line of succession. The others were meant to be reborn too, but they resisted, forcing their way into the realm through the broken circle and creating the dark poison you can literally see spreading across the world. How long will it be until it reaches you here?”

“It won’t,” the general said in an unbending voice, nothing but confidence in his expression. The hard lines of his face said he’d witnessed death and horrors firsthand. A practical sort. And Isak wanted him to believe in legends.

“They have his mate,” Sunny burst out, imploring the man. “They took his mate, and it’s important that we get her back. She’s important.” He’d told them both as much but hadn’t told them her identity. He’d planned to guard it, to keep it close to his chest, but he met the general enforcer’s eyes again and threw that plan out the window.

“She dared to defy her aunt,” Isak said, not looking away from the man. “She fought back, instead of blindly obeying, and they crucified her.”

The general winced, itching at his shoulder as if he could feel where his wings hid under his skin. Isak didn’t think Maia realised he even knew what Ismene had done to her, but he’d been there for the whole walk from Eosantha to the island, and he listened. He saw the ragged, blackened edge of her wing.

“They crucified her, and tortured her, and she barely escaped with her life. The Queen of the Vassal Empire is in league with the dark saints; how else do you think she’s conquered so much land so quickly? It’s dark magic, corrupt power. The queen tried to use it on my mate, but she escaped. She came to Venhaus, to find me, and to repair the saints' circle.”

The general enforcer had gone still.

“She was trying to stop this before it happened, to prevent darkness sweeping across the world. Even after torture and crucifixion, even after everything she suffered in that palace, because there is still some goodness left in this fucked up world and most of it is in her. And they took her.” Isak was breathing hard, trembling. “All she wants is to be free. To be free of the queen, to be free of the saints, to live a single goddamn day without being threatened or in pain.”

“Isak, I’m so sorry,” Sunny breathed, reaching out to lay a hand on his shoulder. It shored him up when he’d been fading, shaking.

“I’ve seen those eyes before,” Isak told the general enforcer. “I’ve seen them in the face of my mate. Maia Delakore.”

“Nysavion,” the man snarled, jerking forward, canines bared in what Isak thought was an extremely rare show of emotion. “Her name is Nysavion.”

Isak knew that, had only goaded the general into a reaction, and he’d been right. He was fucking right. Fae aged slowly, but this man was far too young to be Maia's father which meant… “You’re her brother.”

The general enforcer lunged forward lethally fast, so quickly that Viskae squeaked in alarm, but the general didn’t attack Isak. He didn’t go for Anzhelika or Sunny either; he grabbed the five guards who’d come into the building with them and… and crows sprouted from his shoulders in something like gold ink, like smoke curling on the air, wings beating soundlessly. They dove, beaks piercing the foreheads of every peacekeeper until each dropped to the floor, one thud after another.

“What the fuck…?” Anzhelika whispered.

Yep. Isak’s thoughts exactly.

“No one can know who I am, you fools,” the general said, composed once more. The golden birds fluttered through the air and dove into his uniform jacket, vanishing from sight.

“Um.” Sunny lifted her hand, her eyes wide. “What exactly just happened?”

“I wiped the last three minutes from their minds.” The general enforcer fixed his attention on Isak, making his heart skip. “Now, tell me everything about Maia. In detail.”

Isak strode over to a desk and collapsed into the chair behind it, half aware he was sitting at the general’s desk. He’d barely even noticed the room before, all his attention on those golden eyes. “Sure. But first, how about an introduction?”

The general enforcer sighed, great shoulders heaving. “If you repeat a word of what is spoken in this room, I’ll kill every last one of you.”

Anzhelika whistled. “Super scary, ominous tone. Nice.”

“Anzh,” Sunny hissed quietly. “He just threatened us.”

“But he’d make a very pretty addition to our bed. It’s been so long since I’ve watched you with a male plaything,” Anzhelika replied in the same volume.

Isak pretended not to listen and raised a brow at the general, who sighed. His threat clearly hadn’t gone the way he wished. “I’m Harth Nysavion, illegitimate prince to the throne of Sainsa.”

“Brother of Maia Nysavion,” Isak added with a grin.

Fate really worked in mysterious ways.