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CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

L ord Justice. The air drake’s voice echoed through Ark’s mind, the title settling into him with a sense of rightness. The saint whose power had been gifted to him was the Lady Justice, the deity of justice, trials, and wisdom. This new title settled over Ark with the weight of a cloak, both comforting and worrying in its responsibility. A flash of that magic, the uncanny knowing, told him too many threads of fate were interwoven right now. It was impossible even for Ustinya to guide him to a successful path.

Which meant this would either work or fail spectacularly. Fuck. But they’d committed to the path now, and when Kheir pushed the needle deeper into the bronze skin of his collarbone and flexed his hands, flame leaping to the tips of his fingers— red flame—it was too late to stop now.

Shit, Ark thought Kheir would use the black fire of hatred, or even the yellow of friendship to force Vawn to help, but rich, ruby red danced in his hand as he threw himself at Vawn’s exposed back, likely exposed on purpose. Ark was struck stupid for a moment before he shook himself out of it and surged after Kheir, anticipating a fight.

But the moment Kheir’s fingers made contact with the back of Vawn’s neck, instead of passionate violence erupting from the tall, brunette man, a deep moan filled the empty corridor.

Vawn spun, his eyes wide, pupils dilated. “What the fuck are you doing?”

But Kheir was already surging forward, closing his hand around Vawn’s throat, making contact with every one of his fiery fingers, the flames licking higher, ruby burning brighter. Vawn’s nostrils flared, his eyes rolling into his head, and—he collapsed to the floor with another moan, unconscious.

“How the hell—” Ark began. That had happened too fast for his head to keep up. “You knocked him out with passion?”

“I think,” Kheir said with a rough laugh, turning to Ark with a similar shell-shocked expression, “this magic would be fun to use on our mate.”

Understanding dawned and Ark laughed. He’d inflicted so much pleasure on Vawn that the man passed out? That explained the rolling eyes and the moaning. And it was far more humane than inflicting pain.

Ark crouched beside Vawn to check his pulse, finding it strong and steady. “Nice job,” he told Kheir, rising to his feet again, straightening as he searched for a weapon. The best he found was a candlestick on a side table, so he snatched it up, scanning the long hall on either side of them.

“It feels wrong to just leave him here,” Kheir said, his hand still aflame, held out in front of him like its own weapon. “But we need to find Maia and the others.”

Ark nodded, sinking into the warmth of his soul where his bond to Maia lived, wishing he could close his eyes to focus on the sensation. But they were out in the open and the saints could find them at any moment. Instead he pushed his soul outward, searching for her, breathing through his nose to keep his composure even if he grew frantic.

“This way,” Kheir said, grabbing Ark’s arm at the same moment he got a tingling sense in his soul. Now would be a great time to get some of that uncanny knowledge from Ustinya, but his intuition was quiet. He rushed with Kheir down the hallway, ignoring the guilt that gnawed on his chest at leaving Vawn collapsed on the carpet.

“She’s closer than she felt before,” Kheir said as they broke into a run, hope making his voice breathy.

Ark nodded, most of his attention on that place where Maia’s soul flowed into his. He caught glimmers of emotions if he focused hard enough—frustration and hatred, panic and fear, and a dull, constant pain below them all. He was so focused on that pain, different to the hurt he’d felt from her before but every bit as worrying. He stopped paying attention to his surroundings for no longer than a moment, but it was enough.

Behind them, Vawn groaned—a sound of pain, not pleasure this time. That was the split-second warning Kheir and Ark were given before power detonated through the hall. Pressure drove into his shoulders, bowing his back, forcing his knees to buckle. A moan of deep, unbearable pain left his mouth even as he clamped his lips shut. His knees hit the carpeted floor before he even knew he was falling, the weight of a saint’s presence crushing all the air from his lungs until every bone in his body screamed.

Who had found them? Enryr? Or the pale-complexioned bastard who had chuckled as they were tortured by pain in the saints' circle, who smiled as Maia was torn away from them, as Kheir screamed and Bryon roared and Azrail laid unconscious on the ground? And as that horrific collar was snapped around Jaromir’s throat. Ark had never stopped seeing it, that vile ring of metal. The memory of Jaromir stabbing the woman he loved most in all the kingdoms haunted him in his sleep.

