Aya rolled her eyes, turning her back on the Wall. He could talk himself off the ledge, for all she cared. His taunts had become endless the closer they got to qualifying – especially when it became known they were both being considered for Gianna’s Tría.
‘There it is, that wave of disgust I’ve grown to love,’ he called after her. Aya spun back to him.
‘Get out of my head.’
Another wicked grin. ‘But it’s so fun to feel you war with yourself. You hate me, that much is obvious. But I think there’s something else there, isn’t there, Aya love? Something you’d rather not explore.’
Aya tensed, fists curling at her sides. Her shield was up – her shield was always up, except for the few incidents when she felt any emotion too strongly. And if anyone could get a strong reaction out of her, it was the arrogant prick in front of her.
A weakness. One she hated.
‘You’re too in love with yourself to recognize when what you’re feeling is your own self-obsession.’ Her voice was dangerously low as she took a step toward him.
Will just shrugged. ‘Maybe. Or maybe I’m right, and you’re just ignoring it because that would mean you’d have to look at me like an actual person instead of the monster you’ve made me out to be.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets. Even standing on a ledge, he looked at ease. ‘You could persuade me to fess up, I suppose. That is … if you could get through my shield as easily as I get through yours.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘You’d love to, wouldn’t you?’
Her pulse quickened. ‘You know what I’d love?’ Aya snapped, taking another step toward him. Her lips curled. ‘For you to jump off this cliff.’
Will’s smile vanished as her persuasion hit him, her affinity having rallied without her even feeling it. And then he was falling, and she was screaming, and inside, a voice was whispering that she was right, that the reason she recognized darkness so easily was because she had it too.
Aya was outside of her body, watching as she dashed to the edge, her shouts echoing through the still mountain air.
She knew what came next – had replayed this nightmare enough times to remember exactly how it would unfold.
The trainees would hear and come running. She would race down the hill, willing her legs to move faster as she stumbled on the rocky path. She would find him clutching his arm, his face as white as the bone that protruded from his skin, his teeth gritted against the pain. She would drop to her knees before him, hands outstretched desperately to stop the bleeding, to dosomethingthat could take back what she had done.
‘Stay away from me,’ he’d growl, just as the rest of their companions reached them. They’d ask what happened, demand answers, and he would watch her for a moment before turning to the group and saying, ‘I slipped. Stop gawking and someone get a godsdamn healer, now.’
And later, when the rest of the group was gone and Aya dragged herself to his father’s townhouse to check on him, she’d wait in the hallway, listening to Will argue with Galda inside his room, urging her to remove Aya from the qualifications before she could hurt anyone else.
‘She could’ve killed me,’ he’d snap. ‘She’s too dangerous.’
A long silence would follow before Galda’s raspy growl would reply, ‘You should’ve kept up your shield.’
Will wouldn’t disagree.
‘Interesting, isn’t it,’ a voice remarked from her shoulder, drawing Aya back from her thoughts. Aya turned away from watching herself sprint down that hill, her eyes landing on the raven-haired healer.
She knew immediately which version of the nightmare she was in.
Not this one. Please, gods, not this one.
But the woman had never spoken before. She had a soft and steady voice and a kind face.
‘What’s interesting?’ Aya asked cautiously. The healer fixed her blue eyes on her, her lips pursed as she considered Aya.
She was younger than Aya had thought – late twenties, at most.
‘It’s interesting you never realized it then,’ the woman answered. ‘He did.’ A nod to the Wall. ‘Or were you just too afraid to accept your fate?’
A chill stole over Aya, and she rubbed her hands across her arms.
‘What fate?’
But before the woman could answer, Aya’s own anguished cry pierced the air.
