Page 5

CHAPTER FIVE

J aro waited for Azrail to erupt with fury, to scheme them a way out of this, to unleash his protectiveness on the dark saint and the torturer like it was a weapon in itself. But Az stood beside Jaro and said nothing. He didn’t even flinch. Like Jaro didn’t flinch. And he understood with nausea that Azrail was as trapped as he was. Not collared but caged all the same.

The coliseum stank of sulphur and rusted steel, nothing like the floral aroma inside the building. Huge blocks of white stone made up the curved amphitheatre, rising to the grey, clouded sky like rows of steps, so many rows there had to be a hundred of them. All empty except for the first row where people he recognised but couldn’t place sat to watch the spectacle. A beautiful, ageless woman with skin like polished onyx. A stern, broad-shouldered man with little hair and the bearing of a soldier. A smaller, older woman with hair like silk dyed vermillion. A guy a little older than Jaro with battered leather clothes, rich sun-darkened gold skin, and brown hair in an untidy bun. He looked at the sandy floor of the coliseum with an emptiness on a face formed of angles and sharp planes.

Familiarity buzzed in the back of Jaro’s head, the beautiful, smirking woman plucking at some suppressed memory, but the man was the one he stared at the longest. That emotionless man was Vawn but he was nothing like the rebel Jaro knew from the compound. He was thinner, his features sharper, his height enhanced by the weight loss, but it was his face that was the most drastic change. Vawn was a smartass and a joker. He was always grinning or smirking, eyes always glittering. Now there was emptiness in both his eyes and his face.

Jaro was glad when the thread of Samlyn’s command in his collar pulled his attention to the sand, noting splashes of darkness and crimson in places. Evidence of battles that had taken place before their arrival.

“You can come with me, forsaken one,” Samlyn said in a papery voice, heaving a sigh like he found the spectacle tedious before it had even begun. The fur on the back of Jaro’s neck pulled tight as Azrail and the torturer followed the grey saint across the coliseum, joining the others on the pale step. Jaro remained where he was. Samlyn didn’t need to speak to command him like the others, like Enryr had. The collar was tight around Jaro’s throat, pinching when he moved, when he was allowed to move, and somehow Samlyn communicated his orders with the sheer power of his silence.

That was how Jaro knew he was to wait at the edge of the sandy floor even when the door closed with a resounding clang behind him, kicking his heartbeat into a sprint. His heart seemed to be the only part of his body they couldn’t control, his mind the only thing free to run.

He tried to lift his paws, tried to shrink back when the solid stone door across the arena floor grated open, revealing a thing of nightmares. His body had its orders and refused to retreat. If Maia had been safe, if she’d been happy with the others, with Vawn saved, Jaro could have borne this. But knowing she was trapped in this place, in another cell with only saints knew what was happening to her, it made him want to scream.

The creature that slithered out of the door across the coliseum was exactly as Jaro remembered. Seven feet tall, it was like the grotesque offspring of a lizard and a wild cat but twice the size of each. Green-black scales covered it from the horns on its rounded head all the way to its powerful tail and the paws that flashed with wicked-looking claws. It would have stalked Jaro’s dreams if he’d closed his eyes once since they left the saints' circle.

“Only one beast will walk out of the coliseum—you or the valkor,” Samlyn said from his spot on the marble step, magic carrying his dreary voice across the wide space. He’d got a faceted glass of wine from somewhere, and now he raised it. “To the death.”

Cold doused Jaro’s blood, but he’d received his orders and it had freed up his command over his own body. He was free to move, to snarl, to attack as he’d been desperate to do since he woke up in that stone block of a cell. But first he tipped his head back and roared, a lament of rage and heartbreak and regret pouring free. He should never have run into the saints' circle. If he hadn’t, would his friends and mate be safe? Or was this the inevitable end: Jaro in a fighting ring with a monster as saints watched?

The valkor, as Samlyn had called the nightmare creature, assessed Jaro as he screamed at the sky, purging himself of the emotion that had clotted in his chest. He knew he’d have to fight and knew this could be his last day in the Saintlands, his final act. He had no choice in fighting the valkor, but at least he could release the scream.

The sound was still pouring out of him when the creature struck, its huge, poison-slick paws eating up the distance with alarming speed. Jaro’s howl of devastation turned to a roar of intention when he dipped his head, flexing his own paws in the sand, reading the way the valkor moved. It was huge but fluid, intense in its grace when it ought to be clumsy. Jaro hadn’t fought in his jaguar form for years; he would be the clumsy one. He would die here.

He selfishly wished Maia were at his side. She might hate him for the acts he performed in Baj’s pillowhouse, might hate him for keeping his connection with Yeven Delakore, prince of the Vassal empire, and her cousin secret, but even hating him Maia would fight alongside Jaro. He wished for a soft, far-reaching glow of moonlight, prayed to see his mate lit up like a star as she unleashed that fierce, miraculous power on their enemies. Instead he stood alone, facing a nightmare, and Az was forced to sit across the coliseum and watch.

