26
Ark couldn't explain how he knew something was dangerously wrong with his mate. It gnawed at him as he, Maia, Azrail, and Bryon threw themselves blindly into the air, sucked into the mirror's invisible magic like the force of a tornado. Like a hook in his chest, twisting, pulling, he knew he had to help her.
His healing magic had been no use against the Levaen, but he'd felt a flicker of something else, a knowledge that tasted like power itself. HeknewMaia would defeat the beast, and he knew she'd find their way out again. Just like he knew, now, that she needed his help.
He was the Lady Justice reborn, saint of trials, justice, and wisdom—was this his wisdom showing itself, then? Or innate knowledge of trials that lay ahead?
Hadn't they suffered enough trials?
"Maia," Azrail said the second the mirror spat them out into the ramshackle living room in the abandoned house the soldier had been squatting in. "Maia, stop!"
Ark grunted as he fell to the floor, his shoulder threatening to dislocate from the rough landing. But he ground his teeth and pushed himself up, blinking to focus his vision. Maia stood on the threadbare rug in the middle of the room, her pale hair floating around her face and her eyes ... her eyes glowed pure white. The white of saintslight.
"What happened?" Kheir demanded, striding into the room with all the poise and authority of his prince status. Ark was swiftly reminded he was a nobody, a palace guard among royalty. EvenAzrailwas nobility, a rightful lord. Ark wasn't even a guard anymore, didn't have any official rank beyond that which Azrail had given him.
"I don’t know," Azrail replied to Kheir, biting the words out. "It was bad in there, but no worse than at the palace. Maia, calm down, sweetheart, it's fine now."
But Maia lifted her hands, her palms parallel with the ceiling, and Ark's heart skipped a beat when power pulsed like thunder through the room. A half-dead plant in the corner withered to ash and dropped to the dirty rug, and Arktriednot to connect that decay to his mate's power, but it was hard to ignore the signs.
"The power's seductive," Ark said, opening his mouth before he'd truly meant to speak. That innate knowledge was at work again, the wisdom that was far older and stranger than him. "She's in its lure."
"I'm fine," Maia said, her voice echoing strangely, as if three Maias spoke at once. "I just need more. If I have more, we'll be safe."
"We're already safe," Azrail said with forced calm. He lifted a hand to Maia as her power carried her into the air, the toes of her boots grazing the rug as she began to float. Ark's heart skipped. "We're all here, we're safe.Look, Maia."
But Maia shook her head, hair flying around her and her eyes white with power, like an endless pool of moonlight.
Jaromir staggered into the room, his eyes wild. "There's no one upstairs; the house is empty. Why ... why does she feel like lightning?"
Azrail rested a hand on his friend's shoulder, paler than usual.
Lightning. Ark straightened, watching Maia float higher, her power building, a pool bigger than anything she'd contained before. Where was she pulling from? Within herself, or from somewhere else? She'd drained the Levaen of magic...
"Shit," he growled, knowledge hitting him. She was pulling from the earth under the house. She was going to collapse the whole thing around them if she wasn't careful. And right now, mindless in the magic's grip, she didn't have the presence of mind to realise the risk.
She needed a lightning rod, something to discharge all the power she was sucking into herself.
"Don't be stupid, son," Bryon growled.
"Mind your own business," Ark threw back, striding across the room, not letting doubt creep into his heart.
There was a fifty-fifty chance this would work, and all his wisdom told him not to. But this was a trial too, different to the one Maia waged inside her and the one in all their minds—left from the fighting at the palace—but every bit as important. He could do this—saint of wisdom, trials, and justice. He could do this.
"Ark," Azrail warned.
"Trust me, would you?" he muttered in reply, reaching up to touch Maia's cheek and inhaling sharply at the blinding power that shot through his fingerbones, up his arm, and down to his ribcage. Lightning was accurate. It felt like he'd been shocked, energy literallyburningthrough him.
Wisdom told him Maia would feel it, would sense the sharpness of power cutting through his bones and setting his blood alight. His own faith told him she'd never intentionally hurt him. Maybe Bryon was right and Ark was stupid, because he lifted his left hand and set it to Maia's other cheek, absorbing the kick of magic with gritted teeth.
He looked into her glowing eyes and didn't let himself glance away once. Something pressed to his hair, like a phantom kiss from his mother, but somehow he knew it was the first justice, Ustinya.
You must really love your mate,she said, the words only for him. Her voice was as soft and deep as his own mother's, and full of the same intelligence and love.
Ark nodded tightly, words beyond him as Maia’s power lashed him with shock after shock. He could barely breathe around it, his skin searing, hisinsidessearing. Maia would feel it; she'd pull back. She'd stop. He knew she would, trusted her with his life. He didn't need a saint's assistance with this, even if he appreciated her presence.
He couldn’t contain his grunt as her power burned through a tender spot on his hip. Anyone else might have been screaming, but he wouldn’t show her how badly it hurt. Still, tears stabbed at his eyes.
His next choked groan was louder, and Maia sucked in a sharp breath and blinked, the spell broken instantly.