Page 84 of Court of Wolves

“Ignore her,” Bryon growled. He must have finished whatever assessments he’d been making because he raised the sword and charged at Karmen.

“No,” Maia breathed, the sight of her Bryon running to facethe king of saintsthe most terrifying sight she’d ever beheld. Ice and panic thumped through her veins, flaring the ache in her head, her hip. She lunged forward.

How did I kill Enryr?She begged Sephanae.What do I—

Bryon swung his sword in a deadly strike at Karmen’s head, and Maia was panicking too hard to be there with him. She rushed across the hall, no weapons in her hands, only magic she barely knew how to use. She grabbed the vines from the wall, called on rich, earth power from the grass that flowed outside the palace, and begged help from the stone all around her.Please, please, help me end her.

You’re the new saint of spring. Don’t beg for help; command it.

Maia reached Bryon’s side just as his sword hit the Eversky’s throat, her whole body a mess of hope and panic and dread. She demanded power from the roots and flowers and old, old stones. A dizzying rush of power hit her blood stream, making her eyes water and shine. Bryon’s stolen sword met Karmen’s skin and—a rumbling threat of thunder filled the air. Maia flinched, but Bryon didn’t waver, not even as the sword’s blade collapsed from steel to water.

He simply raised the solid hilt and drove it against Karmen’s forehead, stunning her enough that she staggered back. Maia threw herself forward with a gasp, letting the power she’d commanded of the palace’s living things rush through her chest, down her arms, and out through her palms as she wrapped them around the Eversky’s throat.

Thunder rumbled louder, shaking the walls, and lightning laced the air with a crackling, deadly charge. She wanted to turn and yell at Kheir to run, to get away from the power about to detonate around them, but she couldn’t move an inch. Not when thorns punched into Karmen’s throat and forehead, giving hera twisted, bloody necklace and matching crown. Not when the temperature dropped to the frozen cold of an icy spring. Not when life bloomed within the wounds made by thorns. Flowers and ferns and weeds unfurled from the holes in Karmen’s throat, and forced themselves from her mouth, her nose.

Maia staggered back with her mouth hanging open. How the chasm…? Bryon’s warm hand found her back, so reassuring that tears slipped from her eyes.

Karmen had frozen, either in surprise or rage. Forget-me-nots choked her as they grew from her mouth, thorns and vines forcing the wounds in her throat wider. She’d done that.Maiahad done that. She trembled, her teeth knocking together, but Bryon had his hand against her back and she could—

Lightning cleaved them apart, searing down Maia’s arm with white-hot pain. Her scream was so loud her ears rang. The world wavered, flashes of black stealing into her vision.

Her hearing warped and returned in time for her to hear Kheir curse viciously.

“Shit,” Bryon spat, pulling her back two steps, then five, his pace quickening. “Not these guys again.”

Her breathing was too fast, and black spots invaded her vision, but Maia let Bryon steer her away, trying to bear down on the pain of the burn. It was worse than the lightning that hit her chest and left red welts. This was a deep, searing burn, a fractured pattern down her arm.

When the black spots cleared, she sucked in a sharp breath. She’d been expecting more guards, or maybe those undead, rotting things that had escorted her from Azrail, but instead Enryr’s black-eyed children had filled the hallway behind Karmen.

The saint clutched her throat, trying to remove the flowers. Black, endless hatred seethed within her eyes.

Bryon angled himself in front of Maia, but his knees buckled without warning. He hit the ground with a grunt, kneeling so fast that Maia stood no chance of catching him.

“You forget about the cuff,” Karmen rasped, her voice raw and hoarse, wrecked by the mess Maia had made of her throat. She was surprised Karmen could speak at all. “I control your mate,” she seethed at Maia. “Iownhim. I own all—”

Bryon surged off the ground while Maia was in the process of helping him up. The bright, burning aura around him made her freeze for a moment. He’d recovered his strength all at once, not even a flicker of dimness in his soul but—

“How?” Karmen snarled, a violent cough killing whatever poison she was about to spew next.

“Fuck if I know,” Bryon replied, but he was grinning, a fierce, devilish grin that made Maia’s heart beat faster. “But I have more magic than I’veeverpossessed before, which means you’re dead.”

Maia believed it. Looking at the violent gleam in his eyes, the bared teeth, the power in his body as he whipped both sword and his fist through the air, gathering force… she believed he could kill the saint.

“End him,” Karmen barked, whipping her head around to stare at the kids Enryr had forced to obey him, their eyes… not black any longer.

Maia’s mouth dropped open and she jerked forward a step. They weren’t possessed, which meant they were just kids, innocents. Her priorities shifted in a millisecond, and every muscle in Maia’s body tensed, ready to jump across the corridor and put herself between the saint and those children. But the whole palace shook before she could make the move.

The ground shook again, like it had in response to her magic and… and a huge creature of gleaming ivory scales burst into the hallway. Maia froze. Huge horns gouged the ceiling as the drakestalked closer, pale wings tucked into its back but tipped with vicious claws, its face massive and fearsome, it’s mouth split to show horrific teeth and—

And there was a bite out of its ear. Exactly like the stone drake on the staircase at Delakore Palace had a chip out of its ear. She stroked her hand over that stone drake’s head so many times she’d lost count, and then both creatures had come to life when she needed them most. But they’d taken to the skies and been lost ever since.

Not lost,an ancient male voice spoke into her mind, setting both her and Sephanae into a panic.Gathering power, gathering allies for the second great war.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Optimism was a little hard when a hundred-strong army blocked their access to Wylnarren. The Hunchback Hills loomed behind the ruins, the bones of what was once a prosperous town arrayed randomly—a surviving doorway here, a whole wall there, a crumbled temple at the end of a road that had been caved in, and giant holes left where explosives had clearly been placed. And blocking their way into the ruined town were soldiers in a dozen different uniforms, bearing a varied collection of weapons.

Isak picked out several in the familiar uniform he’d spent years wearing in the Vassalian army, others belonging to those higher in the ranks, but there were the dusty brown of Venhausian soldiers, the mottled forest green of Thelleus’s specialised teams, and even the smoke-grey of Aether’s warriors.

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