AllFreeNovel
Share Us
8
Maia watched Jaro across the long dining table at breakfast, unsettled by how still and calm he was. Inside, he was a storm of wrath and dread—she knew because she could feel it, the hairs raising on her arms. She swore she could feel power, too, knife sharp and unfamiliar. Not like her snaresong or the glowing coolness of her soul magic. Was that how the shift felt? As cutting as sharpened steel?
"Are you okay?" she asked, the raucous volume of conversations all around them almost drowning out her words. She didn't know how many people lived and trained here, but there had to be hundreds. Maybe thousands. She hadn't asked what Azrail and the others planned to do with them, but the answer seemed obvious: take down the royal family and overhaul the empire.
"Fine," Jaro replied, oblivious to her thoughts. He gave her a smile, but it was far from his usual warm smile. At Maia's dubious frown, he added, "I'm not used to spending so much time here. The attention feels strange."
"But you're one of the leaders," Maia said, her brow furrowing deeper. "Az, Zamanya, and you—you're the ones running this rebellion, right?"
"And Evrille," he replied, taking a delicate spoonful of sweetened porridge. Everything he did was fluid and beautiful, the grace trained into him. "But it's different. I don't oversee their training like Zamanya, and I'm not their true leader like Az. They look at me and see a whore."
"Jaro," Maia hissed, reaching across the table to grab his chin with her forefinger and thumb. "Don't you dare talk about yourself in that tone. I don't care what words you use—there’s nothing wrong with a bit of whoring—but don't say it like that. You have nothing to be ashamed of; you didn't have a choice. And even if you did have a choice, you're not allowed to judge yourself. I forbid it."
"You do?" he asked, warmth in his eyes now.
"Yes. Expressly."
This time, his smile was genuine. "Alright, love. But I'm only saying what they're thinking. They don't see me the same as Az; I'm an outsider here."
Anger bubbled through Maia's blood, and judging by the tiny flaring of his jade eyes, he could feel it the same way she could feel his churning resentment.
"I don't know all the things you've done, Jaromir," she said, using his full name and holding his gaze. "And you never have to tell me if you don't want to, but I'm guessing none of it was easy. I know you did it because you don't have a choice, because of the cuff, but ... I know you did it for these people, too. For the information you could get from your clients, to keep everyone here safe. If they can't remember that, fuck all of them. They're burning assholes if they don't show you the same respect they show Az."
Jaro's eyes practically sparkled with love; Maia's stomach squirmed, her cheeks heating.
"Anyway," she went on, averting her gaze, "I'm pretty sure they despise me more than you after I hurt Zamanya yesterday. I fucked up."
"You made a mistake, love," he said quickly, reaching across the table to capture her hand in both of his. "Zee won't hold it against you."
Maia swallowed. It was like a thorn wedged in her chest—the fear that Zamanya would never throw her a smirk and a taunting comment ever again, that Maia had damaged a good friendship. She didn't have many friends left, and she genuinely liked and respected the general. If she'd fucked things up permanently, she'd never forgive herself.
"Do you miss it, in a way?" Maia asked, not wanting to talk about her loss of control. "Do you ... have friends there, at the pillow house?"
Jaro's gaze flickered, and then shuttered, and Maia could have kicked herself for asking. She turned her hand over and laced her fingers with his, squeezing in apology. If anything, more pain filled his eyes.
"Some," he choked out, with a strained smile. "Maia, there's something I should tell you about one of my clients."
Maia's heart faltered at his tone, at the gravity weighing his soul. "You can tell me anything," she encouraged, her breakfast forgotten at the tormented expression on her mate's face. He was so pale, his freckles standing out across his cheeks.
"Your—"
The door to the dining room thundered open, and Maia's head shot around, her heart leaping into a sprint and her magic reacting defensively. She was lucky it was her soul magic that erupted and not her snaresong; with the amount of people around her, the result could have been devastating. Glowing silver streaks crowded around her—hers, Jaro's, and one for each of the people eating breakfast around them.
A bright blur raced across the room, unerringly moving towards her and Jaro, and she blinked, frantically trying to see who it was through the blinding brightness. She sent her magic surging towards the soul, inhaling sharply at the dominance and savagery she sank into, and swore her own soul quivered in response. A ripple moved through her, like a stone dropped in water, and Maia withdrew her magic with a yank, blinking hard when she was back in her body, in her own soul.
Reeling at the breath-taking dominance she'd felt from the soul, Maia wrapped her arms around her middle, only belatedly realising Jaro had released her hand and stood to greet a man.
"Did you find him?" Jaro asked.
Maia's head spun, everything moving too fast, too blurry around her. She shuddered deeply, a complete hush falling over the forest at the heart of her, like her soul had caught its breath.
"Bryon," Jaro said, voice hardening in a way she rarely heard. A tone that reminded her that though he'd been trained to be sweet and placid, he was every bit a jaguar.
Maia blinked at the battle-hardened man who'd stalked over to them and found him watching her with narrowed eyes. As if she was a threat. Maia bared her teeth, pointed and sharp, and couldn't quite say why she did so. Her heart beat faster. Who the hellwasthis man? She vaguely remembered seeing him fighting alongside Az at the palace. He'd helped rescue her. So why did he now look at her like she was a fox in a chicken coop?
Jaro let out a low growl that shook Maia out of whatever instinctual response she'd had, and she narrowed her eyes in warning at Bryon—but he just shook his head like he was emerging from a similar haze.
He was older than all of them, at least fifty, with a shaved head, a brutal face, and a body that had been made to kill as many people as possible as fast as possible. There was no doubt that he was a fighter, and a damn dangerous one. And with his age, he must have fought in the Vassalian army—not simply Az's rebels. Which made him doubly deadly. If he'd been trained by any of the elite units ... triply deadly.
