Page 55 of The Curse of Gods (The Curse of Saints #3)

It was a strange thing to be locked away in a fortress while a battle raged on below. Aya wondered, as she laid a shackled hand against the thick cement wall that made up the fortress’s outer shell, if Gianna had felt similarly as Kakos attacked Dunmeaden.

Did she flinch at the sounds of her people dying? Or was she numb to it, what with the distance the thick walls of the palace provided from the worst of what unfolded on the other side of the Wall?

Aya tipped her head back, taking in the worn cracks on the ceiling. She wished she could see the sky.

Soon enough, mi couera . Her father’s voice in her head was a knife twisted into the depths of her aching heart.

She’d been here for hours, Evie having sent for her at first light. A small contingent of guards had escorted them from the eastern hills to the citadel, just before the fighting restarted in earnest.

Lorna hadn’t said a word when she’d left. The Saj had simply stared at her, and Aya had let herself meet that gaze head on before the Zeluus guard tugged her out of the tent and forced her to start walking toward the battle site. It almost made Aya wish the Anima was accompanying her instead.

Not that she was kinder. But she, at least, had stayed quiet on Aya’s walk last night. The Zeluus guard, on the other hand, didn’t bother to mask her grumbles of annoyance as Aya paced the inner core of the citadel.

It didn’t matter; her frustration glanced off Aya like stone against armor. The guard could afford her this—one small outlet for the nervous stirring deep inside her before she destroyed everything.

The Vaguer had come to the citadel as well, led by a smirking Andras, claiming an interest in the lower levels of the fortress. Apparently, some of the human experiments were held there.

“The humans have been moved to the prisoner pens,” her guard had told them when they’d come across the group of Saj earlier. But the Vaguer hadn’t seemed to care.

“Knowledge is everywhere,” one had said. Clearly Lorna hadn’t misjudged their morbid academic interest.

Footsteps echoed from down the hall, pulling Aya from her thoughts.

Evie and Gregor strode toward her, Evie dressed once again in her customary robe.

Gregor had traded his kingly regalia for the more practical military garb they’d given Aya as well: sturdy britches and a navy tunic with the silver mark of the Decachiré etched over the right breast.

“It’s nearly time,” the king remarked as he came to a stop before her. “General Dav is waiting on the outer wall.”

Aya nodded and raised her wrists as the Zeluus guard approached with the key to her shackles.

The familiar kiss of iron fell away, and Aya couldn’t help the way she rubbed at her skin there.

She felt naked and exposed, that consistent weight gone not just from her wrists, but from her well of power as well.

Control.

She looked to Evie to find her watching her carefully.

“Are you ready?” Evie asked. Aya knew better than to mistake the question for a kindness. She shook out her arms and rolled her wrists, adjusting to the feeling of freedom.

Her thumb found the center of her palm by habit, the smoothness of her skin a reminder of what had been taken from her.

“I’m ready,” Aya said. And she meant it.

By her blood and before the gods, she would make sure they never caused such suffering again.

***

The sun seared Aya’s eyes as she stepped out of the dark hall of the fortress and onto the path that lined the outer wall.

Or perhaps that was the smoke. The air was already thick with it, large plumes stretching toward the cloudless sky.

She could just make out the fighting from here.

It had yet to reach the docks, but it would.

Even frenzied as it was, she could see the back lines of Kakos soldiers steadily retreating toward the citadel as the Midlands pushed forward.

Toward the fortress. Toward her.

Aya made her way to the center of the outer wall where General Dav stood overlooking the battle, his eyes narrowed in concentration, hands braced on the cement.

“We’ll wait until the fighting has reached the docks,” Dav instructed without moving his attention from the battle. “I want as many of our people clear before we move forward.” Aya couldn’t help but feel the words were directed at Evie, who stood at her side.

“I think we can trust Aya has more control than that,” Evie replied lightly. “But should she need extra motivation…”

Evie motioned toward the far side of the path, where a figure was making their way toward them, their head bowed as they followed the two guards at their shoulders.

Lorna.

“Surely you realize power is imperfect,” Aya said as Lorna reached them. “If your soldiers are in the way, I cannot account for what happens to them.”

“I suggest you try,” Evie replied evenly. “If not, it will be your precious lover’s mother who suffers the consequences.”

