“What aren’t you saying, Cole?” Aidon pressed.
Cole fidgeted again, but he finally met Aidon’s gaze. “Josie plans to retake the throne in your name.”
Of course she did. He should have known that the instant Cole uttered the wordcoup.Josie would not sit idly by; she never had. Especially not with her history with the Bellare.
Aidon closed his eyes and counted to three in his head.
Duty. Responsibility. Loyalty.
“You came to bring me home,” he finally muttered. He rubbed the back of his neck again, but the tension there was unyielding. “The people do not want a Visya king.”
“The people have no idea what’s coming for them,” Cole responded, vehemence sharpening his tone. “And when Kakos does come, it certainly won’t be the Bellare who protect them.”
“How canI?” Aidon exclaimed. “I have only ever caused division in Trahir, first with the death of my uncle and now with, with—this!” Aidon motioned down his body, as if the evidence of his affinity was there for all to see. He supposed now it was.
Wasn’t he supposed to feel relief? Nearly twenty-some-odd years he’d kept this secret, and finally, he could clear the space it occupied in his mind. In hissoul. He should feel lighter. Freer. But all he felt was anger, and irritation, and guilt.
“You underestimate what you could do should you choose to lead,” Cole replied.
“Ididchoose to lead,” Aidon shot back as he took a step in Cole’s direction. “I made that choice the moment I plunged a dagger into my uncle’s back, and look where it got me.”
Cole pushed himself off the floor, his hands dusting uselessly down his dirt-and-blood slicked pants. “It got youhere. You’ve rescued the Second Saint. Your people need you now.”
Aidon shook his head. Pressure was building behind his eyes, that same stabbing pain that had haunted him his first few weeks on the run. But now, it was accompanied by the stretching sensation beneath his skin of his affinity, begging for an outlet along with his rage.
“You’ve fought against Kakos three times now,” Cole was saying, but his words sounded buried beneath the rushing in Aidon’s ears. “You know what we’re facing; you know—”
“Cole,” Dauphine warned, but Cole kept talking, even as Aidon took a step back, that pressure in his head building, and building, and building.
“You can unite the Visya and the humans and—”
“Stop!” Aidon yelled as that tension inside him snapped.
It happened in the blink of an eye. One moment he was standing there, head near full to bursting, and the next, a ball of fire was bursting from the center of his chest, as if Cole hadtugged it straight from the rage holding together his shattered heart.
Cole’s eyes went wide, and Aidon lunged, arms outstretched, as if he could catch it, stop it, dosomething—
Dauphine leapt to her feet, her arms twisting as she swept the oxygen out of the space between them, the fireball extinguishing instantly. She stood for a moment more before her face blanched, her body swaying dangerously as she lowered herself onto the couch.
Aidon took a step toward her, but she held out a hand. “I’m fine,” she assured him. He ducked his chin, his jaw aching as he clenched his teeth against his shame. He had to get out of this room. Now.
He turned on his heel, his gaze fixed pointedly on the ground to avoid Liam’s stare as he stalked to the door.
“Where are you going?” the Persi asked.
Aidon’s hand curled around the knob, and he wrenched the door open with more force than necessary.
“I need some air.”
46
Perhaps therewasconsolation in death.
The thought was hazy as Aya came back to herself, her body warm and…safe. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she could feel it in her bones. Maybe it had something to do with the familiar, melodic voice in her ear, its deep baritone softly singing a song that she had once been too afraid to admit she’d be content to listen to forever.
Aya burrowed deeper into the warmth beneath her, a soft laugh stirring something in her chest as the vibrations of it tickled her cheek where it rested on something firm.
Recognition came syrupy and slow. She knew that laugh. Shemissedthat laugh.
