Page 14 of Each Their Own Devil (Our Lady of Fire #3)

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THE WHITE PENNANT

“You surrender not to your foes, but to the fear of your own potential.” — The Book of Open Doors , Book VI: The Crossing of Worlds

The previous war had lasted approximately thirty years. At least, it had felt like thirty years from the Hiding Place, where time was sluggish compared to the human realm. The first time Nicolas had returned there to make a bargain after the fighting had ceased and Aleja had taken his punishment as her own, it had been winter. He’d followed the light of a black candle to France and a man desperate to keep his business afloat despite mounting debts.

Nicolas nearly hadn’t taken the bargain, but Aleja would have found it amusing for a man to strike a deal with the devil on Christmas. During their conversation, the man sputtered the date, and by the time Nicolas shook his hand, he’d been thrown off-balance. Less than three years had passed in the human world. The air outside smelled of roast goose and mulled wine, and behind the frosted windows, families laughed while bathed in golden light.

It was a foolish thing for a Knowing One, whose power was rivaled by few beings in any world, to feel sorry for themselves, but no human knew how close the balance of the world had come to shifting irrecoverably. No one knew how close Nicolas’s world had come to ending in a literal sense, nor that it had ended in a metaphorical sense.

In all the centuries since that he had spent replaying the war in his mind, punishing himself for every misstep that had led to Aleja’s disappearance, he had never seen the Astraelis holding what he saw now.

The skies were clear of Thrones. Against the pale golden clouds flew a white pennant.

Which was confusing considering the fact that the Astraelis armies seemed to be fighting against…themselves. Nicolas was the first to reach the summit of one of the dizzying hills atop his Umbramare and raised an arm to stop the troops at his back from going farther.

“What the hell is going on down there?” Taddeas asked from beside him.

“Huh,” Orla answered, before Nicolas could. Her golden armor had been polished to such a fine sheen that it reflected the slow movement of clouds overhead. “I supposed the mutineers were tired of waiting for a deal. Maybe if we stand by long enough, they’ll wipe themselves out.”

“No,” Nicolas muttered. “Only one side has Authorities and it’s not the side waving the white flag. It’s going to be a bloodbath.”

“Good,” Orla said.

“Is it?” Taddeas asked, his voice barely audible over the chaos below. “If the mutineers win this, the Messenger will be their next target. If the Authorities have joined with the mutineers, not even she will be able to hold their armies back.”

“And the Messenger has Aleja and the Third. We need to reach them first.” Nicolas could hardly keep the growl out of his voice.

“We have to think about this, Knowing One. Hearing out the Astraelis is one thing; fighting with them…fuck, fighting for them is another. There are a hundred Otherlander soldiers behind us who barely tolerated our prisoner of war at their camp. Do you really think you’re going to be able to convince them to follow you into battle to come to the aid of the Messenger’s armies? We came here on a mission, and it didn’t include saving Astraelis lives.”

Below them, one of the Authorities barreled through the field—injured but still flying, wings beating haphazardly against its shapeless body.

“We don’t have time to convince them, nor do we have to,” Nicolas said, desperately wishing that Aleja was back at his side. She had always been better at dealing with the Authorities than he was. “Taddeas, return to our troops and lead them west. Hold your formation. Direct no one to attack until my signal. Orla, you’re going down there with me.”

“Ah, yes,” she said briskly. “I’d forgotten the two of us can easily take on a horde of Authorities all on our own.”

“Without the Authorities, the mutineers don’t have the manpower to overtake the Messenger’s forces. If we can draw them away, it will give them a fighting chance.”

“Without Aleja, it’s going to be hard bringing even one of them down,” Taddeas said.

“That’s where you come in. I brought you to the Hiding Place for a reason, Taddeas. We’re going to lead the Authorities to you. Set a trap for them,” Nicolas said.

Taddeas parted his lips as if to offer a protest, but Nicolas caught a glint in his eye. It was a glint Nicolas had only seen when Taddeas was discussing military theory in a voice that gradually sped with excitement until he was waving his hands in a steady rhythm, as if he were lecturing back in one of his college classrooms.

“I’ll need at least ten minutes. Can you buy me that?” Taddeas asked.

“Ten minutes of getting chased by a monster that will absorb every bit of my knowledge about our plans and tactics if it eats me? Of course,” Nicolas said.

“You sound like your wife,” Taddeas said with a barely concealed eye roll, before he turned his Umbramare back downhill and clicked his heels against its side to spur it forward.

