Page 56 of The Curse of Gods (The Curse of Saints #3)

He whirled, searching frantically for his friends. He had eyes on Liam, and the wolves, and there was Dauphine, but where the hells was Will?

Aidon made for where he’d last seen him, but suddenly a loud crack echoed throughout the square, and he looked up just in time to see a jagged spear of light hit the side of one of the buildings.

“Shit!” he swore as the corner of the building crumbled. A fresh wave of screams erupted as people fled the falling brick, and Aidon grabbed the person next to him and tugged them forward without another thought. They just barely made it out of range before the debris hit the ground.

“Are you okay?” Aidon asked, turning to face the townsperson.

Except it wasn’t a townsperson at all. Aidon’s heart lurched as he took in the familiar brown eyes and black wiry hair.

“Cole?”

Josie’s friend blinked at him.

“Oh thank the gods you’re alive,” Cole yelled above the chaos as he enveloped Aidon in a bone-crushing hug. Cole froze before shoving off of Aidon a moment later, his eyes going comically wider as he rushed a bow. “Um, I mean, Your Majesty—”

“Seven hells, Cole,” Aidon laughed despite the hells raining down on him, his hand clapping Cole’s shoulder. “Don’t. What are you doing here?” He paused, his head whipping back toward the crowd as fear surged in his veins. “Wait, is Josie—?”

“Josie is safe,” Cole assured him hurriedly. He glanced toward the raging battle. “It’s a long story. After? If we don’t die.”

Aidon searched Cole’s face, but he forced himself to swallow his desperate questions. There would be time later. The best thing he could do for his people was help the Midlands defeat Kakos here.

“Later,” Cole urged. “I promise.”

Aidon swallowed hard and nodded. He started to rejoin the soldiers pushing toward the docks, but Cole grabbed him by the arm.

“Wait!” he exclaimed, tugging Aidon back. “They have your friend. They have Aya.”

***

Will pressed his head against the brick wall of the alleyway he’d ducked into and forced himself to breathe.

Every inhale was a lash of agony, but he gritted his teeth against it.

He could not afford to not use every ounce of his affinity.

Not if it meant getting to Aya. But seven hells, did it render his shield useless.

One more moment, and then you fight. It was Galda’s voice, but instead of the chiding tone he’d heard in the wagon, it was a steady cadence that brought him comfort.

Galda had trained him too well for him to die today.

Will sucked in another breath, and then he pushed himself off the wall and darted into the square.

The crowd had thinned some, the Midlands soldiers continuing their unlikely advance, but Will didn’t have time to question how they’d managed such a thing.

Because there was Aidon, his gaze frantically searching the square, the wolves, Liam, and Dauphine at his side.

“Where the hells have you been?” Aidon yelled as another boom rocked the ground beneath their feet. Will opened his mouth to retort, but Aidon waved him off and jerked his head to a man Will hadn’t noticed standing beside him. “She’s here,” Aidon stated. “He’s seen her.”

Will’s heart clenched. Hundreds of questions rose in his throat, but he swallowed them down save for the most important one.

“Where is she?”

The man at Aidon’s side took a small step away from Will, as if he could sense the way Desperation had made him too dangerous to be near.

He didn’t care. He could fear him, it did not matter.

“She was with the king. I called out to her, but she ignored me.”

It took Will a moment longer to place the young man. “You’re Josie’s friend,” he remarked. “You saved me in Milsaio.”

“Can we hurry?” Dauphine snapped. “We’re in the middle of a fucking battle.”

They were. And Will didn’t miss that her Visya fighters, regardless of how well paid they were, were nowhere in sight.

“There was another person with her,” Cole rushed to explain, “someone she addressed as Your Holiness.”

Will frowned as he tried to piece together what Cole was saying.

Liam shook his head. “That’s impossible. Who else would hold that title? There’s only one saint.”

Realization dawned slowly on Will, seeping down his spine and hollowing out his stomach, leaving dread free to take up residence there.

“No, there’s not,” he managed to say.

Aya had been studying the First Saint. She had been reading those journals and meeting with Hyacinth and…

Gianna had wanted Aya to open the veil and bring back the gods.

But what if something else— someone else— could come through that gods-created barrier?

His thoughts raced with his pulse, and gods, it was impossible , but what if…

I saw the veil , Aya had said to him when recounting her terrors in the Trahir desert. As if I had summoned it somehow. And I saw someone beyond it.

Her mysterious disappearance from the throne room.

The fact that Kakos had no knowledge of her whereabouts those first several weeks.

The display of power in Sitya.

“The Dark Saint isn’t Aya,” he breathed. “It’s Evie.”