The Athatis unsettled him. He had a knowing sort of look about him, as if he could read Aidon’s thoughts, even the ones he tried to ignore.
Especially the ones he tried to ignore.
“So it’s settled then?” Will muttered after several minutes of heavy silence. The bleeding had stopped, but Tyr still watched Aidon as he scrubbed the dried tracks from his upper lip.
The wolf blinked at him expectantly.
No. It wasn’t settled.
“Have you considered…?” Aidon trailed off, his jaw shifting as he turned over how to best phrase the words so they wouldn’t carry such a large sting of betrayal.
Will turned his attention from the map, his brow furrowing as he clocked Aidon’s clear discomfort. “Say whatever it is you need to say, Aidon.”
It wasn’t an encouragement, but a goad, perhaps even a threat, given Will parted with those as easily as an exhale. Aidon responded accordingly, his shoulders squaring as he sat up and met Will’s narrowed gaze head on.
“She didn’t know your friends in the Dyminara escaped the fire. She didn’t know Liam freed the Athatis. She doesn’t knowTyrlives. And whatever happened in that throne room…it took one of the most important people in her life from her.”
He couldn’t stop imagining it: the grief that must have descended on Aya when Tova died. The way she would’ve blamed herself, because he knew, no matter what had unfolded in that room, that Aya would have rather died herself than let harm come to Tova.
“Make your point,” Will growled.
“Perhaps she wasn’t taken, Will. Perhaps she fled.”
The words were soft, but the weight of them reverberatedthroughout the cave. Even the wolf went completely still, his ears pricked in careful attention.
“You’re a fool if you believe that,” Will finally muttered. “Aya would never abandon us.” He ducked his head, as if he could hide the undercurrent of his words, but it was there all the same for Aidon to see.
Aya wouldn’t abandon me.
“There’s been no trace of her. Not a single soldier we’ve tortured has heard a whisper of her. News would have spread by now, Will.”
“Not if they took her to Kakos by sea,” Will snapped. “Not if they kept it hidden from their own so we couldn’tfind her.”
“Taking her to Kakos would be foolish! It would bring entire armies to their doorstep—”
“So you could see why they’d keep her whereabouts hidden!” Will finished for him, abandoning the map as he pushed to his feet. Aidon followed, his joints aching as he stood. Seven hells, he was tired, and it was an exhaustion he hadn’t felt before. He felt drained, as if the power roiling inside of him wasn’t just content to steal his title—his birthright—but it needed his strength, too.
“You saw the destruction in the entrance hall of the palace. The Diaforaté wasdead,” Aidon reasoned as he crossed his arms. “Who would have been theretotake her?”
“There could have been another,” Will insisted.
There could have. Yet something didn’t feel right, something Aidon couldn’t put his finger on. But he knew Will felt it, too. It hung over them, a dark, cutting, intuitive nudge propelling them desperately forward, even though they did not know what awaited them.
“You are blinded by your feelings,” Aidon muttered.
“And you are grasping at hypotheses that will only serve as a distraction.”
Frustration clogged Aidon’s throat, and he shook his headonce, as if he could dispel it. “I’m just saying there are other possibilities to consider. It does her no good to get yourself killed by acting rashly.”
“She would not abandon us!”
Will’s voice echoed throughout the cave as he took a single step toward Aidon. Tyr’s body shifted, his hackles rising as he readied himself to intervene, but Will lifted his hand to still him. He shut his eyes and sucked in a long breath.
“Not intentionally,” Aidon agreed softly. He stayed near the far wall of the cave. “But it’s possible that whatever happened in that throne room, whatever horrific thing she had to witness, made her run. Not for good,” he added before Will could interject. “But in the moment, perhaps it was the only thing she could do.”
He would not blame her if that were the case. If the pressure and the grief had come crashing down on her, an impossible weight to carry. If her only way to survive was togo. He would not blame her at all.
Will tugged a hand through his hair, his fingers clenching in the strands as he shook his head. “She is not a coward.”
