44
Isak shook from head to toe where he laid on his belly in the long grass, his fingers digging into the mud under him and his breathing wrecked.
They took Jaro. They walked him into one of the cracks in the stones like he was a slave, a possession, and Isak couldn't fucking see for the fury tinting his vision red.
Even seething with rage, he knew he had to be smart. He knew how these fuckers worked, knew the twisted things they did. Hell, hewasone of the twisted things they did. They'd made him, broken him, and remade him into something less and more Isak than he'd been before.
It was why he was here, unaffected by the water he'd swum through, by the dark thump of power hovering around the saints' circle, and why he wasn't mindless with murder for the person he loved most in the world.
He might not be indentured anymore, but with the power of Enryr's incantation, that might not have saved him. No, it was the blackness in his veins, the wrongness, that saved him. He wasn't fully beastkind anymore. Wasn't fully anything. Certainly not human.
What do I do?he begged Viskae, not daring to speak aloud. He was risking too much talking to her inside his mind, but he was the saint of mistakes, so he couldn't quite help himself.
Wait, she replied.Stay. Plan. Kill them all.
Solid path.Isak could follow it. But...They're going to take them all. Every one of them.
If you act now, they'll take you, too. Then all the realms will be lost.
I don't give a shit about the realms, he snapped, his breath going short as he watched through the swaying stalks of grass as the Hunchback Saint snapped his fingers and every fae inside the circle screamed. Those screams were raw, shredded enough to make Isak's eyes burn, to make his fingers dig deeper into the mud.
He couldn't just fucking stay here, watching like he'd done for an hour, but Viskae's words kept him still, kept him a fucking bystander instead of a hero.
Is that what you'd be? A hero?his saint asked.You'd be a trophy and a pet. That's what Enryr wants. Pets to put in their army and turn the saintlands to ash in revenge for a thousand years ago.
Isak did not give a single shit about any of that. But she was right. He wasn't a hero, had never been and would never be. He was a fuck up, a disappointment, and a debauched, drunk piece of shit.
Good, his saint praised.Be that. Be that in Sainsa.
Isak froze in the grass, too familiar with the Graceless Swan who lived in his mind not to know where she was going with this. He swallowed, something inside him snapping when he watched the grey-haired, sour-faced bastard grab Azrail and throw him through the crack in the sacrificial stone where Isak had bled innocent beastkind.
I can't watch this,he choked out, shoving his palms into the muddy grass to push up as the saints grabbed Maia next, heaving her off the ground like she was cattle, like she wasnothing. There was no care in their handling, not even the consideration of master to possession. They didn't care if they broke her, and why should they? If she broke, they'd just remake her like they'd remade Isak.
Rage burned in him so hot that he forgot to breathe at that idea, at the thought of them subjecting his brother and his—Maia to what they'd done to him. Would they shove their heads down until they choked on black water? Would they cut their veins open and fill them with the same rotten stuff? Worse?
If you go now, they will die,Viskae said urgently.Stay, stay—they'll survive.
Isak shook his head, fumbling through the mud for his walking stick, but Viskae didn't pull her punches. She filled his mind with memories of him screaming and alone, his heart stopping and restarting, stopping and restarting, as his body was remade. She was there, in the dark, telling him not to give up. She was there in the worst moments, and she'd never given him a reason to doubt her.
He hesitated just long enough for the twisted saints to get Maia and Bryon through the cracks between stones, to wherever the hell they took them. Kheir and Ark fought, and Isak struggled to get up, to help, but whenever he gained purchase in the mud, the Graceless Swan would bombard him with memories, with all the ways she'd proven herself deserving of trust.
By the time Isak got his good leg beneath him—even that shaking and weak with the fear coursing through him—even Kheir had been battered into submission, and Ark was screaming through growls of rage, his pain unbearable to hear.
Remember the box,Viskae breathed urgently.Find it, break the saints, save your family.
If there's anything left to save,he threw back at the saint, but it was too late. He was too fucking weak—not just physically but mentally. He'd let the Graceless Swan win this fight, and he wasn't sure it had been the right choice.
I lost my brother once,Isak said, his voice empty in a way he hadn't heard since those days full of screams,I will find a way to get you out of my head, and I will introduce you to pain so vast and endless that you'll wish you were back in your prison.
Viskae was silent. Good.
The cruel Hunchback Saint and the dour bastard climbed onto the bloody central stone and slipped through its cracks, and Isak finally struggled to his feet. His stick slid through the mud, but he held himself upright with iron stubbornness, staring at the empty saints' circle.
"I will never forgive you for this," he told Viskae, staring at the spot Jaro had stood, and then where he'd walked robotically after the Eversky.
Sainsa, she reminded him.
Isak clenched his jaw, his eyes finding the stone Maia had staggered into. Isak hadn't been able to hear everything, but he knew enough. Jaro hadn't been in command of himself. He'd been controlled. And was now probably choking on guilt and self hatred for stabbing his mate.