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This will end very badly,the Graceless Swan, saint of mistakes and redemption said, her voice a dry whisper in his mind.
"Tell me about it," he muttered.
Firstly, they won't fix the circle—she began.
"I didn't mean literally," Isak huffed, shutting her up. "But, for hypothetical reasons, howcouldit be fixed?"
Here, look,she replied, and Isak hissed as she took over his sight, blacking it out so she could give him a vision. She zoomed to the stone circle, the tall stones cracked and oozing with barely-visible ripples, fixing on the blood-dark slab where the sacrifices had been given. Where Isak had killed twenty-one people and hardened his heart against the rage and grief and screams that tried to form at his own actions.
It was them or me, he reminded himself.Survive at all costs.
They took it, look,Viskae said, showing him a corner of the bloodied stone, where a sliver had been gouged from the stone, say by a claw.
"So just put it back?" he guessed.
Forge it into the stone.
"Forge it. Like metal. Forgestone. Sounds doable, sure."
Isak jumped when his vision returned to him, blinking against the watery brightness of the sun. "How do you forge stone, exactly?" he asked.
Saints' stone,his saint corrected, chiding.
Isak watched the figures crawl up the side of the island to the top, to the path he'd walked twenty-one times. His stomach knotted; he gripped the head of his walking stick so hard his knuckles turned white.
"Saints' stone," he repeated. "It's a specific stone?"
Yes, yes,Viskae agreed, which meant he was missing the point.
He thought about it, his stare alternating between the dark-clad figure with a bright silver braid and the tall figure with long red-purple hair trudging through the long grass on the nameless island.
"Saints' stone," he mused. "I'm guessingsaintshave something to do with it. Those guys." He gestured with his chin.
You, she corrected.All of you or some of you, I don't know which. I'm not a fucking seer.
Isak snorted. See, this was why he and Viskae got along so well. She might have been taking a piggy back ride on him, whispering in his ear and hovering creepily behind him, but at least she knew how to swear and had a cranky sense of humour.
"Don't tell me we've gotta have an orgy on the stone," Isak drawled, although his dick liked the idea of seeing Maia naked very, very much. If he had to be anywhere near his brother when it happened, though, he thought it might shrivel and fall off.
Saintslight, you pervert,the Graceless Swan muttered.Use Saintslight.
"Huh," he replied, wondering how the fuck the little gang on the island would ever find a drop of the mythical magic.
Isak wasn’t convinced it had ever existed—cities were said to have been created by it, the Saintlands themselves risen from the sea by it, and fae gifted magic by the stuff. But if Viskae was talking about it, it was real. Or she'd made a mistake. As the saint of them, it was an occupational hazard. Likewise for Isak.
And speaking of mistakes … the gang on the island were deep enough to be able to see the saints' circle now, which meant they no longer had a view of the water around the island.
"Tell me I'm going to regret this," he groaned, leaving his hiding place and trekking down the muddy slope towards the water, the muck sucking in his stick and making the whole thing harder.
You're absolutely going to regret this,Viskae confirmed.Best of luck.
"Thanks," he replied dryly, and drew his arm back, throwing his stick onto the other side of the water and making an impressed sound at how far it flew. It was swallowed by the muddy river bank, but ah well. He needed to walk without toppling over, not be clean.
"Don't make me regret this," he said, mostly to his brother, and leapt into the water.
See, Jaro's little family might have needed a boat to cross, but Isak was already fucked up enough that the toxic waters did nothing but lap at his skin. It couldn't make him into one of those mindless, hungry beasts. He was already far, far worse.
