Page 29 of The Curse of Gods (The Curse of Saints #3)

The cell door cracked open, a small sliver of light crawling across the floor to where Aya sat motionless against the wall.

Her head was heavy, held up not by her own efforts, but by the rigid stone at her back.

She could see the Anima guard’s steady footsteps as she stalked into the cell, but the scuff of her boots against the floor sounded a world away.

She reached down and yanked on the chain, dragging Aya to her feet.

“Move,” the guard barked. Aya went easily. As easily as she could, at least, with the way her legs trembled beneath her, the stone stinging her bare feet.

The hall was lit with low flames, the soft glow searing Aya’s eyes after so long in her cell. She tucked her chin to her chest as she kept her gaze fixed on the floor. She nearly stumbled again when the guard pulled her to the left, the unexpected turn throwing her weak limbs off balance.

Had they chosen another room for today? Would this one be cloaked in darkness, or pierced with light?

She supposed it didn’t make a difference. Not anymore.

The guard maintained her quick pace, and Aya’s stiff joints screamed against the way she tried to keep up. She made another turn, and then another, and then she was dragging her up a set of stairs and into a hallway lined with windows and art and—

Gods, the light burned .

Aya kept her head tucked, her gaze fixed on her dirt-covered feet as she followed the woman blindly. After all, it was what she’d always done, wasn’t it? Followed without question. Obeyed and conformed and tried with every piece of her to be good .

To do what was right .

To honor her kingdom and her queen and her gods.

What a waste it had been.

The floor beneath her feet changed as the hall spilled into a larger room, large stones becoming intricate patterns carefully placed to create sweeping whirls. She knew this room.

It was an effort to lift her head, but she did it, her gaze finding the dais.

King Gregor sat straight-backed on his throne, dressed in the royal livery of Kakos—navy and silver and intricate.

She wondered how he had produced such finery when Kakos was said to have been suffering under the embargo for the last fifty years.

Another lie she’d believed without question.

Beside him, in the place typically reserved for a queen, sat Evie.

The saint was dressed in robes of dark navy, the folds deep and dramatic and out of place for the regular wooden chair she was perched upon. And yet she held herself with an air of importance, her chin raised as she looked to where Aya had entered the room.

Suddenly, Aya was acutely aware of the dirt and grime on her, of the rips in the shift they had forced her into. She felt flayed open, as if every brush of air against her filthy skin was a knife against some invisible wound.

Broken.

Just like they wanted.

“She looks a breath away from death,” the king muttered. There was irritation etched in his words. Aya traced it through the rigidity of his posture to the furrow of his blond brow.

“The healer who guards her assures me she is not,” Evie replied, that gentleness in her voice sharpening ever so slightly.

Aya kept quiet, the solid ground beneath her feeling more like the unsteady sea as her legs ached with the effort of keeping her standing. Evie held her gaze for a long moment before motioning to the far side of the room. “We have visitors. They say you are acquainted.”

Each of Aya’s movements felt slow and isolated: the turn of her head, the blink of her eyes, the knot of dread that pulled tight in her stomach as a desperate thought rose through the murkiness of her mind.

Please not him.

Relief and regret formed tangled vines inside of her as her gaze fell not on Will, but on a large group of people dressed in robes of gray. At the head stood a bald man with pale, weathered skin and a yellowed smile that widened as Aya met his gaze.

No . It was impossible.

She had seen him die—had flung out her power in her rage and her despair and watched as it lit him up like a tree struck by lightning before his body crumbled to the desert sand.

She had heard death rattle his voice.

And yet…

“Aya,” the man purred. His black irises haunted her dreams, even still, and they gleamed now with that same fanatic light she’d seen in the clay hut where they’d first met. The same light she’d recognized in Gregor’s eyes, she realized.

Tell me, Aya. Would you like to meet your soul?

“I killed you,” Aya rasped, her voice weak from disuse. “I killed you in the Preuve desert.”

The same desert where they had left her for dead.

The man laughed, and the hairs on the back of Aya’s neck rose with the sound. “Once again, your sight proves narrow, child. You saw me on the brink of death, true. But my devotion gave me new life.”

What did that mean? Had he been part of the illusions in the desert?

Illusions that, Aya knew now, Evie was able to wield from within the veil.

The magic of it escaped her, but Evie had all but confessed to her influence when one’s mind was focused intently on her.

And with Aya sharing a kernel of her power, who else knew what sort of bridge that had built between them?

She didn’t know. But she did know that voice she’d heard in the desert had not been the darkness of her own mind. Not entirely.

Nor had it been the Vaguer.

Who are you, Daughter of Darkness?

“We’ve brought another friend of yours,” the Vaguer remarked, his reedy voice doused in amusement as he glanced behind him. The rest of the Vaguer shifted, the crowd parting down the middle until Aya could see the woman they had hidden in their midst.

Her wrists were shackled, her black hair, lined with more gray than when Aya had last seen her, limp. There was a bruise marring the tan skin of her cheek.

Aya’s blood went cold as the woman’s blue eyes met hers. Her face was as achingly familiar as it was different.

The Vaguer had come to Kakos.

And they had brought Will’s mother, Lorna, with them.