“Just what have you done to my pretty pet?” a petulant female voice slid through the hallway, lifting hairs on the back of Ark’s neck. He almost wished it was the Provider striding towards them. Better that bastard than the absolute psychopath gliding over the carpet, not a single foot touching the fibres. The Eversky, saint of sky and storm. The monster who helped Ismene harm Maia, who didn’t just enjoy torturing others but thrived in it, delighted in it.

Ark gritted his teeth and pushed against the floor, but the anvil of the saint’s power hammering his body kept him down. Beside him, Kheir muffled a cry.

Help us, Ark cried, reaching for the drakes, for a miracle. He tried again to get off the floor and managed to rise an inch, but he could feel the Eversky, her magic caressing his skin like an unwelcome hand.

Hold on, Lord Justice, the deep male voice replied. The threads are aligned, and the realm hangs in the balance. I’m coming. Hold on.

Ark curled his hands into fists, wishing the candlestick hadn’t been knocked from his grip when he fell, wishing he had some weapon. His breath caught as Kheir crawled forward, his right hand stretched out, the tips wreathed in pure black flame. The fire of hatred.

If Kheir refused to be beaten, Ark would not lay here on the carpet like a weakling. He was a general in the Sapphire Knight’s rebel army. He was the mate of a princess stronger, braver, and more resilient than anyone he’d met before. He’d be damned if he let the Eversky keep him from Maia when it was the first time they’d got out of that room in weeks.

Blood trickled from his nose, itching and warm, but he shoved against the floor and got his knees under him.

“What’s this?” the Eversky laughed, a beautiful, tinkling sound that made Ark want to scream. “Parlour tricks? Impressive, Archer. With my power buried in the walls, dampening all magic except ours? Very impressive. However.” Ark searched for the candlestick, grasping it as she neared. “It’s not nearly enough to stand up to me.”

“Don’t!” a hoarse, choked voice burst out from behind them. The back of Ark’s neck tingled worse, knowing someone stood in his blind spot, but he recognised Vawn’s voice.

“Ah, you’re awake,” the saint said with a smile that made Ark’s blood turn to ice. He tried to get to his feet, but weakness and agony made him slump into the wall, panting through gritted teeth. Fuck, it hurt . To move, to think, to breathe. Her presence was like a cart running him over, then turning around to take another pass. His insides didn’t feel to fit right inside his skin.

Silence hung for a moment, and then Kheir screamed. Ark tore himself away from the cold wall, moving on instinct, surging to his feet with a growl louder and more forceful than he’d made in years. He grabbed the first thing to hand and threw it at the Eversky’s head, watching the solid leather spine of a book drive into the flawless dark skin of Karmen’s face. Her head whipped back at the impact, fury and outrage choking the air with her power, and Kheir screamed again.

He was writhing on the ground, attacked by an invisible force, his eyes bulging, veins pronounced in his neck as the saint tortured him.

“Stop,” Vawn rasped, stumbling down the hallway.

“Stay right there,” Karmen replied with a reptilian smile, “or I’ll visit all my vengeance on your mate instead of this worm who deserves it.” Vawn froze dead, stricken with panic. The saint’s attention fixed on Kheir, her eyes pinning him like a taxidermied butterfly in a glass cage. “What would you have done? With those sad little flames in your hand? Would you have tried to kill me?”

“Don’t touch him,” Ark growled when the Eversky slammed her high heel down on Kheir’s hand, grinding until the pain was too much for Kheir to keep his magic lit. “Get away from him!”

Ark launched his aching body at the saint, not stopping to question the wisdom of the attack. He had nothing in his hands, no weapon, no magic, but knowledge struck him like lightning—a weakness. He drove his fist sloppily at her solar plexus and the Eversky stumbled back. It took her a single second to recover, then her rage slammed into Ark, so powerful it was a physical blow. It drove him into the wall hard enough that his forehead hit stone and stars swirled in his vision.

“Ark,” Vawn rasped. “Shit. Keep fighting. You have to.”

“Aw,” Karmen laughed, “were you hoping the valiant guard would be your salvation? You’ve proven to be a very disappointing enforcer, Vawn.”

Vawn’s voice was thin, raspy. “If you kill him, you kill her, and if she dies, you lose all leverage over me. If I don’t die, too.”

