Page 47

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

S omething was wrong. Jaro stood in the middle of the coliseum floor, the sand stained with black ichor and red blood under him. A dozen valkor, seven fae, and a beastkind woman lay where they fell when he killed them, some missing limbs, most speared with sharp, crystalline shards of magic. His power came as easily as shifting now but he held back, let his opponents get close enough to spill his own blood, and pretended to be weak. Pretended to be collared, controlled.

The vile ring of metal still encircled his throat but his mind was his. It was only a matter of time before the saints who watched his fights realised that. Samlyn sat beside the red-haired saint he only saw in the arena, watching him slaughter and kill monsters and innocents alike. The fae he’d killed… they weren’t like Merian, weren’t cuffed and compelled. They pleaded, screamed, cried. They looked him in the eye when he killed them and begged him not to. They killed a part of him every time he ended their lives. But Kaial had warned him to bide his time, that there would be a singular moment to reveal the true scale of his power, and this wasn’t it.

When his latest victim fell, clutching her throat as blood pumped in a fatal rush, the light leaving her eyes, Jaro lifted his head and fixed his stare on the bottom step where the saints sat—and where Azrail sat dutifully at their side. As if he was one of them, as if they hadn’t forced poison in his mouth and made him swallow it, as if he wasn’t in agony the whole time. His chest was a bloody slab, so many wounds and cuts that he never healed, blood constantly sliding down his body to stain the leather trousers he was given and ordered to wear whenever they came here. As if one of the saints were offended by the sight of his nakedness. Not Samlyn—the other saint, the red-haired woman who watched the fights with narrowed eyes the colour of the sky. She appeared to be in her fifties but Jaro knew that was a lie. She was ageless, and every bit as dangerous and all-powerful as Samlyn. She tracked every fight, every kill, with hunger.

Jaro tore his eyes from her and looked instead at Azrail, scanning his eyes for an indication he was still present, fighting and screaming the way Jaro had fought and screamed before he cracked the collar. But Az’s eyes were scarily blank in a way Jaro had never seen before.

Don’t leave me.

He’d begged Jaro not to leave him, and now Azrail had left Jaro. When he came back to the room after all those hours apart, the torturer had been with him, along with four walking corpses that stunk of decay and rotten, vile things. And the torture had been… harrowing. Jaro had been seconds away from blowing everything and revealing that he was free, but Kaial’s yelled warnings held him in place. Azrail hadn’t been the same after that. Hollow. Silent.

You helped me breathe when the weight of being responsible for so many crushed me. You’re the friend who never left my side. You’re the heart of the rebellion. The heart of our family. None of it works without you.

Jaro didn’t work without Azrail, either. The screams had started in his head again when he looked into those hollow, flat eyes. They were still there now, as Jaro shook the blood from his fur and straightened to meet the next opponent. The next victim. It was never a fair fight; these fae were sent here for Jaro to slaughter. The valkor had warmed him up, got his bloodlust at a fever pitch, and now he was executing the saints’ enemies. From the frantic, pleading words of his earlier victims, he knew they were leaders from Aether, from Venhaus, from Jakahr—lords and mayors and royalty who had fought for their lands, their people and lost. Allies the Sapphire Knight badly needed alive.

But Jaro killed them, one after another, and looked across the bloodied arena at Azrail after every death. Partly to reassure himself Az was still alive. Partly so the saints knew Jaro would unleash himself upon them if they even thought about killing Azrail. He waited for them to send Az into the arena every time, waited for them to pit them against each other. But they were too valuable to lose, apparently.

A new opponent comes, Kaial warned, his voice carrying across the frozen pool inside Jaro, adding a thick layer of ice to the surface, more magic for Jaro to draw upon. Something feels… unbalanced in the court.

Unbalanced how? Jaro straightened, flexing his paws in the sand, ripping his attention from Azrail’s wan, unblinking face to the stone door across from Jaro. Would it be another politician? Or royalty this time? None were Vassalian, he couldn’t help but notice. Ismene had already removed all her threats years ago, like Azrail and Ev’s parents. What the hell was going out outside the palace, for so many victims to be from so many kingdoms? What had the dark saints done with the power from the broken circle?

