"You were telling us about the vessels," Kheir prompted Isak. "I'd like to know what they're vesselsfor."
"No idea," Isak replied cheerfully. "That's just what my superiors called them, so the name filtered down to us. I don't know why so many had to die, or why it had to be blood. Honestly? For months, I thought we were executioners and the saints' circle was just a convenient place to dump the bodies."
Ark shook his head, his lip curling from his teeth in disgust.
"Youtry disobeying fucking orders when a singlenohas blinding pain crippling you for weeks!" Isak snapped, a tendon straining in his neck.
Maia nodded, her suspicions confirmed. "You didn't have much of a choice."
"Not much, no," Isak agreed sarcastically. "It was kill or be killed, and I'm quite attached to my life, thanks. Maybe if this lady had shown up earlier, I might have gotten away before I did." He tapped his temple.
"Howdidyou get away? You were injured, right?" Maia asked, leaning into Azrail's side and sighing quietly when he settled his arm around her waist. Whether she liked Isak or not, the idea of him hurt would have scratched her instincts raw.
Isak laughed sharply, the sound far older than a nineteen year old’s laugh. "I had a chunk taken out of my thigh if that's what you mean by injured."
"By what?" Ark asked intently, the general’s tanned face deadly serious. "The monsters that destroyed Ilysen and Calvo?"
"Exactly," Isak agreed with a grin. "The same ones you rightly deduced are after me."
"So," Jaromir said quietly. "You delivered all those people to their deaths, and now you'll risk this whole city just to stay hidden?"
"Hey, you wanted the truth," Isak replied flippantly, a whole world of hurt barely concealed. "It's not my problem if you don't like it."
Jaro glanced away. "I don't know what happened to you, Isak. You used to care about people."
"You don't know what happened?" Isak laughed cruelly. "I was ripped from my home and my family, and sold into servitude. I waited on a rich Vassalian family in Thelleus until I was old enough to hold a sword, and then I was shipped off to the barracks to be their bitch.That'swhat happened."
Jaro was stricken, a fragile tightness to his mouth, as if he was fighting tears. "I’m sorry."
Isak shrugged a shoulder. "It’s fine. Just don't patronise me. Pisses me all the way off."
"How did you find out you were feeding blood to the saints, and not just killing people?" Kheir asked astutely.
"Partly because of this lady." Isak tapped his forehead. "But also ... there was no missing it. Anyone who was anywhere near the island felt the shift. No one else knew what was happening, but Viskae told me to get the hell out of there, that a saint had refused to be reborn in a new body and found their own way back into the world. So I tried to run."
"Tried," Jaro echoed, wrapping his arms around his middle. Az wished Maia would go to him, comfort him, but she just hunched her shoulders and stayed between Az and Kheir.
"Yeah," Isak said bitterly. "It didn't end so well. I can't tell you what happened near the saints' circle, but shit went crazy in the water around the island. Viskae thinks the saint's magic leaked into the strait and created the monsters, but I have a different theory. Less cheery."
"Less cheery than magic making monsters?" Ark asked, frowning deeply.
"The bodies. We piled them up by the circle until we ran out of space, and then we started dumping them in the water."
"Vessels," Kheir breathed. "For power?"
"For something, that's for sure," Isak replied, somewhere between dry and grim.
"He's right," Ark said, nodding at Isak. A look of deep discomfort crossed his face. "I can tell. Iknowit. The monsters are the kidnapped beastkind."
So the vessels had been bled for the dark saint, giving them enough power to walk across worlds—to use the saints' circle as a damn doorway. And now the saint was plotting with the queen of the Vassal Empire. And seemingly had an army of once-beastkind-and-fae monsters at their disposal.
Azrail had expected to find monsters and dark magic out here, butthis… Those were people who'd been dragged from their homes in the dead of night, whose loved ones still waited for them in Vassalaer. And they'd been twisted by magic into a new nature. Into what seemed like mindless violence and hunger. They'd destroyed a whole town, and devoured a village full of people. Had Calvo's people suffered the same fate as what Nesslyn saw happen to Ilysen?
"One of my rebels tracked those monsters to the edge of the water, but then the trail vanished," Az said, his stomach churning. That confirmed they’d come from the island.
"Your rebel's lucky to be alive," Isak muttered. "When I tried to run, my superior set one of those things on me, hence the chunk out of my thigh. They don't take kindly to people getting in their way; if they'd caught her, what they'd have done to her would make butchery look like a soft caress."
Maia turned to look at Az, swallowing. She'd had the same realisation he'd had. "The saint who came through, that has to be the dark saint who broke into my dreams, who I saw in the reflection chamber. If she has enough power to cross worlds, Az..."