Why?
How many years had he longed for her to show him shecared? How many nights had he dreamt of a mother who would love him enough to fight for him? How many days had he wrestled with the guilt of hating a mother he thought was dead but longing for her all the same?
And now she was gone—truly gone—and he didn’t know how to feel. Longing, guilt, hatred, anger, gratitude, regret, grief…there was a maelstrom of emotions inside of him. It must have shown on his face, because Aya pressed their foreheads together, her hand sliding into the strands of hair at the back of his head and tugging just enough to ground him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Will’s inhale snagged in his chest, but he forced it down with those raging emotions until he could focus on one. “She saved you. For that, I’m grateful.”
All the rest, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t have it in him to sort through it now.
Aya pulled back slightly, her eyes roving across his face. They were piercing, even with the haunted film that muted the usual brightness of the blue. Will let her look, let her read him in a way that no power could liken to.
She’d become a scholar in the study of him, so it came as no surprise when she slid her hand to his shoulder and changed the subject as he so desperately hoped she would.
“Aidon didn’t return home.”
It wasn’t a question, but Will nodded all the same. “You cannot possibly be surprised that he would also tear apart this realm to find you. Even if he hadn’t displayed his power in Dunmeaden, I don’t think anyone could have dragged him back to Trahir until we knew you were safe.”
It was a different sort of love. Will knew that now. Different, but no less important.
He picked up the washcloth and resumed his gentle ministrations across her skin. Having something else to focus on made it no easier to tell her what he had uncovered downstairs.
“The Bellare staged a coup in his absence. Josie is safe, butZuri and Enzo are missing. It’s why Cole was in Sitya—he’d come to find Aidon.”
Aya’s muscles tensed beneath his fingers. She closed her eyes for a long moment, and when she opened them, exhaustion seemed to weigh even more heavily on her.
“They assigned me an Anima guard,” Aya murmured. “When I saw Cole…well, I…persuadedher to free the prisoners and set fire to the camp this morning.” Her lips pinched, as if she knew it wasn’t truly persuasion she had wielded, but something more.
It wasn’t the first time she had broken through someone’s shield and compelled them instead of persuaded them. Will knew that better than anyone.
He couldn’t help the laugh that rasped out of him. Seven hells, he loved her more than he had and ever would love anything in this godsforsaken realm. He cupped her face in his hands, his lips finding hers as effortlessly as the stars found the night sky.
“You are divine,” he whispered into the scant space between them, his voice thick with emotion.
But Aya’s mouth trembled. “I wish I could have done more.”
Will’s stomach churned at the quiet admission, an echo of her panicked cries rising to his mind.
I could have ended it.
His jaw locked as Desperation attempted to rear its head.
You will not sacrifice yourself for this war.
He’d yelled those words once, with fear and love and devastation tangled up in his chest. They’d ripped from him, less command than desperate plea.
He wanted to shout them again. To mean them.
“You are not in this alone,” he said, tipping her head back so she could see the fierceness of his words in his gaze.
“I know,” Aya breathed.
Did she? He had promised her he would go over theedge with her, but he could only do that if she allowed him to fall, too.
“Promise me,” Will pleaded. “Promise me that you will let me help you.”
He did not care about prophecies, or powers, or fates, or gods. The gods be damned. All he cared about was her.
