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"And if weeversee any of those lords and ladies," Maia went on, darkness boiling in her blood, "I'll remind them why they should fear a snaresinger. You're my mate—you're technically a princess consort. You outrank all of them."
Jaro stiffened, and Maia drew back, worrying her bottom lip. Jaro's eyes were wide and watery, surprise and wonder overflowing them. "I don't have a rank, Maia, I'm a common courtesan, a beastkind, a—"
Maia kissed him, the fastest brush of mouths in known bloody existence—all she could manage without thinking about Yeven and howhemust have kissed her mate, too.
"There's nothing common about you," she said, swallowing and backing away at a flood of emotions through their bond. "You're as rare as saintslight, Jaromir Sintali."
She got to her feet and paced to the window, wrapping her arms around herself and not brave enough to meet his eyes when she said, "You're my priority. Not Isak. Okay?"
It was a moment before Jaro said, "I need time like you do. Don't ... completely dismiss him because of me. I think he's unhappy, and afraid. If he's meant to be your mate, maybe it can be a good thing. I won't make things difficult for you."
Maia watched the street, wishing someone would walk past to give her something to focus on. "How doyoufeel? About finding him again?"
"I wish I knew," he replied miserably. "It wasn't the reunion I expected."
"What did you imagine?" Maia asked, and then went deadly still, as tense as a lightning rod, whensomethingshifted in the air around them.
"What...?" Jaro breathed.
"A saint?" Maia gasped, storming back to Jaro and touching his shoulder to reassure herself he was here, he was okay. "Someone else like us? Or has the dark saint found me?"
Icy dread raised goosebumps on her arms and she clasped Jaro's hand, tugging him towards the door. "We need to find the others, see if they felt—"
The door flung open before Maia could finish that thought and Azrail was there, frantic as he stormed across the room and grabbed them both into a hug.
"You felt it, too," Maia guessed. "Any idea what it was?"
"I'm not cut out for this bullshit," Bryon grumbled from the doorway as her mates flooded the room.
Maia blinked around Az's arm at the grumpy soldier. "You felt that? The ... shift?" Like the world had been knocked off course.
"Hard not to," Bryon muttered, big arms crossed over his chest and a dark scowl on his rough face. Maia's stomach dropped—was Jaro right about him?
She was almost relieved when shouts came from the street outside, and Ark strode to the window to check.
"People are gathering in the road," he said, looking back at them with a tense expression. "I think everyone felt it."
Maia let out a long breath, avoiding Azrail's questioning glance. Through the window, she heard people shouting about an earthquake. Well. That was one way to explain it.
Maia grabbed onto Jaro and Azrail when the world shifted again, like a god's hand had knocked it. Or asaint'shand. Maia's magic reacted with a spike, souls blasting into silver streaks around her, filling the city and the empire beyond it.
"Shit," she choked out as her awareness narrowed to those glowing streaks—each one a person or animal. She knew she was still in the Wyvern’s Rest bedroom, could almost feel the texture of Jaro's shirt under her fingertips and Azrail's warmth against her palm, but everything else fell away.
Her awareness jumped from soul to soul, carrying her away from the Wyvern’s Rest and Calvo in a dizzying rush that made her head spin.
What the hell is this?Maia demanded, expecting Sephanae to answer. But the Iron Dove was silent, or had no idea this was even happening to Maia. Her magic had reacted instinctively to the shift in the air, but where was ittakingher?
Hills and mountains and settlements blurred past, silver souls blinding all around her. She moved through them so fast the world blurred into one huge silver smear, her own blood pounding in her ears the only sound as she travelled miles in a single minute.
Her blurring movement came to a jarring halt inside a glowing soul—a man, she got the vague impression of. She was miles and miles from Calvo, from her body, but she saw what the soul saw, smelled and heard and touched what he did.
Cold brass bit into his hand, a tremor moving through his fingers as the man lifted a spyglass to his eye.
Everything else fell away, every sense covered in cotton wool compared the soldier's sight as he peered through the looking glass. He aimed the glass across the churning water, beyond the dark green hills, to the tall stones that made up a saints' circle.
Maia knew why he was shaking. He was a soldier in the army who'd killed countless people to satisfy the saints. The saints who'd refused to be reborn in a new body. Maia still hadn't quite figured out what to think of that yet.
Maia flinched from the sight of the circle, from the sudden feeling that grabbed her—like she was suffocating, like brackish water filled her lungs instead of air, shoving up her nose and forcing itself down her throat. Something wordless and ancient lived here—so bad that Maia felt it across dozens of miles.
