The Curse of Saints

by Kate Dramis

Aya, as the Queen’s Third, had certainly seen her fair share of blood. The Queen’s Eyes, they called her. Gianna’s spymaster.

As the primary weapons provider for the realm, the Tala Merchant Council had always been mindful of regulating their weapons trade and how much they sold to the other kingdoms.

Persis couldn’t manipulate. They could only persuade someone to do whatever they were willing to do.

The queen insisted the Dyminara work with the Guard, who were tasked with her daily protection and the policing of the city. But substantial threats fell to the Dyminara alone, the queen’s elite Visya force of warriors, scholars, and spies blessed with kernels of godlike power from the Nine Divine.

“Is that how you get into so many ladies’ beds?” “You want to find out?” he drawled, his lips twisting into a mischievous grin as he stepped even closer, his eyes fixed on her beneath his thick lashes.

His father, Gale, was the first Visya in the history of Dunmeaden to sit on Tala’s Merchant Council. He’d helped reinforce Tala’s place in trade, even though kingdoms like Trahir had more to offer with their rich delicacies.

When they were younger and nothing more than peers in school, it had been easy to forget that Will’s Sensainos affinity—his ability to feel and manipulate others’ emotions and sensations—extended to fear and despair, even pain. His handsomeness hid it well. His black hair was thick and wavy, his pale skin tinged with olive, giving him an ever-present sun-kissed look. And with his sharp features and perfectly cut clothes he wore, he looked every part a young noble.

Dunmeaden’s Dark Prince.

Mathias kept an iron grip on the underbelly of Dunmeaden. His thieves and assassins were notorious.

It was as if his darkness had called to hers, and she hadn’t been able to resist responding. And for that, she hated him.

“Our suspicions of Trahir breaking our trade treaties are confirmed, and all he shares is gossip about a bar fight.

The winter festival honored Saint Evie. Her sacrifice hundreds of years ago in the War tore open the veil between the realm and the Beyond, and called in the gods to abolish the Decachiré: the dangerous affinity work that had power-hungry Visya reaching to be gods by making their power limitless. Though Visya power before the War was raw—able to be molded into any of the nine affinities instead of bound to one—it was still contained; set in what was known as someone’s “well,” which limited the depth of how far the Visya could go before burning out entirely. But the Decachiré practitioners experimented with the limits of their wells, pushing further and further to gain more. They knew no bounds. It wasn’t enough to be blessed by the gods. They wanted to be gods. Some tried bestowing powers onto humans, believing there was no greater indication of godlike power than creating a Visya themselves. And using them to further their cause in the War.

Even though Kakos occupied the entire lower third of their continent, it had been over a decade since anyone traded with the ostracized Southern Kingdom. Not since the rumors started. They were said to be searching for a way to attain the raw power that the Visya had before the War. “Diaforaté” is what the kingdoms had named them. The discovery of Kakos’s attempted heresy sent fear pulsing through the realm, and the late king created an embargo that banned Kakos from all trade. It was perhaps the only time the lands had agreed on a course of action. It destroyed the Southern Kingdom.

“If you need more than thirty minutes, William, then you have no idea how to pleasure a woman.” Will grinned. “If you haven’t lasted thirty minutes, Majesty, then you have no idea how to experience true pleasure.”

Before she could even flinch, Will’s knife was on the guard’s sword hand, his vice grip still on her arm. “You move this hand, and so help me gods I will saw it from your arm slow enough that you feel every single sunder.” His voice was low, and the guard loosened his grip slightly. But not enough. “She’s mine,” Will snarled softly, violence flashing in his gray eyes.

The rules of the realm were clear: only the eldest sibling could rule before the crown passed on to the next generation. It was how it moved through generations rather than staying stagnant—how it passed to him rather than his father.

“Fuck you.” “You’d love to, wouldn’t you?”

Aidon was the King’s General of Trahir’s armies.

“But you’re her Second,” Aya pressed. “And…” And her rumored lover. His eyes were dark as they cut to her. “You and I both know nothing stands in the way of Gianna taking what she decides is hers.”

He was a general, after all. And while that came with obeying orders and giving commands, it didn’t change the fact that there was something in his blood that craved adrenaline. There was a particular thrill that came with battle. And Aya… She felt a lot like the excitement of violence.

Aidon choked, a vein in his neck bulging. His face grew panicked, his fingers clawing at his throat as he gasped for air. “What are you doing?” Josie demanded. Will merely sat back in his chair, his gray eyes cold as he regarded the prince. “Mimicking the sensation of suffocation,” he said, his voice dangerously calm.

Aya broke his hold, and in the span of a breath, she had him on his back, her boot pressing lightly against his throat, his knife pointed at his heart. “I preferred you from behind,” Ryker wheezed. “And I prefer men on their backs,” she snarled, her boot digging into his windpipe. Will sighed. “I need him alive, love.”

“This is where we always end up, isn’t it, Aya love?” he breathed. “You with a knife to my throat.”

She’d learned many truths in the desert, this perhaps the most terrifying of all. She would have torn the world apart to get him back.

“You cannot sacrifice the fate of the world—the fate of your soul—for some feelings you think you have for me.

She looked like dreams and nightmares and everything he’d ever wanted.

“Sometimes it amazes me that you’re a spy,” he whispered. “Because you’re a horrible liar, my love.”

“If these are our last moments, then know I will climb out of the hells and take on the gods if it means finding you again in the Beyond.”

But he’d made her a promise. No matter how far the fall. “Don’t you dare leave me,” she spat as she sent a pulse of healing power into him. “I will never forgive you.” Another. “I will drag you back from the hells myself and kill you for it.” Another. “I mean it.”

His mother who had emphasized that the power behind a blade was not nearly as important as the timing of the strike.