Shards of Stasis

Shards Of Stasis SOUL COURT ASCENSION BOOK TWO MEL HARDING-SHAW Copyright © 2023 by Mel Harding-Shaw Published by Coruscate Press, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. ISBN 978-1-99-117781-0 (Paperback) ISBN 978-1-99-117780-3 (ePub) Cover design by Alerim Created with Vellum Contents 1. Hel 2. Bast 3. Hel 4. Bast 5. Hel 6. Bast 7. Hel 8. Bast 9. Hel 10. Bast 11. Hel 12. Bast 13. Hel 14. Bast 15. Hel 16. Bast 17. Hel Epilogue: Bast About the Author Chapter 1 Hel Eyes burning with flame glowed in the darkness as the shadowy bodies of the starhounds slunk closer. The ambient light was just bright enough to reflect off the venom dripping from their hinged fangs. Fuck. This was a terrible idea. Why had she let Morrigan talk her into it? Hel stood at the top of the stairs beneath the imposing façade of the old National Library building with its levels of concrete like so many computer chips layered on top of each other forming an architectural bunker. If only she was planning to take shelter there instead of following through on this madness. The hounds had been appearing more and more often across the city since the huge portal she’d sensed her father opening on the edge of her range, but she still had no idea where exactly they were coming from. The residual power signature she could’ve used to track the portal had disappeared from her senses almost as soon as it arrived, screened by something. Back when they’d found Tir, she’d thrown the hounds off her track when her portal had drawn them away from the City of Souls to the Fire Lord’s territory in Europe. But something must have tipped off her father to her current location, probably the damn gossip sites running stories on her ‘love life’ with Bast. She’d been stuck in the Tower for weeks, hiding. She needed to draw his attention away from the city before the hounds killed any more people, which is what today’s insanity was all about. Hel and Bast had kept her power and the news of their inadvertent mating bond tightly under wraps. The ever-deepening link to his soulweaving power was likely to kill her and the mating bond meant she’d take Bast with her. If anyone found out how dire things were, the city would panic and the vultures would start circling. They had shared some of Hel’s eccentricities with the ruling partnership of the city, though. Like the fact she’d once stopped the hounds with nothing more than a command. When the trail of dead bodies continued to grow despite the scouts’ patrols, their captain Morrigan had suggested she try simply ordering the hounds away. Hel had realised, or hoped, she could do one better and use them as misdirection to get her father off her tail. If Bast hadn’t been avoiding her like he was the plague to try and slow her succumbing to the deadly taint of his magic, he probably would’ve forbidden what she was about to do. She almost wished she’d let it slip as the hounds’ chilling snarls carried on the wind. Morrigan was flying somewhere above her, ready to swoop to the rescue if needed, but her azure blue and deep grey wings blended into the night sky, rendering her invisible. Even the knowledge that Hel wasn’t alone couldn’t calm her racing heart. A lifetime of fear running from her father’s hounds didn’t disappear because of a single experience. This really was a terrible idea. She was downwind of them, but as soon as they caught her scent, they’d call for reinforcements. The closer the hounds stalked, the more the sweeping lines of Bast’s mating mark, like tattooed angel wings on her back, tingled with power. Its reaction to the threat sent chills through her body. If only the man himself would deign to come anywhere near her, she might’ve been a little more confident about facing down her hunters. Actually, fuck that. She straightened her back a little as her hand hovered near the blades concealed in her baton. She’d protected herself just fine her whole life and now was no different. As if to prove her thoughts wrong, she felt the delicate icy touch of the souls, who followed her to screen her portal signature from her hunters, swell into a crushing mass as they sensed the threat to her. Joining with the souls from this sector of the city, they converged on her location. The irony was that it was their compulsion to swarm as they tried to protect her from danger that put her at greatest risk of the soul taint the mating bond had left her exposed to. The cacophony of their voices threatened to lay her out cold, especially when they flocked together like this. Wincing, she stumbled back, despite the fact she hadn’t been moving. She wouldn’t last long like this. The only question was whether the souls or the hounds disabled her first. Wrapping her power around herself in the hopes it would create a buffer, she reached inside for the voice of command she’d wielded once before on that day by the fountain when she’d ridden a griffin to Matiu Island. “Stop,” she growled. The hounds froze in place. Three of them. Three creatures from her nightmares that were now so close she could make out the scar on one’s ear and the faded whiplike burn from a phoenix tail on another’s flank. She’d practised what she’d say before she came here, wary that her fear would paralyse her. It was more a concept that she forced into each beast’s mind than words. One by one, she took over their awareness and whispered into their essence—I was