He’d yelled those words at Aya once, had used them as proof that he was wrong for her. He’d meant it, though. He still meant it. He would strike the match and stand in the flames himself if it meant she got to walk away from this. If it meant for once,someonewas putting her first.
Because Aya never would.
The realization dawned slowly, and then all at once.
Aya didn’t flee from fire. Ever.
Will stared at a new pillar of smoke. It burned black, like the worst sort of beacon. He swallowed and forced Desperation to free him from his grip as he faced his friends.
“You’re right,” he told Aidon, his voice firm and sure. “We should join the fight.”
42
It was a strange thing to be locked away in a fortress while a battle raged on below. Aya wondered, as she laid a shackled hand against the thick cement wall that made up the fortress’s outer shell, if Gianna had felt similarly as Kakos attacked Dunmeaden.
Did she flinch at the sounds of her people dying? Or was she numb to it, what with the distance the thick walls of the palace provided from the worst of what unfolded on the other side of the Wall?
Aya tipped her head back, taking in the worn cracks on the ceiling. She wished she could see the sky.
Soon enough,mi couera.Her father’s voice in her head was a knife twisted into the depths of her aching heart.
She’d been here for hours, Evie having sent for her at first light. A small contingent of guards had escorted them from the eastern hills to the citadel, just before the fighting restarted in earnest.
Lorna hadn’t said a word when she’d left. The Saj had simply stared at her, and Aya had let herself meet that gaze head on before the Zeluus guard tugged her out of the tent and forced her to start walking toward the battle site. Italmost made Aya wish the Anima was accompanying her instead.
Not that she was kinder. But she, at least, had stayed quiet on Aya’s walk last night. The Zeluus guard, on the other hand, didn’t bother to mask her grumbles of annoyance as Aya paced the inner core of the citadel.
It didn’t matter; her frustration glanced off Aya like stone against armor. The guard could afford her this—one small outlet for the nervous stirring deep inside her before she destroyed everything.
The Vaguer had come to the citadel as well, led by a smirking Andras, claiming an interest in the lower levels of the fortress. Apparently, some of the human experiments were held there.
“The humans have been moved to the prisoner pens,” her guard had told them when they’d come across the group of Saj earlier. But the Vaguer hadn’t seemed to care.
“Knowledge is everywhere,” one had said. Clearly Lorna hadn’t misjudged their morbid academic interest.
Footsteps echoed from down the hall, pulling Aya from her thoughts. Evie and Gregor strode toward her, Evie dressed once again in her customary robe. Gregor had traded his kingly regalia for the more practical military garb they’d given Aya as well: sturdy britches and a navy tunic with the silver mark of the Decachiré etched over the right breast.
“It’s nearly time,” the king remarked as he came to a stop before her. “General Dav is waiting on the outer wall.”
Aya nodded and raised her wrists as the Zeluus guard approached with the key to her shackles. The familiar kiss of iron fell away, and Aya couldn’t help the way she rubbed at her skin there. She felt naked and exposed, that consistent weight gone not just from her wrists, but from her well of power as well.
Control.
She looked to Evie to find her watching her carefully.
“Are you ready?” Evie asked. Aya knew better than to mistake the question for a kindness. She shook out her arms and rolled her wrists, adjusting to the feeling of freedom.
Her thumb found the center of her palm by habit, the smoothness of her skin a reminder of what had been taken from her.
“I’m ready,” Aya said. And she meant it.
By her blood and before the gods, she would make sure they never caused such suffering again.
***
The sun seared Aya’s eyes as she stepped out of the dark hall of the fortress and onto the path that lined the outer wall. Or perhaps that was the smoke. The air was already thick with it, large plumes stretching toward the cloudless sky. She could just make out the fighting from here. It had yet to reach the docks, but it would. Even frenzied as it was, she could see the back lines of Kakos soldiers steadily retreating toward the citadel as the Midlands pushed forward.
Toward the fortress. Toward her.
