Page 77 of The Curse of Gods (The Curse of Saints #3)

It was no surprise that midnight came far too quickly. Will had always found that death had a way of hastening things.

This time, Hyacinth had sent the Royal Guard to escort them to the throne room. Will was grateful. A simple glance at Aya’s face, gaunt and utterly blank, was all he needed to know that if it had been the Dyminara leading them to their end, Aya would break before she ever got before the crowd.

If she hadn’t broken already.

He walked as close to her as the guards would allow, but it wasn’t close enough. Still, he kept his affinity touching her, that invisible point of contact between them settling something in his chest.

She hadn’t given up entirely. If she had, he would have felt it, wouldn’t he?

She’d told him she didn’t want to die. He had to believe her.

Their footsteps echoed across the empty hallways, the sound haunting and loud.

It was strange, being in this palace again.

Will hadn’t much taken it in when they’d first locked him up.

But now, he let his gaze wander the halls he’d spent the last three years striding through, trying to find some proof that it had all been for something.

He tore his eyes from the renderings of the Conoscenza fastened to the walls and looked instead at Aya.

He could not help the way his heart picked up a frantic rhythm the closer they drew to the throne room. Her face still had that blank expression, her emotions distant against his affinity.

Suddenly they were before the throne room doors, the towering oak opening slowly to reveal a crowd of people standing in hastily assembled stands on either side of the aisle that would serve as their death march.

Hyacinth stood at the end, her hands clasped before her, her head bowed.

Beside her was the executioner, his axe gleaming in the firelight, and before him, his worn execution block.

The hair on the back of Will’s neck rose as the Royal Guard shoved him forward, his legs hardly cooperating. He’d faced death so many times, one would think he’d have grown used to the way fear licked down his spine whenever he looked it in the eyes.

But he’d been fighting death then, and godsdammit, he’d been a worthy adversary.

This felt different.

Will glanced at Aya, her face shuttering further as the crowd hissed and jeered at the sight of her.

This felt like submitting, and he did not want to.

He did not want to.

Aya’s gaze found his, as if she’d sensed his panic.

No…she had sensed his panic, his fury, his obstinance. He’d sent every bit of it through that connection between them, and it had her hesitating at the foot of the throne while Hyacinth raised her hands to quiet the crowd.

A crowd they would never assuage on their own.

Fight with me , he pleaded through his gaze. And perhaps it made him selfish to ask this of her, perhaps it made him undeserving, but she did not come home to die.

He would be damned if he stood by and let her die .

“Welcome,” Hyacinth greeted the crowd. “Tonight, you serve as witnesses for the gods’ justice.” Her voice carried with the same strength she’d used at the Sanctification just months ago. But Will tuned her out as she continued on, his stare fixed on Aya.

Fight with me. Please fight with me.

He saw the exact moment Aya agreed. It was nothing more than a subtle glance at her shackles. He waited for the flare of light that would surely follow, but it never came.

Instead, there was a deafening BANG as the doors at the back of the hall blew open. The crowd screamed, the wood exploding, sending chips of it flying throughout the hall.

Will whirled to face the chaos, his heart lurching into his throat as he took in the mess of debris littered throughout the space.

“Terribly sorry for the interruption, Your Majesty,” Mathias Denier drawled as he stepped through the haze of dust, his long fingers brushing the dirt off his fine black jacket. “But I think you’ll find that not everyone agrees with your sentencing.”

Will heard Aya’s sharp gasp as she stared at the crime lord.

He hadn’t come alone.

Behind him stood thirty Dyminara, weapons at the ready, some of their bonded wolves weaving through the gaps between the warriors, their hackles raised. Galda stood at the front, her full lips pressed into a ferocious line.

And there, at Mathias’s side, stood a man Will didn’t think he’d ever see again.

Callais Veliri was alive.

***

“What is the meaning of this?” Hyacinth demanded, her voice colder than Aya had ever heard it. And yet the bitterness in it hardly reached her. Not when her father was standing at Mathias’s side, a sword clenched awkwardly in his hands.

He was alive.

How was he alive?

“The people need to hear her truth,” Yara declared from Mathias’s other side.

