Siege of the Seven Sins: The Seven Sins Series, #2

By Emily Colin

In a world on the brink of war, love is the deadliest battle.

 

Rogue assassins Eva Marteinn and Ari Westergaard have escaped the restrictive world of the Commonwealth, but the battle is far from over. Eva is the formidable weapon the Commonwealth wants, and they'll stop at nothing to get her back. Plus Eva is keeping a devastating secret from Ari: the victory against the Commonwealth the two have been fighting for is doomed to break their hearts.

 

For years, Ari has seen Eva as his temptation and his secret, his virtue and his sin. Now that they're finally free, he wants what he's been craving—to start a new life with her. Only one thing stands in his way: her ability to control the new powers that have grown even stronger as she nears the rebel stronghold.

 

When Ari and Eva join the rebellion, Ari must find a place in a new society that sees him as nothing more than a Commonwealth murderer. Meanwhile Eva faces an impossible decision. She can be the face of a revolution and cast aside the boy she loves, or she can abandon everything she's fought for to stand by his side. Can Eva find a way to fight for freedom without sacrificing her heart?

 

Author's Note

If you can't resist fierce girls with swords, infuriating guys with hearts of gold, a plot that twists and turns when you least expect it, and star-crossed lovers who fight to the death by each other's sides, then this is the book for you.

 

WINNER of the 2022 Silver IPPY Award in Young Adult Fiction
FINALIST for the 2020 Foreword INDIES Award in Young Adult Fiction
WINNER of the 2022 Gold Moonbeam Award for Best Book Series

 

"This is easily one of the best books I've ever read. Siege of the Seven Sins has it all—heart-stopping action, breathtaking characters, high stakes, and a thrilling story, all wrapped up in beautiful prose."— Madeline Dyer, SIBA-award-winning author of the Untamed series

 

"Thrilling, heart-wrenching, and blood-pumping."— Karissa Laurel, author of the Stormbourne Chronicles
 

"A series everyone should know about."—M. Lynn, USA Today bestselling author of The Queens of the Fae series

 

With the propulsive action and addictive romance of Shatter Me, the high-stakes twists-and-turns of The Hunger Games, and the fantastical world-building of From Blood and Ash, this second book in the award-winning, slow-burn, romantic dystopian fantasy Seven Sins series will pull you in, break your heart, and never let you go.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Orchid Books
• Release date: Jun 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781961469037

Book preview

1

EVA

The world is on fire, or I am.

I come to consciousness with a start, tendrils of white-hot pain curling low in my belly, then spiraling outward to twine, vine-like, around my limbs. My body burns, fire-tipped thorns sinking deep into my bones, holding me still.

Pinioned, I turn my head—all I can move—sideways and see my hand, pale in the darkness of our tent. As I watch, horrified, it shimmers with light, then changes form: a talon, fledged with vicious, curved claws; a flipper, flapping helplessly against the nylon of the tent’s floor; a mammoth, black-furred paw, nails scrabbling, searching for purchase. The shifts hurt, and I stifle the need to cry out. There is some reason that I need to remain silent, a secret I need to keep⁠—

Next to me, Ari stirs, and with the force of the water crashing over the edge of Black Falls—the place where the Bellatorum used to sacrifice our fellow warriors—I realize why I need to keep this horror to myself. There are no vines holding me in place; instead, the weight pinioning my limbs is him. I’m on my side, facing away from him, my back against his chest. He’s holding me close, his arm wrapped around me, his leg thrown over mine. His face is nuzzled into my hair, his breath warm on the nape of my neck. His scent surrounds me: pine needles from the forest we trekked through to get here; a hint of the tart berries we ate last night for supper; and his own burnt-sugar scent, as unique to Ari as his fingerprints. A scent that has come to mean home.

