Page 36 of The Curse of Gods (The Curse of Saints #3)

It took Dauphine the better part of a week to assemble a team. Aside from that first night he’d accompanied Liam to secure the Athatis, Will hadn’t left the safe house once.

By the sixth day, he was tempted to ask Aidon to burn the entire thing to ash.

He didn’t, of course. Mostly because he was afraid the effort might kill the king, and that would mean his efforts at keeping him alive would have been a waste.

Aidon was getting better at managing his affinity, but he was nowhere near ready to wield his fire in any meaningful, strategic way. Will tried to remind himself that at least the power wasn’t killing him. Not yet, anyway.

They’d been consistent with his training, holding them in one of Dauphine’s extra rooms, the one full of stacks of books and odd knickknacks that she’d threatened to slit their throats over if they’d damaged them.

The warning seemed to have provided Aidon with proper motivation to control his flame.

Something had changed between the mercenary and the king. They seemed almost…cordial.

Dauphine had made herself scarce the last several days as she assembled their team, but in the moments she was present in the safe house, she and Aidon kept up an easy banter that had Liam raising a knowing brow when their backs were turned.

Will didn’t bother to involve himself. He had one focus, and it wasn’t telling Aidon to be careful with his heart.

He rechecked his blades, ensuring they were all securely strapped beneath the cloak Dauphine had lent him. Night had settled over Colmur. It was finally time.

Will tugged his hood over his head as he joined Liam and Aidon in the safe house entryway.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t wait for daylight?” Liam asked as Dauphine came trotting down the stairs. One of the Visya for hire had offered his space to meet.

“We could,” Dauphine hedged, securing a curved dagger at her hip. “But time is of the essence, is it not?” She tugged her own hood up. “I didn’t realize the Dyminara were afraid of the dark.”

“I don’t trust you when I can’t see you fully,” Liam muttered.

“Only when you can’t see her fully?” Aidon asked, his grin bright in the dark of the entryway.

Dauphine pouted. “And here I thought we were starting to like each other, Your Majesty.” She pushed her way between them, opening the door a crack as she peered out.

“Are you sure about this?” Liam asked Will under his breath.

Will’s jaw shifted. Of course he wasn’t sure about this. But he couldn’t afford to wait for certainty. “If you have doubts,” he replied, his voice tight, “you can stay behind.”

Dauphine opened the door and slipped out, Aidon behind her. But Liam’s hand fell to the crook of Will’s arm, holding him back.

“By my blood,” Liam said solemnly. “That’s what I swore. If you go forward, so do I.”

Will swallowed hard. He didn’t have the heart to tell him Aya had erased his oath per his request—that he’d taken another one, not to a kingdom or a group, but to a woman.

“By my blood,” he murmured with a dip of his chin.

And then he followed Dauphine into the night.

***

Aya had nearly forgotten the pain. That’s how long it had been since they’d chained her to that godsforsaken iron table.

Once, she might have found it a mercy from her mind—a way to help her survive what she had endured.

But now, with those heavy shackles anchoring her chest and her thighs and her calves…

A Diaforaté stood over her, his hands cupped around her ribs, just above where the iron held her tight. His touch was hot as a brand through the thin material of her shift, a brutal contrast to the cold of the room and the ice of the table.

And yet…tears dripped from his face, even as his power wrenched at her own. Aya’s body arched with it, the chains pressing against her so tightly, she was sure her body would snap.

He’s one of the human prisoners they turned.

Aya wasn’t sure how she knew it so certainly, but she did. None of the others had ever shown a hint of reluctance toward what they were doing to her. Only one who’d had power forced on them would understand this affront.

Evie stood to the man’s right, and the Vaguer—the same one who had led Aya through the ritual in the desert—stood to his left, his black irises so large, Aya could hardly see the whites of his eyes.

The Vaguer would find pleasure in her pain.

Aya’s voice had remained a broken rasp from disuse, but her vocal cords had clearly rested enough. With every tug of power, a high-pitched, cracked scream ripped from her throat.

Her screams, she was learning, were different from Lorna’s. She’d been hearing them at interminable intervals since the Saj had arrived and Evie had ordered her to be questioned.

Aya was no stranger to torture. She had watched it, heard it, felt it, and, in her darkest of moments, even relished in it.

It should have been no surprise when she was dragged from sleep by the tenor of Lorna’s screams. They had, after all, done the same with the humans.

But they’d placed Lorna even closer, in a cell right next to her own.