“You got a plan for this, Knowing One?” Orla asked, as they too urged their Umbramares forward. Both of the shadow-creatures huffed as they were pushed toward the battlefield, and Nicolas could no longer tell if the sound was eagerness or displeasure. The shadows carried with them a part of his mind, and he could control their feelings no more than he could control his own.

“Don’t die,” he said.

“I was thinking along the lines of you confuse them with your shadows while I use my voids to slow them down.”

“That’s good planning,” he told her. Although Orla had been one of the Dark Saints to flee the Hiding Place after the last war—in no small part driven by Nicolas’s actions to save Aleja—he had to admit that he had always enjoyed her company on the battlefield.

When it had been the four of them together—Orla, Nicolas, Aleja, and…Roland—they had worked together with a sense of wordless cohesion, with little that could stop their destruction.

Except, of course, for Authorities.

But an Authority was not the first to notice them. It was a Throne. Nicolas drew his sword as he urged his Umbramare toward it, but the Throne was not deterred. It charged toward Nicolas, teeth bared and already marbled with streaks of red blood.

“Forward,” Nicolas barked at his mount. “Don’t change course.”

His Umbramare and the Throne ran at each other like two jousters, waiting to see who would break first. He sent a shadow to wrap around the lion’s ankle, yanking it to the left. The quick lapse in balance was enough to make the Throne turn its head, exposing its throat—their greatest area of weakness.

Nicolas’s sword slid in quick and easy, as if it was relieved to finally be doing what it loved. With the Throne’s dying roar, other heads turned toward him and Orla.

“The Knowing One!” someone shouted. “Get the mages on him!”

Nicolas was forced to send out a field of shadows earlier than he’d wished, obscuring the battlefield in mottled darkness. The mages would need a few moments to find each other and summon a counterspell. Orla, visible only because of her bright hair and golden armor, shouted, “Stop showing off, Knowing One! Time to ride!”

The Dark Saint of Envy’s magic didn’t feel like that of the rest of the Otherlanders. Nicolas had to admit to himself that the power of the void made him jealous. Instead of sending a tremor through him, it was as if he were being yanked back by the gravity of a black hole.

He had to shout for his Umbramare to resist being pulled back into the pit of blackness that opened behind them—so dark and perfectly empty that it stood out even among Nicolas’s shadows. He glanced back long enough to see one of the Authorities sucked into the darkness, feathers flying as its eyes swiveled wildly in surprise.

When Nicolas turned back to the battlefield, the first thing he was met with was a Principality with a raised sword. His Umbramare veered to the side, but the sword stopped mid-swing.

“Run, you fool,” Nicolas snapped as he passed, knowing he would have to reckon later with the fact that he had just intentionally saved an Astraelis’s life.

This Principality had the chance to get out of the way; others did not. As Orla joined him, Nicolas knew he could not risk another glance back, but the shadows looming over them revealed that both of the Authorities were in pursuit. The soldiers that didn’t dodge in time were violently knocked away by the Authorities’ wings.

“I hope Taddeas has a fucking plan,” Orla panted.

A voice rang out from the battlefield, so loud and clear that it must have been amplified by magic. “Their ranks have fallen! Flank them!”

He had been chased by Authorities before. He knew the acrid smell of their breath—like a mass of rotting fruit and corpses. Nicolas waited until the smell was overwhelming before yanking his Umbramare to the side. The uninjured Authority moved with too much momentum. The Principalities who had not managed to get out of the way turned their swords on it, but there was little their weapons could do, and they knew it.

“If you value your lives, steer it toward us!” Nicolas shouted, hoping his message would be heard by any Principalities loyal to the Messenger.

At least one mage in the crowd obeyed. A wave of shimmering golden magic diverted the Authority’s path. As it was pushed to the side, it sounded as though an enormous cloud of birds had taken off in a panic.

“No one back home is going to believe this!” Orla shouted with a delirious laugh.

“No one will hear the story unless we survive,” he yelled back.

When he summoned his shadows again, they were not a shroud of darkness, but a dark mass with wings and horns—just like the Second.

It was a bait that the Authorities could not resist. Both of them were bloodied as they turned to the illusion, buying everyone else on the battlefield a moment.

Nicolas hoped that the agreement he had made with Taddeas decades ago on a bench in Thompson Square Park had been wise. The first bad sign was when he and Orla crested the hill and found…no one. Taddeas’s troops should have already been in his sight line.