I’ve never woken up next to a boy before. In the Commonwealth, such a sinful action would have been punished with death or exile. Locked in my cell in the dungeons, imprisoned by the actions I’d taken to save Ari’s life, I’d dreamed of a moment like this. One day, I’d imagined, we might be free. I could hold his hand, even kiss him, and not worry that the Priests and Executor would find us both guilty of the highest treason—at best, exiled to roam the Borderlands; at worst, kneeling with our necks bared for our fellow bellators’ sverds in Clockverk Square.

That dream died the moment the Executor told me the truth.

I lie still, breathing deep, trying to force the paw to shift back into a hand. Ari thinks I’m human, a person. I’d just wanted one night with him, before I had to confess everything.

I’m a genetic experiment, my DNA spliced with that of four beasts. I was bred to be a weapon, and you were raised to be my slave. And if you don’t agree, then I will die.

Yeah, that would go over well.

I stare at the impossible paw, my skin sparking with heat, willing it to become a hand again. I have no idea how to do this. For all I know, focusing on it will only serve to make things worse. My vision shudders, and for a second I could swear I see the black fur creeping upward, limning my arm the way moss limns a rock, my bones shifting and cracking and changing⁠—

I blink, my eyes feeling as if their sockets are stuffed with sand. It was an illusion, thank the Architect. The paw’s still there, but my arm looks normal. Relief breaks over me, until I feel Ari stir beside me. What will I do if he sees me this way? Please, I beg whatever forces out there will listen. Please make it stop.

But nothing answers.

Then, above me, on the ceiling of the tent, I see the shadows take shape and grow, the way they have since I was a child. As I watch, they converge, merging into a single trunk, branches reaching down toward me, knitting a canopy of ghost-trees, a forest within a forest. Skúmaskot, they hiss. Skúmaskot, look.

Never before have I been able to make out their words. Everything they’ve said has been no more than a susurrus, the syllables audible but braided together too tightly to unravel. Now I can understand them. Now they have called me by name—or at least, what the Executor said I was. Skúmaskot, a creature made of myths and shadows.

The shadow-branches curve further, their icy tips tracing that horrifying paw, sending shivers rippling through me—as if I’ve been touched by the darkness itself. Shapeshifter, they hiss again, their not-voices tinged with impatience. You are one of us. Skúmaskot, look.

So I do.

I do what I never had the courage to do before: I peer into the heart of the shadows and let them show me what they will. And in their depths I see the greatest of contradictions.

The darkness is burning. And soon, we will be too.

Run, skúmaskot, the voices whisper. Run, and live.

A deafening sound fills my ears—the shadow-voices, roaring. The branch retreats and the tree cracks open, revealing a gaping hollow at its center. From the corners of the tent, shadow forms rush toward it—a swooping falcon, wings spread wide; a spike-furred wolf, belly low to the ground; a selkie, flippers pressed purposefully against its sides, its body an arrow; and last, a giant, prowling panther. The beast turns its great head and looks back over its shoulder. Run, it tells me, though its lips don’t move. Then it vanishes, consumed by the tree.

The creatures take all the oxygen in the tent with them. There is a noise that is not a noise, the rushing of air into a vacuum, so loud it hurts my ears. It seems absurd to me that Ari doesn’t wake. My outstretched arm burns and aches and stings, the pain devouring me.

Then, as suddenly as it came, the pain disappears. My hand is a hand again, and I can breathe. But when I inhale, I smell what the shadows were warning me about: The acrid scent of smoke.

Panic floods my veins, and I shake Ari to consciousness, each second the ominous tick-tick-tick of a clock. The bellators are coming, the world is burning, and we must run if we want to live.

2

ARI

G et up. It’s Eva’s voice, fierce and urgent. Her touch on my upper arm, shaking me—I would know it anywhere. But sleep has me in its grip, holding me in the depths of a cold, black pool. I’m trained to wake in an instant, but somehow I can’t move.

Ari. Her voice comes again, hooking me, reeling me in. I want to answer her, but that would require breaking free and swimming for the surface. My limbs feel like they’re weighted down, and my heart thuds slowly, as if I were truly underwater, starved of oxygen and freezing.

