Cole sighed heavily, his body shifting as he crossed his legs. “Maybe the fortress crushed her when it fell,” he reasoned. For a fleeting moment, Aidon found comfort in the raw, and perhaps naive, hope that danced throughout Cole’s tone. But a quick look around the room confirmed what Aidon already knew to be true:
If Evie had been able to stop her fall, then certainly she had a way to protect herself from the citadel’s wreckage.
“Could a Caeli have constructed a shield of air to withstand that much pressure?” Aidon asked Dauphine.
“An ordinary Caeli?” Dauphine twisted her hands in her lap. “No. But we’re not dealing with typical Visya, are we?” She paused, her lips pursed. “There’s also the possibility that she managed to get herself clear of it before it truly fell.”
“So either way… she survived,” Aidon muttered.
“Can gods evenbekilled?” Liam asked, his brow furrowed with skepticism as he slumped back in his chair.
“Anything can be killed if one tries hard enough,” Cole answered. He gave a small shrug as he hugged his knees to his chest. “Why else would the gods warn against the Decachiré if not to protect themselves from the possibility of death?”
“Greed?” Dauphine offered.
Cole hummed in contemplation. “Perhaps,” he allowed, “but what is greed if not a result of desperate self-preservation?”
Dauphine chuckled, her elbow digging into Aidon’s side as she nudged him. “Your sister has good judgment in friends,” she remarked.
Guilt hit Aidon with brutal force. He knew how singularly focused a battle could make him. Even petty border skirmishes or brief interactions with pirates used to have away of consuming his mind entirely until the confrontation was over. But the fact that he hadn’t even asked Cole for his story—the fact that he hadn’t pressed for information about hisfamilyor his soldiers—as soon as they made it clear of Sitya’s hills…
His shame must have shown on his face, because Cole’s expression softened as he said, “There was plenty to distract us.”
His reassurance did nothing to ease the weight bearing down on Aidon’s shoulders. He swallowed roughly to free the questions lodged behind the lump in his throat.
“Did the Visya force make it to Trahir?” he asked.
Cole nodded gravely. “We did. And we were ambushed immediately by the Bellare.”
Aidon straightened. “The Bellare? But they hardly have the numbers—”
“They do now,” Cole interrupted. “I suspect they’ve been planning this for a while, but the news of your power threw kerosene on an already existing fire.”
Aidon felt Dauphine shift next to him. She made a soft, pained noise as she leaned forward, her brow set in concentration. “When you saythis…”
“They staged a coup. Avis Lavigne now sits on your throne.”
It took a moment for the words to settle in Aidon’s mind. When they did, they had him pushing off the couch, his jaw locking as he tried to bite back his anger.
He could distantly make out Liam asking Cole about the Bellare, but Aidon was too lost to his own indignation to keep up with their conversation.
He should have banished Lavigne immediately. Instead, he’d waited—not just for a trial, but for a chance to weigh the pros and cons. He was so afraid of being his uncle, of wielding his position like a weapon, that he’d let someone else steal it and do just that.
Aidon rubbed a hand across the back of his neck as hepaced the short width of the sitting room. He could feel Dauphine’s gaze on him, and it only made the heat crawling up his spine worse. He kept his fixed on a molded spot on the gaudy rug that lay on the floor.
“You said Josie is safe,” he said to Cole, his voice as clipped as his boots on the thin rug.
“Yes. When I left, she was hidden in the Maraciana. Natali felt it was the safest place. Aleissande was taken there as well.”
Alive. His sister and his general were alive.
Aidon stilled, his back to Cole. “They’re dead, aren’t they?” he asked. “My parents.”
“They’re missing,” Cole corrected. Aidon pivoted to face him, his heart hammering in his chest. “Which makes me think they’re alive,” he continued as he took the pot of water off the fire, setting it aside to cool. “If the Bellare had killed them, I’m sure they would have bragged about it.”
They certainly would have.
That vise grip around Aidon’s heart loosened just the slightest bit. Yet Cole shifted uneasily on the floor, his eyes flicking away from Aidon’s face as his hands tangled together in his lap.
