The Curse of Sins, page 33
Enzo grinned. “Ah yes, how foolish of me.”
Her father knew exactly what he was doing. Josie never believed that a worldly man such as he, who had led the Merchant Council of the most prosperous kingdom in Eteryium for years, didn’t know the simplest of things. She and Aidon often tried to catch him in the joke. They never had.
“What is this about Aidon?” Enzo pressed gently.
Josie let her fork clatter onto her plate. “He won’t take me seriously.”
“He asked you to be his Second. What could be more serious than that?”
Josie knew that. But ever since she’d refused him and joined the forces instead, something had changed between them.
No. It was before that. It was the moment my fist collided with his face when I thought him guilty of working with Dominic.
“He ordered the City Guard to bring me to safety during the attack,” Josie tried to explain, her hand motioning toward the city, which was just coming to life under the early morning sun.
Enzo only looked confused. “You are his sister. Of course he wanted you safe. Not to mention you are the princess of Trahir—”
“That is exactly the problem,” Josie interjected. “I am the princess of Trahir. But I am also a warrior. And I am good, Father. Great, even. But the longer he treats me like some damsel who cannot manage to hold a sword—”
Enzo let out an amused laugh. “You have beaten your brother to a pulp enough times that he brags about your prowess. Loudly, if I remember the several incidents with your uncle that became arguments I had to intervene in.”
The joy of the memory faded as soon as Enzo realized who he was speaking of, as if the memory of his twin brother was removed, if only slightly, from the traitor of a king he had become.
Her father’s throat bobbed, a look of sadness Josie hadn’t realized was now a familiar feature on his face settling over him once more. It made him look older, smaller.
Josie inhaled deeply through her nose as she pushed her plate out of the way and clasped her hands on the table. “I feel like he doesn’t trust me anymore,” she admitted quietly.
Enzo sat back in his chair, that grief still staining his eyes. “Perhaps that’s because you don’t trust yourself.”
Just as he didn’t trust himself, not anymore. Josie had been perhaps the only one to truly understand why her father had stepped down from the Merchant Council. Where Aidon saw abandonment, she had only seen herself. Enzo was lost. He wasn’t like Zuri, who threw herself into her work to distract from her pain. He felt his fully, and now it seemed grief had paralyzed him.
“You could go back,” she said quietly, ducking her head so her father was forced to meet her gaze.
Enzo didn’t need to ask where. “I do not wish to.”
Josie cocked her head in curiosity. “Then what is it you wish to do?”
Her father’s smile was sad. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I never gave much thought to it. I never knew I would need to.” He turned his gaze to the sea, stretching endlessly toward the horizon. And as he murmured another truth, it was one Josie knew as intimately as the three words that had become their family’s maxim of sorts.
Duty. Responsibility. Loyalty.
They were the only things that could drive her father to admit with quiet regret, “I only ever thought of my brother.”
***
Breakfast had done nothing to soothe her whirling mind, and Josie fully intended to work out some of her emotions in the training complex before she was due in town for her patrol.
After the attack, Aleissande had assigned various members of the force to patrol with the City Guard, if only to calm any lingering fear in their people. Josie had been surprised she’d been chosen, but then she and Cole had been assigned to the quiet residential area next to Old Town. Absolutely no one spent their time there during business hours, and she was back to ruminating over Aidon’s dismissal of her aid during the attack.
“At least you’re alive,” Cole had said after one of her particularly long diatribes the other day. She’d shot him an incredulous look, ready to ream him for his insensitivity, but he was looking at her with that innocent expression that reminded Josie that Cole was simply being, well, Cole.
Josie let out a long breath as she stepped into the small sparring room at the back of the complex where she and Aidon had once dueled regularly and paused, something twisting in her chest as she looked around the space.
She hadn’t been to this particular room in ages.
Someone had removed the sparring post—perhaps because Aleissande preferred them to practice in large settings, or maybe it simply needed replacing after all these years. Still, it made Josie sad to see it gone, enough so that she walked to the far wall, where their tally of fights was carved.
She ran her finger down the grooves, each a tiny tick made by their swords, except for a small gouge just below their tally that one of them must have made during a particularly intense duel. Or maybe it was Aya. Josie had forgotten Aidon trained with her here.
She let out another long breath as she thought of her friend. What would Aya say if she were still in Trahir? Josie closed her eyes and tried to picture Aya sitting on the edge of her bed, her hair in a messy plait.
Have you discussed your frustrations with Aidon?
She could hear the question in Aya’s voice. The irony of Aya, real or not, telling her to talk out her feelings wasn’t lost on Josie, and the thought had the corner of her mouth lifting until she heard a throat clear from the doorway.
“Are you meditating, or sleeping on your feet?” Aleissande asked.
Josie kept her eyes closed for another moment, enjoying a last breath of peace before she turned to face the general. Aleissande was dressed in her brown fighting leathers, her blond hair pulled back in its customary tight bun.
She stood with her feet braced apart—a fighting stance—but her arms were crossed and her expression calm as she met Josie’s gaze.
