“No,” Will growled.
“Will—”
“No.”
“It might be our only option,” she argued. She looked to the rest of the table. “Unless you’ve suddenly discovered some alternative and have yet to tell us?”
Galda shook her head. “My questioning of Hyacinth has yielded nothing,” she reluctantly confessed.
“The same for our research in the Synastysi,” Nyra added softly. “If we had more time, perhaps we could find something, but…”
She didn’t need to finish—they all knew time was the one thing they did not have.
Anxiety twisted in Aya’s stomach, but she forced herself to stay present in the room. She could not afford to give in to the fear nipping at the edges of her mind.
Not yet.
“Can’t we just kill the demigod?” Dauphine asked as she picked at a fleck of dirt beneath her nails with her knife. “Perhaps the Divine will heal the veil themselves once she’s gone.”
“No,” Aya replied. “The Divine won’t give any more power than what they’ve already given to the veil.”
She was still trying to come to terms with how they weren’t the benevolent gods she’d spent her life worshipping. But this, she knew for sure—the gods would not part with more of their power.
“But if we have more time,” Pa reasoned, “we could find another way to mend the veil.”
“And if Evie’s power is the only way?” Aya shot back as she leaned forward, irritation nipping at the edges of her patience.
“Aya,” Josie murmured, but Pa continued, his voice firm in a way that Aya hadn’t heard since she was a child.
“Then we deal with it!”
For whatever reason, her father’s anger was the kindling to the fire that had been brewing in Aya since they’d all settled in the room.
“I appreciate what you all are trying to do. Trust me, I do,” Aya bit out, “but we don’t havetimefor this. Kakos is marching on Dunmeaden imminently, and I have seen what they are capable of. I don’twantto die. But if my death means that no one again suffers their evil, I will willingly give my life for that, as would any of you!”
Aya didn’t realize she was standing until she finished, her eyes burning as she braced her hands on the table. She bowed her head, her shoulders curling toward her ears as she took a steadying breath.
“It is hard enough for me to come to terms with what must be done,” Aya whispered.
She’d done it once, and it had nearly killed her. The resolve she’d need to do it again…
“Please,” she begged, “do not make it harder.”
She lifted her head to find them all watching her with various degrees of sadness. All except…
Galda.
The trainer wasn’t pitying her. She was frowning at her, her dark eyes narrowed as she stared Aya down.
“Evie’s power might be the only way,” Galda said carefully, “But there are other ways of…directingher power.”
Aya slowly lowered herself into her chair. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking,” Galda growled in her gravelly rasp, “about your born affinity.” Her grin was as sharp as the knives she’d taught Aya to wield. “You are a Persi, aren’t you?”
The remark had Aya drawing up short.
It had been so long since anyone had called her that—sinceshehad remembered that she was, indeed, born a normal Visya.
