‘Aya,’ Will warned. He didn’t like this – any of it. But she continued on, her hand tracing the brick wall. Will swore under his breath as he ducked after them. The air was thick and stale here, as if the sea breeze never reached this place.
Will kept to the middle of the wide path, his breath feelingstuck in his lungs. He cast his power out, but it felt like pushing through mud, his affinity sluggish as it pressed against the heavy air.
Aidon drew up short ahead of them, his sword going slack. ‘It’s a dead end,’ he said.
And then Will felt it.
Pain lanced through his ribs, sharp and deep, and he clenched his teeth against it, a hiss escaping from him. Aya’s eyes darted to him, and then she was whirling, a knife appearing in her hand as she faced the direction they’d come from.
Three cloaked figures emerged, two holding the third slumped between them.
Viviane.
The air around them seemed to shimmer and pulse, before the heaviness disappeared and Will could hear the drip, drip, drip of blood falling from the knife the man on the left held.
They had shielded the air – had blocked their sound completely and herded them to the dead end.
No one would hear them here.
Aya’s eyes were fixed on the slumped figure, her voice trembling as she called, ‘Vi!’
No response. Will tested his affinity again, sensing instead of manipulating. He could feel her pain, her terror.
‘She’s alive,’ he murmured to Aya.
‘You won’t win this fight,’ the man with the knife said to Aidon, taking another step closer.
‘If you believe that, you seriously misjudge who you’re facing,’ Aidon retorted. ‘We handled the others of your group. We’ll handle you too.’
The words twisted something in Will’s gut. It made no sense to herd them here together like this. The Bellare who had attacked them in the plaza the other week had them outnumbered. But they had needed to – they had been human …
These men were Visya.
His eyes found Aya’s, and he read it there, too. Something wasn’t right. She opened her mouth to warn Aidon, but the prince fell to his knees, his sword clattering to the ground as he screamed, the sound reverberating off the shield of air the Caeli had formed. His back arched, the tendons in his neck stretching as he gritted his teeth against whatever hells the other man – the Sensainos – was unleashing on him.
Will ground his teeth as he reinforced his shield to block out the pain. Aya started toward Aidon, but a knife flashed, and Viviane dropped to the ground, her own scream loud enough to shatter windows; to shatter Will’s very skull as he dropped with her, her pain his own, her death rushing toward him and obliterating his shield as he doubled over his knees and gasped for air.
Wasthisthe trap? To render them both defenseless and finish Aya? Had Kakos found her?
But the Caeli didn’t head for her. Not immediately. No, he took that knife he had just plunged into Viviane’s heart and raced toward Will.
Will’s eyes found Aya’s as pain continued to rip through him, as Viviane took her final breaths, the agony peaking until the cold chill of death began to wash over him.
But it wasn’t death.
It was a burst of ice that flew from Aya’s outstretched hand and cracked the ground beneath her feet, just as fire erupted, lighting the courtyard in a blinding haze. For a moment, all he could make out was fire and ice and pain – so much pain that he thought he surely must be dying. His vision swam, the courtyard blurring beneath the heat and the cold and then … blessed darkness and quiet.
But he fought against its alluring peace, tugging on his consciousness and forcing himself to stay – stay where thepain was still radiating through his body, stay where she was. His breath was sharp through his teeth as he forced his eyes open, gray meeting blue as Aya stood frozen in place, her wide eyes fixed on him, her hand still outstretched toward the Caeli.
A spear of ice was embedded in the Caeli’s chest, his body keeled over steps away from Will.
Dead.
Next to her, Aidon was on his knees, his hands hanging limply at his sides as he stared at the charred body before him, not unlike the ones Aya had left in Dunmeaden.
Will pushed himself up, forcing his limbs to steady as he staggered to Aya. He covered her outstretched hand with his own, lowering it to her side as he searched her face. Her skin was as cold as the ice that had cracked across the ground, her hand trembling beneath his.
‘Are you alright?’