Lorna huffed. “She does not find me much of a mother, I assure you.”

She smirked at Aya, the twisted corner of it so similar to Will’s that Aya had to force herself not to look away.

“Besides…death is coming for us all, isn’t it?” Lorna added.

Evie trilled a laugh. “What a sudden lack of regard you have for your own life.”

Lorna tore her gaze from Aya to meet the demigod’s head on. “Perhaps,” she said softly, “I simply recognize my time.”

“Enough,” Gregor cut in. He’d taken up a spot at the wall beside Dav, and he leaned over it now, his jaw tight as he assessed the scene unfolding below them.

A loud crack erupted from the city center, loud enough to have Aya ducking.

When she rose, she saw a new column of smoke bleeding into the sky.

A chorus of screams rose to meet it. The noise of the battle was getting closer, the shouts and screams and pleas melding together as the Midlands continued to push forward.

It was nearly time.

A second round of shouts rose up from the city. It was impossible to tell who they belonged to or what they meant, but Aya tried, her eyes squinting as she blinked away the burn.

“Your Majesty!”

She barely registered the desperate shout from the Kakos soldier until he was just before them, his chest heaving from his sprint down the long path on the outer wall. There was a sheen of sweat on his skin, and a smudge of what looked like ash stretching from his neck to his short blond hair.

“What is it?” Gregor asked sharply. “What’s happened?”

The soldier braced his hands on his knees as he coughed viciously. “The camp,” he gasped. “The camp is burning.”

“What?” Dav demanded, the battle seemingly forgotten as he rounded on the soldier. But Aya was looking past him, toward the eastern hills, where four pillars of smoke stretched toward the sky like beacons.

The soldier straightened, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “The prisoners,” he croaked. “They escaped their pens. They must have set fire to the camp before fleeing into the woods.”

“Not the woods,” Lorna countered. She pointed further down the hillside. Aya knew before she even looked exactly what she’d see.

Running down the hill, rags indistinguishable at a distance, were Kakos’s prisoners, an almighty battle cry rising up from them as they rushed toward the fight.

***

There was a structured chaos to battle, Aidon had learned. It involved strategy and organization, lines and segments, planning and regrouping. There was order and rules and clean killing, and it was horrible, but it was predictable in a way.

None of that seemed to exist in Sitya.

They’d ridden as close as they could to the fighting until they had to rid themselves of their horses to push through the panicked crowds.

He had thought the city would have been abandoned after the first attack.

But either the Midlandians stayed by capture or by fear, and now they were everywhere , some running through the streets toward the battle that raged on ahead, and others toward the hills—toward a chance at freedom.

“We don’t even know where we’re going!” Dauphine yelled from beside him, her blade dripping blood on the rubble beneath their feet. A few paces down from her, Will threw his knife into the back of a fleeing Kakos soldier. Aidon marked the pain that flickered across Will’s face as the man went down.

His shield must already be buckling.

Seven hells, please don’t let us die here.

Aidon wiped sweat from his brow, his throat searing as he sucked in a lungful of smoke. He blinked against the burning in his eyes and tried to make out where, exactly, it was coming from. If they could get closer to the heart of the battle, perhaps they could—

The thought cut off as another soldier came barreling toward him. Aidon blocked his attack, the impact of their colliding swords reverberating down his arm. The man reached out with his free hand, and Aidon could just make out a glow of white in the palm of his hand before the man began to choke.

He turned to see Dauphine drag her hands toward herself, ripping the air from the man’s lungs in one fell swoop. He was dead before he hit the ground.

“You’re welcome!” she called over the din before throwing herself back into the fray.

A choked laugh stuck in Aidon’s throat, tangled up with his oxygen and the bitter smoke that he could not escape.

His sword found another mark, and then another, and gods, he longed to reach for the affinity that was begging for release, but he didn’t trust himself not to spend his energy entirely.

So he relied on his sword, on the weapon he knew as well as he knew himself, and soon he was pushing forward through the crowd, to where he could see more of the gray Midlandian uniforms ahead.

“We have them on the retreat!” one of the soldiers shouted, and a bloodthirsty cheer erupted from the crowd that surged forward. Aidon almost lost his footing as it seemed to swell, but he steadied himself as they spilled into a large open square that stretched toward the docks.