Page 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

S he was mute and staring, barely breathing, barely alive, and Bryon Erithian didn’t know what the fuck to do .

“It’s like sharing a cell with a corpse,” he muttered, trying, for approximately the thousandth time, to provoke her into speaking, blinking, any-fucking-thing. “Move, princess, you’re creeping me the fuck out.”

You swear too much, a soft feminine voice teased, a voice from his memory. He clenched his jaw, fighting through the familiar pain. He’d never really stopped hearing Nimara since his wife died. She’d yelled at him so many times to be kinder to Maia that he’d lost count. He was either haunted by her spirit or completely insane. Neither would surprise him.

“Come on, princess,” he huffed. “You not gonna argue with me? I thought that was your favourite hobby.”

Not a flicker of movement in her face, not a glimmer of life in those golden eyes.

“You don’t strike me as the type to give silent treatment,” he remarked, his body as tense as iron where he sat against the wall opposite. He was one fucking twitch away from launching across the cell and shaking her. “More like the type to lash out with sharp words and sharper truths and hand my ass to me.” Panic clawed its way up his chest when she kept staring ahead, looking right through him. “Not tempted?”

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken this much to her. He didn’t know if he ever had. Since that first time they ran into each other in the compound, he’d been a snarling, condescending bastard—Nimara’s words, not his.

He knew exactly what Maia Isellien Delakore was, knew the weapon she’d been forged into, knew the ways she’d harmed people, manipulated people. She’d been her aunt’s pet weapon since her magic developed, and part of Bryon hated her for that, for her role in the queen’s empire. The empire that enslaved and slaughtered beastkind, that took his wife and son when they tried to flee. He’d been so fucking stupid to think he could sneak them out, to think they wouldn’t get caught. Beastkind always got caught. Or maybe if he’d known Azrail and the rebels then, they’d have made it out.

He knew exactly what Maia could do, what she had done, but she didn’t deserve him sneering and snarling at her. He’d only begun to consider what a life like that would be like for Maia these past few days, so aware of her that he tracked her every movement. It had taken him two hours to know she had serious trauma, and that being locked up tormented her. Another two to realise she was handling it, not letting that fear win, so she had a lot of experience masking her fear. What had it been like in the Delakore Palace, among a court of cruel, heartless courtiers, the pet to the cruellest of them all? They’d locked her up, made her claustrophobic, but what else?

God, Bryon hated that he cared. He’d told himself not to, that none of this shit was worth the risk. He didn’t care that she was kind, and remarkably heroic, and had a sharp wit that made him want to smile against his will. She was adept with any weapon she drew, skilled enough with magic to threaten a saint, and as courageous as any soldier he’d fought alongside. But it wasn’t worth it.

“Come on, princess,” he griped, focusing on where she sat across from him, her legs splayed crookedly on the floor where she’d slid down the wall, mud on her boots, ash on her jacket and jaw. Her hair was unbound, white strands tumbling messily over her shoulders, making her paler. She was usually colourful and golden and fierce. Now she looked like a ghost. “Don’t tell me you’ve lost your nerve. You don’t even want to argue? I’ll give you one free shot, one insult of your choosing.”

She’d certainly not been shy about insulting him before now. She snapped at him every chance she got. Maybe, he reluctantly admitted, because he did the same, and he’d set the hostile tone for their partnership. He had no interest in her, refused to get anywhere near her, but it was a little fucking difficult to keep his distance when they were locked in a three-metre square brick together.

He cursed every last saint that thought this was funny. Clearly, they were playing a cosmic joke on Bryon, locking him up with the one woman who could kill whatever bits of him had survived Nimara’s and Col’s deaths. He’d been practically undead those first few years. He’d only come back to life in the compound, gifted a new purpose.

“And to think you call me a grumpy bastard,” he huffed, scowling across the cell at Maia and failing to hold the expression at that emptiness in her eyes, her slack, haunted features. “Come on, princess, say something. A single word. Or two—fuck off. Aren’t those your favourites where I’m concerned?”

Nothing. Fuck. Fuck!

Bryon dragged a hand over his head, digging his nails into his skull. What the hell was he supposed to do with a catatonic woman? And not just any catatonic woman. With a growl of frustration, he pushed off the wall, the tension in his bones enough to snap him. He approached slowly, keeping on his knees so he didn’t loom over the princess and scare the shit out of her.

“Back off.”

Two words, dry and raw and quiet. They were a fucking victory. A miracle. Bryon did not back off, approaching her with more determination. “Actually, I don’t think I will. This patch of wall looks comfier than mine. Budge over, will you?”