“What makes you think, pretty pet,” Karmen asked with a little laugh, “I need you alive? You’ve been useful thus far, and a sheer delight in the bedroom, but you’re expendable, darling. I have other enforcers. Better enforcers. You couldn’t even get a scroll of paper from an oversized bird.” Her laugh this time was abrasive. Ark jumped, flinching into the wall when she flicked her fingers, but it was Vawn who screamed, dropping to the floor holding his head in his hands. Tears bled crimson from eyes screwed shut, similar trails leaving his ears.

“Stop,” Ark rasped, trying to get to him, or get to the fucking saint, to do something. He staggered away from the wall, lifting his hands through pure force of will, teeth gritted, nostrils flared on rapid, panting breaths. The pain wanted him to destroy him, wanted to send him to the floor where he could do nothing but lay there and wait to die but—

If you kill him, you kill her, and if she dies, you lose all leverage over me.

Ark shook his head, a sharp pained breath whistling through his nose. He needed to sort out those words, needed to make sense of them, because his intuition told him they were important. Essential.

“I don’t like pets who misbehave,” Karmen breathed, advancing, close enough that Ark’s skin burned and his soul shrank away. He couldn’t stand to be this close to her, couldn’t stand to think about what she’d said.

You’ve been useful thus far, and a sheer delight in the bedroom.

Kheir and he had been vile to Vawn, when he’d been suffering like that. Ark’s chest hurt fiercely, a strange and more natural pain to what the Eversky inflicted. It was then, as she came within three steps of Ark, that the knowledge struck him.

If you kill him, you kill her.

If she killed Ark, the mate bond would take Maia with him.

And if she dies, you lose all leverage over me.

The Eversky was using Maia against Vawn. But how could Ark use this to his advantage? He was scrambling for a way to get them out of this when Vawn’s scream stopped abruptly, followed by the saint’s soft snort. “Weakling,” she muttered, her voice so close that Ark startled.

He tried to scramble away but his feet were glued to the carpet. The pressure in his body grew until he felt something snap in his arm, until a warning screamed at him that if he didn’t fight her, didn’t find a way to take this saint down, all three of them were going to die here. All three— all three of Maia’s mates.

“Fuck,” Ark grunted, his breath like shards of ice in his throat, cutting up his lungs.

“I don’t find it very polite to throw books at women,” Karmen said, finally stopping in front of Ark. He angled himself away from her but only made it an inch; her smile told him her sick magic was keeping him locked in place. “I find it very impolite, and I can’t abide people without manners. But since you’re a guard with such a noble reputation, I’ll give you one chance to apologise.”

Ark wanted to spit in her face, but lives hung in the balance. So he parted lips he hadn’t realised were bleeding and croaked, “I’m sorry.”

His whole body flinched when she patted his cheek. He was prepared for more taunts, his whole body rigid, shaking as he screamed at himself that this monster would kill Kheir, kill Maia if he even moved an inch. He wasn’t ready for a vicious kick to his knee to send him to the floor.

He hit the ground hard enough to rattle every ache in his body, stars bursting behind his eyes, and for a moment all he heard was silence, empty whispering silence. And then Kheir’s panicked growls filled the empty space, the pitch and depth of the sound making Ark’s heart quicken. Kheir wasn’t afraid for himself. Which meant Ark had to prise his fucking eyes open and see what the saint was doing.

But magic covered his body, anchoring him to the floor, keeping him down as he fought and writhed and frantic gasps clawed up his throat. What was she doing? If he could just get his damned eyes open—

Pain drove through his right hand, so sudden and agonising that he screamed. Ark couldn’t remember the last time he’d screamed. Couldn’t remember if he ever had. Matching agony blast through his left hand, and while his throat still shook with a scream, while tears gathered in the corners of his eyes and leaked down his face, white hot, unbearable pain cut through his feet one after the other.

“Stop,” Kheir rasped. “Please. Leave him alone.”

“Not to worry, I’m done with the guard. But you, prince? You’re coming with me?”

Help, Ark sobbed. He might have said the word aloud, too, but he cast it through his mind towards the drakes. Please.

Hold on, the male responded, his deep voice rife with tension. Hold on, Lord Justice.

But Ark tried to get off the floor, tried to get to Kheir when he snarled a warning for the saint to stay away from him. Pain overloaded every nerve in Ark’s body. Consciousness was ripped away in an instant.