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CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

“ A z,” Maia choked out, pulling on his soul as if she could pull him from the deep pool of poison leaking from every part of him. The light around them brightened until she had to squint, and all at once he let go of her and stepped back, shaking his head. Lank black hair fell over his face, horror filling his eyes.

“Maia—”

That was him, that was his voice, and there was life and colour and pain in his eyes again.

She threw her arms around him and squeezed tight, ignoring the vicious throb in her wrist, ignoring the sharp magic buried in his chest and shoulders, ignoring every pain and ache and fear. Az was Az right now, and she was so relieved, she choked on every breath.

Her attention jumped across the hall when Vawn grunted, the sound like a lash to her heart. He was her mate and she hadn’t even had time to think about that, let alone talk to him about it and now—shit, Bryon was in the middle of driving a hard fist into his gut.

Vawn threw up frantic hands to ward off a second blow. “I’m me,” he rushed out. “I’m me again.”

I’m me again.

Maia shivered, goosebumps on her arms and cold spilling through her as icy as Azrail’s hands. Something was wrong with Vawn, too, that same black, oozing corruption in his soul. What had the saints done to him? Was he cut apart and tortured too?

Maia jumped when the crystalline shards dissolved from Azrail’s body all at once. And then Jaro was there, resting his snout against Az’s leg, a whine in his throat. Maia let her broken hand fall, resting the fingertips in his fur, not that she could feel him.

“Why are they cheering?” she rasped, wincing at the deep bruise forming in her throat, the pain dull compared to her wrist but there all the same. She was very glad there was a fifteen-foot tall drake between them and the saints right now.

“Because of the light?” Azrail croaked, his voice even more hoarse than hers. “It doesn’t make sense. He just… released me.

Samlyn sat propped against a wall, weak but conscious enough to hold onto control of Azrail, of Vawn. Then why release them?

Time to go, the drake said, making her jump. Jaro and Az jerked too, as if they all heard the ancient creature. We failed. They won. Climb onto my back and hold tight; if you fall, you’ll die. If you stay, you’ll die.

Vawn was so pale he didn’t even offer a sassy remark. Maia was too tired and in pain for one, too.

What happened? She asked the drake, leaning against Azrail, pain flashing up her arm in increasing spikes.

There were two battles happening today—your fight for freedom and a fight for the ancient sword Sintrylla. That battle failed. My mate flew to stop them, but it was too late, and now we have to survive with the consequences.

A sword…?

The most important sword in recent history. Capable of killing a saint, but imbued with so much power it could shift the war in either direction. Broken, we would win. Reforged, the saints would unlock unlimited power. There’s no time to explain it now.

“Unlimited power,” Ark breathed, limping across the pale floor to get to her. Maia used her unbroken hand to clutch him close. “Didn’t they already have that?”

No, the drake said with clear anger. They did not. Climb on my back now or I’ll leave you to die. This is your last warning.

Maia didn’t struggle as Bryon, Kheir, and Ark pushed her up onto the drake’s back, but she did bare her teeth in warning, making sure everyone mounted with her. She refused to leave anyone behind.

Ark mounted, with Bryon’s help, then Azrail, then Kheir, and finally Bryon wrestling with Jaro in jaguar form, making sure everyone was accounted for. Maia’s heart twisted up tight. Tears built in her eyes.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Azrail rasped, looking at her with true devastation.

Maia pressed her soul to his, pressed her forehead to his back, and said, “It was never your fault.”

The greyish light hanging over the palace tore away all at once, and the saints whooped and yelled, their happiness abrasive. Cruel. They’d been tortured and manipulated and forced to do things no living person should, and now their torturers were cheering.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Samlyn demanded in his papery rasp. He sounded healthy and—Maia peered around Azrail and Kheir—healed. Fuck. What the chasm was that light? And what did unlimited power mean, when they’d already had the power to take over almost the entire continent.

“Let them go,” Scylla told him with an edge of laughter. “We don’t need them anymore, and nothing they do can stop us now.”

Enryr is still dead, the drake reminded her. Hold on.

Maia took his advice and clung to the scale in front of her, the thing big enough to be a horse’s saddle. The sudden lurch and tilt of the world made her shriek, but she held on, and when she frantically scanned the drake’s back behind her she saw everyone else had managed to hold on, too. Blazing pain shot up her arm, her hand hanging limply, and she had to grit her teeth to trap a scream as the drake moved.

His powerful tail whipped around, a boom making her ears hurt as he caved in part of the wall, and he wasted no time in diving through the massive hole.

Maia looked back, her stomach roiling, to see if the saints were pursuing them. They stood in the hall, visible beyond broken stone and pale rubble, but they weren’t immediately racing after them.