No time to think of that, Kaial snapped. Pay attention, this one has a cleaver.

Some of his opponents entered the arena armed, others clutching nothing but their own shaking hands. This time it was a burly man with broad shoulders, a furious expression, and a huge meat cleaver in his hand. Jaro would have thought he was a butcher if he didn’t know these were all power players of the Saintlands, threats to the saints invasion.

“All I have to do is kill this animal, and I’m free to go?” he yelled—at the red-haired saint, Jaro realised. He didn’t know her name, didn’t know what she was the saint of, but the others deferred to her, even the Eversky.

“All you have to do is kill the beastkind and you’re free,” Samlyn replied, the woman silent as always. Sometimes she murmured to the others, and Az probably heard her words, but he could speak as much as Jaro could—not at all. Maybe Az was just pretending, too. Maybe he was okay. Maybe—

The man skidded across the sand so fast it sprayed towards Jaro and only Kaial’s shouted warning had him spinning before it blinded him.

“I’m sorry, but it’s you or me,” his opponent said in a deep voice. Not the first apology Jaro had been given today. A tight pain squeezed behind his ribs, but he wouldn’t hesitate. Either he killed this man or he was killed, and Jaro had survived too much to die now. He didn’t know how he’d come back from this slaughter, if he ever would, but his body would survive even if his mind was in tatters.

Jaro might have echoed the man’s apology if he could speak. Instead he slammed a fist into the frozen lake of his power and gripped a wicked shard of it, lunging at the man with sharp fangs at the same time he threw his magic. It had taken a lot of trial and error at first, but after countless duels, it was so easy it was surreal.

Because the power is yours; it answers to you. Now feint left unless you want to lose your leg.

Jaro feinted left, then dove around the man’s back as he staggered, a blade of silvery crystal protruding from his chest. It didn’t drop him instantly like some of the others, but he was a good few feet away, so Jaro pretended to stagger, losing his footing among the sand, as if the trial of using his magic was so severe and painful he couldn’t stand. Samlyn laughed from the steps; the facade worked. That laughter grated Jaro’s nerves, grinding his temper to a wafer-thin bandage of patience over a sea of rage. The rage would escape, and soon, but not yet, not until—

Samlyn’s laugh cut off so abruptly that Jaro turned towards the saints and Azrail, terrified they’d finally tired of playing with Az, torturing him, and decided to end him. But Azrail remained sitting on the steps, while the saints leapt to their feet, and then Jaro felt it—the ground rumbled, vibrations shifting the sand beneath his paws.

“What the fuck is that?” the man with the cleaver demanded.

The saints exchanged a swift glance. “It may be time to visit the old seat of the Wolven Lord,” Samlyn said calmly, too fucking calmly with the ground quaking beneath them. “Before anyone thinks to make a nuisance of themselves.”

The woman’s mouth pressed thin, something like exasperation on her fair face. “I told Karmen keeping this many of them locked in one place wasn’t a good idea. What’s this now? Someone with earth magic?”

Jaro’s eyes went to Azrail, hope like a balloon in his chest, making him fly. Was Azrail doing this, encouraging the ground itself to rebel with his earth magic?

“I said, what the fuck was that?” Jaro’s opponent yelled with the self-importance of a man used to being answered.

Samlyn spared him a dry glance. “Not your concern.” His bored eyes slid to Jaro. “End him quickly. I have more exciting quarry for you.”

Who? Was it the others? Not Azrail, but then who else could make the ground quake? They didn’t know what magic Kheir had been given from the saint of love, nor the true extent of Ark’s power. And what about Bryon? Could it be air shaking the palace or—

Or Maia. With the saint of spring’s magic, she could call on any natural, living thing. Jaro’s jaw parted, teeth bared in as close to a smile as he could get. He was terrified to see her again, his shame so constant he wore it like its own collar, but not even shame would stop his pride if that was his mate.

“That was an order,” Samlyn said, keeping on his feet. Jaro’s stomach flipped when he saw the intent, hunter’s stare the saint wore. “End your prey.”

