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

The Conoscenza spoke of the darkness of one’s spirit as a demon to be battled. A fate to be avoided. A thing to be destroyed.

For Will, it had long been a threat that lingered within him, try as he might to rid himself of it. But as he crouched behind the thick trunk of an evergreen somewhere in the southeastern range of the Malas, cloaked in the black of night, the darkness stirring in his soul was no longer his enemy.

It wasn’t even a friend.

The darkness was him .

For once, he relished it.

Will crept forward, his steps silent as he approached the guard settled against the tree a few paces away. The man’s back was turned to him, his gaze fixed on the clearing just beyond where they stood.

Will’s arm wrapped around the soldier’s chest as he yanked him away from the tree trunk, his other dragging a knife across the man’s throat. The guard’s surprised gasp dissolved into a garble of air and blood.

He was dead before Will could lower him to the ground.

A rustle sounded to Will’s left. He could just barely make out another choked-off sound, followed by the soft thud of a body being lowered to the forest floor.

Aidon had found his mark, then. Good.

Will continued forward, his grip tightening on his knife as he moved through the thinning trees toward the clearing. He was close enough to make out the flickering light of a fire.

Raucous, drunken laughter erupted from the soldiers gathered around the pit—eight, Will counted, all dressed in the deep navy of the Kakos soldiers who had invaded Dunmeaden.

Just as Aidon’s scouting had confirmed.

Will glanced to his left, finding the king behind a towering pine. He held up his hand.

Wait.

Aidon nodded his assent.

Will crouched low as he crept closer, his gaze scanning the far side of the clearing until he found two gleaming eyes staring back at him through the darkness.

Will inhaled.

Dipped his chin.

Now.

Tyr attacked.

Screams erupted across the clearing as the wolf descended on the unsuspecting soldiers, sending them scrambling across the logs and weapons they’d lazily shed.

Will threw himself into the fray, his knife finding the back of the closest soldier in the span of a single breath.

Aidon was mere paces from him, his sword glinting in the firelight as he slit the throat of the nearest soldier.

Another lunged for Will, but he held out a hand, sending a pulse of power toward her. Her shrieks pierced the air as she dropped and thrashed across the ground, her hands scratching at her throat as Will’s affinity mimicked suffocation. Aidon’s blade silenced her a moment later.

Will found another mark, and another, and gods, it was almost too easy with Tyr tearing into muscle and bone, with Aidon’s sword slicing through flesh, with Will and his knife and his power and his rage .

It was over almost as soon as it started.

“Search the tent,” Will ordered before he threw his knife at the retreating figure of the last remaining soldier.

He relished the thud his blade made as it lodged into the man’s shoulder, sending him careening to the ground.

Will was on him in the next instant, tugging his knife out and flipping the man so he could hold it to his throat as he pinned him to the ground.

“Where is she?”

The man gasped and wheezed, his eyes hazy with alcohol and terror. “Who?”

Will pressed the knife harder to his skin, his affinity surging forward. It was nothing to obliterate the man’s shield—to send pain pulsing through him. Perhaps he was a newer Diaforaté who hadn’t yet mastered his raw power. Perhaps he was an ordinary Visya, bound to a single affinity.

Or perhaps, Will’s fury had unleashed his power in a way he had never truly allowed before.

The man let out a keening scream, and Will tightened his grip in his shirt, tugging his torso off the ground.

“The Second Saint. Where is she?”

“We don’t have her! We don’t…we don’t have any prisoners! I don’t know anything! I don’t know anything!”

“Liar,” Will gritted out. The man sobbed as another wave of his power washed over him.

“Will.” Aidon’s voice rang out as he emerged from the flaps of the tent empty-handed. He gave a grave shake of his head. “Nothing.”

Will knew; he knew they wouldn’t find her here. But to find nothing …

Will turned back to the man. His eyes were wide, frantic even, as he wrapped his fingers around Will’s wrist, tugging uselessly. “See!” he gasped. “We don’t have her; we don’t—”

His words died as Will slit his throat.

The silence in its wake was deafening, the crackle and pop of the wood in the dying fire muted beneath the blood roaring in his ears. Will released his hold on the man, his chest heaving as the soldier dropped to the ground.

He sat back on his heels, jaw clenched as he stared down at the man’s prone figure, watching as blood pooled beneath him.

Another dead end.

Just over two weeks he’d been searching, and all he had to show for it was another fucking dead end.

He flinched as Aidon’s hand, warm and firm, fell on his shoulder. “We’ll find her,” he murmured.

Will closed his eyes for the span of a breath.

In.

Out.

His gaze found Tyr. Blood dripped from his maw, but it was his eyes, fury-bright in the fading light of the fire, that had him pushing to his feet. His body ached, his muscles screaming in protest.

Where are you?

He needed rest—they all did. But they couldn’t. Not yet.

Where are you?

He had to find her.

He was going to find her.

Where are you?

“Burn them,” he muttered to Aidon. He turned his back on the bodies littered throughout the clearing. “Burn them all.”