“I came to train,” Josie answered before motioning to the empty space where the sparring post once stood. “But the sparring post is gone.”
A small crease formed between Aleissande’s brows. “That it is.” Her eyes flicked to the carvings on the wall, then the far bench, before landing on Josie once more. “I haven’t seen you since the attack.”
“I’ve been in training and on patrol,” Josie shot back, bristling at the insinuation. Aleissande just shook her head.
“If you’d let me finish,” Aleissande continued dryly, “then I would have been able to say that I have been busy and have not had a moment to tell you that I saw what you did that day.”
Josie’s lips pressed together, her argument already building in her throat. She hadn’t wanted to leave the scene of the attack. She’d tried to stay, but there was nothing she could have done short of turning her sword on their own Guard.
“Your sword was in your hand before I’d even gotten the king to the ground,” Aleissande said, cutting through Josie’s flurry of thoughts. “They lost eight of their members in that fight. Two of them died by your blade before His Majesty even registered where you’d gone.”
“Yes,” Josie murmured. It wasn’t a question, but she felt the confirmation was needed, because Aleissande was staring at her in a way the general never had before. That coldness was still there. But beneath it was a subtle something that had the air filling between them, thick and heavy.
Aleissande blinked once. Narrowed her eyes.
“Why did you join the force?”
The question had Josie cocking her head in confusion.
“I’m a skilled fighter,” she finally retorted, her arms folding across her chest as she leaned a hip against the wall.
Aleissande rolled her eyes, the corner of her full lips twitching up, fighting off a smirk. “I’m skilled at seducing women, and yet you don’t see me working in one of the brothels. Skill is not enough.”
Surprise had Josie straightening as she stared at the general, her mouth moving wordlessly as her mind fired off several entirely unhelpful thoughts all at once.
Aleissande was…flirting? Or perhaps she was being completely serious, but she was talking to Josie about sex of all things, and this was so at odds from the stoic, strict general Josie usually saw that she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.
And now…
Well, now Josie was picturing Aleissande having sex, and she wasn’t as disgusted as she should be, given Aleissande had made her disdain for Josie crystal clear and Josie returned it on principle.
“Are you…?” Josie shook her head and cleared her throat. “Are you saying you’re skilled but not skilled enough to work in the brothels?”
“I’m saying,” Aleissande deadpanned, “we can be good, even great, at some things, but it is not enough to warrant us making a career out of it.”
Josie tried to unpick the general’s meaning—tried to understand if she was saying Josie didn’t belong here or simply wanted confirmation as to why she did—but her mind was tripping over itself, because she was still picturing Aleissande having sex, and now it was great sex, and fucking hells, Josie’s face was heating.
“What?” Josie breathed, and she wasn’t entirely sure she’d said the word aloud until Aleissande gave an irritated jerk of her head.
“Forget it,” the general muttered. She was halfway through the door before she called back, “Work on your footwork.”
Josie stared at the place where Aleissande had just been, her voice lodged in her throat for several moments after the woman was gone. When Josie finally managed to swallow and speak, she could only rasp one thing: “What the fuck was that?”
52
The noise of the tavern was a cacophony of laughter and taunts and music, but it swirled around Will in a muted way as he sat at the bar, his fingers slowly spinning his glass, the amber liquid rippling inside. He’d lost track of time, but if the warmth of his whiskey was any indication, he’d been here for hours.
And yet the idea of moving, of getting off this stool and going…
Where? Where could he possibly go? There was not a single place that could offer him relief from the godsdamn agony that was shredding his insides, not even this shithole of a tavern where drink and dance and debauchery promised to make one forget.
Will pushed his glass away with an aggravated breath and ran a hand through his hair in frustration.
Five days. He hadn’t spoken to Aya in five days. He’d tried, of course. Had knocked on her door, had even crossed paths with her in the Quarter. But it was as if he didn’t exist.
No, it was worse than that.
It was if he existed as he did before. Before she’d let him in, before she’d given him hope that maybe someone could see all parts of him and love him anyway.
Not just someone—her. The one person he’d ever wanted but hadn’t dared hope for until suddenly, hope was the only thing keeping his head above water in Trahir.
“Are you ill?” Gianna’s question had come with a concerned furrow of her brow and a soft hand on his cheek when he’d arrived in her chambers the day after Aya had found him in the dungeons.
Not ill, he’d thought to himself. Destroyed.
What did it matter if Gianna had been involved with the supplier?
What did anything fucking matter?
It didn’t. Because when he’d told Gianna of the innocence of those in the dungeons, lying through his teeth as he said he’d finished questioning them all, she’d nodded grimly and wondered if it was time to call Lena off the search as well.
No more arrests. No more torturing.
He’d done it at all for fucking nothing.
And he wasn’t sure Aya would forgive him.
Not for the torture—he was sure that Aya could see through that if he could just explain. But for keeping this from her, for asking Gianna to do the same.