“That’s enough,” Evie ordered softly. She flicked her wrist, and the Diaforaté crashed to his knees, a pained whimper escaping him. The man pushed to his feet and scampered toward the back of the cell, his head ducked.

“Wait for us outside, Dimitri,” Evie ordered. She waited until the Diaforaté had left before turning to the Vaguer. “So?”

He cocked his head as he took a step closer to the table, his gaze scanning Aya’s prone figure.

“Magnificent,” he breathed. “She has so much to give. I cannot sense her power with these shackles, but I could feel it flowing into the Diaforaté. She could, perhaps, fuel an entire army if we are mindful. Incredible, Your Holiness.”

I could make him hurt. I could make him suffer. I could make him wish for death.

Aya had once shied away from such thoughts. She’d deemed them a sign of the darkness she was sure lurked within her. When such whispers had arisen in the desert in the Soul Trial…

Embrace your rage. Embrace your essence. See what you are destined for…

… she had known only fear.

But now she let those whispers grow until they were all she could hear.

Your true nature always decides.

You cannot escape what you were destined to be.

“Come,” Evie murmured to the Vaguer. “Let me show you the results.”

The Vaguer nodded, but his gaze stayed fixed on Aya. “If I may, Your Holiness…” He trailed off, until Evie urged him on with a dip of her chin. “She should be kept in a different cell. One with light. And perhaps company.”

Evie raised a brow. “You think spoiling her will motivate her to be more amenable?”

The Vaguer scoffed. “It’s not for her demeanor, Your Holiness. If the oxen is to be eaten, it must first be nourished. It is, after all, how the heart grows so delectable. A neglected ox yields tough meat and bland taste. The same could be said for her power.”

There was a pointedness to his words, a meaning there that Aya could not grasp through the haze of her pain and disgust.

Let your power rise.

Let it remove your pain.

“A point well taken,” Evie mused. “I will consider it. Come.”

She turned for the door, but the Vaguer…

The Vaguer took another step toward Aya.

“Finally we’ve learned who you are, Daughter of Darkness.” His smile was a broken flash of yellow as he followed Evie from the room.

Nothing. She was…nothing.

***

Later, in the confines of her cell, Aya dreamt.

She dreamt of a wolf, its blood-soaked maw widening until it swallowed her whole. She dreamt of a raven, its silken feathers turning to ash the moment she touched them.

She dreamt of an ox, its eyes wide and water-lined. Innocent.

Seize all that the gods you worship refuse to give you.

She took a knife and slit its throat anyway.

***

The hair on Will’s neck rose as he followed Dauphine down the silent streets of the soldiers’ quarter. They stuck to the shadows, creeping beneath windowsills and around the corners, their footsteps quiet on the dirt path.

That uneasiness did not leave him as they left the empty thoroughfares and plunged into the crowded heart of the city.

The market was as packed as ever, the merchants and peddlers taking full advantage of the inebriated state of many of those wandering through the stalls.

Dauphine kept a quick pace, and Will followed in step behind her, one hand settled on the pommel of the blade at his hip.

There was a nip in the air, and even without it, he doubted their cloaks would have been out of place. Plenty of revelers were shielding their faces. Will knew they were likely dealing in contraband, and the thought made his muscles tense.

“Surely the market is a draw for the guards,” he uttered, his head ducked near Dauphine’s, both so that he might not be overheard and so that she might hear him over the shouts of the market-goers.

“No streets in Colmur are completely safe from watchful eyes,” Dauphine reasoned. “We have a better chance blending into the crowd than we would sticking to the perimeter. Less patrol there, but fewer bodies behind which to hide.”

Will sidestepped one of those bodies now, the drunken woman cackling as she held a goblet over her head.

The energy of the market was charged with a thick air of debauchery, and even with the chaos of it, Will couldn’t help but feel like someone was watching him.

His gaze darted from building to building, checking rooflines and windows. It came up empty every time.

“I love the night,” Aya had confessed to him once after a training session in the abandoned paddock in Rinnia. She’d been perched on the rail of the wood enclosure, her shoulder bumping his as she’d handed him the waterskin. “Everything’s quieter then. Less…overwhelming.”

That may be so in the cliffs of Rinnia and the mountains of Dunmeaden, but here in the center of Colmur, bedlam reigned. It reminded him of the Rouline on the nights leading up to the Dawning—noisy and crowded and free .

Will had never felt more trapped.