Aya had failed, and Lorna had died, and thousands more would follow because Aya had made a single desperate choice in the Talan throne room.
“I brought her back.” Aya’s voice cracked with the admission. “I summoned the veil. I brought Evie back and she—she—”
How could she explain the atrocities that Evie had committed, thebetrayalthat the saint—the demigod—had managed to do not just to Aya, but to the entire realm?
“She’s a demigod,” she choked out. “Pathos and Saudra are her grandparents. The gods…they killed her.”
“Evie?” Will asked, ducking his head to keep her gaze. Aya tried to nod, but the words were tumbling out of her now, her body shaking as she held herself tighter. “They used me to create Diaforaté,” she managed. Just speaking of it made her muscles lock, as if she were back on that table, bracing forpain. “They had shackles imbued with Dominic’s tonic, and they…they r-ripped my power from me, and—”
Aya sucked in a painfully sharp breath, and a muscle in Will’s jaw feathered as he bit back whatever anger was desperate to burst forth.
“I made them believe I’d help them,” she gasped. “I was going to steal her power and mend the veil.”
She had tested it on the Midlandian spy. And then she’d killed him not out of vengeance, but out of mercy, or even selfishness, because she did not want to hear his screams.
And all the while…Lorna had known. Aya knew it as surely as she knew her bonded’s howl. She’d seen it in those constant glances at her shackles. She’d heard it in the pointed way she’d asked,You will truly let them use you in this way?
Lorna had known, and when she’d seen Will, she had sacrificed herself anyway in the hopes that Aya could choose another way. Aya blinked through her tears, her vision clearing enough to track the way Will’s throat bobbed as he swallowed.
His eyes raked down her, taking in the deep navy uniform. The Kakos sigil. His face shuttered, pain rippling across his features as he shook his head.
“That…that could have killed you,” he whispered. “What if your body couldn’t handle that much power, Aya?” he pressed. “What then?”
Aya’s grief turned sharp on her tongue, a strangled sob bursting from the confines of her chest. “Then at least she would bedead!”
She would have gladly given her life to erase Evie from the realm, to undo what Aya had done in Dunmeaden out of pure desperation. Will’s eyes flashed, the hand at his side curling into a fist. He was, as ever, unrelenting.
“She would have been dead, and you right along with her.”
“What of it?”
“What of it?” Will repeated, his nostrils flaring with indignation. He took another step toward her. “What of it?! How can you even say that?”
“I am not chosen,” Aya whispered, her voice cracking over words that were broken and hollow andtrue. “I’m…nothing.”
For a moment, Will simply stared at her. A fractured sound tried to escape his lips, but he swallowed it down, his brow furrowing as he forced his eyes shut.
He sucked in a trembling breath.
Another.
His eyes were wet when he opened them once more.
“Can I touch you?” he asked thickly, his hand frozen in that empty space between them. “Please?”
He…hadn’t, she realized. He’d tried when she was lost in her panic, but he hadn’t reached for her again, not after she’d jolted away from him.
Slowly, Aya reached out with a trembling hand, the pads of her fingers skimming against his own. They traced down rough skin, calloused from his sword, and stopped when they reached his palm.
Agony ripped through her as she felt the raised skin of his scar, bringing a fresh wave of tears to her eyes.
No matter how far the fall.
But he didn’t know. He didn’t know how far that fall really was, because if he had, he never would have—
Will’s fingers closed around hers, and he pulled her into his arms.
“You are everything to me,” he breathed against her ear, the tenor in his voice betraying his composure.“Everything.”