Shit. Jaro hadn’t immediately obeyed. Before Samlyn could grow suspicious, he leapt at the man’s legs, sinking sharp canines into muscle and flesh and tearing it out. He wavered but was stronger than Jaro expected. The cleaver swung, light gleaming on the wicked edge, and Jaro’s breath tangled in his throat as he threw himself aside. Fur sheared off on that razor edge.

His heart in his throat, Jaro leapt upon the man’s back, riding him all the way to the ground, sand spraying around them. It still trembled beneath them, but rhythmically, like the world was rattling, settling, rattling, settling.

“Very dramatic,” Samlyn remarked to the other saint, a smile in his voice. “Should we—”

A piercing shriek of a roar cut through the palace, so loud and bestial that Jaro froze in the act of ripping out the man’s throat. He scrambled away but Jaro turned towards the opening to the arena, less concerned with a meat cleaver than whatever the chasm that had been.

“What was that…?” Samlyn asked his companion, speaking Jaro’s thoughts exactly. “That was not any of our playthings.”

“No,” she agreed, taking a step away from the steps, the world seeming to freeze, to hold its breath, as she spoke. Who was she? She wasn’t a lesser saint, not with the way she held herself, the power that throbbed around her, and the way Samlyn kept deferring to her. She might have been as powerful as Karmen. Jaro backed up a step, letting his opponent make a distraction of himself by running towards the saints. Bad idea.

“That’s not any beastkind,” he shouted at them. “Killing a beast is one thing, but that… that sounds enormous. I’m not fighting that. You can take your deal and shove it up your—”

Samlyn sighed. He didn’t speak, simply turned to look at the man, and the fae clutched his chest, staggering back. Jaro didn’t expect it to happen so fast. He knew Samlyn was a saint, knew he was the saint of food and survival, knew he could kill as easily as Jaro blinked. But watching the life bleed from Jaro’s opponent, his broad shoulders shrivelling, skin sucked dry, face gaunt, eyes hollow until he looked like a corpse… Jaro shuddered hard.

I’m going to die.

You are not, Kaial growled.

But Samlyn had just killed that man so quickly, and if Jaro gave even the tiniest inkling that he’d stopped being useful to him, he could drain the life from Jaro or Azrail in a blink. He wouldn’t have time to fight, it would happen too fast.

“I suppose we should find out what’s making that racket,” Samlyn sighed to the red-haired saint.

“An ancient one,” she replied in a voice like power, resonant and rich, deeper than Karmen’s voice but every bit as dangerous. “I can’t see which element it harbours, but it will be—what was the word you used?”

“A nuisance,” Samlyn provided, following her when she walked around the bloodied, corpse-strewn arena floor. Samlyn clicked his fingers and Azrail leapt to his feet to follow, his bronze face empty and still, his eyes dead. Jaro hurried to catch up, nudging his snout against Az’s left the second the saints’ backs were turned, trying to ignore the horrible, crushing pressure of the saints’ power on his bones. Az didn’t even flinch, and any hope that he was only pretending to be controlled died. “Drakes are annoyingly resistant to our magic. This could pose a problem, Scylla.”

Scylla? Jaro’s heart dropped to his paws as he walked, and only panic kept his body locked instead of betraying his fractured collar. Scylla was the Heart-Mother, twin of the Star-Heart, sister to the queen of saints. She was only beaten in power by Karmen and, if his suspicion was correct, Siofra. But Siofra was a baby, a teenager, too delicate and precious to be involved in any of this. He wondered what the saint who’d given her power would think about her twin being here, conquering the Saintlands. He wondered if the Star-Heart had spoken to Siofra while they were gone.

But shit, that was who the redheaded saint was. Scylla. The third-most powerful of the entire pantheon. Jaro shot a quick look to Azrail, panicking, his breathing coming faster, whining through his nose. How were they going to survive this? Not only Scylla and Samlyn and the awful, endless press of their power but a drake?

They needed to break away, to get the chasm away from them, but Jaro couldn’t do it alone. Short of clamping his jaws around Az’s leg and dragging him off, he had no ideas.

Use your magic, Kaial said in a tense tone, but you’ll have to wait for the exact right moment. This could all go wrong so quickly.

