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CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

M aia’s mate was on the floor with the Eversky’s high heel against his chest, his beautiful copper wings in her hands as she tore, ripping skin from membrane. Maia saw red. She was running before she’d processed the movement, rage in every beat of her heart. Blood filled her mouth when sharp canines sliced her tongue. She was going to rip that evil bitch to pieces.

The world lit up in shades of bright, gleaming silver. Bryon glowed the brightest at her side, Kheir’s soul tainted with dark pain, but the soulslight around Karmen was pitch black. Venomous and putrescent and wrong. She didn’t belong in this world, was too corrupted—Maia saw the plants crawling up the walls wither as the darkness of the saint bled into them, watched her own mate’s soul wither in the face of it. The Eversky was furious enough to let her power bleed through the air. Good. So was Maia.

Magic grew so thick that Maia tasted it as she ran, her tongue burning, mouth tingling. The air was explosive, but that didn’t stop Maia freefalling even deeper into her magic, pulling up every drop she could summon. Spring and soul, life and death, and woven among them all was her snaresong.

“Get the fuck away from him,” she snarled, power dripping from every word.

Instead of backing away from Kheir, Karmen met Maia’s eyes as she ran the last few feet, rage shaking her whole body. And holding Maia’s furious stare, she grinned and ripped the wound deeper into Kheir’s shoulder. Blood gushed down his back. So much blood. His wing was only half attached. Saints.

“I’ll help him,” Bryon said in a low rumble that matched her rage. “You deal with her.”

“Deal with me?” Karmen laughed, the high, tinkling sound joining the magic buzzing through the air. Disarmingly sweet. “You tried that before, and it didn’t go so well for you, did it, Maia?” She tilted her head, her skin like polished onyx in the silver light of Maia’s vision. The longer she stared at her, the darker her aura became, until her soul was like charcoal. “Or did spending so much time with Enryr give you a new set of teeth?”

Maia bared her canines and took great pleasure in saying, “Enryr is dead.”

Karmen blinked, the only sign of surprise she allowed. So they didn’t sense each other. Maia had half expected her to already know of Enryr’s demise. “You’re lying.”

Maia paused less than a foot away, within arm’s reach if Karmen decided to grab her. She made sure she took up the saint’s full attention, conscious of Bryon leaving her side, creeping closer to Kheir through a puddle of blood. That was so much blood. Too much blood. He wasn’t moving. Maia needed to look at him, something in her soul grabbed her in a fist and demanded she look at her mate, but she couldn’t. She needed the Eversky to stay fixed on her. She needed to draw her away from her wounded mate.

But it didn’t feel like victory when those cunning eyes settled on her, or when the saint took a step towards her, Karmen’s upper lip curling away from her teeth.

“I drove my magic into him and shattered every bone in his body,” Maia said, ignoring the breathy quality of her voice. She was too afraid for Kheir’s life to summon her rage right now, but she still had her magic. Whatever the saints had done to dampen their power these weeks had failed. She prayed, wherever they were, Ark, Kheir, Az, and Jaro had enough power to free themselves. “His skull split,” she elaborated, hating the weakness and doubt that slipped in. “Just like yours will.”

Karmen grinned, one side higher than the other. “You’ve got nerve, girl, I’ll give you that.”

And without warning, she struck.

Maia’s feet dragged along the carpet as she was driven back, knocked off balance from the very first strike. It was pure instinct that had her reaching for the vine that wound around a column to her left. She hadn’t seen her magic gouge Enryr’s throat with thorns, but she watched now as it coiled like a whip around Karmen’s statuesque neck. Maia had a moment of breath, a moment to think she was winning, and then lightning shattered her chest, stabbing electric pain into her heart.

Fuck! Maia dug her fingernails into her chest like she could prise off the sparks of white magic. This wasn’t the crushing power Maia always suffered around the saints; this was sharp, biting, crackling magic. It burned everywhere it touched, and it sank deep.

Tears sprang to her eyes as she stumbled back a step but no further, digging in her heels. Her eyes narrowed, teeth gritted, and she curled her hands into fists.

Karmen pulled the vines from her throat like they were cobwebs. She took a step—another away from Kheir. Maia’s instincts were a buzz of panic and noise. She needed to look at him, needed to put her ear to his chest and hear his heart, needed to feel his breath against her cheek.

“He’s alive,” Bryon called from behind the saint, like he knew. A shudder of relief shook Maia’s bones, followed by a swell of strength.

Her mate was alive, he was fighting. She pulled herself straighter, adjusted her stance, and bared her teeth in a promise.

“You’re fucking dead,” she hissed.

The Eversky scoffed. She didn’t raise her hands to discharge the next flash of lightning, but Maia was ready for it this time. She lunged into the wall to her left, throwing up her hand and letting rage drive her power.

“Your leg is broken,” she said with absolute certainty, slashing her hand at Karmen’s thigh for good measure.

The saint shook her head in amusement. “No it isn’t.”

Shit. There went Maia’s idea of using her snaresong. Without it, she was floundering. She’d never learned how to use her spring magic, the fierce and endless power she’d channelled in Eosantha, but that only left—

She’s called for her lover as backup, Sephanae said in a rush. The second he arrives, soulspear into him.

