How deep, he wasn’t sure. And that terrified him.
He’d have to work with her on managing her state. It was easy to become overwhelmed by someone else’s emotions. The sensations could be debilitating if she didn’t learn how to sense them without embodying them as her own, as she’d already experienced tonight.
Ashe’dexperienced that night of the Athatis attack, when he had thought her dead.
He inhaled deeply, blowing out the breath through his nose. He did it again and again until the tremors stopped, until he peeled his aching fingers off the rim of the sink. He lifted his head, meeting his reflection in the large oval mirror. His hair was mussed from where he’d tugged his hands through it in frustration, his eyes dark, jaw tense.
The way she’d stared at him tonight … the pain he’d seen on her face …
He didn’t think her reaction was just because of the sensations. She was reacting tohim. She had seen him, truly seen him, and what she beheld shocked her.
It should’ve given him some relief, he supposed. But instead all he could feel was dread. It sat heavily in him as he stared at his haunted reflection in the mirror.
He had spent years building his walls against Aya. He had come to terms with it all: that he would have to do things he never imagined doing. That she would hate him, and he would continue to stoke that flame of hatred until it burned too brightly for her to look at him and be able to see anything else. That he would never be able to explain it all to her – why he begged for her removal from the Dyminara, why he taunted and pushed her, why he let the world and Gianna think he was interested in being the queen’s plaything, why he’d followed those orders to question Tova, and why he’d been sick enough to vomit after the ordeal.
Even if he could … he’d always doubted she’d care enough to listen. Not that it would matter anyway. It wouldn’t take away the things he’d done. It wouldn’t eliminate the pain he’d caused or the sins he’d committed.
Will wasn’t afraid of meeting the gods in the end. He knew what awaited him, despite the sacrifices he’d made, despite the fact he’d fight with his dying breath to protect the innocents of this realm.
It wasn’t the gods he feared.
It was her. Her knowing the truth and hating him still.
He could bear the layers of the seven hells. Would welcome them gladly if it meant that he could avoid the moment when she saw him fully and looked at him with disgust anyway.
45
Aya slid a hand into her pocket, her fingers wrapping around the small vial of tonic as she stood in the middle of the abandoned paddock and surveyed the space.
It had been all too easy to step in front of Aidon’s blade, ensuring he cut her enough to warrant a trip to the healing rooms. Easier still to prod the eager young healer who tended to her cheek to share enough about the workspace for Aya to deduce where the tonic was kept; to allow her to slip back late last night and steal a small amount, just enough to remain inconspicuous.
She hadn’t even needed to touch her affinity.
Aya paced a small circle, her hand grazing the rotted wooden fence that surrounded the paddock. Josie had mentioned a spot where her mother used to sneak off with her to train. From the looks of it, the paddock hadn’t seen much use in years. Perhaps Zuri and Josie found another location.
There was little breeze this far from the cliff face, and while the thick forest shielded the paddock from view, it created a dense bubble of heat that had Aya sweating in her fighting leathers, despite the early hour.
She took a steadying breath as she uncorked the vial.
She didn’t know what to believe – whether the gods had chosen wrong, or if she had somehow corrupted her affinity with all she had done.
She supposed it didn’t really matter. Darkness was darkness in the end.
But there was still no word from Lena on the supplier.The longer Aya waited, the longer she was kept from helping Tova. The longer the realm waited for a saint that would never come.
And the closer war crept.
Aya had taken an oath – to her kingdom, to her realm, to her gods.
Perhaps this tonic would allow her to keep it; to use her power safely.
You are nothing like those people.
Years. Years she’d spent hating him. Years convincing herself Will was no more than the arrogant, cruel monster people said he was, and that he had no regard for anyone but himself. Years hating how hard she had to fight the allure of him, how something in him called out to her. She clung to those notions of him, and never allowed herself to challenge them. But now …
She couldn’t escape him by running off on a mission, or put Tova between them, or use the queen’s attention as an excuse to stay the hells away from him. And the pain she’d felt from him at her assumption of his love for Gianna …
It was fury. And rage. And hurt. And some deep ache that felt so familiar, she hated that she couldn’t name it.
