She recognized that blade.
Take the knife from Tova’s chest…wipe it clean…
Evie tracked her gaze with a satisfied smile, as if she were remembering, too. As if she were relishing it.
“Ready the flag of surrender, Andras,” she ordered.
Aya forced her gaze away from the glint of metal and turned her attention to the saint.
Perhaps the dehydration had weakened her sense of self preservation. Or perhaps she truly simply did not care anymore. Not with the memory of Tova’s broken neck pushing against her conscience. Whatever her motives, she recognized the desperation laced within them as she said, “Surrender? I didn’t know humility was a trait of a saint.”
Evie raised an appraising brow. “It is not. But patience is.” A slow, knowing grin tugged at her lips. “I commend your efforts, but you forget, dear Aya, that I have fought in battles the likes of which you could not even fathom. Childish taunts will not work with me.” She crouched once more, her fingers warm as they cupped Aya’s chin. “I trust you’ll be on your best behavior when we arrive in Sitya.”
Sitya. The southernmost port of the Midlands that was now under Kakos’s control. Aya barely had time to tuck that information away before Evie was continuing on, her voice far too gentle for Aya’s liking. “I hate to think of the consequences should you continue to attempt to defy me.”
Aya braced herself. “Go to hells,” she gritted out.
Fast as an asp, Evie’s power struck her, hard. It tightened around her, merciless, as she thrashed against the ropes that kept her bound.
“I would have preferred the seven hells over the prison the gods trapped me in for five hundred years,” Evie rumbled.
Pain lit Aya up from the inside, so intense her vision blurred. Her eyes slammed shut, but there was no relief. Because there was Tova, always Tova, broken and dead because of her.
…tell me you won’t use your power…
Somewhere, in the depths of Aya’s mind, Galda’s voice was making itself heard; a distant roar ofControlthat had followed her around for years. But it was buried under the howl she imagined Tyr had made when he’d been burned to death with the rest of the Athatis, a howl she swore she could hear now as she bit back her own scream.
The pain heightened, and Aya’s jaw ached as she clenched her teeth, her eyes wrenching open to meet Evie’s smirk.
Control.
But it was Evie who was in control, Aya no more than a puppet on her string. Aya’s pain grew, pain and fear and rage and guilt, because she could not stop this,she could not stop this. Tears slipped down her cheeks, her chest heaving against the pressure of the rope as the agony went on, and on, and—
“Your Holiness,” Andras called, the thud of his boots heavy across the wooden deck. Evie’s power vanished as she stood. She chuckled at the way Aya slumped against her bindings.
“We’re nearing the port.” He fastened a white flag to the mast, the pulleys creaking as he raised it high above Aya’s head. “Good timing, too. Weather approaches.”
Aya’s head felt like lead, the echoes of Evie’s pain still etched in her bones, but she lifted her chin to take in the blanket of gray and brown clouds bearing down on them.It took Aya a long moment to realize strands of her hair no longer whipped across her cheeks.
The steady wind was gone. Instead, the air had turned thick.
Oppressive.
She longed for the breeze to return, to send the salt of the sea stinging across her skin. It had been a different sort of pain—one to soothe her.
Evie considered the sky. “It is not weather that approaches,” she remarked softly. Her gaze flicked back to where Aya was bound. “Get her up.”
Andras’s touch was rough as he removed the ropes around Aya’s chest, the pressure of them lingering like a phantom touch. He fastened another length of rope to the one binding her hands and hauled her to standing. Her weakened legs immediately buckled beneath her, and she bit her cheek to swallow her cry of pain as her knees collided with the deck.
Andras laughed and yanked the rope again. Aya scrambled to get her feet beneath her, her body screaming in protest as she pushed herself to stand.
“Good little dog,” he sneered.
Aya’s hands curled into fists, the bite of her nails sharp against her palms. Her power stirred somewhere deep within her, but Evie’s control held fast.
“Leave her, Andras,” the saint instructed. Her gaze was fixed on the shoreline, where the edges of a city were coming into focus. “There will be time enough to play once we’re done.”
6
