Page 32 of The Curse of Gods (The Curse of Saints #3)

The thing about holding his liquor, Aidon had learned, was that he was fairly terrible at it.

Sure, nights of revelry in Old Town with Lucas and Clyde had given him a decent tolerance. And their days on the barge, where bottles of sparkling wine were plentiful, had taught him how to pace himself.

But he’d also learned while in the company of his two closest friends that though he could out-gamble the best of them, outdrink them he could not.

He’d had his fair share of hangovers to prove it.

He eyed his full glass of gin warily. It was the third Dauphine had poured. He’d drank the first, wincing against the burn of the liquor in his throat. The second, he’d managed to sip at while surreptitiously dumping most of it into the potted plant beside the couch he was sprawled on.

A third would be trickier to hide.

Dauphine flopped down onto the armchair diagonal from him, her legs kicking over the armrest. She had a lazy grin on her lips, a contented, drunken sigh falling from her.

Or not.

Aidon shifted against the cushions, his elbow digging into the fabric as he propped his head on his hand.

“So,” he said pointedly.

Dauphine arched a brow. “So?”

Aidon laughed into his glass, keeping his lips pressed tight as he pretended to take a sip.

“Please,” he scoffed as he faked a rasp from the burn, “I have a younger sister. That ,” he motioned toward Dauphine and the door with his glass, wincing as some of the liquor splashed onto the floor, “was a disaster. What happened?”

“He needed clothes—”

Aidon blew a raspberry. Perhaps he was overdoing it, but Dauphine’s eyes crinkled when she laughed, and he hated to admit he enjoyed the sight.

Stay focused , he scolded himself.

“Your flimsy excuse shows how rankled you are,” he observed, raising his glass in mock salute. “You’re typically much smoother.”

Dauphine placed a hand over her. “You’ve noticed me, Your Majesty?” She dropped her head back, her hair skimming the floor as she fanned herself before laying a hand over her forehead—the picture of an overdramatic damsel. “Oh, how Velos shines his favor on me! How did I get so lucky?”

Aidon choked on a laugh. He chased it with a true sip of his drink, letting the burn of the liquor steady him.

Dangerously charming, this mercenary was. It had been some time since Aidon had flirted with the likes of Dauphine. But like she’d said…perhaps he was better with the weapons he knew.

“Fine,” he conceded with a sigh. “Keep your secrets. They’re of no use to me anyway.”

He lay back on the couch, tucking an arm under his head as he stared up at the ceiling. A long silence stretched between them, but Aidon waited it out.

“When was the last time your sister smiled at you?”

His smug grin at his own patience paying off was immediately wiped away by the heaviness of the question as it settled over him. He frowned up at the ceiling, his mind flashing through memories of Josie.

When was the last time she’d smiled at him?

They hadn’t really spoken in Tala, not with the battle raging around them. And it certainly hadn’t been any of their interactions in Milsaio.

I am your fucking king.

His cheeks burned with shame as he remembered his outburst. Some king he was. Some brother, too.

“I think it might have been the day I signed her inscription paperwork,” Aidon thought aloud.

Dauphine made a curious sound, and Aidon found her frowning at him. “You sent your own sister into your army?”

He grinned. It seemed drastic, he supposed. But not when one knew his sister.

“Josie was born to be a warrior,” he explained. “It’s all she ever wanted. But her birth order never quite allowed for it.”

“Aren’t second siblings the ones who have all the fun?” Dauphine asked wryly.

Aidon hummed in contemplation. He had thought so, once. He had envied Josie for the fact that she’d never have to be concerned with the weight of the crown. But she’d been forced to bow beneath it anyway.

They all had.

“Not in my family,” Aidon admitted. “My uncle was difficult. For all of us. But for Josie especially.”

“And your parents?”

Aidon traced the undecipherable patterns on the ceiling with his gaze as he thought of his father and his lectures and his desperation to make Aidon a better king than Dominic ever could be, his mother and her wisdom and the weariness that came with standing between two warring brothers, only to find herself advising a son thrust onto the throne far too soon.

Duty. Responsibility. Loyalty.

“They did the best they could.”

Dauphine lifted her glass in a toast. “Certainly more than I can say for mine.” She took a deep swig of her drink, her brow pinching as she swallowed.