She didn’t. Her stare remained unfocused on the opposite wall, but she’d spoken. That was more than she’d done since those black-eyed children had dumped her back in the cell. She’d been shaking all over them, silent, refusing to explain what the hell they’d done to her.

“What happened after those brats knocked me out?” he asked, softer than he intended. Every instinct in his stubborn soul warned him to be careful, to use caution. “I woke up with a bitch of a headache.”

Poor baby, he could almost hear the princess tease him, her voice as sharp as any sword. She hadn’t been shy about that in Eosantha, but now she was as quiet as the dead.

“What happened, princess?”

Her eyes flickered; that was something, a sign of life.

“I can’t help you unless you tell me,” he pressed, trying to smooth the edges of his rough voice.

“Why do you want to?”

He angled his face to look at her, and it no longer felt like a victory when he realised the emptiness in her eyes had turned to horror. Maybe that was why he muttered, “You know why.”

Her pale throat bobbed.

“Do you recall that I’m a soldier with years of experience?”

Her eyes slid, excruciatingly slowly, dragging, to give him a flat look.

“Just checking,” he grunted, ignoring the spill of relief through his chest. “One touch from that kid and my head’s scrambled, so fuck knows what they did to you.”

“Nothing.” One raw word, but he believed her. But if those kids hadn’t done something to her, who had?

Wrath poured through Bryon’s chest in a dark cloud, raking up his magic even if it was locked in his body by the fucking cuff. Enryr. That was who they wanted to take her to. If he’d touched her…

He fisted his hands. “I’ve lost count of the number of traumatised recruits I’ve seen. Hell, traumatised generals. I’ve seen shit mess with their heads, seen the empty look in their eyes after they dragged themselves out of the Wolven Lord’s dark chasm by their fingertips. It’s the same look in your eye, princess.”

“I don’t care,” she said flatly, and he knew she didn’t just mean about soldiers he’d known in his past. She didn’t care about this conversation, didn’t want to speak, didn’t want him anywhere near her.

“Tough shit,” he grunted. “Start speaking.”

“Get fucked.”

“Aw, see, I told you you’d feel better if you insulted me.”

“Drop dead.”

“In this place, I might,” he grumbled.

When Maia whipped her head around to stare at him, the horror in her eyes became devastation and Bryon swore soundly. He’d never been good at talking even when he wasn’t locked in a cell, hungry and cold and irritable.

“That may have been the wrong thing to say,” he admitted, dragging his palm down his face, calluses raking his skin.

“You think?” she snapped, but it was good to hear some life in her voice. Part of him wanted her to shout and scream at him, to let it all out. That was the part of him that was absolutely fucking terrified right now. He shouldn’t be sitting here beside her. He should keep his distance.

And yet he said, “Talk to me.”

“What are you, my counsellor? Should I pretend there are potted ferns and flowing trails of water around us? What about sweet-smelling air and tiny, colourful cakes piled into a mountain on a side table?”

Bryon blinked. “What the fuck kind of counsellors are you going to? Mine were all in shitty backwater rooms that stank of cheap cologne and stale beer. The wallpaper added to the ambiance by peeling off the walls, and the only flowers there were the leaves hiding a woman’s tits in the inspirational poster on the wall.”

That… was too much. Oversharing. Saints strike him down, Bryon wanted to die.

Maia stared at him for five seconds. Ten. A heart attack would be well-timed right now. “I can’t believe you just used the word ambiance,” she said with a ghost of a laugh.

He’d made her laugh. Fuck.

Fucking motherfucking fuck. Not good. Not fucking good. He was going to obsess over that, and obsession was the last thing he needed.

“I can’t believe your therapy came with snacks,” he grumbled.

Maia snorted. “You didn’t miss much. They were too sweet.”

“I like sweet things.”

Saints damn him. He needed to sew his fucking mouth shut.

Maia’s mouth thinned; she moved for the first time in hours to cross her arms over her chest. “Let me guess, you’re being all friendly and personable because you’re trying to warm me up to talking about my trauma.”

“You caught me.” She didn’t. Not even close. He blamed it on his fear and her ghostly silence.

“Not difficult to catch someone in a shithole this small,” Maia muttered, her eyes fixed on the opposite wall, gold irises tinged bronze with reluctance. She fought an inner war; it was there in the tightness of her shoulders, her crossed arms, the sharp canine she raked over her chapped lip.

“Start with what happened when you left the cell,” he prompted. She shot him a death glare, but he ignored that, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

“Those kids were innocent, ordinary kids before the saints got hold of them,” was her response, which was not what he’d been expecting. He wondered how closely that paralleled her own story. “Now they work for Enryr.”

