Page 38 of Court of Wolves

Maia’s heart lunged into her throat at that deep voice, all the menace the saint had hidden right there in her lover’s voice. Maia twisted away from the hulking soldier, but he moved too fast, dragging her into her arms. The fingers loosened on her wrist as Bryon let her go, and Maia snarled, betrayal cutting her deep. She fought and twisted and hissed, refusing to comply with whatever they had planned. If Karmen intended to use her mates against her, Maia would do whatever she commanded, but she wouldn’t make it easy for her.

“Stay there, won’t you?” Karmen asked with a little smile as she slowly strode across the cobbles to where Maia fought Heweryion. She only realised Karmen wasn’t talking toherwhen Bryon went as still as the dead, a little gasp escaping his broad chest.

“Bryon?” Maia hissed, driving an elbow into Hew’s gut and doing little but bruising her own skin. She sucked desperate air into her lungs and wondered if this was how she’d die: choking down gasps that tasted of cold, slimy fish.

“I’ll release him in a moment, once his situation is a little clearer,” Karmen told Maia, meeting her eyes. Maia’s soul clanged with warning, her skin crawling with the urge to run as fast as her legs would carry her. She shrank back, not particularly caring that she was cringing into Hew. The feeling of Karmen’s magic against Maia’s skin was unbearable as the saint stopped within a few paces. Painful and sickening and dripping withwrongness.That bowing, bending sensation in her bonesintensified until Maia curled into herself, breathing fast, her struggles ruined by her own trembling body.

Fight,Sephanae hissed, her voice quieter than it should have been.Fight, Maia. Use all your tools.

Maia’s breath hitched, but she sucked down that foul air and sang a hasty, messy song, spearing into Heweryion’s mind. She smacked into a shield of thick, impenetrable stone so hard her magic splintered, casting pain through her soul until her knees buckled.

“Don’t touch my man, Maia, that’s impolite,” Karmen said with a little tut. In revenge, she sauntered across the cobbles and slid a crass, proprietary touch down Bryon’s chest, squeezing his crotch.

Rage hit Maia like fuel thrown on a fire and strength surged into every cell of her body. She jumped off the cobbles, throwing herself back against Heweryion, trying to knock him off balance so she could get to Bryon. Her fangs bared on a hiss so deep and throaty she’d only heard it a few times before.

Sparks of light and pain erupted through her head when the back of her skull collided with Hew’s face, crushing his nose, but he didn’t waver on his feet and he didn’t drop her.

Fuck!

“Ignore that, and listen to me,” Karmen said, finally taking her filthy, violating hand off Bryon. To touch him like that while he was cuffed, under control of the saints, underhercontrol and unable to push her away, was vile. Fury unfurled in Maia, blotting out the alarmed cries of the people around them, silencing the hush and hiss of the sea, the hollow clang of hulls knocking together on the water. Maia’s whole world went still the way it had in the saints' circle.

Her song this time was elegant and complex, a rise and fall of notes, a swelling crescendo that roused the soul—and still didnothing to budge Hew. She was using ordinary magic to fight a saint. But not to worry; she had plenty of saint magic, too.

“Do everything I tell you to,” Karmen was telling Bryon, “and I will cure the blackiron poisoning in her wing.” She tilted her head at him, predatory and evil. “She’s your mate, isn’t she? I wasn’t sure when we locked you up together but look at her now. Blind with fury in your defence.”

Maia’s song deepened, rolling and powerful. She barely heard the wordsmateandblackiron.She drove her magic like a spear into Hew’s mind, reaching for the soft glow of saint magic.

“What do you want?” Bryon growled, deep and full and so dominant that Maia’s breath caught in the middle of her song.

“I’ve heard stories of you,” Karmen said, the words penetrating Maia’s haze of rage. “The Butcher of Valsyre. The single captain who slaughtered a hundred fae warriors, found himself cornered by a battalion of beastkind, and killed all of them, too.”

Maia’s song died. It had done nothing to cleave Hew’s mind apart for her snare anyway. Even with saint magic glowing in her skin, he was protected by a saint more powerful than Maia.

The saints who’d been reborn in them had given up drops of their magic to be reborn in this world, giving the rest to Maia and Az and Bryon and everyone else. But the saints who broke the circles and forced their way through hadn’t given up anything. Not a single drop of power. They shouldn’t have been here. It was unnatural, and the earth and salt and air of the Saintlands bent, bowed, broke around them as that wrongness bled into the world.

Maia had heard of the Butcher of Valsyre. Everyone in the palace had; Ismene had been crowing about the victory against her worst enemy: Sainsa. Bryon had slain that many Sainsan soldiers. People. Maia’s people. Isak’s words from her nightmarereplayed and she flinched. But she had no right to judge Bryon when she’d mass-slaughtered the entire town of Eosantha.

Karmen had spoken quietly enough that the people of Marszton still lingered by their stalls or in the shadows to watch. They turned, screaming, when the air crackled with sudden electricity and a blinding bolt of lightning drove from the grey sky into Karmen’s palm as she stretched up her hand. When she lowered it, when the light faded, a golden sword gleamed in her hand, all jagged edges and inelegance, like violence forged into gold. When she held it out, hilt first, to Bryon, Maia’s blood ran cold.

“Leave him alone,”she growled, dropping swiftly into the mate fury. Magic rose in answer, lighting the streets up in the glow of silver souls, and she cast out for a living source, for power she could pull from. She’d only done this a few times before but she was desperate enough to try anything, so she sent a rush of power into the sea and pulled its strength into her veins. She was the saint of spring, the saint of all living things, and there were plenty of living things within these waters.“Bryon, don’t touch that sword.”

But he did. He closed his hand around it and Maia’s mind was too muddled to understand why, to remember Karmen’s words. All she knew was that he’d get hurt, that the saint was manipulating both of them, and no good could ever come of being here in Marszton.

“Run,”Maia shouted, pulling on enough magic that her voice was flung streets and streets away, reaching everyone hiding in Marszton’s shadows, everyone watching from behind curtains, everyone trying to sneak away. “If you want to survive, run!”

Her own soul ached to follow her advice, her legs tensing, ready to carry her, but Hew held her in place, trapped her wings at her back, and she could no sooner leave Bryon than she could pry a piece of her soul out and leave that behind.

“Oh, don’t,” the Eversky countered with a little laugh and so much magic that Maia choked on it. “Hew, muzzle the princess.”

Maia snarled and bucked and screamed threats when a broad, sweaty hand clamped over her face, muffling her voice until she was powerless.

No, never powerless,Sephanae argued, her voice sharp.Never that, never that.

“Find me that location,” Karmen told Bryon and turned her back, striding over to an upturned crate where she perched, as if waiting for a story to be told or a sale to be struck. It was an absurd sight, someone of her otherworldly beauty with her legs crossed and arms poised with grace, sitting on a crate that probably stank of fish, with the backdrop of a leaning building that might collapse in a minute, the docks sprawling behind her, ships eerily still. “You know what to do, Butcher.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Maia’s voice hadn’t stopped echoing around Isak’s head all morning.

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