He’d hate himself for it. Jaro knew Azrail better than he knew himself, and his friend would tear himself apart with guilt. With grief. As if it was his fault the dark saints had—

The valkor was upon Jaro, and he’d been too distracted to even notice it racing across the last bit of distance between them. He had to throw himself aside, skidding through sand, to avoid getting his throat ripped out. The time for anxiety and guilt was over; if he didn’t clear his head, he’d be dead in seconds. Just because he knew he would die here that didn’t mean he’d meet death willingly.

He lunged back to his feet, sand spraying from his paws, and intentionally kicked sand this time, sending grains and grit into the valkor’s eyes. Its shriek was loud enough to make Jaro’s soul quail, to lay his ears flat to his head even as he ignored his flight instinct and lunged for the beast’s scaly throat. He managed to sink his fangs in, but the first rush of blood over his tongue had him ripping away, reeling, vomiting into the sand. Its blood was blackened and wrong.

Poison, like the stuff that oozed from its claws, staining the sand black.

The valkor laughed, even with a flap of its skin hanging from a throat twice the size of Jaro’s, even with dark blood pouring freely over its scales. Jaro’s own blood froze, his awareness of the creature sharpening until his skin tingled beneath his fur, his heart quickening. I will not meet death willingly.

The valkor took its time measuring him. Waiting, Jaro realised, for the effects of having that dark ichor in his mouth. But Jaro was collared, had been claimed by a dark saint. Whatever the valkor thought its blood would do, Jaro was immune. He took that small advantage and leapt, carving the razor edge of his claws through the wound he’d already opened up. It widened, pouring black liquid like a waterfall, making the valkor shriek so loudly that it rattled Jaro’s skull.

He was so disorientated by that piercing cry that he had to shake his head to dislodge it, and the valkor struck while his sight was a blur. Pain flashed like fire across Jaro’s flank, sinking through muscle into his blood, and it was a gasp, not a scream, which left Jaro first. That black, stinking wrongness he’d tasted in the valkor’s blood forced its way through his skin and into his bloodstream. So this was how he’d die. Not from his throat ripped out or from a mortal wound in his vulnerable belly. Poison from the valkor’s bite.

The bastard creature tore its fangs free and backed away with that high, dissonant laughter he’d mocked Jaro with earlier. The fire in the bite turned to ice, to sharp, bitter cold. He slumped into the sand, coarse grains scratching his face, burrowing past his fur as he writhed, his initial gasp turning to a scream, wretched and beastly. The sound of a dying animal.

No, a male voice shouted in his mind, coming from a vast distance. Not a dying animal. A saint coming into his power.

Jaro’s paws flexed, claws carving through sand as the valkor stood over him, hot breath raking over his face as its smug eyes watched him struggle, but not die. The first taste of its blood should have hurt him, but he survived that. He’d survive this too; the Dagger as much as told him so. It was Kaial’s voice bellowing at him as if through a wind tunnel, a ruthless and unyielding voice that expected Jaro’s refusal to yield, too.

The indenture did not kill you, Kaial roared. Slavery did not kill you. The collar did not kill you. This will not kill you.

Every word was like a cut opened on Jaro’s soul, a reminder of the hell he’d dragged himself through. Had he ever made it out the other side? He thought he had, but the dark secret of Yeven had hung over him like an executioner’s blade the whole time. He thought he’d escaped the chasm’s maw when they brought Maia to the compound, but he was still in it, trapped in eternal suffering.

So make them suffer. Make them bleed.

Jaro sucked in a breath and roared his pain, the bite like ice spiking through his flank, carving him apart. Like blades driven into him. But he was a blade himself, and he wasn’t alone in his mind.

Tell me how to kill it, he begged, grabbing onto that thin sliver of hope Kaial’s voice offered with his fingernails.

He rolled onto his side, then heaved himself onto his front, flattening his paws to the sand. Claws gouged trails in the sand as he shoved to his feet with a snarl of pain. The bite on his side wept blood and ichor. It had managed to infect him.

Don’t go for the throat, Kaial shouted. Its tail is its weakness. Reach out your hand to me. Take your power. Slay the beast.

And then I’ll be free?

The pause spoke louder than any words could. Not free, never free. Jaro would always be cuffed, collared, caged.

You will survive, Kaial boomed, as commanding as anything the collar had ever done to him. You will survive.

Jaro inhaled a sharp breath through his nose and bared his teeth at the valkor, its hot breath fanning over his fur, setting it on end. The tail, he reminded himself as instinct pushed him to go for the beast’s throat.

Reach out your hand to me, Kaial repeated with urgency as Jaro slunk low to the ground, searching for the right angle to attack the valkor’s tail, snarling when the creature turned, blocking access.

Busy, Jaro bit back at the saint.

Busy and then dead, Kaial snapped, his voice a distant echo. Reach out to me. Now!

The valkor lunged with a rattling shriek, and Jaro scrambled out of its path, pushing his body to its limit. He tried and failed to block out the pain of the bite. It spread through him like frost across a lake. He panted, fur rising on the back of his neck as he waited for the animal to bite again.