Orla did not slow as she shouted at Nicolas from ahead. “If Taddeas ends up being another poor choice for a Dark Saint, Knowing One, I swear to the Second and all that he stands for that I will kill you and take your title for myself?—”

She did not get the chance to finish her thought.

A red flare rose between the hills, the color of Taddeas’s magic, but the Authorities were back at their heels. A wave of air from their wings nearly knocked Nicolas’s mount off balance, but in the distance, he spotted the place Taddeas must have been directing them to.

Two hills rose close together, leaving a narrow pass between them. If Taddeas was attempting to funnel the Authorities into a choke point, this wouldn’t do—the Authorities were large, but they would still have no trouble making it through the gap.

“Where are our damn soldiers?” Orla hissed. She turned, sending another void behind her, but this magic always drained her energy. One of the Authorities’ wings was clipped by the black hole that opened in the air and disappeared just as quickly. Aside from a flurry of feathers, its advance continued.

Nicolas spotted that Orla was going to be ambushed before it happened. A Throne appeared overhead, drawing her attention up and giving an Authority the chance to flank her.

“Orla!” Nicolas shouted as she threw herself from the Umbramare a moment before the Authority’s enormous mouth swallowed the creature whole. Nicolas slowed to let Orla reach him and climb on, sending another wave of shadows to obscure the Authorities’ vision. But by the time they were running again, he knew it would be too late to escape.

Another flare went up.

He pushed his mount toward it, with Orla clinging to his waist. She said nothing, but he could feel her rapid breaths against his back, coming as fast as the Umbramare’s hoofbeats. By the time they reached the pass, the Authorities were on them again. Even with the curse on his heart lifted, his Umbramare wouldn’t tire quickly, but there were still limits to how hard he could push it.

“Where is everyone?” Orla snapped again, though her voice sounded weak against Nicolas’s back.

By the time they reached the other side of the pass, Nicolas swore he could feel the tickle of wings against the back of his neck.

Then, the world exploded.

Both he and Orla were thrown forward, and in the shock, Nicolas could no longer maintain control of his magic. The Umbramare disappeared, melting back into the shadows. The ringing in his ears was so jarring and sharp that it was near impossible to find his balance as he scrambled to his feet. Orla lay in the grass to his left, blinking rapidly. Her helmet had been knocked askew by the fall, revealing a cobweb-thin line of blood trailing from the corner of her mouth.

Where the pass had been was now a mountain of rubble, heaving as the trapped Authorities thrashed beneath it. The hills to either side looked as though someone had scooped them out, emanating a faint red glow—the same color as the signal flare they had seen in the sky moments ago.

“Taddeas better hope he was right about the Messenger’s soldiers having the advantage now. That magic will have drained the hell out of him,” Orla muttered, drawing her sword as she pushed herself to her feet, still swaying slightly.

Before Nicolas could respond, the mystery of where Taddeas’s troops were hiding was solved. An army of soldiers in black armor came pouring over the hills, like a wave of Nicolas’s shadows. He too drew his weapon, just as the first Authority in the pass managed to throw an enormous boulder off its wings.

“Don’t let them get up!” Nicolas commanded to the charging army.

For the first time—aside from when Aleja had fought an Authority alone—the Otherlanders had the chance to take them down without sacrificing one of their own.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Aleja muttered.

“Stop it. You’re giving me anxiety,” the Messenger snapped. She was clearly more capable on her elk, but her size forced it to slow—when pushing their mounts as hard as they could, the Messenger could barely keep pace with Aleja and Garm.

“I thought you said that you were sending a peace convoy!”

“I did,” the Messenger replied. “Unfortunately, things did not go as planned.”

“Mutineers,” Aleja whispered.

“That seems likely.”’

“If you can’t even control your own armies, then how the hell am I supposed to trust you to help me stop the Avaddon?”

Is it always fucking morning in the Astraelis Realm ? Aleja thought. She squinted into the horizon, but it was as if this world was designed to place the sun in her eyes at all times.

“The fig in your backpack will help us resolve that question,” the Messenger said. “We’re getting close to the border. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer dismounting, so we can saunter up with my blade to your throat? The Otherlanders might be more inclined to forgive you if it looks like you’re my hostage.”

She had been avoiding the fact that everyone in the Hiding Place probably hated her now. Aleja almost agreed, but her jaw clamped shut before she could speak. Although she could not see the Messenger’s eyes, she could practically feel them rolling behind her mask.

