Aya pressed her lips together as she turned over the theory that had been building in her mind. ‘My guess is that someone didn’t just let them out … they poisoned them. Tyr hardly recognized me – his mind, it wasn’t right.’
Tova didn’t look convinced.
‘What?’ Aya hated the edge in her voice.
But Tova merely pushed herself from the chair and took Aya’s hands. ‘With Kakos ordering weapons and their history of experimenting with affinities, you know people are going to be looking foranysign of darkness.’
Aya recoiled, her hands jerking in Tova’s grip. ‘You think I’m dabbling in dark-affinity work?’
‘No!’ Tova’s eyes were wide as she held tight. ‘Gods, no. I’m just worried for you. I don’t want you getting caught up in something that has nothing to do with you.’
Because with those archaic laws that would allow for immediate execution …
Aya repressed a shudder.
‘Just … keep this to yourself,’ Tova ordered softly.
‘You’re asking me to lie to our queen?’
‘I am asking you to not say anything that you don’t know without absolute certainty. Let Will’s explanation suffice.’
His explanation being that he didn’t knowwhathad happened.
Didshe? Was she sure they’d been affected by someone else, andthatwas why she’d been able to use her affinity in such a forbidden way? Was it possible that it wasn’t her persuasion at all, but the noise she’d made that had caused them to get distracted? Perhaps Saudra had answered her call for help; perhaps her patron goddess had granted her this mercy.
I was doing my duty. I was defending those I serve beside.
Tova squeezed her hands again, drawing Aya from her thoughts. ‘Promise me you’ll lay off the recklessness, okay?’
Aya fought against the uneasiness growing in her as she forced a teasing smirk to her lips. ‘When do Ieverdo anything reckless? Besides, you should speak for yourself. You really do look like shit.’
‘I still look better than you,’ Tova grumbled, clearly satisfied. She released Aya’s hands as she headed toward the doorway. But she paused, her eyes finding Aya’s again. ‘I’m glad you’re okay.’
Aya smiled at her, a real one this time. ‘Me too.’
Each step up the steep mountain path felt like a dagger in Aya’s side. Suja would kill her when she found out Aya was out of bed. But there was too much at stake to simply rest.
Aya froze as she finally crested the hill to the compound, her breath coming in heavy pants.
The hole ripped through the wall was massive. And while it explained how the Athatis had left their haven, it still didn’t explain why. Aya knew her bonded – nothing would have inspired him to leave the mountains to wander the streets. Nothing except for the frenzy of a hunt. They had been lured into the city.
On her oath, she would kill the man responsible for it and anyone else involved.
Aya’s thumb skimmed the thin scar on her palm, the raised skin there looking paler in the gray mid-morning light. She found the permanence of the mark grounding. Nothing could remove a blood oath. Well, nothing except the punishment for forsaking it, which involved carving out the scar with a knife.
By my blood and before the gods, I pledge my life to protect the Original Kingdom, its citizens, and those who serve beside me.
She knew it was their oath that had sent Will to her defense – and that their oath wasn’t enough to quell his fury that she’d ignored his orders to leave.
Which was fine. She was furious, too.
At his willingness to kill her bonded.
At his demand that she leave so he could wield that knife in a way she’d never be able to.
And perhaps at her own weakness, too.
Aya stepped through the hole in the wall, her body slick with sweat from the climb. Tyr wasn’t in the barn – but Akeeta was. And her blue eyes were piercing as she stood and stretched. She looked over her shoulder once, her message clear.