Will had once believed that the sliver of hope he’d felt when he started to think perhaps Aya could feel something toward him could kill him. But now he knew he’d been wrong. It was worse, far worse, to get what you hoped for. To be given the one thing you’ve ever wanted, only to have the gods rip it away.
Not the gods. You did this on your own.
And yet, it was the worst sort of punishment. And it was no more than he deserved.
He’d just wanted…
He’d wanted.
To keep seeing that light in her eyes when she looked at him. To keep thinking he could be some semblance of a man who deserved her. To keep…
Her.
He’d wanted to keep her, and perhaps he’d always known he couldn’t. That’s what this all boiled down to, wasn’t it? What his choice had been to achieve?
He could tell himself over and over it was for the good of her and the kingdom, that the ends justified the means. But really, he’d wanted to keep the one thing he’d ever dared to want, even though he knew, he knew there was no way the Divine should allow him to do it.
He’d let himself get carried away—let himself think he could. Because he loved her. Gods above, he loved her more than he’d ever loved anything, ever would love anything.
He loved her.
And it was killing him.
53
Aya could taste blood. It coated her tongue with its metallic bitterness, turning her saliva bright red as she spat on the ground.
“Again.”
The command came from a voice like gravel, the bark of it cold and sharp and unforgiving against the ringing in Aya’s ears.
Aya peered up from where she knelt on the ground, her fingers digging into the dirt beneath her, as if gripping the earth would keep it from spinning. Sweat coated her body, sticking the strands of hair that had come loose from her braid to her face.
Yield.
Yield.
Yield.
She wouldn’t.
Gianna had given Aya another bread crumb, as if she knew the hurt she was suffering. Aya was finally allowed to train with the Dyminara.
And while she loathed to be grateful to Gianna for anything, Aya had seized every single moment to train with her fellow warriors like a woman starving.
Perhaps that’s why she forced herself to stand now, despite her trembling limbs, and face Cleo.
The Sensainos was before her in an instant, and Aya barely had time to raise her fists before Cleo was throwing another punch, and Aya was ducking, still under strict orders from Galda to focus on shielding instead of pushing her affinity forward.
Her shield had gotten better. Much better. She’d proven it in the few times she’d been able to spar with the Dyminara in the last week. But today, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that Aya was strong, or that she’d been shielding since she was a child, or that she was one of the best fighters of the Dyminara. She was exhausted, and there was only so much distraction from her pain that training could provide, and the next thing she knew, Cleo was in front of her, her uppercut sending Aya’s head snapping back.
When she blinked, she was on the ground, a heaviness making everything muted and blurred. Galda and Tova were standing over her, her friend thrusting a finger into the trainer’s chest as she yelled something Aya couldn’t yet make out.
“She’s not trying,” she heard Galda spit out. “Cleo didn’t even need her Sensainos affinity to best her.” The anger in the trainer’s stare became clear as Aya’s vision sharpened. “What have I told you about managing your mind? About controlling your emotions? About focusing?”
Aya sat up, her head swimming with the movement.
She was trying to keep her head clear, but…
This past week had been hells, and there was only so much burying she could do. The last few nights, she’d taken to roaming the streets under the cloak of night, cornering unsuspecting connections to the Royal Guard in dark alleyways and questioning them until she could smell the fear in their sweat, in the hopes of finding her father’s attacker.
No one knew a thing.
But she’d thought if she could keep moving, keep going, then perhaps that suffocating grief and fear she was barely keeping at bay wouldn’t pull her under.
Apparently, she was wrong.
“She’s been going for hours,” Tova bit out.
Galda waved a dismissive hand. “This has nothing to do with her physical endurance.” She glared at Aya as Tova helped her up. “A tangled mind is a defenseless mind,” the trainer all but snarled. “How many times have I told you that?”
“Back off,” Tova warned.
Galda ignored her as she stepped into Aya’s space, her brown eyes fierce. “You will face far worse, should Kakos get their hands on you,” her trainer snapped. “You do not have the privilege of weakness.”
Weakness.
The word tore through the careful hold Aya kept on her temper.
She ripped her arm out of Tova’s grip, something like satisfaction flashing across Galda’s face—as if she’d been waiting for Aya to lose control, to finally snap. Aya’s jaw clenched, her hands curling into tight fists as she turned her back on the trainer before she did something truly foolish, like raise them.
She’d made that mistake before. It had landed her before Suja faster than Tyr could run.
“We’re not done for the day,” Galda barked as Aya stormed toward the door.
“I am.”
She would regret this. She knew, even before she hit the hallways of the training complex with impressive pace, that she would regret this.
But right now, she didn’t fucking care.
It didn’t take long for Tova to catch up to her.
“She’s out of line,” her friend muttered as she fell into step beside her. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not.”
“You’ve been at it for hours. You need a break. Galda shouldn’t have—”
“I’m fine, Tova.”
“But honestly, this training schedule isn’t—”
“I said I’m fine, Tova!” Aya stopped walking, the words cracking between them like a whip. Tova paused beside her, her face unmoved. Because Tova…Tova knew her. Every sharp edge, every brittle, cold piece of her, Tova knew.
