Page 7 of The Curse of Gods (The Curse of Saints #3)

Will was no stranger to circumstances he could not control.

The death of his mother. The abuse of his father. The revelation that his mother had not died, but had merely left him to survive life with a monster.

A power-hungry queen ascending the throne.

A prophecy that seemed intent on destroying his life because it endangered the woman he loved.

One would think, through it all, that urging inside of him that screamed for him to move, to act, to grasp something that would prove he had a say in his life, would wane.

But it was ever-present, even now.

Perhaps that was why training with Aidon these past few mornings hadn’t triggered his impatience like he had expected. Yes, he’d rather take to his horse at first light, but the animals needed proper rest to maintain the grueling pace he’d set, and Aidon…

Well, he’d meant it when he said he did not have time for Aidon to die.

“Good,” Will murmured as Aidon held a ball of Incend flame in his hand. They’d come upon an abandoned barn last night, its wood wet and molded. But it was shelter for the night, and a viable space to train this morning without having to worry that Aidon might burn the structure down.

His control over his affinity was sporadic at best, especially if Will rankled him.

“Now expand it,” Will instructed.

Aidon’s brows scrunched as he forced the ball of fire to grow, his other hand coming up to cup it.

Sweat dripped down his forehead, but Will didn’t note any other signs of distress.

So he flexed his palm, his affinity spearing across the space.

Aidon stilled, eyes blowing wide with the panic that Will sent washing over him. His fire vanished.

“Shielding still seems to be an issue,” Will noted.

Aidon’s muscles trembled with exertion, his hand curling into a fist at his side. Slowly, Will felt the push of Aidon’s shield, forcing his affinity out.

“You’re an asshole,” Aidon panted as Will let his affinity drop. “I wasn’t ready.”

“Clearly. But you managed to regain your shield while under assault without your affinity reacting with your anger. And, you’re not bleeding today.”

Aidon’s annoyed glare dissolved into wide-eyed surprise, his hand ghosting across his nose in search of proof. It was sad that the lack of blood was such a drastic improvement.

They’d started small, with exercises designed to help Aidon sense the depth of his power and how to pull from it without utterly exhausting himself. It was still unpredictable, and excruciatingly slow, but Aidon was…

Well, it seemed, at the very least, that using his affinity in small doses had staunched some of the more dire symptoms. Whether they were merely slowing his decay or stopping it, it was too early to tell. But Will would take whatever progress he could get.

“Soon shielding will be second nature,” Will assured him as he took a sip from the waterskin tucked away with their supplies.

“How often does one break through your shield?” Aidon asked as he wiped his face with his discarded shirt. Will stilled, the lip of the waterskin still pressed to his mouth.

There it was—another aspect of his life he could not control.

He forced himself to swallow. “I am not the best marker to measure against,” he finally said.

Aidon rolled his eyes. “That untouchable, are you?”

Will ignored him, focusing instead on readying their packs.

You are weak. And one day, someone will exploit your weakness, and you’ll deserve whatever consequences follow.

His father’s words came unbidden to his mind, a locked-away memory he didn’t recall burying, yet there it was.

They’d been visiting a blacksmith that provided weapons for his father’s trade.

The man’s apprentice had burned himself in the fire, and Will had screamed as if it were his own hand.

His father had berated him for the better part of an hour for the embarrassment he’d caused, had spat vicious words about being too weak to control his affinity.

Will had tried to explain that he had been shielding. But it only gave his father more fuel for his rage, only made his mother stare at him blankly while she watched Gale tear Will apart.

He’d told Aya once, in Rinnia, that he didn’t remember his father always being such a monster. That he had been greedy and selfish, but the cruelty had come once his mother had died. Left.

Will wondered when he’d started believing the lies he’d told himself as a child to survive.

“Will.” He turned to find Aidon watching him with an intense sort of focus. “What aren’t you telling me?”