But—you won’t be with me if I do, Maia said, pushing off the wall, her eyes widening when the air hardened around her, almost sharp with anger. When wind surged towards Karmen, and bone snapped loudly, it took her scrambled brain a moment to catch up.

“Isn’t broken?” Bryon laughed, standing guard over Kheir where he’d splayed on the floor, his wings spread around him, covered in blood. “It is now.”

Maia’s heart soared. Bryon had his magic, too. She locked eyes with him for one second before she grabbed fierce hold of her magic, the pure silver of his soul glaringly bright.

“You’re bleeding to death,” she spat at the Eversky. The sight of her gripping her broken thigh filled Maia’s heart with vicious glee. She deserved pain, deserved to suffer for everything she’d put Maia’s mates through. She’d ripped Kheir’s wing. Fury spiked again and Maia let it roar through her. She was at her most powerful when she was emotional. “The broken bone split your skin and now you’re bleeding and weak.”

For a moment, it worked. A trickle of blood ran over Karmen’s thigh, gleaming against her flawless skin, and Maia sank deeper into her magic, surrounded by it, choking on so much power that she didn’t know what to do with it.

He’s here, Sephanae hissed, urging Maia to lift her head, to see what she’d seen.

Maia opened her mouth to warn Bryon that Heweryion was behind him, stalking up on his exposed back, where Kheir was vulnerable, but there wasn’t time.

Hew’s soul was a dark grey, not gleaming like Bryon’s, not black with hatred like the Eversky’s. It caught her attention like a moth drawn to flame. A way to win, to weaken Karmen. Maia didn’t stop to think; she speared herself across the distance and leapt into him like she’d once leapt across Venhaus, seeing all the way to the island with the saints' circle. It was so easy. Too easy. The power was a seductive rush as Maia opened hard eyes and looked across the pale corridor at her own body.

She stood there, empty and vulnerable, white power crackling across her chest where the Eversky had struck her. She hadn’t even noticed the red welts opened on her skin. Her eyes were vacant, all her consciousness inside Heweryion now. A few paces in front of her Bryon had erected a wall of dense, writhing air between her and Karmen, somehow sensing she was at risk. She knew in that moment she loved him. Just as much as she loved the beautiful prince bleeding across the carpet.

She threw her soul at the flickering spark of silver that was Kheir’s soul and gripped tight, refusing to let him go even as she forced Hew to take a step. Karmen didn’t realise what Maia had done yet; she was still smirking, smug right until the moment Maia walked the man’s bulky body past Kheir, past Bryon, and stopped in front of Karmen.

“My faithful Heweryion,” she said with something like fondness. The closest someone as poisonous as her was capable of, at least. She lifted her hand; Maia gripped Hew’s soul in an iron fist and his meaty hands snapped up, clasping Karmen’s wrist and breaking it in the same fluid motion. There was so much power in his body, so much violence. Like her Bryon, he was capable of brute force and precise strikes. Unstoppable.

She watched Karmen realise he was dangerous to her. Too late, as Heweryion drew the heavy sword at his hip and swung it, cutting deep into her hip.

“You traitorous—” she began in a hiss, spittle flying as her lip curled. She paused, her eyes darkening. “Get out of him. Now.”

Maia arranged Hew’s mouth into a smile and swung the sword again, driving Karmen back against the wall. Pressing the advantage Bryon gave her. She should have realised she was fighting a saint, that this fight didn’t play by ordinary rules. She should have realised she wouldn’t win.

“I thought you liked playing with other people’s men,” Maia said in a taunt that wasn’t quite natural coming from Hew’s mouth. She had never forgotten that awful, sickening touch Karmen forced on Bryon while her command held him still. “Can’t handle it when someone else is playing with yours?”

She’d noticed the lack of female guards. And Karmen was surrounded by languid, pretty men the first time she glimpsed her through the reflection pool. Only men. Every time since, there had been no female soldiers, no women enforcers. Because the Eversky was afflicted with deep, bitter jealousy. Maia had figured it out days ago, but she saw the evidence of it now in the saint’s flaring nostrils, the way her jaw ground, her body tightened.

Her rage hit Maia—hit Hew —in a battering ram of power so severe, she roared, male and loud. She hadn’t expected Karmen to strike Hew. Fuck. She’d thought her soul was safe inside here, but clearly Karmen would rather have Hew dead than touched by another woman.

Maia ground her teeth—Hew’s teeth—and breathed through the pain. It was worse than before, so blinding that his legs weakened. She managed to stay on her feet by pressing the steely will of her soul into his bones, locking his knees. She forced him to swing the sword again.

Karmen was ready for it this time, Maia’s single advantage gone. The Eversky wasn’t stunned anymore; she was furious. The black oozing wrongness of her soul spread until it hurt to look at her aura, until it set Hew’s teeth on edge and Maia was forced to take a step back.

A mistake.

Lightning crashed from the ceiling, an electric bolt driving into Hew’s chest, a direct hit to his heart.