Page 8 of Court of Wolves

Jaro surged across the sand, listing to one side, the scales of the valkor’s tail whipping closer, and at the same time he speared an inner hand through the distance between him and Kaial. He imagined reaching across that emptiness where the saint of vengeance’s voice echoed: a frozen lake, he realised.

Further,Kaial urged.

Jaro threw himself faster, farther, and gasped when he made sudden contact. The frozen lake shattered into a thousand shards of ice, a thousanddaggers.Kaial’s power wasn’t gentle, and it wasn’t tame. It was every bit as wild and furious as Jaro himself, and it blast apart the lake, the ice, and every reservation he had until a roar erupted from him.

Jaro’s teeth sank into skin, scales scraping his gums until they bled. Black ichor poured into his mouth, fell and blackened and wrong, but this time Jaro was full of power and he held on.

This magic had always felt as sharp as knives, but now its edge had been honed with purpose. He could feel it clashing inside him, could grasp it like he’d grasp a sword or spear, swing it through the air and—

The valkor shrieked, writhing, and Jaro had to gnash his teeth into its tail to hold on, remembering Kaial’s words.

Breathe through the magic,the saint guided him, his voice closer, the edges softened.This power is not something to battle; allow it to flow through you as you would air into your lungs.

Easier said than done.

The valkor writhed and screeched, trying to rip Jaro’s teeth from its tail, trying to tear out the spear he’d made of this new magic. As it struggled, its body snaking in the sand, Jaro caught glimpses of dark blood pouring into the arena, scales warped as a shard of cold, steel power thrust from its belly. Fuck. Had Jaro…

Yes, that is your work. It’s very fine, too. You should be proud.

Jaro didn’t have the space to think about that right now. He ground his teeth deeper, burying his canines to the bone, andtore,momentum sending him onto his back. Sand threw itself over his body, spraying across the arena, into his eyes. The scratch of irritation across his eyeballs became pain when he blinked, stumbling to his feet, his ears flicking forward as he listened for the valkor’s next move.

The beast is dead,Kaial informed him with pride.

Jaro shook his head, trying to fling the sand from his eyes. The tears that welled did a better job, and then he blinked at the cooling body of the valkor in the arena before him, its eyes open and glassy, that spear of cold, sharp magic still sticking out of it. He’d done it. He’d killed the creature. Hesurvived.

Exhaustion crept up on him, and Jaro exhaled a rough sigh, though adrenaline kept him walking a fine edge. The bite on his side throbbed but the knife-sharp magic he’d grasped from Kaial was already spreading through him, washing over the mangled skin, penetrating ruined muscle to repair what had been ripped apart. He inhaled, tasting the sharp, bright scent of magic on the air, and Jaro wondered if he looked how Maia had in Eosantha after the mirror’s dark magic sucked her within it.

He took a moment to breathe, to adjust to the feeling of thismagicinside him where there’d been nothing before, but his head snapped up when the harsh grinding of stone on stone swallowed the sound of his own panting breaths.

Jaro only realised he’d been expecting a guard sent to clean up the dead valkor when instead he watched a small, fine-boned woman stagger through the doors and into the arena.

Her hair was as silver as polished steel, ragged and matted as it bled over her narrow shoulders, her face as moon-pale as Maia’s hair. Jaro sucked in a sharp breath, horror a deluge in his gut. He shot a look at Samlyn who sat on the stone step with his hands folded in his lap, his expression one second away from an eye roll or a sigh.

The small woman, Jaro’s opponent, staggered closer, flinching when the doors grated shut behind her. That flinch made Jaro’s heart crack. She was controlled, as everyone here was controlled, but free enough to command her own movements. That, or she was more powerful than Jaro. He searched for a collar, a cuff, and found neither. Had the black liquid been forced down her throat?

When she came closer, he searched her wide-eyes, the distinctive orange ring around her blue eyes marking her as Aethani. Jaro had known her for years, had planned and dreamed and fought alongside her.

Merian,he tried to speak, forgetting he was in jaguar form. A mangled cry was all that emerged.

She was a rebel, one of them. What was she doing here?

“We found her wandering the edge of the barrier we set up around the island,” the smirking, dark-skinned saint informed him as if she knew his thoughts.

She doesn’t,Kaial murmured,but she knows her words will wound you.

“It seems she travelled to Venhaus alone in a sad attempt at a rescue mission when your compound received no word from you. What a heroic woman. She must value you all so highly if she risked herself to save you.”

Shewasheroic. She was loyal and deadly, likely trained by the mythical Fala Ven. Merian should never have been here. Who else did they have?

Jaro snarled it at the saints, wordless and furious.Who else do you have?

Zamanya? Oh, fuck. Evrille?

He didn’t get an answer. Samlyn pressed his lips together and shook his head in exasperation at his fellow dark saint, training his attention on Jaro and Merian. Both of them under his command.

“Only one will walk out of the coliseum—you or the assassin.” His last command fell with the finality of a guillotine. “To the death.”

CHAPTER SIX

---