“Where is she?”
The man at Aidon’s side took a small step away from Will, as if he could sense the way Desperation had made him too dangerous to be near.
He didn’t care. He could fear him, it did not matter.
“She was with the king. I called out to her, but she ignored me.”
It took Will a moment longer to place the young man. “You’re Josie’s friend,” he remarked. “You saved me in Milsaio.”
“Can we hurry?” Dauphine snapped. “We’re in the middle of a fucking battle.”
They were. And Will didn’t miss that her Visya fighters, regardless of how well paid they were, were nowhere in sight.
“There was another person with her,” Cole rushed to explain, “someone she addressed as Your Holiness.”
Will frowned as he tried to piece together what Cole was saying.
Liam shook his head. “That’s impossible. Who else would hold that title? There’s only one saint.”
Realization dawned slowly on Will, seeping down his spine and hollowing out his stomach, leaving dread free to take up residence there.
“No, there’s not,” he managed to say.
Aya had been studying the First Saint. She had been reading those journals and meeting with Hyacinth and…
Gianna had wanted Aya to open the veil and bring back the gods.
But what if something else—someone else—could come through that gods-created barrier?
His thoughts raced with his pulse, and gods, it wasimpossible, but what if…
I saw the veil, Aya had said to him when recounting her terrors in the Trahir desert.As if I had summoned it somehow. And I saw someone beyond it.
Her mysterious disappearance from the throne room.
The fact that Kakos had no knowledge of her whereabouts those first several weeks.
The display of power in Sitya.
“The Dark Saint isn’t Aya,” he breathed. “It’s Evie.”
43
“Where are our reinforcements?” Gregor demanded as the prisoners rushed toward the heart of the city. Aya watched as the buildings began to eclipse them from view, her heart pounding in her chest.
“Trying to escape the fires, Your Majesty,” the soldier panted. “Several were resting given they weren’t needed for today’s battle—”
“We should retreat,” Dav interjected. “Our reinforcements are compromised, our weapons at risk—”
Another deafeningboomcut the general off, and they all ducked below the wall as the citadel trembled with the force of whatever magic had caused such an explosion.
Aya laid a hand against the cement, her eyes squeezing shut as she tried to steady herself.
The battle was descending into chaos, the screams deafening as soldiers and civilians and prisoners clashed. Even from this height, she could hardly make out who was who. The careful lines of attack were gone, and in their place, disorder reigned.
What is an ant to a human?
“No,” Evie refused. “We move forward as planned.”