Forcing my eyelids open is a challenge, but I manage. I blink, once, twice—and open my eyes to the darkness of our tent. When I fell asleep, Eva was lying beside me. I woke once to find myself wrapped around her, her body soft and pliant in sleep, her long hair freed from its braid. She hadn’t put it up after last night, when we’d almost⁠—

But there’s no time to think about that now. She’s crouched over me, shaking me harder, her nails digging in. Ari! Get up. We have to leave.

I struggle up to my elbows, trying to make her out in the dark. What’s wrong? My voice is hoarse, glutted with sleep.

Fire, she says, and the insistence in her voice is enough to bring me the rest of the way to wakefulness.

I sit up, inhaling deeply. It’s the middle of the night. All I smell is the forest, seeping in through the thin fabric of our tent: leaves and dirt and the slow approach of winter. Maybe you were dreaming⁠—

I wasn’t. I swear. Her voice shakes. They’re coming for us, Ari—for me. We have to leave.

I don’t smell fire, nor do I hear anything untoward—but I trust Eva. Her instincts have saved us more than once, even if I don’t understand them. I get to my feet, reaching for my weapons belt. It’s a good thing I’m used to operating without sleep, because I’m so tired, I have to fight the urge to sway where I stand.

Eva, on the other hand, is all but vibrating beside me in her eagerness to alert the others. Her hair is back in its usual braid. She’s already strapped on the sheath and sverd she took from Benedikt, the bellator whose throat she slit in our escape from the Commonwealth’s prison. She’d liberated Benedikt’s weapons belt, too, but lost it somehow during the battle in the forest that followed.

It had been brutal, fighting the Bastarour—the Commonwealth’s mutant beasts—along with Efraím Stinar, the lead bellator, and the Thirty, his most elite warriors. We were lucky to get out alive—and as skilled a fighter as I am, if it hadn’t been for Eva’s ingenuity, we probably wouldn’t have. I may be prideful, but I can admit the truth. Still, though we managed to escape, the sverd is the only weapon she has left…aside from Eva herself, who is weapon enough. I ought to know; I trained her.

She rolls up the sleeping mat, which turns inside out to become a tiny pouch, complete with a carabiner for clipping it onto a belt or pack. Come on, she says, ducking through the flap of the tent. We have to find Ronan.

I follow her out into darkness. The camp is set in a semicircle, with a sheer rockface at its back and woods bordering it on three sides. Even with colder weather approaching, most of the trees here are evergreen and their leaves are thick. Blackberry brambles tangle with vines and undergrowth, making the way to the campsite inaccessible except by a narrow mountain pass, a bottleneck where the cliffs that surround us converge. Once through the pass, the road dips down into a valley, opening up into a wood-bracketed clearing in easy hiking-distance from a stream.

When Eva and I came upon the camp yesterday, seeing the bottleneck had given me confidence that allying ourselves with the Brotherhood wasn’t a fool’s errand. As part of my training as a bellator, I’d spent a great deal of time studying battle strategies. This one dated back to millennia before the Fall: In a land far beyond the borders of the former Empire, a small army had held off a far larger one by blocking a mountain pass called Thermopylae…the only way into the territory that the smaller force held. It had worked beautifully for fourteen days, until someone betrayed the smaller army and the larger one used an alternate route to annihilate them.

We’d come here yesterday in daylight and seen the tripwire, concealed under a blanket of leaves in front of the entrance to the pass and connected to explosives flanked with projectile rocks. Trained warriors happening upon the camp in daylight would notice it—but those coming here by night wouldn’t be so fortunate.

