Aya cleared her throat, the room fell silent.
“Thank you for being here,” she began, her voice quiet as she looked around the room. “I know you’ve sacrificed a great deal to do so—that you will continue to sacrifice a great deal. I cannot tell you how grateful I am.”
Aidon leaned back in his chair, his hands folding on the table. “It is not just your fight. Not justTala’sfight. Not anymore.”
“Where are we on battle plans?” Aleissande asked, her gaze piercing. “Do we have formations outlined based on what we know of their attack strategy thus far?”
“We’ll give you everything we have,” Will assured her. “But for now, there’s a larger matter to attend to. The veil.”
“I hear you were going to attempt to steal a demigod’s power and close it yourself,” Natali remarked with a raised brow.
“And I take it by your poorly concealed contempt that it wouldn’t have worked?” Aya asked in return. Natali’s brazenness did not scare her, not anymore. Not now that she couldlook at Natali and not fear what they would see in her when she did.
Natali smirked, but there was an approving gleam in their eyes that Aya couldn’t help but feel proud to receive. “I didn’t say that.” Their smirk faded into a contemplative purse of their lips. “Tell me again what Lorna said about the veil. One must be gods-born to summon it?”
“Not necessarily. She believed that Eviecouldinteract with it because it’s made from the same power that lives in her. She said gods-like power, like what the Visya have, is not the same as being gods-born. But she also believed the reason the Diaforaté struggle with the veil is because the potency of my power didn’t remain when they stole it from me. That there was a difference between power given and power stolen, a consequence for reaching for power that is not bestowed upon us.”
Natali frowned. “And yet you were going to steal the demigod’s power?”
“I was going to…direct it. Power is simply energy, is it not?”
Natali made a considering noise. “That is true. Power can be given and taken, although there are consequences to both. It can be contained in Visya—and humans, in some cases, as you learned from those awful experiments in Kakos. And it can also beguided. Instructed.” They lifted a shoulder. “Of course…this is all hypothetical. We’ve never attempted such things with the veil.
“Either way, the result is the same. I imagine that amount of power flowing into you—or through you—would have resulted in your death.”
“Speaking of hypotheticals,” Will cut in. Aya tensed. She knew exactly where he was going with his interruption. “What if there were two people who could interact with the veil?”
Will’s thumb stroked the outside of her thigh in an attemptto soothe her, but she could not rid herself of the tension that pulled her muscles tight.
Natali cocked their head. “Why do you ask?”
Will cleared his throat, his shoulders straightening as he held the Saj’s gaze. “Apparently…I’m a descendant of the second forbidden goddess.”
For a moment, no one dared to move. A dozen shocked faces stared back at them, and they remained frozen like that as Will proceeded to tell them what he and Aya had learned of his lineage. A flicker of surprise coursed through her when he included the story of his shield.
Surprise, and pride.
When he finished, that silence continued, heavy enough that Aya could feel it pressing against her skin, until finally, Aidon broke it.
“Seven hells,” he groaned. “You’re going to be even more insufferable now, aren’t you?”
Aya couldn’t believe he’d managed to make her laugh, but one indeed fell from her lips. It was short, and hindered by dread, but it was there all the same.
“I’m not calling you Divine,” Liam added.
“That’s fine, Aya can—”
“Okay,” Aya interjected before Will could finish, her cheeks heating. “That’s enough.”
Pa smiled at her in bemusement. And yet the moment only lasted a breath longer, and then the dread was back, cloaking them all with its heaviness.
“If potency of power matters,” Natali said, “I do not think centuries-diluted godsblood will make a difference here.”
Will’s jaw clenched, but Galda cut in before he could manage a retort.
“There are too many unknowns here,” the trainer insisted. “We cannot build our attack based on hypotheticals. Not when the fate of our realm is hanging in the balance.”
“There is one course of action that isn’t hypothetical,” Aya murmured.