“They took you to him,” he guessed, forcing his voice even and calm. It came out flat and harsh, but at least he didn’t growl.

“And he took me to Eosantha,” she replied, her voice cracking on the san of Eosantha. An itch began under Bryon’s skin; he flexed his hands to dispel it.

“What did he want in Eosantha?” he pressed, ignoring his power throwing itself against the cuff, seeking a release.

“Nothing.” Her face didn’t change, but her voice flattened. “He wiped it off the map. Sucked all the life out of the place from what I could sense. All that’s left are ruins.”

“Saints,” he breathed, his stomach knotted. They’d been there just last week. The inn where they’d stayed was in fucking ruins now? Isak’s shitty little apothecary. The house where Bryon had jumped into the mirror like a damn fool when Maia disappeared into it. Chills raked their claws down his arm when he remembered that other place, the vultures, the way it had felt to have his power and strength and life sucked out of him by a giant fucking leech of a creature.

“What about the people?” he asked tentatively, knowing that was what put that emptiness in her eyes. She’d watched the saint suck all their life from them. She’d witnessed a massacre. “Enryr killed them too, didn’t he?”

“No.” Her response was a mangled laugh, a sharp burst of sound. “I’m done talking now. Fuck off, Bryon.”

Maia angled herself away from him, facing the corner, her head bowed. She looked especially small curled up like that, and an unwanted emotion plucked at his chest. Piss off, he mentally snarled at it.

He sighed, his whole chest heaving with the sound of it. The last thing he wanted was for her to shut down and become a ghost again. This comforting shit didn’t come naturally, though, and he was inclined to ignore the compulsion to comfort her altogether.

“It wasn’t your fault, princess.”

Her laugh was an explosion this time, echoing sharply off the stone around them. “I killed them, Bryon. Every last living soul in that city—man, woman, and child. All of them. Every. Last. One. And you know what? It was easy.”

He rocked back in surprise, revulsion and horror automatic. They were shredded apart when he remembered the way she’d sat like a statue, stared like an unseeing ghost, and the raw unhappiness in the first words she’d spoken in hours. He wiped his expression clear in the next moment, refusing to let a broken woman see any horror in him. Saints knew he’d committed enough crimes and killed enough people to warrant horror himself.

“Any chance you’ve still got access to that power?” he asked, mastering his shock so quickly that she’d never notice the blip. The look she whipped in his direction threatened to hurt that blasted organ that lived in his chest and tried to call itself a heart. Surprise glossed her eyes, tears lining them in silver, and her lips were parted, face relaxed in an expression he tentatively labelled hope. Well, great, now he felt like total shit. Clearly, she’d expected an asshole like him to judge her. “It’d come in pretty handy right now.”

“That’s your response?” she asked in disbelief and a tinge of outrage.

“That’s my response,” he agreed. “I’d rather not get knocked out by those kids again, and being locked up for this long doesn’t agree with my delicate constitution.”

Maia just stared at him.

“Is it because I used the words delicate constitution?”

“Yes,” she exclaimed, staring. “Who the hell are you?”

“Bryon Aegis Erithian, soldier and, according to an eternal pain in my backside, a right grumpy bastard.”

Maia’s mouth was hanging open. Oh, for fuck’s sake, he’d done it again.

“Erithian,” Maia repeated, turning to face him fully. She came alive right in front of him. “As in, the noble family of Erithian. The family that ruled Felis for generations, who held the city of Lisille even during the revolt of seventy-five and the siege of the second century. The Erithians who ferried the books that made the very first libraries from their stronghold, to Jakahr, Sainsa, Venhaus, Vassal, and all the way to the Crooked City in Lower Aether? That Erithian?”

“Trust you to bring everything back to books,” he huffed, avoiding her bright-eyed stare. “And I didn’t do any of that shit; my ancestors did.”

“Yeah, but you’re… descended from the people who made the Saintlands what it is now.”

“A shithole.”

“Civilised. Educated. Worth living in.”

“The only thing I’ve ever done is beat the shit out of people, drive my sword through whoever I was ordered to, and kill people. Don’t expect any sort of goodness from me. I’m not civilised or educated.”

Maia sighed quietly, her brightness fading, and Bryon contemplated breaking his own nose. Only the fact that the princess could break it herself if she wished kept his hand at his side. “I don’t want you to drop dead,” she admitted quietly, reluctantly. “I know I said that earlier, but it was a shitty thing to say.”

Bryon shrugged. “We’re not exactly nice to each other. You didn’t hurt my feelings, don’t worry, princess.”

