She knew that sound. Knew exactly what her screams meant.
Will was dead.
23
Aya lurched forward, her breath coming in a sharp gasp. The small state-room was dark save for the moonlight that streamed through the porthole she kept locked tight, but she didn’t need it to find the bucket next to her bed.
Aya lunged across the mattress, her stomach writhing as she vomited nothing but clear liquid.
The wind howled through the small cracks around the porthole, and she ground her teeth at the sound.
Whenever Aya’s mother returned from her voyages, she would put Aya to bed with whispered tales of mermaids and sea wisps that danced around her ship, ensuring safe passage across the sea. ‘Velos’ wind sings on the ocean,mi couera,’ she’d say, a wistful look in her eyes that told Aya that, while she was happy to be home, she could hear the wind of her patron god calling her back to sea again – back to some new adventure that filled her soul.
Aya would listen to her soothing voice and cling to her warmth, memorizing her caramel scent, hoping that if she held her tightly enough, her mother wouldn’t disappear again. But the wind’s song always won.
Aya found the wind didn’t sing here. It shrieked.
Her breath came in short, unsteady rasps as she settled back against her pillows and tried to remember which particular terror had drawn her from sleep.
Two weeks they’d been at sea, and each night her dreams were haunted by screams. Mostly Tova’s or those guards inthe square, but sometimes her mother’s, too – as if Aya had been with her when her ship sank to the bottom of the Anath Sea.
It was agony, reliving these memories each night. And yet perhaps it was warranted; a payment for the sins she had committed.
She glanced at the small wooden desk bolted to the floor, another untouched dinner sitting atop the worn surface. Someone always came at mealtimes, but the various faces of the crew were indistinguishable in her mind. She didn’t bother to speak to them, nor they her – except for the man this evening, who told her that she was expected in the second state-room at dawn.
It seemed Will had decided he could finally stand the sight of her. He hadn’t deigned to visit since she’d taken that knife to his forearm. With no healer on board, she’d half wished he’d do her a favor and bleed out and die.
She’d played along with his game. Had taken his order to stay in her room and would obey his summons. She’d do whatever she needed to keep Tova safe.
Besides … Aya was a master at lying in wait.
And Will … Will was hiding something. His rationale had been strong, strong enough that Aya’s certainty of his guilt had begun to waver. But not enough for her to trust him.
Because there was some piece missing.
His explanations were thorough, but they didn’t quite add up. All of that secrecy, and for what? To protect his reputation? To ensure thathewould be the one to eliminate the threat when he suspected her darkness?
She knew Will to be arrogant, but these felt like half-truths, told to hide full lies.
Just like my own.
Aya straightened, pushing the thought aside.
That’swhat she’d dreamt of: the Wall. But something was different this time … the healer had spoken to her.
Aya’s fingers curled into the rough fabric of her thin sheets as she remembered the healer’s mention of fate.
She’d had two weeks to wrestle with Gianna’s words. Two weeks to play her past on repeat as night bled into the early hours of morning and wonder if, perhaps, the gods had a different destiny for her. Two weeks to try to suffocate the tiny seed of hope that had taken root inside of her, the one that said perhaps Gianna was right about her power.
Because if her queenwasright, if the prophecy did indeed speak of her, then that meant—
Aya cut off the thought immediately. It did her no good to cling to foolish hopes. Gianna could claim what she wanted. Aya knew the truth.
She was no saint. She was not the light her mother used to whisper about in those tales she told late at night about Evie and her equal.
Would her mother have ever imagined that one day someone would think her prideful, stubborn daughter was the one the Conoscenza spoke of; the one the gods would choose?
No.
