“Aleader,” she emphasized. “With a burning desire to do right by his people.” Her thumb stroked the fragile skin just below his eye. “It is not the crown that makes the king, Aidon.”
Someone cleared their throat from behind them, but there was no force in the world that could have jarred him away from Dauphine.
“She’s awake,” Liam called.
Dauphine grinned, her hands falling to her sides as she moved out of Aidon’s space. She shot him a wink before she pushed herself up and made her way inside.
Aidon gave himself to the count of five to pull himself together before he followed her. Liam was leaning against the edge of the house, looking as smug as smug could be. He lifted a brow as Aidon passed.
“You’re playing with fire,” he remarked as he clapped him on the shoulder. But there was a smile dancing in his voice, softening the words into more jest than warning.
Either way, it didn’t matter. Aidon wasn’t playing with fire.Hewas the flame, and he’d finally found the air he needed to truly burn.
***
Aya was waiting for him. She’d washed the blood and dirt from her face and hair, but her clothes, like the rest of them, had seen better days. Aidon shoved down the roil of disgust in his gut at the navy uniform and instead folded Aya into his arms.
She hugged him fiercely, her voice muffled against his fighting leathers as she said, “I’m sorry about Trahir.”
Aidon laughed into her hair, the sound scratching against the sadness clogging his throat. She would apologize for his pain, as if she weren’t suffocating beneath her own. But he knew Aya better than that. He pushed her away slightly, his chest aching as he took in the haunted look in her eyes. There was a vacancy beneath it, as if she were looking at him, but not.
As if she were the room, and yet so, so far away.
“I’m sorry about…” He swallowed the words, his gaze darting to the Decachiré sigil on her uniform. He did not know how to encapsulate it all. He didn’t even have the details of what, exactly, she’d endured.
Perhaps he never would. But he knew in his heart it was horrid.
Whatever they had forced her to do, whatever means by which she’d survived…he couldseethe weight of it bearing down on her. She looked smaller. Hollower. And yet the corner of her mouth twitched, the ghost of a sad smile flitting across her lips.
“Inside wounds,” she murmured.
He placed his hands on her shoulders and squeezed. “We’ll make them pay.”
Aya inhaled, her whole body seeming to expand with the movement. He’d never seen someone breathe like that before—as if they were trying to pull strength from the air and withstand the agony of it all at once.
“That may be more difficult than we once imagined,” she confessed on an exhale. She glanced around the room, lingering on where Will stood, his arms crossed at his chest, back leaning against the wall. He stared back steadily.
Their wordless exchange lasted only a beat, but it seemed to strengthen Aya’s resolve as she turned back to Aidon and said, “There’s something you all should know.”
***
It wasn’t any easier hearing it a second time.
Aidon scrubbed a hand roughly down his face. A demigod. How the hells were they supposed to defeat Kakos now?
Dauphine sat next to him on the moth-bitten couch, her side pressed against his, a steady, warm pressure that kept him from shutting down entirely.
“We need allies,” Liam muttered from his spot by the fireplace. His face was grave, but his voice was firm and focused as he glanced around the room.
“It’s almost like that’s what we’ve been trying to gather for months,” Will deadpanned. Aidon couldn’t help but grimace. It was true—they’dhadallies. Aidon had pledged his troops to the cause, and Milsaio and the Midlands support had never been in question. But now…
Milsaio had been pummeled by Kakos, the Midlands abandoned by Tala, and Trahir rendered useless at the hands of rebels who cared not for anyone but themselves.
Betrayal after betrayal had erased not just months of work, but years of bonds between the kingdoms. And though they’dtried to assuage some of that tension by helping the Midlands in Sitya, there was no telling if it was enough.
Seven hells, it was such a mess.
“Will and I came across several garrisons, but there was no rhyme or reason to them,” Aidon finally spoke, his voice rough from his long silence as Aya had explained how she’d come to learn of Evie’s lineage.