I’d noticed a few other machinations, too, scattered along the way—a rockfall triggered by brushing a vine that crossed the entry path; a trap built from sharpened stakes, laid in a hole and covered by a wooden frame. Camila, the weapons specialist, had shown us yet another, to ensure we avoided it: a cartridge from one of the Brotherhood’s guns—weapons we don’t have in the Commonwealth—wedged into a hollow stalk of bamboo set atop a small piece of wood and a nail that acted as a firing pin. She’d lowered the whole ensemble into a shallow vertical pit and hidden it beneath a piece of sod. If an approaching enemy stepped on the sod, it would trigger the firing pin, setting the cartridge tunneling up through the bamboo and into the offender’s foot.

None of these traps have been activated; we would’ve heard the commotion if they had. Crickets chirp in the trees, and in the distance, I can hear the flow of the stream that serves as the camp’s water supply. There’s no hint of a blaze above the tree line, no acrid scent of smoke. But I trust Eva, and when I think of one of the Bellatorum’s creeds—we enter the circle at night and are consumed by fire—an alarm sounds in the back of my mind, nagging and insistent.

At the camp’s perimeter, I can see the Brotherhood’s two scouts, Adrien and Fadel—who goes by Fade—peering into the woods. They’re armed with guns, holstered at their sides…but their manner’s calm, as if they don’t sense a threat. Adrien’s taller figure bends toward Fade’s, listening. From where I stand, I hear the low murmur of their voices, conversing in the tones of men who are trying to pass the time.

Eva, I say, are you sure?

At the sound of my voice, Adrien’s head swivels and he focuses on me. Westergaard, he says, his tone wary. What are you doing awake? Ronan meant it when he said you two didn’t need to stand guard tonight.

It’s not that, I say. Eva thinks⁠—

"I don’t think. I know." She strides toward them, head tilted skyward as if to scent the air. Whatever she smells must disconcert her further, because she shakes herself all over like a dog shedding water. The Bellatorum—the Thirty—they’re coming. They’ve lit a fire to corner us. We have to break down the camp and run.

Fade stares at her like she’s lost her mind. How do you know that? Are you in touch with them somehow?

No. I can’t explain it. But I can smell the smoke. She looks desperately from Adrien to Fade to me, then back again.

Adrien shakes his head. I’m not fleeing in the middle of the night based on your word. For all I know, you’re leading us straight into an ambush.

"An ambush? Eva’s voice cracks. They tortured me. They tried to kill Ari!"

So you say. Jaxon, Ronan’s surly second-in-command, has emerged from his tent and is staring us down with the cynicism that’s his stock in trade. I trust there’s a good reason you’re making a commotion in the middle of the night.

Eva folds her arms across her chest. The Bellatorum is coming. We have to—oh, to the nine hells with all of you. I don’t have time for this. She strides through the clearing, heading straight for Ronan—who emerges from the mouth of his tent just as she reaches it. His graying, rope-like strands of black hair are tied back with a piece of cord, and his brown skin blends into the shadows—unlike Jaxon’s, who is so pale as to be almost iridescent.

There’s a fire— Eva begins, but Ronan cuts her off.

I heard what you said. And we have no time to waste. Adrien, start breaking down the tents. Jaxon, wake Camila and Mateo to put some more safeguards in place and take point. Westgaard and Marteinn, you’ll go with them to guard the pass. Fade, get the others. His voice is even, the tone of a man who expects to be obeyed.

Fade snaps to attention and goes to fulfill his orders. All around us, the camp starts coming to life, full of the dismayed, unnerved sounds of citizens who have been woken in the middle of the night and ordered to evacuate. One by one, they come spilling out into the clearing—Isobel, the navigation specialist; Mei, the camp’s botanist and healer; Camila, their weapons expert; Mateo, her assistant; and Leah, who functions as an intelligencer.

Jaxon’s hand drops to his gun. Sir, he says, no offense meant, but are you just going to take Marteinn’s word for it? What if she’s leading us right into a trap?

Ronan levels Jaxon with a glare. Her word is enough.

But—

I’m done debating this. His voice is steel. Westergaard, who can we expect them to send?