Later. Aya could get her answers later. For now…

She forced her gaze away from Pa to take in the young warrior. Yara lifted her chin, her hazel eyes flashing in the torchlight. “I heard what you told her in this throne room,” Yara told her. “And I believe you.”

A weak, disbelieving sound escaped Aya. But Hyacinth, it seemed, was unmoved.

“She is manipulating you,” Hyacinth warned Yara. “She murdered our last queen!”

“And here I thought you bestowed that honorable accusation on me,” Will said as he finally cut off the flow of his affinity into Aya.

She knew what it meant. Will was readying for a fight. She called her own power forward, her shackles frosting as she froze the metal. She wrenched her hands apart, the snap of the chain echoing through the throne room with heavy implication.

“I did kill Gianna,” Aya admitted. She had already told Hyacinth as much, but she could tell the rest of them, too.

She turned to face the crowd, her attention shifting between the executioner and the people who stood transfixed as she said, “I killed Gianna because she was dangerous, and threatened to let Kakos continue to destroy our kingdom if I did not call down the gods for her.”

A murmur rippled through the space, but Aya did not give their reaction time to fester.

“If you want to convict me of any crime, it should be this: I brought the Original Saint, Evie, through the veil. I did it because I thought she could help us defeat the Decachiré. But I was wrong. Evie is no saint—she is a demigod, born of a forgotten goddess who was conceived in secret by Pathos and Saudra. The gods killed her that day she opened the veil for no other reason than they were threatened by her power. And now…she’s here to exact her revenge.

“The prophecy that was foretold of the gods choosing a Second Saint is a lie. The gods did not give me this power.” Aya glanced down at her hands. “It was imparted to me by Evie as she tried to escape the veil the gods trapped her in for over five hundred years.”

When she dared to look into the crowd again, she found Pa instantly. His dark brown stare grounded her as efficiently as any measured breath could.

“Kakos will come for Tala,” Aya told them.

“They will not stop until they destroy the veil and kill the gods. Whatever crimes the Divine may have committed…our realm does not deserve to be tangled in the consequences of them. I may not be chosen by the Divine, but I do have the power of the gods in me. But I cannot do this alone.”

She considered whether to tell them more; to even try to explain the condition of the veil, and the sacrifice she might have to make to mend it. But Galda was stepping forward, her gravelly voice rising to the commanding tone that had embedded itself deep within Aya’s subconscious.

“The Dyminara stand with you,” she called, her hand closing into a fist over her chest. “By our blood, we will fight beside you.”

Slowly, one by one, the rest of the Dyminara followed suit, until each one was making the sign of their sacred oath.

Aya blinked against the burning in her eyes, even as Hyacinth let out a bitter scoff.

“The Dyminara serve at the pleasure of their queen,” the High Priestess scolded.

Galda rose a brow. “Actually, Your Majesty, the Dyminara serve at the pleasure of their kingdom.” She took a pointed step forward. “If you wish to proceed with this execution, you will have to get through us to do so.”

Aya’s heart twisted as Pa raised his sword with the rest of the Dyminara, his age-lined face thunderous in a way she had never seen before.

“And us,” a voice called from the back of the hall.

Liam stepped into the throne room, Dauphine at his side. Behind them stood a small contingent of Midlandian soldiers who parted to reveal a tall woman with light brown skin and silken black hair. A golden crown rested on her head.

“Let it be known, Hyacinth,” Queen Nyra said as she stepped out in front of her party, “that the Midlands will not tolerate this wrongful conviction. If you want our soldiers joining your fight against the Decachiré, you will not lay a hand on these warriors.”

Aya had never realized how hope could feel so similar to fear. It stole her breath and dragged something sharp down her throat, but she found she didn’t mind the pain. Not even when it doubled as a deep baritone voice added to the mix.

“Milsaio agrees,” King Sarhash said as he walked into the hall, Cole on his heels. “We fight under Aya Veliri, or we do not fight at all.”

The murmurs of the crowd had grown to a fever pitch, the din overlapping and echoing across the space. But Aya could do nothing but stare at them—Sarhash and Nyra and Liam and Galda and Mathias and Pa .

They had come for her. They had come for her, and they believed her, and she was not alone.

She looked to Will, that hope reflected back in the green flecks shining in his irises.

They were not alone.