Page 72 of The Curse of Gods (The Curse of Saints #3)

Summer should have long settled over the Malas, and while this altitude rarely saw warmth of any reasonable kind, Aya knew the sting in the air was unnatural.

It bit at her arms and sent her hair whipping around her face as she and Will traversed the rocky northern pass, their pace slow despite the impatience she could feel writhing in her stomach.

They’d had to leave their horse behind, the path too treacherous for an animal untrained to handle it. Aya’s legs had reached the point of numbness, the ache settling so deeply over the past several days that it was now a natural part of her.

But they were close, enough so that Aya was beginning to recognize some of the markings of where she and Tyr had trained.

Tyr, at least, seemed to be enjoying the unnatural cold. She bit back a smile as her bonded practically pranced ahead with Akeeta, his head tilted up toward the gray sky, as if he were waiting to taste the flurries that would certainly fall.

What a joy it must be to not recognize the weather as the warning it was, but instead something to simply be enjoyed. Aya longed for such blissful ignorance.

Tyr slowed his pace until he was standing still, his ears perked forward. He let out a long howl that carried on the wind, the sound full and contented, and this time, Aya couldn’t help the smile it brought to her face as something warm struck in her chest.

But Will stiffened beside her, his hand reaching for the sword at his hip.

“What is it?” Aya asked. But another howl ripped through the air before he could answer, this one higher in pitch and unfamiliar to Aya.

Aya whipped her gaze back toward their bondeds. There was nothing in their stance that indicated a threat, but that was because…

“Dammit,” Aya breathed as eight Athatis wolves stalked through the trees, forming a semicircle around them.

Behind them, moving like ghosts, were eight soldiers in battle black, eight faces she’d never thought she’d see again.

It seemed not all rumors about Hyacinth were true. Because standing before Aya was not the Royal Guard, but members of the Dyminara.

They were alive…and by the looks on their faces, they’d found a new queen to serve.

***

“Get out of here,” Aya ordered the wolves, a tremor lingering in her voice. Will had told her nearly thirty of the Dyminara survived. But seeing them was different, especially when he’d reasoned Hyacinth would have done away with them regardless.

She hadn’t realized she’d already mourned them again.

Tyr let out a keening whine that made Aya’s jaw clench. “Go, Tyr,” she said through gritted teeth. She forced herself not to watch the streak of his gray coat as he took off through the trees with Akeeta.

The other wolves didn’t spare them a glance, and relief rushed through Aya at that tender mercy. Yet it was quickly replaced by the ache of betrayal as her eyes landed on a familiar face.

“Yara,” Aya breathed.

The last time she’d seen the young woman, Aya and Will had been leading a training at the school. She looked nearly exactly the same—smooth brown skin, ebony braids, bright hazel eyes. But there was a graveness to her that hadn’t been present last year.

Her Dyminara fighting leathers were also new.

“Aya,” she greeted grimly. She held a pair of iron shackles in her hands. Aya’s gaze darted from the irons to the rest of the warriors. Their faces, at least, were familiar in a different way. They’d served together.

So much for the oath that supposedly bound them.

Yara paused as she made for Aya, her eyes widening slightly as Will stepped closer, his hand warm on the small of Aya’s back.

“I would think very carefully about your next move,” he warned.

“You’re surrounded, Enforcer,” Yara retorted, glancing to the other warriors standing at the ready. Not one of them had drawn their weapons.

They were wanted alive, then.

“A challenge, but not the worse I’ve endured,” Will replied, his voice deceptively light in a way that always spelled danger. “Liam went through great lengths to save your lives. It would be a shame for you to lose them now.”

“Will,” Aya murmured. She would not attack them. She couldn’t. Not after all Liam had gone through to save them.

You are and always will be my family.

Aya cocked her head, her brow furrowing as she scanned the line of soldiers again. “I’m surprised you all so easily fell into line behind another zealot. Or did you forget what the last queen we served was capable of? Your blind obedience spits on the memory of the Dyminara she manipulated.”

Yara laughed, a bitter, cynical sound that scraped against Aya’s nerves. “And you were so innocent?” she asked. “The Queen’s Eyes. One might think she manipulated you most of all.”

That truth did not hurt nearly as much as it once did. Aya had been through far too much to let that sting linger, to let such goading cloud her judgment.

“I am not your enemy, Yara,” she insisted quietly. She didn’t bother to hide the hint of pleading woven through her voice.

Yara lifted her chin. “You can make that case to Queen Hyacinth.”