I take an instant to ponder this. I’d lay odds it’s what remains of Efraím’s Thirty, the best warriors the Bellatorum has to offer…or would that be Kilían’s twenty-seven, now that Riis is disabled, Eleazar is dead, and there was no time to replace Samuél?

It’ll be the Thirty, I tell Ronan, my voice expressionless. What’s left of them, anyhow. You can expect twenty-seven fighters. Kilían will lead them.

Kilían is the Commonwealth’s Lead Interrogator, Efraím’s second-in-command. With Efraím dead, he’ll be the Bellatorum’s new commander. He’s also a resistance informer, but in this case, if the Executor jumps, he’ll have to say how high…which means that even though he’s been the Brotherhood’s ally, we can’t count on that tonight.

Ronan knows this as well as I do. His jaw sets, and he turns to Jaxon just as Camila makes her way to our side, her dark hair tied back and her hooded eyes narrowed with alarm. Ronan acknowledges her with a nod.

Camila, he says. You and Jaxon will go across the tripwire with Marteinn and Westergaard. Check our defenses along the way and rig anything else if you’re able. We’ve got a three-week hike ahead of us and we can’t afford to leave our gear here, so you’ll be buying us some time. It’s likely twenty-seven against eleven; the numbers aren’t on our side. Disable or kill as many of them as you can while we break the camp down, and I’ll signal you with a gunshot when we’re ready to go. Then you run, and they’ll follow, right across the tripwire. With luck the explosion will take out enough of them to give us a decent head start.

It’s a solid strategy, although I feel less than thrilled about fighting alongside Jaxon. Even though the Brotherhood has guns, the Bellatorum are the superior warriors. The Thirty’s skill with edged weapons and hand-to-hand combat is unmatched. One on one, Eva and I could take any of them. Twenty-seven on four…well, that’s another story. The guns will have to even the score.

Without a word, Jaxon pivots and starts heading toward the pass, Camila on his heels. I glance down at my weapons belt, then pull a couple throwing knives loose and hand them to Eva. She takes them with a tense but grateful smile and slips them into the pockets of her gear.

We make our way out of the clearing and down the narrow path that leads through the woods to the pass. Ten feet down the path, the wind changes—and then I smell it. Smoke, bearing toward us on the coming breeze. A moment later, I see it too: A rim of red around the far-off trees, blazing into orange against the dimness of the night sky. As I watch, the flames lick higher, and in the depths of the forest, I hear a distant crash as a tree gives up the fight and falls.

I turn 360 degrees. Everywhere I look—aside from behind us—there are flames in the distance.

We enter the circle at night and are consumed by fire.

By the Sins, I mutter. Eva’s right—they intend to box us in, to trap us.

But how did she know they were coming?

There’s no time to interrogate her. Later, if we live, I will get the answers I crave. Instead I pick up the pace, bypassing the traps Camila laid and stepping over the tripwire. I come up even with Jaxon, who turns his head and fixes me with a glare.

If this is a trick, he says, enunciating every syllable, I’ll kill you myself.

I let my lips curve up in a facsimile of a smile, thinking how pleasant I would find it to have him at my mercy. He rather reminds me of Jakob Riis, who attempted to conceal his jealousy under a barrage of needle-sharp barbs—and wound up falling twenty feet to the ground after my boot coincided with his face. But Jaxon and I are supposed to be allies, so I keep my thoughts to myself. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, I say instead, raising an eyebrow. I mean you no harm tonight. Eva and I will fight at your side.

His only response is a disbelieving snort.

The four of us emerge at the head of the pass and fan out, scanning the woods. Jaxon and Camila draw their guns; Eva and I grip our sverds. Smoke rides the air, creeping through the forest, searing my lungs.

In the labored breath between one moment and the next, my former brethren burst from the trees, faces painted black as pitch and the rising inferno of the flames behind them—looking much like the demons I’ve seen in paintings depicting the nine hells. Camila and Jaxon’s guns fire in quick succession, and two of the lead bellators fall, dark blood staining their gear. With a roar, the ones behind them charge.

