Page 37 of The Curse of Gods (The Curse of Saints #3)

“Galda used to say the night had eyes,” Aya had confessed. They’d stayed in the paddock late, watching the stars descend over the cliffs. He’d finally worked up the courage to sit beside her, and miraculously, she hadn’t shoved him straight off the rail for daring to get close.

“What does that mean?” he’d asked.

She’d tipped her head back, her braid slipping over her shoulder as she’d taken in the sky. “That feeling like someone is watching you at night; it’s the night itself.”

“How do you know the difference between the night gazing down on you and someone actually watching you?”

She’d smiled at him, and he’d had to curl his hands around the railing to keep from reaching out for her.

“One feels like a friend.”

He tried to see if he could feel that difference now, if the gaze upon him felt like friend or foe. But he couldn’t tell, not with the bodies pressing in on him and the noise tugging at his frayed nerves.

Perhaps it wasn’t a gaze at all. Perhaps it was Desperation tightening its hands around his neck. He was so close— so close.

Once he had the team, they could begin their trek south.

Hold on. The words rang out in his mind, a steady beat in time with his heart.

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

He hoped somehow, Aya could hear him.

They finally made it through the market, and before Will knew it, they were on the western edge of the city. Dauphine prowled ahead, her head swiveling as they darted through the streets. After the racket of the market, the quiet almost felt suffocating.

It’s the wanting that hurts the most , Aidon had said to him in Milsaio. He was right. Will was learning Aidon had a frustrating knack for being so.

Will’s desperation was rising the closer they drew to the meeting point, and the hope of it was strangling him.

He was so close. So close .

Dauphine veered left, her hand perched on the handle of her dagger. Her fingers had found it as soon as they’d entered the market, and they hadn’t left it since.

They followed her down another street, and then another, and then, Dauphine was motioning ahead to a door inlaid with the wall. Liam fell to Will’s side, Aidon to the other, and Will did not need his affinity to feel the tension radiating off of them.

He caught Dauphine’s wrist as she raised her hand to knock.

“If you betray us, I will kill you.”

Dauphine’s brows flicked up from beneath her hood. “A bit late for threats, isn’t it?”

“Not a threat,” he assured her as he tightened his grip. “A promise.”

Dauphine rolled her eyes. “If I wanted to sell you out to the Midlands guards, I would have done it a week ago.” She gave a pointed look to the door. “Now would you let me get on with this, before you get us all discovered because of your dramatics?”

Will released her reluctantly.

She knocked twice, announcing their arrival, before fishing out a key from her pocket. With one last glance down the street, she unlocked the door and pushed her way inside.

Will followed Dauphine into the house, Liam and Aidon at his back. The door clicked shut behind him, the sound loud in the otherwise quiet entryway.

They stood in a narrow hall, low-lit with sconces and stretching toward a room at the back of the house.

“You’re late,” a voice called from the room. Will could make out the dancing of shadows from the fire on the walls.

“The market proved difficult to navigate,” Dauphine answered as she led the way down the hall. The thud of their boots echoed off the enclosed space. “Too many drunks.”

“All the better to distract the Midland guards with,” the deep voice answered.

“Indeed,” Dauphine replied, stepping fully into the room. “They would make our work rather difficult, wouldn’t they?”

Will followed, his gaze landing on a man who looked utterly at ease. He sat on a couch before the fireplace, his ankle propped on his knee, his sword leaning against the cushion next to him.

A discarded maroon jacket lay beside him.

“Finnias,” Will breathed.

He snatched his blade, but the Royal Guard was on his feet in the next second, his sword in hand. The door behind them snapped shut on a gust of wind, and before Will could fling his knife, a blade was kissing the skin of his throat.

Ten members of the Talan guard had appeared from the shadows, three of which held him, Aidon, and Liam at knifepoint. In the middle of it all stood Dauphine, a closed-lip smile tugging at her lips.

“You fucking traitor,” Will snarled.

“I agreed not to sell you to the Midlands guard, Enforcer,” Dauphine reasoned. “I never said anything about the Talan force.”

“We offered to double your pay!” Aidon shouted as he struggled against the soldier holding him.

Dauphine didn’t bother to spare him a look as she said, “You would not have been able to match Queen Hyacinth’s bounty.”

“Our queen thanks you for your service,” Finnias remarked as he tossed Dauphine a hefty bag of coin. Will hadn’t seen his smug face since the day in the Artist Market when he’d tried to arrest Tova. How had this scum survived the Battle of Dunmeaden?

Finnias tugged on his jacket and straightened the lapels as he strode across the space, stopping just before Will. “You denied me the arrest of a heretic once,” he murmured. “But oh, how the gods see to justice.”

Will angled his head away from his captor’s blade, but the soldier’s grip stayed tight around his chest. He scanned the room, trying to see how quickly he could attack with his power, but Finnias sidestepped, blocking his gaze.

“Ah ah ah,” he said in disapproval. “You touch your power, and you and your friend die,” he promised with a nod toward Liam.

“We’re under strict orders not to kill the king.

Apparently your own people want the chance at that, Your Majesty,” he called to Aidon.

Finnias grinned. “But I suppose accidents do happen. Isn’t that right, Enforcer? ”

The guard struck fast and true, his sword slicing across Will’s leg in a flash. Will yelled, his weight buckling, and it was a miracle the guard with the knife at his throat moved with him, a miracle he did not slit his throat as he crashed to one knee.

Finnias had cut deep, enough to weaken and wound, but not to kill. He crouched down in front of Will, his voice soft and smug.

“Consider that a repayment for the guards your heretic saint killed,” he murmured. Then he pushed to his feet, the guard at Will’s back forcing him upward, uncaring about the blood streaming down his leg.

Will’s head swam under the pain as he tried to stand.

“Come,” Finnias called to his companions. “Our queen is anxious for the return of her prisoners.”