I know. He could feel it, a tightness in the air around them, warnings in the shaking of the ground—shaking caused by the huge, powerful steps of a drake. Destiny was balanced on a knife edge and any sudden movements could send it falling to either side. Either Jaro could wake Az, find Maia and her mates, and they’d escape—or they’d all be killed here today and the last chance of resistance in the Saintlands would be wiped out.

No, he had to hope others would resist even if they were killed here today. Zamanya and Evrille would rally the rebels. They could keep Vassalaer, could make it a safe space for anyone fleeing… well, whatever was happening out there.

Jaro nudged Az again as they left the coliseum and strode down the pale corridor, the dusty scent of the palace filling Jaro’s lungs along with a tingling buzz of power. A lot of power. And was he seeing things, or were the plants crawling up the columns and choking cracks in the walls spreading out, claiming more land? He exchanged a glance with Az but Azrail’s gaze was fixed ahead, on the back of Samlyn’s head. Fuck. What was Jaro going to do? Urgency burned, but he needed the exact right moment, and waiting for it was torture.

“There,” Scylla said, gesturing with a graceful hand at the long, ivory-scaled tale of a drake. “The question is, how did it get in?”

“Through the window by the looks of it,” Samlyn said with a deep sigh. “The question is, did one of the pets summon it or did it come of its own volition?”

Scylla took a long, deep inhale, and a deep instinct in Jaromir screamed at him to run, that a predator had caught his scent and would catch his throat in its jaws.

“It’s not claimed,” Scylla said, flowing down the corridor like a force of nature, kicking aside a weed that sprang through a crack in the floor. “Not yet. Karmen calls for aid.”

Samlyn groaned. “She promised she could keep her pets under control.”

“Like yours are under control?” Scylla asked wryly. “The beast that trots behind us has his own mind.”

Now, Kaial roared.

Jaro dropped every pretence of his magic being a struggle. He plunged into the frozen pool so hard the whole surface cracked, grabbing fistfuls of ice and hurling it at both saints as he stepped in front of Azrail.

Shards of crystalline magic drove through Samlyn’s back; Scylla threw up a hand, scattering the magic destined for her into ash. “I told you so,” she taunted Samlyn with a smile, shaking her head when another terrifying, primal roar came from the drake just ahead of them. If it turned around, it could blast them into ashes.

Again, Kaial ordered. Jaro was already grabbing more magic, throwing daggers and spears of his dagger-sharp magic at Samlyn, not wasting more power on the queen of saints. He didn’t hope to kill them, only to weaken them long enough to escape.

How do I free Az of their control?

It’s in his blood now, Kaial replied, his voice taking a sombre tone Jaro didn’t want to hear.

Fuck that. How do I free him?

There’s one way—

Kaial’s voice died when figures rushed past the long, ivory tail of the drake, two stumbling and leaning into each other—Vawn and Ark, both smeared with blood—one tall and messy-haired and wan as he strode ahead, a dagger in hand—Kheir—with the final man at his side, bristling and massive with a long sword in his hand, clothes stained dark, and pure rage on his face—Bryon. Kheir and Bryon scanned the corridor, protecting the others, and ground to a halt at the sight of Samlyn and Scylla, Jaro and Azrail. Jaro wanted to weep, wanted to fall to the ground.

Because there she was, striding forward with her hands raised, vivid tension in her whole body, and power clinging to her skin like drops of moonlight itself. Maia was here. She was here, and full of power, and furious.

Cold golden eyes assessed Jaro and Azrail, then fixed on the saints. Her head tilted in an unnatural, eerie swoop. The edges of her mouth curled into a vicious smile.

“Come to die, too?” she taunted, the sound of her voice like a dagger to Jaro’s chest. He’d failed her, and he didn’t deserve her, but he’d deal with that later. Now, he was just so happy to see her, hear her, draw her scent deep into his lungs, that he wanted to sob.

Scylla and Samlyn had faced the bigger group of threats; Jaro was forgotten. He would have smiled if he could. Instead he reached across the frozen pool inside him and told Kaial, give me everything you have.