The Talan port sat to the north. It would be backtracking in a way, but Aidon liked their chances of approaching the Midlands by boat rather than on horseback. Will, on the other hand, preferred to be thorough. Aidon suspected he might search every damn crevice of the realm if he could.
But even Will had come to terms with the impossibility of such a thing. He had sent Akeeta ahead of them to scour the peaks and valleys of the Malas they could not reach—not without wasting precious time.
There’d been no sign of his bonded in over a week.
“Cullway is a four-day journey in the wrong direction,” Will argued as he frowned at the map. “It’s faster to cross through the Druswood and head further east to Colmur. It’s inland enough that there’s a good chance it hasn’t been overrun by Kakos.”
A good chance, but not a certainty.
Kakos had invaded Sitya, the southernmost Midlands port, weeks ago. From what Aidon could garner, the port was functioning as a base of sorts for the Kakos forces. It had been Midlands’ ships they’d sailed to Milsaio, to Tala, too, entering somewhere south of Dunmeaden to maintain the element of surprise as they marched on the city.
As Giannaletthem march on the city.
And yet, there was still so much they didn’t know, even now that they’d found lone contingents of the Kakos army.
Found, questioned, and killed.
They’d hardly gotten any answers.
How large were their forces? Where had they retreatedto when they left Dunmeaden? He and Will hadn’t seen a trace of a Kakos soldier until they’d reached the southern part of Tala, and even then, the platoons had been far and few between, as if they’d been miscellaneously placed in the region.
It didn’t make any sense. If Kakos was planning to continue to wage this war, why scatter their forces like this? Why not attack as a united front?
It rankled Aidon, not having all the pieces to this puzzle. His mind was crafted for strategy, for looking at the pieces on the board and calculating the next move. But he didn’t know how to play the game like this—how to strategize when he couldn’t even see the available spaces. It was why he’d insisted on keeping every scrap of parchment they found in the camps they’d raided. He’d hoped one would give him an inkling of an idea of what Kakos had planned.
So far, he’d found nothing.
“There’s no indication that she’s in Colmur,” Aidon reasoned, exhaustion seeping into his tone as he braced his elbows on his knees. The pressure in his head gave a particularly sharp pulse, and he just barely managed to control his wince before Will jerked his head toward him with a glare.
“There’s no indication she’s fuckinganywhere, which is exactly why we need to be in Colmur. I have a resource there who can help us.” He turned back to the map, poring over it as if it had the answers, the firelight sending flickering shadows across his gaunt face. “They have her,” he added quietly. “I know they have her.”
It was entirely possible. And if Kakos did in fact have Aya, then they needed every resource they could get. Especially if they’d taken her beyond the Midlands border and into the Southern Kingdom itself.
No one had crossed the Kakos border in years. And they’d already seen firsthand the destruction Kakos forces could bring. Rescuing Aya from their clutches would be noeasy task.
And yet there was another possibility, one Aidon had tried to push from his mind because merely considering it felt like the worst sort of betrayal to his friend. It rushed forward now, the taste of his guilt bitter on his tongue, and—
Wait. No, that wasn’t his guilt he was tasting. It was blood.
Godsdammit.
Aidon drew a hand to his nose, pinching the space hard. It was the second bleed this week, and he had no disillusions as to what was causing it.
He hadn’t taken his tonic since he fled Dunmeaden over two weeks ago.
Using his power was supposed to help ease the damage the long-term use of the tonic had caused. That’s what Natali had hypothesized at least, that he could learn to use what was within him and potentially stave off the death that would come if he continued to ignore his power.
It was terribly inconvenient that this should be the first time the Saj was wrong.
He’d tested their theory a mere two days after he’d burned that Diaforaté to a crisp in Dunmeaden. He’d used his Incend affinity to burn the first camp of Kakos soldiers they found, and the effort of it had nearly rendered him unconscious. He wasn’t sure why he’d been able to save Josie’s life in Dunmeaden with his power. Perhaps his adrenaline had simply muted whatever physiological toll had followed the use of his affinity.
Either way…
He set fires the old-fashioned way, now. Not that it mattered, if his nose bleed was any indication. It seemed his affinity was intent on destroying him one way or another.
If Will noticed the way he was slowly deteriorating, he hadn’t said a word. Sometimes, Aidon wondered if he saw anything other than maps and plans and vengeance.
But Tyr…Tyr was ever watching, and his gaze fell heavilyon him now, his brown eyes tracking Aidon as he tried to staunch the bleed.
