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CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

E nryr was… gloating. Maia hugged her arms tighter around herself, casting a glance at Bryon who walked stiffly at her side. The saint had contemplated killing her when she fought for Bryon to come with them. She’d seen her death flash through his eyes, seen it in the way her nostrils flared. But after what she’d witnessed happen to Az, and after the growls and whines she’d heard from Jaro, no way in the dark chasm would she leave Bryon alone. Getting backhanded across the face was a small price to pay to have her mate by her side, where she could keep him safe.

Enryr ought to still be irritated at her, at having Bryon tag along, but… he was gloating, and it began to unsettle her.

Maia had finally had a chance to get clean and change into new clothes, but she’d been wearing her old, stained set for so long that the loose cotton trousers and lightweight corset felt strange, unnaturally soft. It was an uncomfortable reminder of the finery she wore in the Delakore Palace, when she was Ismene’s weapon, though the tiny moth-eaten holes in the soft fabric were a welcome difference. Anything to remind herself she was free of Ismene. Even if she’d never be really, truly free.

Calloused fingers circled her wrist, thumb stroking over her pulse, and Maia’s shoulders slumped, shedding a heavy weight. She glanced up at Bryon, letting the sight of his steadfast green eyes settle her. Never free, but she wasn’t alone and that meant everything. Especially with Enryr smiling now.

She had the sense that whatever the massacre of Eosantha had tested her for, she was about to find out.

“Where are we going?” she asked tentatively, keeping her tone polite, acutely aware of the mate at her side who would suffer if she pissed Enryr off. She wouldn’t let him take any more deaths on his conscience like at Marszton. Whatever Enryr expected, it would be hers to bear.

At least she wasn’t alone. She repeated it like a mantra.

She didn’t expect an answer from Enryr, but apparently, he was in an obliging mood because he tilted his head in her direction and, with a bright smile, said, “V’haiv. You’re going to snare their people.”

Bryon’s hand tightened on her wrist, but she swallowed the rush of bile in her throat, already expecting Enryr’s request. And it was something she could use, a bargain she could strike to see her mates like Azrail had bargained to see her. She needed to get inside that cold cell she’d seen through the bond, to see Az with her own eyes, to wrap her arms around Jaro because she couldn’t stop hearing that pained whine. She needed to lay her eyes on Ark and Kheir, their utter silence more unsettling than even the flashes of pain from Az. Where were they? What was happening to them? What if—

“Which people?” Bryon asked in a low rumble, pressing closer to her, the heat of him sinking into her side. “In which city?”

Enryr’s smile grew. He let the moment stretch, drawing out her torment. “All of them.” He met Maia’s eyes with sheer delight. “You’re going to snare the entire population of V’haiv.”

“I can’t—”

“If you don’t, all your mates will die painful, tragic deaths.” The saint’s eyes glittered. Like light shining on onyx. “Starting with the one you insisted on bringing with us.”

So that was why he’d caved and let Bryon accompany them. Deep down she knew he would use Bryon against her, but she’d been too afraid to leave him behind.

“You can try,” was Bryon’s response to the saint, a maddening little smirk on his face that made Maia want to wrap her arms around him and kiss him silly. Bryon staying behind would never have worked; he was too stubborn.

You can try. The words echoed through her mind, the memory of the bargain she and Enryr made replaying through her mind. He couldn’t hurt her mates himself; he’d vowed it.

“I don’t think I have the power to snare a whole kingdom,” she said quietly, trying to think her way out of this. No fucking way was she slaughtering that many people. Tens upon tens of thousands of people. Innocents. Kheir’s family. She couldn’t do that to him. But Enryr didn’t make empty threats; he’d find a way to hurt the men she loved if she disobeyed. “What about—a few cities, to start?”

It made her sick to even suggest it. She couldn’t forget Eosantha, how it had felt to push her magic into every mind, to warp them with precise, fatal commands so they ended their own lives. The command to kill the helpless was the worst part of it. Children should have survived but instead cradles lay still and silent because of her. No, even the cradles didn’t survive; Enryr reduced the town to ash.

Maia, Sephanae said suddenly, her presence surging from a quiet whisper in the back of Maia’s mind to a whirlpool of feeling. Anger, urgency, worry. It was the last one that made Maia straighten, all her instincts on alert. Something is happening, something with the power to shift fates.

What does that mean? Maia demanded.

It means if you’re going to escape, it has to be now.

“A few cities,” Enryr laughed, a sneer twisting his mouth as anger eclipsed his good mood. “Don’t you understand, stupid girl? This isn’t about a few cities. All of V’haiv will fall, and you’ll be the architect of its demise.”