It’s too dark for me to make out who the Thirty has lost. Not Kilían; his red hair would give him away. The shadows thrown by the flames wreak havoc with my vision, stretching behind the bellators’ figures and making them loom larger than life—like massive, hooded beasts. Next to me, Eva tenses.

One of the Thirty breaks free of the pack and barrels toward me, teeth bared—Frederik, I see as the light from the fire falls on his face, not a shadow-beast but just a man after all. Traitor, he hisses.

I draw a throwing knife from my belt and put it through his heart.

Frederik crumples to the dirt yards away, but there is another right behind him—Mikhael, one of the first warriors I sparred with after my Choosing. He charges me, a throwing star palmed in one hand and a knife in the other. I duck as the shuriken leaves his hand, whistling through the air where my head had been, and send a blade hurling his way. The wind takes it, bearing it slightly left of where I intended…but it opens a nasty cut on his forehead nonetheless. Blood pours down, half-blinding him.

Exile, he snarls at me. Your soul will burn⁠—

That’s all he manages before Eva emerges from the shadows behind me, sverd in hand. His eyes widen, the whites flashing in the blackness of his face, as she brings down the blade and severs his head. It rolls through the dirt to land at my feet, his mouth open, forever on the verge of condemnation.

Jaxon and Camila’s guns thunder, one covering the other as they reload. I wish desperately for something to plug my ears; bellators use all of our senses in a fight, and I feel sorely off-balance—but if I can’t distinguish between the nuances of sound, neither can the Thirty. I just hope we’re able to hear the single shot that will serve as Ronan’s signal.

At least ten bellators lie slumped in the grass, their blood black in the flickering firelight. The flames are still far enough away so they don’t pose an imminent threat—but the fire itself is raging, devouring the forest. I can hear it coming closer, hear the trees in its path that topple to the ground. We are running out of time.

Eva fights by my side, the broadside of her sverd reflecting firelight as she wields it. I have a moment of fierce pride in her…and then a throwing knife comes whistling through the air, a foot from my face. It finds its mark—in Camila’s throat. Her face turns toward me, mouth wide in an O of shock as her knees give out and she tumbles, face-down, into the blood-soaked grass. Her fingers twitch. Then she lies still, a puddle spreading beneath her body.

Jaxon bellows in rage and disbelief, screaming her name. The bellators howl back, a cry of triumph, and the two in front seize the moment, sending their knives flying toward him. I don’t think; I just act, hurtling in front of him and raising my sverd to block the onslaught. I do as I’ve been trained, letting my body anticipate what my mind cannot, using my limbs as an extension of my weapon, ignoring the burn in my lungs from the smoke. There’s no room for fear; it is my enemy, as surely as the men before me. There is only the roar of the flames and the sob of my breath and the flash of my blade.

Metal screeches on metal as the blades bounce off my sverd and clatter to the ground. Over the roar of blood in my ears, I hear Jaxon cursing viciously as his gun clicks on an empty chamber and two of the bellators close in, sensing the presence of a vulnerable foe. I reach backward, pressing one of my spare blades into Jaxon’s hand. He takes it, and I pull my dagur, balancing it in my right hand as I hold my sverd in my left, grateful for my ambidextrous nature in a fight. I told him I’d have his back, and I will. I’d appreciate his having mine—but I have no idea of his ability with a blade.

In front of me, Eva cleaves through the swarm of bellators who are still standing. Three charge her at once, their faces concealed by the shadows; she whirls and ducks, parrying with astonishing speed. A sverd grazes her forearm, and I hiss a warning—but even as her blood drips onto the pine needles that cover the forest floor, she draws back her arm and skewers the warrior who wielded the blade. She yanks her weapon free, foot-sweeps the bellator who charges her—Erik, once Kilían’s apprentice—and comes face-to-face with the last of the triad: Kilían himself, his red hair gleaming roan and vermilion in the light of the flames, his sverd gripped tight in his hand.