Page 39 of Court of Wolves

You don’t know how it feels to be near the saints, all that horrific power, the pressure, the screaming inside your own mind.

The trouble with that, of course, was that he did know.

“Change of plans,” he told Viskae, Anzhelika, and Sunny as the latter put a heaping plate of eggs, bread, and rice in front of him. The mated couple had no idea the saint of mistakes and redemption was listening, of course. “I don’t have as much time as I’d hoped, so just scouting the Nysavion Hold won’t be enough.”

“You want to get inside today,” Anzhelika guessed. She looked a lot less scary in the morning, which Isak found charming and fun. Her inky hair was pulled into a catastrophic knot on the top of her head, her pale face had pillow creases, and she wore a ratty grey shirt with embroidered flowers around the collar he was pretty sure had belonged to Sunny at one point. In contrast, her wife and mate was every bit as put-together as she’d been last night. Her braids were gathered into a tidyponytail, her purple dress immaculate, and her bark-like skin practically glowed.

Isak had a sudden and violent urge to see Maia in the morning, to know if her hair was a riot like Anzhelika’s, to know if she was affectionate when half-awake or grouchy until she’d eaten breakfast.

“I want to get inside,” he confirmed, and ignored the tightness of his voice.

“That’s a nice delusion, dear,” Sunny remarked, sliding gracefully into the seat beside Anzhelika and giving Isak’s food a pointed look as she tucked into her own overflowing plate.

Isak returned a dry look and helped himself to the rice, unsurprised when it was the most flavourful thing he’d eaten in years. Maybe ever. Sunny was exactly the sort of person to excel at everything. “I don’t know what’s happening to my brother and the others, but Maia…”

You never told me your darkest desire, North.

Freedom. I just want to be free.

“She’s in a bad way. She’s losing hope, and when that happens, she’ll stop fighting. But shecan’tstop fighting these assholes, or they’ll erase everything she is.”

“You’re talking from experience,” Anzhelika noted, sipping something hot and bitter.

“I might have spent some time as their captive,” he said carefully, filling his mouth with eggs so he could figure out how to explain it all without telling them about saints and reincarnation and whatever the fuck the box Viskae was so obsessed with was.

Our only chance at salvation,she said, which was about what she’d told him so far, and little else.

“I know exactly what they’re capable of,” he finished after a moment. “It’s like being in the chasm, complete with pain, darkness, and eternal suffering.”

Sunny grabbed for her mate’s hand, squeezing tight. “How are you going to get her back?”

“I haven’t planned that far ahead, but I know the bastards who took her are looking for a box, made of gold and covered in carvings. They had half the Vassalian army out looking for it.”

“The Vassalian army,” Anzhelika repeated, her eyes a little clearer as they narrowed. “Just who are you, Isak?”

“Honestly? I don’t even know anymore,” he said with a laugh, but he realised it was just a sad statement, not a joke, and stopped laughing after an awkward moment. “Remind me again, what are Sainsan’s attitudes towards beastkind?”

“Nothing like Vassal’s,” Sunny spat, a bit of steel coming through her sweetness. “Here, they are equal.”

“No indentures?”

She sighed, her eyes downcast. “Some of the old towns still have them, but there have been laws in Saintsgarde for years abolishing them. Every year people campaign for them to become illegal in the outer towns.”

“Good,” Isak said fiercely, baring sharp canines he hadn’t technically possessed months ago. “Because I’m beastkind, and so is my brother. I just wanted to check some dumb fuck wasn’t going to slap a cuff on me when I break into the Hold.”

It wouldn’t take him down for long, but it would be a serious pain in the ass and Isak didn’t have the time to spare.

I just want to be free.

He’d managed to convince himself he’d come to Saintsgarde in search of that box for Jaro’s sake, but like all lies they finally came to light. It was for JaroandMaia, both of them equal in his motivation. Especially after that dream.

“The people who have your mate,” Sunny murmured, her fingers white-knuckling her wife’s hand. “By any chance are they the ones responsible forthis?”

With her other hand she snagged a newspaper off a nearby counter, this one printed in purple ink rather than the black of Vassal and Venhaus.

“Ah, shit,” Isak sighed, taking the paper from her and stretching it across a spare bit of the dining table. He ignored the good news story on the cover and opened it to the second and third, where a huge artist’s rendition of the Saintlands sprawled. No number of stories about cute puppies and good Samaritans would make this easier to swallow.

It took him another few seconds to get the last newspaper from his bag, and while he was at it he took out three others, lining them up, charting the rapid spread of red from the Vassal Empire, through Lower Aether, Venhaus, and now staining the very tip of the land bridge that connected to Upper Aether, as he’d suspected would happen.

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