Page 12 of Touch of Darkness

"She thought this was important," Maia went on, running her finger across a paragraph. "The Delakore treasurer was trying to buy half a dozen settlements in Venhaus. Villages mostly, but a city and town, too."

"What?" Az frowned, huffing a laugh. "What would the Delakores want with six villages that aren’t even in their country?"

"That's what your mum wanted to know." Maia gathered a small stack of papers she'd read, kissed his cheek—disarming him entirely with the casual intimacy—and stood. "I have an inkling," she explained, looking down at him with a deep furrow between her pale brows.

"What kind of an inkling?" Az asked, his calm swirling with worry. Was it sad that the worry was far more familiar than the calm?

"What's an inkling?" Sio asked, eagerly putting aside the papers she'd been squinting at and following Maia's example.

"A feeling," Maia explained, biting the inside of her lip. "A suspicion."

Az climbed to his feet, taken off guard again by the gentle touch Maia ran down his arm, barely seeming conscious of the act. He'd been petrified for weeks of what it would mean to have a mate, to let someone past all his shields and walls, to have them see him for everything he was—andthiswas what he'd been fighting? These touches that made him feel wanted and appreciated?

He was an idiot.

"What's your inkling?" Az asked, caught between dread at what she'd found and giddiness at her affection.

"I want to check the map first," Maia said, and wove around the piles of boxes and papers.

Az pushed a box out of the way so it didn't fall on Sio, and brought up the rear, his instinct to protect as loud as ever.

He had a dark feeling he knew what Maia was going to say as she led them out of the storage room and across the square to the map room he and Zamanya used to plan their strategy. It was empty right now, but if his suspicion was right about what Maia had found, it wouldn't be empty for long. He'd have to call a council and figure out what they were going to do with the knowledge.

Az kept close to Sio as they entered, both watching as Maia ran her fingertips over the map—near the Crooked Fang, like Az had dreaded.

"Eosantha," Maia said, her voice tighter. "Calvo. Forthe. Lisellia. Ilysen—"

She froze, her finger hovering over the marker they'd placed there this morning. Az nodded, raking a hand through his hair.

"What does it mean?" Siofra asked, edging closer to Azrail and making his heart go soft at the evidence she might grow to trust him again.

"Nothing you need to worry about, Sio," Az promised, squeezing her shoulder. He knew he couldn't shield her forever, but he wouldn't expose her to the sort of darkness that had savaged an entire village.

Maia met his eyes, a shared unease moving between them.

The royal family—Ismene—had been trying to buy the village that was now decimated by monsters. What were the chances that sale had gone through, and Ismene now owned that stretch of land where dark rumours swirled?

Very, very high, Az believed.

And if she'd done that to one village, how long before she destroyed the rest?

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