Page 100 of Court of Wolves

“Maia—”

That washim,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.

---