Page 15 of The Curse of Gods (The Curse of Saints #3)

Another betrayal Aya hadn’t seen, another failure added to a list that only grew longer each day she remained alive. Another example of just how foolish she was to believe the gods had chosen her for any real purpose, prophetic or otherwise.

You are nothing.

She could taste the bitter tang of anger on her tongue. But it was softer now, locked beneath days of chains and a hood and her own agonizing grief.

“I remain indebted to him, however,” the king continued.

Aya’s body tensed instinctively as he stepped around her, close enough that his torso brushed against her side.

He paused behind her, a finger trailing down her arm to the shackles around her wrist. “His healers developed the very tonic with which we imbue our iron to keep control of our prisoners. Especially our humans. Their new power is so…unpredictable.”

That weight on Aya’s shoulders pressed down so far, she thought her knees might buckle beneath it.

That suffocating clamp on her power that had not eased since Sitya…she had assumed it to be Evie’s power. But this…

This was far worse.

Iron did not succumb to its ego. Iron did not get distracted. It did not bend, or break, or falter.

She should have known. She had felt this suffocation before, in another throne room, standing before another king.

Gregor resumed his circle, his arms twining behind his back as he came to a stop in front of her once more.

“Dominic wrote me regarding the most interesting theory before his death,” he shared as he began to pace the stretch of floor before them.

“Our Diaforaté siphon affinities from other Visya to achieve their raw power. But as Andras can tell you”—he motioned to the man at Evie’s side—“the effects can be rather debilitating.” Gregor paused, his head cocking as he his eyes raked over Aya once more.

“He wondered if the power of a saint would remedy such issues. Of course, he had planned to have his nephew test the theory. But next I heard, Dominic was dead, and his nephew, the Visya king, was still parading as human. And you were safely ensconced in Tala, back under the protection of your queen.”

He glanced toward Evie. “Am I correct in assuming you had a hand in Her Majesty’s death?”

Evie pursed her lips. “In a way. I was able to manipulate the queen’s mind. With me directing her thoughts, and Andras aiding her actions, Kakos advanced quite admirably. Would you not agree?”

“Yes,” Gregor agreed. “We did seem to avoid certain expected impediments.” He considered the saint for a long moment. “It much seems as though I should be giving you a gift.”

“The greatest gift you could give me is the support of your armies when I face the gods,” Evie replied.

“From what Andras has told me of his struggles with his power, Kakos is ill prepared to take on the Divine. And while I have great power of my own, it is true that tearing down the veil entirely will require more than I can give alone. In the same way that it took something from the gods to create, so too does it take from those who dare to break it. I will need my full strength if I am to challenge the gods. If we are to challenge the gods.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“I suggest we test King Dominic’s hypothesis,” Evie advised with a simple shrug. “Andras should be rewarded for his loyalty, should he not?”

She glanced toward Aya, her blue eyes bright in the low light of the room.

“Let him be the first to see if her power can ease his suffering. If it can…perhaps we can create an army powerful enough not just to defeat those who wish to keep us servants to the gods, but to call down the veil and destroy the Divine.”

Aya had known this was coming. Evie had all but told her when Aya was kneeling on the floor in Tova’s blood, praying to gods who did not listen and did not care that someone might find her.

Might save her.

She didn’t bother with prayers now. Not when the fear she had managed to push aside in light of more immediate threats came roaring to the surface. With it came Dominic’s voice, soft and curious and cold.

The Visya the Diaforaté take power from typically become shells of themselves. Nearly soulless beings, left to wander in their misery. But with your limitless power, we could take it again. And again. And again.

“Surely you have more power to spare.” They were the first words Aya had uttered since Sitya, and her voice was hoarse from disuse.

But it did not waver.

“She speaks!” Gregor laughed. “A disappointing first utterance, I must admit,” he confessed with a cluck of his tongue.

“You cannot think me foolish enough to attempt such an experiment with the woman who has pledged to help us kill the Divine? Or do you not know what happens to those whose power we take?”

Would you ever start to feel emptiness, Aya? How long could I pull from you until your soul begins to break?

No, she did not expect him to take such a risk. Not yet, at least. But she was desperate for a chink in Evie’s armor, and the saint did not take kindly to those questioning her abilities.

It was desperate and futile, as was her struggle against the two guards that grabbed her arms at Gregor’s nod and forced her to her knees.

And yet she persisted, bucking and thrashing and wrestling against their hold.

Her body shook with the exertion, the surge of adrenaline not enough to erase how weak she’d grown since her capture.

“A payment for your service to the Crown,” Gregor said to Andras, motioning him forward.

Death would be kinder.

The thought had Aya doubling her efforts.

She slammed her head back into one of the guard’s groins, but another was on her in a second, and then another, and soon she could not move, not with the way they held her arms and pinned her legs and forced her head up with a rough hand tangled in her dirty hair.

Still, they did not strike.

Andras approached her slowly, his yellowed and blackened grin stretching across his face as he extended a hand toward her. His fingers curled into the fabric of her torn fighting leathers, his grip tight enough that she could feel the pinch of his nails just above her heart.

Guide me, blessed Saudra.

The prayer rose up on instinct.

But a moment later, Andras’s power speared into her, diving deep into her well and wrenching , and suddenly Aya was alight with a white-hot agony that no god would allow.

She screamed, her body trying to curl in on itself, but the guards held her still, even as her chest jerked with the pain Andras inflicted. His power scraped against hers, tangled with it and yanked, and gods, she had never felt suffering like this.

It was in her bones.

In her blood.

In her soul .

It was a ripping of her very self, a severing that brought bile to the back of her throat and ringing to her ears as she screamed, and screamed, and screamed.

She would not survive this.

She would not survive this.

She would not survive this.

Please, Saudra, do not let me survive this.

She did not know how much time had passed before Andras stepped away and she collapsed to the floor, the guards finally loosening their hold as her vision blurred. She was crying, her body trembling violently.

Her last thought before she slid into the darkness of unconsciousness was that she was still alive. And that, perhaps, was the worst betrayal from her goddess of all.