She would not do this to Aidon. To herself. There was another way to channel what was inside of her.
But there was something she needed to do first. A slate she needed to clear.
She had to tell Will about the tonic.
And she had to do it tonight.
57
Will’s room was empty when Aya arrived that night, the door unlocked. She paced the sitting area as she waited, her hands smoothing the fabric of her loose navy pants.
She took a steady breath as she slid a hand into her pocket and pulled out the tonic. He would hate it. He would hate that, while he’d been desperately searching for information on Evie, she’d been looking for how to use the darkness inside of her.
He would hate that because she hadn’t found her answers in the Maraciana, she was desperate. Desperate enough to consider that last option; that final card she’d been holding onto since that dinner with Aidon.
He would hate that their evening training sessions in the paddock had all been a lie; she wasn’t making progress. She was relying on something to control her power.
And once he saw that, he would see that Natali was right.
She truly was fueled by darkness.
But he deserved to know – all of it. He had made her a promise.
No matter how far the fall.
He deserved to know how far that fall could truly be.
Aya sat on the couch, her foot bouncing to a nervous rhythm as she glanced at the clock. Where was he?
He’d probably damned the consequences and joined one of the search parties.
Telling him is the right thing to do.
And yet …
She didn’t want to see that warm light fade from his eyes, didn’t want that steady faith he had in her to crumble as he finally realized she wasn’t what the world hoped for.
Wasn’t whathehoped for.
She stood and paced, rolling the vial between her fingers before setting it down on the driftwood desk that sat against the far wall of the sitting room. A flash of crimson beneath a stack of papers caught her eye, and Aya paused, glancing over her shoulder at the closed door before brushing the parchment aside to reveal the royal seal of Tala.
Carefully, Aya unfolded the letter, her eyes darting across the page. It was an update from Lena, dated two weeks ago. It was coded so well she had to read the page twice, her heart sinking with every line.
Lena had found no sign of the supplier. Their contacts had gone dark, and the Midlands were securing their borders – a drastic action for the vast space between Tala and Kakos.
But it was a line at the bottom of the missive that had Aya frowning.
The queen demands an update. Respond.
Her hand trembled as she put the parchment down, her fingers moving the other papers aside.
‘Godsdamn it,’ Aya rasped.
Three letters from Lena. Three updates spanning the last nine weeks. He hadn’t told her about a single one.
Aya ground her teeth, her eyes blurring as she took in Lena’s messy scrawl. She dropped the letters and tugged on the desk drawer, pulse hammering in her throat as her anger built. She sifted through more parchment, drafts of letters he’d never sent, before finding a thick envelope beneath, its seal broken.
It was addressed to her.
