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39
Isak Sintali had been a lot of things in his nineteen years. A servant, a slave, a soldier, a bitch, and a slut, buttour guide?To an island full of darkness and power that, at best, would warp them into a fucked-up new form, and at worst would kill them on the spot? This was a new low.
He stabbed his walking stick into the marshy ground on the Venhausian mainland across from the island, and glared at the spit of land that had killed any good part of him he'd had left after years of gruelling training, abuse, and humiliation. Ruined buildings stuck up from the marshes like the broken teeth of a giant beast.
"That's it?" the Sapphire Knight asked. The man was a living legend, one that gave hope and terror in equal measure. He'd saved so many people from execution, but there was never any trace left of the person afterward. As if he’d erased them from existence. And the power he possessed ... the same power that had ripped apart the gardens in the Delakore Palace made Isak very wary of his new ally.
Well, if you could call someone mated to the woman who'd bullied and blackmailed you into helping anally.
Isak slanted a look at Maia, ignoring her beauty in favour of seeing the seething rage in her eyes, the poisonous determination twisting her mouth. Her wings were almost completely black, silvery teal on the very tips, like the wings of an avenging goddess. Isak supposed that wasn't too far from the truth.
His mate. His saintsdamnedsoulmate. Had anyone asked him if hewanteda mate? No. Of course, fate or the saints or whoever the fuck else chose this hadn't asked him. Isak needed a drinking partner and fuck buddy, not a damn mate. The thought of someone being mated tohim, to all that he was ... it was laughable.
"That's it," he confirmed, trying to sound like he couldn't give two fucks when in reality his skin crawled and his heart raced, trying to escape the wrongness pouring from the damn island.
"Whatisthat?" Kheir demanded, the prince’s teeth bared.
"The joys of the island," Isak replied breezily. "Well, I'll be off then. Have fun on your little trip. Boat's down there."
He gave them a passing look and turned away, glancing at his brother at the last second.
Fuck, it hurt. To see Jaro again, and know he despised everything Isak had become.
Isak was a million miles from the mischievous little boy he'd been when he'd been ripped from his brother, but he could tell every time Jaro looked at him, he was seeing that little kid.
"Don't touch the stones," he told Jaro, disquiet snarling through his chest. "Actually don't touch anything. The whole island's full of hazards."
He dragged his walking stick from the mud and turned his back on them, ignoring the spiky sensation in his chest. He swore he'd never step foot on that island again, and he wasn't about to break that vow.
The things that had been done to him…
"Never again," he said under his breath, stalking away.
"You're walking away?" Maia shouted. "Just like that?"
"Just like that, dove," he agreed without looking back, disappearing around the corner of a ruined building with one wall left standing.
He should have felt better with them out of view, but nausea roiled through his stomach with every step.
"I must be fucking mad," he groaned, stopping in the shadow of the next building and crouching in the ruins, his knuckles white around his stick.
Peering around a rotting wall, he saw his brother and his family clustered around the boat, careful not to touch the water. Good; at least they'd learned that much.
Isak got back to his feet, enduring the twinge through his leg with gritted teeth, and strained his advanced hearing for the splash of the boat hitting water. It came two minutes later, followed by a ripple of wrongness in the air. He swore viciously, listening to the growls of Jaro's little gang in response to it.
The taint was more than magic, darker and far wronger. Like someone had hooked claws into the fabric of the world, venom dripping off the tips to poison everything. Isak had seen those poisonous claws for himself, though he knewtheyhadn't caused this wrongness leaking from the saints' circle. No, the first saint they'd allowed through had done that, had broken something intrinsic in the magic of this world by invading.
Isak was glad when the tainted ripple passed, but the wrongness never faded, clinging to the back of his throat like a vile taste. Stay here long enough, and it would warp anyone's nature. It would take them from perfectly human to horrifically not.
What the hell kind of world had the saints been locked into? What was it like on the other side? Isak wished he'd paid more attention to history and saints tales when he was a kid, but he'd been too busy tormenting his neighbours with egged windows and chasing girls until they screamed and called him names that only made him laugh.
He risked peering around the edge of the wall, easily spotting the lone boat rowing across the narrow stretch of inky water, oars careful not to splash. That water had been silvery green when Isak had first seen it.
He kept his eyes on Jaro, making sure none of the bracken water touched him. Isak might have been a loser and a disappointment, but he wouldn't let his brother go through what he had.
No way in the dark fucking chasm.
"You're all insane," he groaned, watching the boat meet the opposite shore and the small figures climb out. He imagined they winced at the full force of the saint circle’s fucked up power, at the remnant of that first dark saint they'd brought over with their blood sacrifices.
