Page 33 of Court of Wolves

It was more than Az had expected. “Fine,” he ground out, his back bowing under the pain of gripping his magic. It was a force for death and right now it didn’t care if it killedhim.

“As a saint of honour, I vow this,” Samlyn said with a rough squeeze of Az’s hand.

“As a fae of honour, I vow this,” Az rasped, the dark control over him allowing to speak those three words and only those three before it rushed back in and silenced him. The second the vow flowed into him, dark and bitter but rife with promise, with ironcladmagic,he released his grip on the writhing power inside him and onyx shattered the night around them. His magic was so thick, so dense with pain and sheer potency that he gasped.

Samlyn grinned. “Much better, forsaken one. Much, much better.”

Darkness hung around them, covering the thick stench of decay for a moment with the sharp, biting tang of power. Pure, unlimited power. The earth magic was his, had always come from him, but this? This was the legacy of a saint, and for the first time Azrail began to wonder just how much magic he might actually possess, and what he was capable of with it.

Blood ran over his lip, itched on his cheeks and his neck, but it felt good to use his power after so many failed attempts in his prison cell. No matter what he tried there, his magic was stifled and locked away. But here, he was death itself. Shaping the power into a storm came as easily as any network of vines and tree roots he’d used with his earth magic, and that ought to be unsettling—to so easily wieldthislevel of power—but instead it was liberating. Exhilarating.

Darkness formed clouds overhead and thunder roared, smothering the sound of Samlyn’s low laugh. Azrail would kill him. That was a promise. But he had to time his blow perfectly, had to get the saint’s guard down, so for now he let this power roar, let it cover the sky until rain crashed onto the deck in a sudden downpour. He barely felt the cold; his blood was full of ice, so why would rain bother him?

“Rip their hulls apart,” Samlyn said eagerly, leaning forward with a new light in his eyes.

Azrail’s power responded without his guidance, dropping fat, destructive hail stones from the sky over the Jakahran ships. The shouts of their crews carried on a vicious whip of the wind, air slicing past Az, driving black hair into his face as it whistled between masts and ropes and rocked the ship. He hadn’t asked where this ship came from, and when a hailstone slammed into the deck beneath him, blood spurting from the site of impact, he decided he didn’t want to know.

Cannon ports glowed orange, but Azrail lifted his hands, taking full command of his power, and cut the dark sky with a lightning strike. It burst across the night in pure, white-blue light, struck the tallest mast, and split the ship in two. The cannon fired into the water, impotent. Samlyn’s smile settled deeper into his wrinkled, papery face.

Az directed thunder and lightning like a symphony his parents took him to before their deaths, using arcs and swoops of his hands to shred sails with hail, flicking his fingertips to drive a squall of wind into three ships until they crashed and flotsam covered the surface of the water. Screams rose higher.

These were innocent people who’d done nothing to Az. But their deaths gifted him thirty minutes with his mate, so he’d find a way to live with it. The cries and shouts would follow him for the rest of his life.

Now,his instincts encouraged, and Az didn’t let his body language shift, didn’t dare to evenlookat Samlyn as he ripped a lightning strike from the sky and dragged it down, down, directly to the saint.

It hit so close to Az that hairs rose all over his body and he shuddered, electricity crackling in the air, tingling on his tongue. Had he done it, was the saint—?

Samlyn stood a few paces away observing the charred mark on the deck. Unlike the other ships, this one had withstood the strike. As if whatever it had been made of absorbed the power instead of being destroyed by it.

“You missed,” Samlyn said with a whisper of laughter.

You moved, asshole,Az snarled, still unable to speak. He gathered another hot rush of power but Samlyn clicked his tongue.

“No more trying to kill me. That will get old very fast. Push the ships back to the shore,” he commanded, leaning over the railing like a kid trying to catch a glimpse of sailboats on the Luvasa on regatta days. Azrail swallowed bile and pushed the Jakahran ships back with a surge of black, lethal wind. Samlyn was right; death could take any form. Death was the mast collapsing on a man, crushing his ribs. It was the woman impaled by a plank, the brothers struck by lightning, the old, weathered captain who clung to the helm as the sea devoured what remained of his ship. Death took many forms, tookallforms.

It took less than twenty minutes to drive the shattered ships and survivors back onto the beach of Kraeva, and then it was done. Az sagged against the ship’s railing, all energy sapped from him until his chest was hollow and his knees weak. He’d wrecked a small armada and he was winded, tired, but he could do it again in an hour. He wished he’d never wondered how powerful he was. The answer was horrific.

Samlyn was watching him expectantly.What?Az wanted to snarl.

“If you were paying attention, the vow was twofold.Use your power over death to wreck those ships against the shore and kill any survivors, and I will secure a meeting with your mate.Those were the words. You’ve wrecked the ships. Now, kill the survivors.”

Az’s lip curled, a threat in his vicious teeth, in the low rumble Samlyn could never quite silence. That hadnotbeen the agreement. He never meant to kill any survivors, only to destroy the ships. Shit.Thirty minutes with Maia,he reminded himself. Plus, there was the little fact that breaking a vow between fae was so painful it often caused death. He didn’t want to know what breaking asaint’svow would do.

Samlyn leaned back against the railing, his pale robes flapping in the wind around his ankles. “The Dead Lands are close enough that you can reach them. I made sure of it.”

“No.”The word was deep, bestial, and ripped from so deep within Azrail that the dark liquid and Samlyn’s power couldn’t silence it.

“People commend Enryr for his strategy,” Samlyn said cordially, “but mine are almost always stronger, and far more effective. You’ve shattered their armada on the sea. Now, you’ll command the dead to rise and sweep into Kraeva, trapping them between the dead and the beach. There’ll be nothing left of this sad little town.”

Azrail was going to throw up again. He thought he’d agreed to kill hundreds. In truth it wasthousands.There was a difference between murdering sailors and warriors aboard ships and slaughtering innocent children in their beds.

But he’d vowed. And he’d had vials upon vials of herbs and blood forced down his throat. He could fight and resist all he wanted, but his power wasn’t his to control anymore.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Ark wanted his mate. He wanted her arms wrapped around him and her scent in his lungs, and her warmth against his body. He wanted her safe at his side, wanted her smiling or rolling her eyes or throwing him that smirk he adored while he pretended to hate the name she called him. Arkie. He’d give anything to hear her call him now.

Maia would have something to say about the shadows he kept seeing flit through the dark blue clouds above their prison bedroom, he knew that for sure. As Ark had developed a habit of doing, he stood by the double doors, shoulder braced against the old glass, fingers tapping a calming rhythm on the gold filigree handle. And he watched the sky.

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