The Eversky had joined Scylla, Samlyn, and the two men Maia didn’t know. The one with golden skin and curls dipped his head when he noticed her attention, as if she’d done this, given them unlimited power.

“My thanks, servants,” he shouted from the palace as powerful, loud wingbeats carried them away. The building was huge viewed from outside, a sprawling mansion of alabaster stone towers and arches and domes, with so many floors and wings that Maia couldn’t count them, the whole thing built into the edge of a forest.

Maia was going to be sick. My thanks, servants.

“Maia?” Bryon growled somewhere behind her.

“I’m alright,” she lied, panting through the pain. But if they finally got away from that place, if they were finally free, it was worth it. Everything that came after, whatever it meant for the dark saints to have even more power, she’d figure it out later. Now she just wanted to sleep in a place that didn’t have locks on the doors or bars on the windows.

They won’t follow us, the drake said—to all of them judging by the way everyone stiffened. They’ve got what they wanted now. They’ll come after the sword undoubtedly, but they’ll revel in their unbound power first.

“Are we safe?” Kheir asked, his voice tight and pained. Oh fuck, his wing—Maia had almost forgotten. “Is anywhere in the Saintlands safe from them, or did we just exchange one prison for another?”

Three kingdoms remain unconquered: Felis, V’haiv, and Sainsa. There is refuse yet for those who fight the saints rule. But many have died. Thousands upon thousands.

Maia stared at the scales under her as guilt choked her, and she didn’t look up even when the forestland below changed to open, grassy plains.

“Where are we going?” It was Ark who finally asked the question on all their minds. He sounded better than earlier, and Maia’s eyes closed with relief when she reached out to him and felt a rush of magic in his soul, healing his wounds. Someone drove nails into his hands and feet and she was still murderous at the thought. Arms wound around her middle and squeezed, a kiss falling on her neck. Maia sagged, her bottom lip caving in. He was right behind her. Healing and whole and safe. Wounded like all of them, traumatised like all of them, but safe.

Felis, V’haiv, Sainsa.

To a city that no longer had a name. In the heart of the Hunchback Hills.

“Sainsa?” Maia murmured, exhaustion pressing on her now they’d put good distance between them and the saints’ palace. They’d been in Vassal this whole time; Maia recognised the Forest of Skies, the plains dotted with villages, the clouds on the horizon. The clouds over the Vassalaer. She’d been afraid, for a moment, the drake would take her home, but she wasn’t ready to go back, wasn’t sure she ever would be. She wasn’t the princess she’d been there, and she’d rather sleep in the plains below than in the same city as Ismene.

To your mate, the drake replied in that growling, serious tone as he angled them through the clouds, following the curve of the land so he didn’t carry them directly over the City of Skies.

To her… “What?” Maia breathed, pain pounding too viciously through her to make sense of it. But the only mate who wasn’t with them was Isak, and if the drake was taking them to him, it would mean he—

I’m sure he’ll explain when we reach the clearing, the drake said with a deepening growl. I will attempt not to roast him alive for his error, because the odds were stacked against him and the saints have been playing this game for millennia.

What does that mean?

We’re here, he said instead of replying, and Maia’s heart lurched as she searched the rolling hills they descended towards a flat grassy area cupped between three tall arched mounds. It was utterly silent here, only the rush of air around them as the drake’s wings beat the air. There were no people waiting below, no Isak.

Patience, the drake chided, swooping lower. Maia screamed as her stomach soared suddenly into her throat, her broken wrist making holding on difficult. She tightened her thighs around the drake’s back, sheer panic making her blood race, her head spine. If someone fell off—

I would catch them in my talons. You’re such a worrywart, he growled with clear judgement. The same applies to you. If you fall, I will catch you.

But… why?

We are allies in a world on the brink of devastation. The Saintlands are dying around us, more lost every day. I am one of the most powerful beings to ever exist in this continent, and I may have slept for centuries, but I’m not about to let an ally capable of fighting the dark ones plunge to her death. Even if her constant worrying does make my head ache.

Maia might have smiled, might have asked him his name, but he surged suddenly at the ground and she was shrieking again, clinging to his scales as the ground rushed up at them.

“Hold on!” Bryon commanded, thick with dominance.

“Thanks, grandpa, I didn’t think of that,” Vawn snapped.

And then they were on the ground, the drake’s ivory body jerking on impact, then going unnervingly still. After hours of flying, it was a miracle and an omen to be in one place. What if the saints followed them?

Then you get out of my way and let me roast them. I would have done so back at the court of Bevhen, but you were all in the way. And like I just said, I don’t let allies die. Now get off my back.