Aidon glanced around the home. Because that’s what it was—a safe house nestled among the guards’ quarter of the city, yes, but it was also…a home , with art on the walls and flowers in vases and throw pillows on the couch, now scattered on the floor.

“You’ve seemed to do okay for yourself,” he remarked.

Dauphine followed his gaze. He wondered what she saw when she looked around the space—if she ached the same way he did whenever he entered his family’s quarters after becoming king.

“Everything I have, I’ve bled for,” she murmured as she stared at one of the dried flower arrangements.

She rolled her head across the arm of the chair, a smirk forming on her lips as she found Aidon watching her.

“Not all of us are born with gold in our coffers and families on thrones,” she teased.

A clear defection. There was no hint of levity in the green of her irises. Perhaps that’s why Aidon responded with a truth plucked from the depths of him, unanticipated and unarmed.

“I’ve bled for my future, too.”

Not just physically, though he’d done that as well. But there was something to be said for the cuts on his heart. Those were the ones he feared would never heal.

“Not that I have much to show for it.” He glanced down at the hand holding his glass where it rested against his abdomen, as if he could see his Incend power through his skin. “I tried to mask my power for years in order to keep my crown, and now, I’m paying the price.”

“Because the realm knows your secret?” Dauphine asked with a curious tilt of her chin.

Aidon let out a gruff laugh. He wished that was the worst of his troubles.

“Because the tonic I took to contain it has made it unpredictable. It was supposed to keep my affinity from being detected—and keep me from being consumed by it the way Visya are if they don’t learn how to manage their power.

But it seems to have just…delayed the consumption.

Training has slowed the process, but I’m still not able to use large amounts.

There’s too big a risk of me losing control, or”—he cut himself off, his throat dry as he forced a swallow—“or it devouring me entirely.”

Silence stretched in the wake of Aidon’s confession. He lifted his head slightly to take a long sip of his drink, his gaze fixed resolutely on the ceiling.

So much for harmless flirting , he thought wryly.

Perhaps this was his problem; he did not know how to hide his bleeding heart.

From the corner of his eye, he watched as Dauphine considered him for a long moment. Then she curled herself up, pivoting so she was sitting properly in the armchair, her feet planted on the ground. She gulped down the rest of her drink, coughing as it brought tears to her eyes.

“My father owned a brothel in Vezekol. They don’t hold the same esteem there as they do in Colmur, but he didn’t mind. He was far more interested in his employees than the gold it brought him. My mother…” Dauphine paused as she forced a swallow. “She took out her jealousy on her children.”

She angled her glass so it caught the firelight, the crystal winking like a star. “As if he cared. I don’t know that he even noticed the bruises marring my face.”

She tugged her lower lip in with her teeth, a divot forming between her brows as she continued to stare at her glass. “I managed to shield Luc from the worst of it. He was so young, I don’t think he remembers just how bad it got.”

Aidon pushed himself up slowly. “How bad did it get?”

Dauphine curled her thumb around her fingers of her free hand, the joints popping as she fixed Aidon with a grim look. “Let’s just say they’re lucky to still be alive.”

She stood, her movements stiff as she grabbed the bottle of gin and refilled her glass. She glanced at Aidon’s, and he forced his next sip to look casual rather than pointed.

“I was fourteen when I packed a bag for me and Luc and stole passage to Colmur,” Dauphine continued, the heaviness seeping from her voice as she settled back on the armchair.

“Rather young to start on a life of organized crime.”

Dauphine flashed a sharp grin. “I’ve found it to be the fastest way to wealth, aside from being born into it.”

Aidon had been surrounded by sharp things his entire life. His sister’s sharp wit, his uncle’s sharp tongue, his mother’s sharp mind, his own sharp weapons. He knew sharpness well enough to know when it was wielded for protection, for distraction.

“And what of Luc?” Aidon pressed. “Surely he’s grateful that you removed him from such a situation?”

Dauphine’s grin faltered. “He was a child. His memories of our home are…different.”

Childhood did have a way of painting even the worst of circumstances with strokes of innocence. He tried to think of when he’d stopped seeing the world in such a way. Was it when his aunt, Madelyn, had died? Or when he’d started to experience Dominic’s coldness in the aftermath?

Perhaps it was far later—when he stepped into the room behind his uncle and his guards and had to witness the horror on Josie’s face when she saw her partner in chains.