Jaro surged across the sand, listing to one side, the scales of the valkor’s tail whipping closer, and at the same time he speared an inner hand through the distance between him and Kaial. He imagined reaching across that emptiness where the saint of vengeance’s voice echoed: a frozen lake, he realised.

Further, Kaial urged.

Jaro threw himself faster, farther, and gasped when he made sudden contact. The frozen lake shattered into a thousand shards of ice, a thousand daggers. Kaial’s power wasn’t gentle, and it wasn’t tame. It was every bit as wild and furious as Jaro himself, and it blast apart the lake, the ice, and every reservation he had until a roar erupted from him.

Jaro’s teeth sank into skin, scales scraping his gums until they bled. Black ichor poured into his mouth, fell and blackened and wrong, but this time Jaro was full of power and he held on.

This magic had always felt as sharp as knives, but now its edge had been honed with purpose. He could feel it clashing inside him, could grasp it like he’d grasp a sword or spear, swing it through the air and—

The valkor shrieked, writhing, and Jaro had to gnash his teeth into its tail to hold on, remembering Kaial’s words.

Breathe through the magic, the saint guided him, his voice closer, the edges softened. This power is not something to battle; allow it to flow through you as you would air into your lungs.

Easier said than done.

The valkor writhed and screeched, trying to rip Jaro’s teeth from its tail, trying to tear out the spear he’d made of this new magic. As it struggled, its body snaking in the sand, Jaro caught glimpses of dark blood pouring into the arena, scales warped as a shard of cold, steel power thrust from its belly. Fuck. Had Jaro…

Yes, that is your work. It’s very fine, too. You should be proud.

Jaro didn’t have the space to think about that right now. He ground his teeth deeper, burying his canines to the bone, and tore, momentum sending him onto his back. Sand threw itself over his body, spraying across the arena, into his eyes. The scratch of irritation across his eyeballs became pain when he blinked, stumbling to his feet, his ears flicking forward as he listened for the valkor’s next move.

The beast is dead, Kaial informed him with pride.

Jaro shook his head, trying to fling the sand from his eyes. The tears that welled did a better job, and then he blinked at the cooling body of the valkor in the arena before him, its eyes open and glassy, that spear of cold, sharp magic still sticking out of it. He’d done it. He’d killed the creature. He survived.

Exhaustion crept up on him, and Jaro exhaled a rough sigh, though adrenaline kept him walking a fine edge. The bite on his side throbbed but the knife-sharp magic he’d grasped from Kaial was already spreading through him, washing over the mangled skin, penetrating ruined muscle to repair what had been ripped apart. He inhaled, tasting the sharp, bright scent of magic on the air, and Jaro wondered if he looked how Maia had in Eosantha after the mirror’s dark magic sucked her within it.

He took a moment to breathe, to adjust to the feeling of this magic inside him where there’d been nothing before, but his head snapped up when the harsh grinding of stone on stone swallowed the sound of his own panting breaths.

Jaro only realised he’d been expecting a guard sent to clean up the dead valkor when instead he watched a small, fine-boned woman stagger through the doors and into the arena.

Her hair was as silver as polished steel, ragged and matted as it bled over her narrow shoulders, her face as moon-pale as Maia’s hair. Jaro sucked in a sharp breath, horror a deluge in his gut. He shot a look at Samlyn who sat on the stone step with his hands folded in his lap, his expression one second away from an eye roll or a sigh.

The small woman, Jaro’s opponent, staggered closer, flinching when the doors grated shut behind her. That flinch made Jaro’s heart crack. She was controlled, as everyone here was controlled, but free enough to command her own movements. That, or she was more powerful than Jaro. He searched for a collar, a cuff, and found neither. Had the black liquid been forced down her throat?

When she came closer, he searched her wide-eyes, the distinctive orange ring around her blue eyes marking her as Aethani. Jaro had known her for years, had planned and dreamed and fought alongside her.

Merian, he tried to speak, forgetting he was in jaguar form. A mangled cry was all that emerged.

She was a rebel, one of them. What was she doing here?

“We found her wandering the edge of the barrier we set up around the island,” the smirking, dark-skinned saint informed him as if she knew his thoughts.

She doesn’t, Kaial murmured, but she knows her words will wound you.

“It seems she travelled to Venhaus alone in a sad attempt at a rescue mission when your compound received no word from you. What a heroic woman. She must value you all so highly if she risked herself to save you.”

She was heroic. She was loyal and deadly, likely trained by the mythical Fala Ven. Merian should never have been here. Who else did they have?

Jaro snarled it at the saints, wordless and furious. Who else do you have?

Zamanya? Oh, fuck. Evrille?

He didn’t get an answer. Samlyn pressed his lips together and shook his head in exasperation at his fellow dark saint, training his attention on Jaro and Merian. Both of them under his command.

“Only one will walk out of the coliseum—you or the assassin.” His last command fell with the finality of a guillotine. “To the death.”