It was rich, coming from the man who had refused to say anything about his own affinity issues. Hypocritical, even. And yet…

Weakness was allowing Aidon to fight beside him without knowing the risks.

Weakness was keeping a secret that could hinder their ability to save the woman he loved.

Will’s jaw shifted as he faced Aidon head on. “There’s an issue with my shield.”

The words felt strange on his tongue, an admission he’d only made to his queen and the healers who tried to find the source of his problem. And to Aya, though she had all but dragged the truth from him.

He forced himself to hold Aidon’s gaze. “The more I use my affinity, the weaker it becomes. When a sensation becomes too intense, my shield can’t stop it. Sometimes, the echoes of it last. And sometimes, I sense things without even trying.”

Aidon frowned, but his brown eyes went distant, as if he were reading a page that was just beyond what Will could see.

“The attack the night Viviane was taken,” Aidon finally muttered. He blinked, and that sharp look was back, focused on Will. “I had thought perhaps the Sensainos had extended his attack to you, but it wasn’t that, was it?”

Will shook his head. “No. When they killed Helene, I felt it as if they’d taken the knife to me directly.”

Aidon scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Gods above, so that means in the battles—”

“Yes.”

“And when you…” Aidon trailed off, his hand whirling through the air. “Do your enforcing.”

It wasn’t a question, though there was a certain kindness in that Aidon did not want to acknowledge his enforcing for what it truly was, Will supposed.

Will raised a brow regardless, the dull pulse of amusement he felt taking him by surprise. He wasn’t sure when he last experienced even a shadow of such an emotion.

Aidon cocked his head, his lips pursing. “We’ve been making our way through the Kakos camps, and not once did I notice the toll our actions were taking on you.”

Will wasn’t sure exactly what Aidon was getting at, whether it was a masked apology, or an interrogation into why Will hadn’t let his affliction show.

He shrugged. “You get used to the pain. After a certain point, you stop feeling it so acutely.”

Something flickered across Aidon’s face. Will could place it easily enough—the horror of his situation didn’t escape him either. Who would he be when this was all done? When pain was all he knew, when it rendered him completely numb?

He cleared his throat and busied himself with readying their supplies. “We should get going. We have a trek ahead of us.”

It did not do to dwell on the consequences, not when they didn’t matter. He would do whatever it took to bring Aya home. He had promised her as much once, locked in the dark confines of a dungeon in Trahir.

“Do you think my uncle knew?” Aidon asked as they mounted their horses sometime later. “He set up the attack to bait Aya into showing her power and frame the Bellare. Do you think he knew about your shield?”

Will ran a thumb across the smooth leather of his reins.

The thought had crossed his mind. Not in the moment—not even when he’d begun to suspect Gianna was involved with the supplier—but in the restless nights since they’d left Dunmeaden.

When the fire had turned to nothing but smoldering embers and his only company was the howling wind of the Malas and his own roaring thoughts, Will wondered just how deep Gianna’s betrayal had gone.

Just how much had he missed?

Just how thoroughly had he failed?

You are weak. And one day, someone will exploit your weakness, and you’ll deserve whatever consequences follow.

“I don’t know,” Will confessed as he heaved himself onto his horse. It didn’t matter, in the end. It couldn’t. He could not afford the distractions that those thoughts might bring. All he could do now was go forward.

To Aya.

“Come on,” he called to Aidon, that urging in his veins burning fiercely as he nudged his horse forward. “We’ve wasted enough time.”

***

Will was vaguely familiar with Maumart, the last Talan town on the outskirts of the Druswood, in the same way anyone involved with the Talan trade market would be, but he’d never stepped foot there.

His father had always prioritized larger accounts—steel instead of lumber, gold instead of copper.

Even when Will had served as Gianna’s overseer on the Tala Merchant Council, Maurmart’s contributions to trade weren’t enough to warrant a visit.