“By the First, you’re still as sanctimonious as ever,” the Messenger said.

“You have no idea what I’ve done.”

“Actually, I am quite aware. And I take back what I said. To be sanctimonious, your morality would have to be consistent. Would you like me to help you save face or not? I am not offering out of the goodness of my heart.”

“No,” Aleja eventually said. “We ride in together. I might need to use my magic.”

“I know this is a big ask for the Lady of Wrath, but I have precious few loyal soldiers left. It would be much appreciated if you avoided killing as many of them as possible.”

“I’ll do my best.” The words came from Aleja’s mouth a moment before she smelled the battlefield. It was, surprisingly, not blood that hit her first, but sweat and a hormonal tang that reminded her of fertilizer. Then came iron, magic, and finally, smoke.

She tried to slow her elk, but it did not respond to her command until the Messenger gave another low whistle. The climb down the elk’s saddle was clumsy and ungraceful, but in Aleja’s desperation to reach the fight, she could not be bothered to care about the Messenger’s snort.

“What happened to your sword, Wrath?” the Messenger said, pointing her chin to the stiletto blade Aleja pulled from her sash. “Don’t tell me the Knowing One lets you charge into battle with that thing.”

“The burn scars on half your army prove it’s not my only weapon,” she snapped back.

“A fair point. Let’s see what kind of diplomatic nightmare we’re dealing with.”

Aleja ran to look at the scene below. The Astraelis that remained upright moved slowly, leaning over the bodies of the dead. A gutted Throne lay at the far end of the battlefield.

“Ah,” the Messenger said, coming to stand by Aleja’s side. “It seems we’re too late.”

“Are those your soldiers looting the dead down there?”

“I should hope so, but fear not. There are plenty more mutineers; there’s no need to give up hope that one of them might fell me yet.”

A bright red flair shot into the sky. Aleja nearly took off toward it, before the Messenger’s large hand clamped down on her shoulder, yanking her back. “That’s Otherlander magic,” Aleja hissed.

“Exactly. You’re not in their best graces. What if your darling husband is not the first to spot you?”

“I’ll take that risk,” Aleja said, breaking free from the Messenger’s grasp. “Garm, stay with her. Keep your eyes on everything she does.”

The Messenger gave a bored humph. “Suit yourself. I should regroup my troops. Don’t die with those figs in your backpack. It would be unfortunate if they were to fall into the wrong hands.”

“Fig,” Aleja said, “I only took one, like you told me to.”

“You’re an Otherlander. That is impossible. Go.”

Aleja didn’t answer. As she ran uphill, her legs burning from the climb, she spotted a number of black-clad soldiers on the flatlands below. She didn’t need to be a military genius to know their commanders were likely on higher ground. The landscape was littered with enormous boulders. Large feathers in pastel shades clung to blood smeared across them.

“Tadd?” Aleja shouted, spotting a large axe on the grass at the top of the hill. Beyond it lay a large man sprawled sideways in the dirt, his braids falling over his face. Silmiya was crouched beside him, tending to his injuries.

“Stay back, Wrath,” Silmiya snarled.

“What’s going on?” Aleja asked, relieved that Silmiya hadn’t immediately drawn her weapon.

Her voice was drowned out by the heavy beating of wings—so familiar that she let out an involuntary sigh of relief.

Nicolas landed with his sword drawn. As he descended, the dark fire painted his face in warped shadows—shades of red, deep blue, and a strange flat gray that made him look every bit the Otherlander of nightmares. The devil that had haunted the dreams of every Ruiz since Aleja’s great-great-grandfather made their family’s bargain with him.

“Lady of Wrath,” Nicolas said, his voice cold and commanding, the same tone he had once used with Val while the traitor wasted away in the Hiding Place’s dungeons. “You’re overdue for your debriefing. Come with me.”

Both Silmiya and Taddeas—who had recovered enough to sit up and pinch the bridge of his nose—looked up. Aleja studied Taddeas’s face closely. Of all the Dark Saints, save for Bonnie, she was closest to him. He had trained her to wield her fire, guided her step by step on the path to reassuming her role as the Otherlanders’ High General. Hell, he had even walked back his decision to leave his post because she had begged him not to.

“Everything will be explained to you soon, High General,” Nicolas said before Taddeas could speak. Aleja didn’t think she’d ever been more grateful to hear any words in her life. “Come on, Wrath.”