Maia rolled her eyes. She hadn’t cried once, he realised. Not when they woke up locked in this place, not even after what happened at Eosantha.

I killed them, Bryon. Every last living soul in that city—man, woman, and child. All of them. Every. Last. One.

He jolted when her mouth moved soundlessly, her eyes narrowed on him. “What the fuck—”

“Oh keep your hair on,” she huffed. “I was only trying to get you to squawk like a chicken, and it didn’t work anyway. Does that answer your question?”

He relaxed with a groan. “So no magic?”

“No,” she snapped, her voice edged and vicious. “Probably something in the walls, or in this whole fucked up building. It’s like a palace outside,” she snarled. “Marble and pretty and full of blooming flowers, like there aren’t people locked away, being used to slaughter whole cities full of innocents.”

Every snarl drove through his chest until that useless organ hurt. “Princess,” he murmured.

“Get fucked.”

“I would, but there are slim pickings in this cell.”

The look she shot him could have melted steel. Or turned his cock to steel. This was a bad fucking time to get hard.

“I didn’t think you were going to hurt me,” he said, holding her glare even as he watched her contemplate his murder. She’d never go through with it. She couldn’t for the same reason he couldn’t hurt her.

“Bullshit,” she muttered, some of that hollow unhappiness returning.

He hauled himself into her personal space and gave her a glare. “First of all, I know you’re not a fool with severely lacking intelligence. I’m your only ally in this place, and I don’t think the woman smart enough to uncover that bitch queen’s plans would be so blitheringly stupid as to kill her only backup.”

Maia’s eyes had grown wide, though she did give him a look that deemed him mad.

“I’m not done,” he snapped when she opened her mouth. She closed it and gave him a sassy little look that set his blood on fire. He backed up an inch. “Second, you have a severe moral compass. I saw it during our trek through Venhaus. I saw it when you fought to mount a rescue mission for Vawn. When it’s your choice, you wouldn’t kill someone unless they deserved it, and while I piss you off as regularly as you get on my nerves, I haven’t done anything to warrant it.”

“You forced me to eat rock hard bread,” she muttered, her eyes flicking down. To his mouth. Son of a saint fucker. He retreated another inch. “That’s a killable offense.”

“But I wouldn’t put it past you to use that magic of yours to turn me into a frog, or whatever else you can do.”

“It doesn’t work like that. The only thing I can do is snare minds.”

“That’s not what happened in that forest. You moved the trees and cut us off from the exits.”

Panic turned bright gold to bronze as she stared at me. “You noticed that.”

“I notice everything.” He forced himself to back away from her, slamming his spine against stone again. His hands flexed, craving the impression of her hips upon them. Shit. “You need to get those cuts seen to,” he said to distract himself.

“Oh sure, let me just make a healer’s appointment,” she drawled.

Sharp, sassy mouth. He tipped his head back, staring at the ceiling, mastering his emotions. “Clean it at least. There’s some water for you over there.”

Maia rolled her eyes, again, and crawled across the cell to grab a small paper cup of water and the hunk of stinky blue cheese that had been left for them. He didn’t look. Didn’t allow himself to even glimpse the sight of her on hands and knees.

But he couldn’t stop watching her from the corner of his eye.

“Thank you for bringing me back to myself,” she said with a down swept cast of her lashes on her cheeks, that submissive look hitting him like a punch to the jaw. “As a token of my appreciation, I’d like you to eat this.”

As she held out the mouldy cheese, he bared his fangs and growled. Her laughter did not help his painful hard-on one bit. “Fuck off,” he grunted. He didn’t look when she removed her jacket and lifted her shirt, didn’t want to see the mess of her stomach. He was walking too fine an edge right now as it was.

“Why do you think he did it?” she asked quietly. “You’re good with strategy and tactics and all that shit. He said Eosantha was a test. But why? What for?”

A test. Bryon blew out a rough breath. “He wanted to know what you were capable of, what your limits are. And how far you’d go.”

She swallowed; he heard it even if he didn’t look at her. “He threatened my mates.”

“I figured that much.”

Dirty silver hair slashed the air when she glanced at him. “How?”

“Like I said, I notice shit. You care about them more than you care about yourself. You’d do anything to keep them safe.”

“Yeah,” she admitted quietly, drinking what was left in the cup and letting her shirt fall back into place. Neither of them smelled like perfumes courtiers right now, but that whoosh of fabric fanned her scent through the cell and it hit Bryon like a knife through the chest. Floral, not too sweet, something with depth and richness. Far too enticing.

“As for why?” His mouth thinned. “No doubt he’s planning something bigger and worse for next time.”

And Bryon would be fucking damned if he let her go alone.