He moved so suddenly that Bryon was knocked away. Enryr’s hands bit into her shoulders hard enough to make her breath jump. Panic shut off her air, but she gritted her teeth to trap a cry, refusing to give him the sound of her pain.

“Why V’haiv?” she hissed, holding her hand at her side, palm out to stop Bryon from lunging at Enryr. His grip on her hurt but compared to what he was capable of, this was nothing. “What’s in V’haiv that you want?”

“Nothing.” Enryr’s sharp teeth drew her eye as he smiled wider, more of a snarl than anything else. “I want it wiped off the map.”

Because they were a threat. Because something about V’haiv spooked him.

“Every last city, town, and village,” Enryr commanded, leaning closer until his warm breath hit her face and made her stomach curdle, “or I’ll kill everyone you love.”

“But you can’t,” she hissed, making sure Bryon heard her. “Your vow means you can’t harm my mates with your own hands.”

She closed her open palm into a fist and prayed Bryon knew what she was trying to tell him. Enryr’s laugh filled her head with pressure, a sudden ache spiking above her eye. But he was focused on her, he was distracted, so she reached up and shoved at his grip, keeping him fixed on her. Sephanae’s warning rang clear. It had to be now.

“My vow,” Enryr snarled, eyes endless and dark—because she’d got between him and destroying V’haiv, because she’d made herself an obstacle, “means nothing when there are a dozen enforcers here under my—”

He croaked, an awful sound of surprise that filled Maia with satisfaction. He made it again when Bryon ripped the blade out and drove it back in, again and again, eight times. She lurched for Enryr’s arms when they snapped up, fury giving her claws that she sank into his forearms. Her magic was like a storm inside her, rattling shutters, howling through the trees, desperate to get out.

Even knowing it wouldn’t work, she reached for a song and sang a sharp, snapping melody, urging her power to break the bones in Enryr’s arms, to shatter his kneecaps, to crack every disc in his spine.

“Spiteful—” he spat in her face. “Little. Bitch.”

“And proud,” she snarled, fighting to keep her grip on his arms as Bryon sank his stolen knife into Enryr’s back and dragged it down, opening a wound so long that blood deluged across the pale stone under them.

Enryr wavered. Hope was like a disease making Maia weightless. She should have known better. In the next second, the power squeezing her chest exploded, crushing her brain in her skull, making her bones creak, so potent that she had to squeeze her eyes shut for fear they’d explode.

Bryon growled, but it was a sound of pain, not anger, and Maia lost her concentration. Enryr’s arms were free before she could trap them. His hand snapped shut around her throat, his nostrils flaring, hatred blackening his eyes, his vile smile.

“Oh, all the things I’m going to do to you, dove,” he laughed, sickening and low. “You vowed for your mates’ safety when you should have bargained for yours.”

The hand tightened around her throat, crushing in a way that had panic spearing her chest, muddying her mind. He was choking her, cutting off her ability to sing… on purpose, or by complete coincidence? Had she rattled him by trying to break his bones with her snaresong?

She parted her lips again, forcing out a breathless puff of sound, and watched true, rotten hatred twist his features into something ugly. But why would he be afraid of snaresong when her magic was bound, trapped inside her?

Maia dropped into her core of magic so fast her head spun, diving through layers of her power, past vibrant spring, life itself, and bright, gentle souls, to her first power—her ability to twist minds with a simple vibration of magic and sound. And she wondered if Enryr presumed she needed to sing aloud to cast that power through someone’s skull, through shields of magic, into their soft, vulnerable brain. It helped, and she was always strongest when she could sing out loud, but she didn’t need it.

She gathered up a fistful of magic, and then pulled more, and more. She’d need everything if this was going to work. It shouldn’t work; it couldn’t. She’d tried for days, weeks, to summon her power, and every time it was like a hand pressed over her mouth suffocating her ability. But Bryon had made Enryr bleed, and Sephanae said it had to be now and—

Blinding, obliterating pain cut through her chest, so sudden and excruciating that Maia fell back, her legs collapsing under her. She thought it was Enryr, thought the saint’s magic had struck her, was killing her, but the pain came from within her. It ripped her apart, digging through her soul until the glade at the heart of her howled with a sudden roar of wind. True, unadulterated pain sank into tree roots until her nerves lit up white and hot.

A roar sounded but Maia was barely aware of it, all her consciousness trapped in her soul, screaming. Or maybe she was screaming in her body, too. Who was hurt? She searched the trees, frantic to find the black-oozing trunk that had led her to Azrail, but this was so much worse. The pain was everywhere, in every part of her, slicing through her shoulders and down her back until her wings shook. It felt like being crucified all over again, and that thought made her soul go very, suddenly still.

Who?

She searched, shaking with rage, her breathing quickening in her body.

Kheir. Someone was torturing Kheir.