She couldn’t bear to wait for Taddeas’s answer. She took off after Nicolas, moving as fast as she could without making it obvious that she was breaking into a jog. She didn’t look back, even when she heard Taddeas and Silmiya murmuring behind her.

As they descended from the hill’s summit, Nicolas remained silent. From her position behind him, his wings blocked her view of his face, though he occasionally cast a glance back her way. It took only a few seconds for Aleja to realize there was no chance of being alone here. Yet when Orla approached from the other side of the hill, Nicolas barked, “Gather and organize the troops. The Messenger is on the battlefield.”

The look Orla shot Aleja was so venomous that Aleja’s mouth filled with a bitter taste.

“You’re in command for the next fifteen minutes,” Nicolas continued, his tone bored. “And it would reflect poorly on you if the Otherlander armies entered their first-ever convoy with the Messenger looking like a rabble.”

“Convoy?” Orla asked.

“If we’re lucky. A slaughter if we’re not. Only our Lady of Wrath can offer that kind of insight. So, if you please, give us a moment.”

When Orla spoke next, she addressed Aleja directly. “I don’t know what shit you’re up to, but you better get your story straight for the other Saints. I know what it’s like to be the villain, Aleja, and it’s not pretty.”

“That was…surprisingly nice of her,” Aleja said once they were out of earshot. It was all she could muster. There had been many times in her life when the scope of a conversation felt so large that she couldn’t find a place to start.

Nicolas’s mouth was on hers before she could worry about what to say next. He tasted like war—a mixture of blood, iron, magic, and shadow. And damn her, like the desperate heroine in some gothic romance novel, Aleja melted into him as the marriage bond flared to life with almost painful urgency. When Nicolas pulled her closer, she let herself fall against his chest, raising her hands to the base of his skull to tangle them in his messy black hair.

“Are you okay?” he muttered.

Aleja noticed the murky shadows surrounding them, shielding them from view. “Yes. I have so much to tell you—Val, and the Third—he all but confirmed the Avaddon. And Violet, and fuck, the Messenger brought me to the First Tree, and in my bag, I have these figs that?—”

Nicolas kissed her again, brief and hard. “We’ll have time for that later. Are you okay ?”

“I don’t know!” Aleja whispered, her words so close to his mouth that they felt spoken through their bond. “Physically, yes. Mentally? I’d need a damn thesis to answer that question. The world is ending, Nic, and our greatest enemy has convinced me that I’m the only one who can help stop it. Less than an hour ago, I was standing beneath the First Tree, talking to a snake, and I?—”

She ran out of breath before she could finish, but it didn’t matter. Aleja closed her eyes, too weary to complain that his armor was uncomfortable against her cheek. If their positions had been reversed, she wasn’t sure she could have stopped herself from asking about the Avaddon, the First Tree, or the personification of death trapped in a cage at the Messenger’s house, guarded by who knew what. Aleja had always understood that Nicolas loved her more than he loved…the universe, probably. But this was one of the moments when she truly felt it.

“I was so worried about you,” Nicolas whispered into her hair.

“I’m sorry I ruined everything.”

“That has yet to be determined, Lady of Wrath,” Nicolas said, though he was still speaking in the tone of a husband, not a commander. “You may not be my High General in title now, but I still trust you as if you were. And you need to trust yourself. Look me in the eye and tell me you believe that you made the right move.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Because I know you, Aleja. And there is no better strategist among the Otherlanders. So, what’s our next step?”

Aleja let out a shaky breath. “Well, two things. I’m not sure if you’re going to like either of them.”

“Oh?”

“Well, I have a fig from the First Tree in my bag. The downside is that the snake who gave it to me also claims all it will tell me is that the Avaddon can’t be stopped—but it will give me the location of the First.”

She nearly went on to tell Nicolas about the second fig but stopped. Aleja realized she still needed time to consider what she wanted to do about that particular piece of fruit. She would tell him, but not until she knew whether or not she was going to eat it and regain her memories. She didn’t think she could bear to see disappointment flicker across his eyes if she decided to let the damn thing rot.

“And the next thing, dove?” he asked.

“Oh. That.” Aleja cleared her throat. “Well, as you’ve noticed, the Astraelis armies are in disarray, but—if the Avaddon is stoppable—we can’t possibly do it without the Messenger and Val’s help. We need to offer her and her allies refuge in the Hiding Place.”

