Kill the person you love most.
"Me…?" she choked out.
"Move!" Bryon growled, heaving his chest off the ground with a growl loud enough to shake Maia's rib cage.
She twisted aside, her gaze snagging on the sharp silver in Jaro's hand—not a knife, not anything so civilised. It was a shard of stone, sharp enough to cut and shaped like a stake. It would do messy damage, and Maia struggled for breath when she realised that was exactly what Jaro meant to do.
"I know you're in there," she breathed, her chest so tight she should have been bleeding on the outside as well as breaking inside. "I know you can hear me, Jaro. You're a reborn saint, too. You're the Dagger, the saint of vengeance.
"You'reJaromir," she went on, dodging him with a sharp gasp and gritting her teeth as dizziness flowed through her skull, narrowly avoiding Jaro's jerking stab. He hadn't been trained with weapons like she had, hadn't drilled self defensive movements until he couldn't stand up anymore, but he was single-minded and determined and gripped so tightly by the saint's command that he wouldn't stop until … until she was dead.
Kill the person you love most.
"You love me," she rasped, sliding through the mud on shaky legs, refusing to break eye contact even though his jade green eyes were horrifically empty. "You love me more than anyone. Fight, Jaro. You don't want to do this; you don't have to."
"He does, actually," the dark-haired saint quipped, smirking as she watched. Like this was revenge for Maia thinking she could ever fix the saints' circle, for thinking she could stop the dark saints before they did whatever heinous thing they'd come to do. Maybe for what Maia had done to Ismene, too.
Maia's breath scraped up her throat as she jumped back when Jaro swiped with the shard of sharp stone again, her back smacking into a solid rock.
"Maia," Ark snarled, surging clumsily to his feet. He grabbed her arm and wrenched her away, only to be knocked aside by a sudden punch to the stomach.
"Jaro, stop," Maia growled, strength blazing through her—through her ankle, where Ark grabbed her when he fell. "You stupid idiot," she choked out, even as the saints' circle grew crystal clear around her.
"Stop, Jaro," she growled, throwing up her hand and relieved when it covered with a film of silver light. She wouldn't hurt him, but she couldn't let him hurt her other mates, either.
"Jaro," he echoed, a furrow between his brows.
Maia's heart skipped a beat. She nodded encouragingly, her throat so swollen it felt like she had a whole lava bun trapped in it. "That's it," she breathed. "You're Jaro, my Jaro."
He blinked, like he was processing that, and took an uncertain step towards her.
A small pain pinched her stomach, and Maia looked down in distant shock, not understanding how there could be a shard of stone embedded in her skin.
"Jaro is gone," the female saint called with wicked satisfaction. "Come," she called, clipped, like she was commanding a dog.
Maia exhaled raggedly, shaking her head and gritting her teeth at the same time. She left the shard in her stomach, ignoring the heat of blood soaking through her clothes and running down her torso. She grabbed Jaro's arm, digging her fingers in so tight that she left marks.
"You don't get to leave me," she ground out, something crumpling in her chest at the uncaring look he pinned her with. "You don't get to leave me, Jaromir." She reached up to touch his face, tracing the shape of him with her fingers, committing him to memory.
Jaro responded by gripping the shard buried in her stomach and twisting it until she screamed. He tore it free while she crashed to her knees in the mud, the pain so sharp and all consuming that everything went dark for a second, maybe three.
Someone was growling her name, sounding as weak as she felt but furious, seething with rage.
"Well, that worked," the dark saint commented, chipper. "Good work, Enryr."
The saints' circle came back into dizzy focus, blackness still crowding the edges of Maia's vision. A feverish body met hers, propping her up and keeping her face out of the mud.
Maia couldn't speak, but she tried everything in her power to form Jaro's name, to get through to him. He didn't think he was strong enough to fight this control, so he wouldn't even try. Maia had done this, had beaten him down to a shadow of the man he'd been when they met. She should have found a way to accept his past, even if it involved her cousin. Should have pretended she was fine, instead of letting everything play out like this…
"Hold on," Kheir murmured in Maia's ear, fury and weakness twined in his voice. His palm pressed so hard to Maia's stomach that it hurt worse, like he was trying to hold her together. "Just hold on, my star."
"And this'll work with all the others? Every command?" the dark saint was saying, but her words had turned into a blur of sound without meaning. Heat spilled down Maia's belly, pain jabbing deeper even than the blinding agony from the saint.
Jaro had stabbed her. Had stabbed her and walked away and looked at her like she was nothing. But he was in there. He had to be. If he wasn't, if the saint had broken into his mind and erased everything…
Maia twisted away from the heat of Kheir, the last of her strength wasted on vomiting into the mud.
"Every command," Enryr confirmed. "See for yourself. Lisille should be running with blood by now."