He couldn’t bring himself to feel any regret over it. Not as he and Aidon made their way down the main thoroughfare, the canopy of trees doing little to stop the rain that hammered down on them.

Maumart was more village than anything else, its roads narrow and muddy and filled with holes that sent carts wobbling dangerously as they raced past. The stone buildings that lined the street were covered in moss and mold, the wood framing the windows wet and rotted.

He could barely read the signs hanging above the doorways.

Yet they found the tavern easily enough. There were a few horses already tied to the hitching post, and Will gave his own a consolatory pat as he fastened his reins to the soaked wood.

He could only hope that Tyr had found shelter. They’d left him at the edge of the Druswood with instructions to find them tomorrow, once they were well clear of Maumart. They couldn’t do with an Athatis attracting any attention.

He stepped into the tavern, surprised to find it boisterous and crowded despite the early evening hour. Maumart’s residents, it seemed, preferred to start their revelry before the dead of night.

All the better for him and Aidon, Will supposed.

Between the crowd and the rain and the bitter cold that had followed them south, no one blinked an eye at their cloaked figures as they settled at a small table in the back corner of the open room.

“Escaped a fucking deluge, you did,” a barmaid said by way of greeting. Will cut her a glance from beneath his hood. Her honey-colored hair was tied back in a ponytail, her face round and soft. She fixed him with a smile. “What’ll it be?”

“Two ales.”

“Is that all?” The question was innocent, but there was a familiar undertone to it that had something unpleasant curling in Will’s gut. It was the same lilt Gianna used to get to her voice when she was toying with him.

Will kept his tone flat. Bored. “That’s all.”

The barmaid shot Aidon a look. “Nice one, your friend. Charming.” She turned back to the bar, her ponytail swishing as she stalked away.

Aidon sighed as he leaned back in his chair. “Not making us any friends, are you?”

“Better than her staying interested,” Will muttered darkly.

There was a time when he would have leveraged the attention. Now the mere thought made him nauseous. Instead, he focused on committing each bit of the tavern to memory.

One barkeep.

One barmaid.

Twelve tables, including their own, rammed into a small crowded space, each full to bursting with weather-worn people seeking solace in their drinks.

A doorway to the left of the bar, where he could just make out a small stone oven manned by a soot-smudged cook.

The barmaid returned with their ales and plunked them down unceremoniously before heading to another table calling for her attention. The door to the pub swung open, bringing an icy blast of air with it.

“Seven hells, does this country ever experience warmth ?” Aidon grumbled into his drink. He grimaced at the taste, his beard twitching with the motion.

It helped—the beard. It softened Aidon’s square jaw, detracting from the sharp cut of his high cheekbones and adding a ruggedness that one wouldn’t immediately assign to the king.

If Will didn’t know him as intimately as he did, his gaze might skip over him entirely, mistaking him for just another townsperson.

Will scratched at his own jaw, his covered in what constituted more of a shadow than anything full. “It’s unusual for the season,” he admitted, taking mental note of the newcomers: stonemasons, if the tools fixed to their leather belts were any indication.

He took a sip of his drink, the bitter flood on his tongue a welcome way to keep his senses sharp. A subtle flash of gold came from two tables over—a coin catching the light.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked Aidon.

“You said we’re in need of money, yes?”

They were. While they’d pilfered from the camps they’d destroyed, it wasn’t as though the Kakos soldiers were carrying bags of copper or gold with them. And Will’s resource in Colmur did not come cheap.

“I’m still considering the merits of simply stealing it off of some poor, drunk soul,” Will admitted. Not that they’d be able to steal enough for what they needed, not without attracting some sort of attention from guards.

But Aidon shot him a dark grin as he held up a small pouch. “How do you think I secured my buy-in?”

Seven hells. Will hadn’t even seen him swipe anything.

“I hope you’re as good at cards as Aya recounts,” he warned.

Aidon’s grin grew sharp. “I’m even better.”