At the mention of the fig and the First Tree, Nicolas’s eyes had hardly widened, but his wings twitched before Aleja could finish her sentence. “That’s going to be a hard sell, dove.”

It was not just surprise that flickered through the marriage bond. It was a kind of revulsion Aleja had never felt in the magic that connected them before, and although she could tell it was not directed at her, the force of it still made a muscle in her abdomen flutter.

A dark realization hit her. This was why she was so hesitant to decide whether or not she was going to eat the red fig. It might help her in battle, but in this state, she couldn’t remember the war. She couldn’t remember if she had ever watched the Messenger kill one of her friends. Hell, she could barely remember the fear of knowing she was about to be executed. Could she still do this, if she knew the names and faces of Otherlanders she had loved who had fallen beneath Astraelis swords or magic?

Yes, because you’d have to, she told herself in a tone that reminded her of her missing little voice. But it would be so damn much harder.

“What we’re selling,” Aleja said, “is survival. We need to get the Messenger and her forces into the Hiding Place, and we need to let Val do his research in the desperate fucking hope that he’s able to tell us something useful before our time is up. We have a week, Nic.”

His teeth flashed in a grimace before he briefly looked away. “Keeping the peace will not be as easy as you imagine. Maybe the Dark Saints can be convinced to see reason, but not even I can control the thousands who take refuge there—many of whom have been in the Hiding Place for centuries and nearly all of whom know someone who was killed in the last war. What do you think will happen when the tension snaps and an Otherlander kills one of the Astraelis? What do you think will happen if the Astraelis decide to retaliate and kill an Otherlander?”

“We keep them isolated in the palace. We send everyone else away?—”

“The Astraelis will need to be housed. They will need to be fed. Their presence at the palace will not be a secret, no matter how much we try to keep it so. A worst-case scenario, Aleja? Otherlanders march on the palace, and we’ll have two choices: fight our own people or let them break our alliance.”

“That’s why we need to explain what’s at stake?—”

“Dove, half of the Dark Saints still believe you’re being duped by the Messenger. And we’re talking about the Hiding Place. As a whole, Otherlanders are natural rebels. The Knowing One and the Dark Saints have remained for so long only because we have always lived by the Second’s principles, valuing?—”

“Knowledge and free will,” Aleja finished for him. “I know . But whether we like it or not, Val is the only one who can figure this out in time, and the Messenger has the Third. So if you see some other way out of this, Nic, please, tell me.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Aleja didn’t think she’d seen him look this tired since the curse of his unfulfilled bargain had been eating away at his heart. The snake’s tail—the only part of his tattoo visible above his collar—seemed to writhe in mockery. Nicolas sighed.

“I’ll be able to convince Taddeas; he’s young, doesn’t remember the last war, and he believes Val. Amicia trusts you too. She’ll be on your side. Orla is a skeptic through and through, but if I can persuade her that the Messenger will be vulnerable in the Hiding Place and that it will place the Astraelis under our control, she might think it’s a good strategic move.”

“That’s good,” Aleja breathed. “That just leaves Merit and…”

“Merit will do whatever Orla tells him. It’s Bonnie who’s going to be a problem. I know she’s your friend, but she is the oldest of the Dark Saints. She has seen the cruelty of the Astraelis. And more than that, Bonnie has been the main driver of the food supply in the Hiding Place since time immemorial. There is no Dark Saint more trusted and loved by the Otherlanders.”

“What are you saying? Bonnie wouldn’t starve us out. She wouldn’t turn the Otherlanders against the other Dark Saints.”

“Of course not, but war makes people do strange things—makes people say things they don’t mean... Fuck. I can’t believe I’m about to agree to this. There’s no guarantee that the Messenger and I won’t kill each other before the world ends and leave the rest of the wicked business to you.”

Aleja’s relief had a weight to it, but it seemed to settle more deeply into her chest. Nicolas reached for her hand, threading his fingers between hers, but there was no comfort left in the bond.

“I’ll go talk to the other Dark Saints,” he said quietly. “We just took down two Authorities, and I doubt we’re going to catch them in a better mood than this.”

“I need to get back to the Messenger,” she replied.

Nicolas winced as if the words pained him. “Don’t eat the fig without me. I want to be by your side when you do it.”

“Of course, Nic,” she whispered.

With a fierce kiss to the side of Aleja’s mouth, Nicolas spread his wings.

She watched him until his silhouette disappeared over the hills, then turned to return to the enemies’ armies.