Page 19 of Each Their Own Devil (Our Lady of Fire #3)

The cage was uncovered now, the black Throne inside thrashing against the bars. True to his word, Garm had stayed at Val’s side, even when the others had been forced to draw the remaining Authorities away. The hellhound didn’t stop circling until he saw Aleja rushing toward them, her blade raised, slicing through the thin smoke that remained.

“What’s going on? Is it working?” she gasped.

“Val says yes!” Garm barked, his tail wagging violently. “This might actually happen!”

Before Aleja could warn him not to start celebrating, she felt a pull on the marriage bond so strong it was as if someone were yanking her heart out of her chest. With her ribs still healing, the pain nearly made her double over, but she understood the message: We can’t hold them back anymore. They’re coming.

“When did Val start? He said he’d need ten minutes,” she gasped.

Garm’s tail stopped wagging as he seemed to realize their odds had changed. “No more than three minutes ago. He killed an Authority on his own. He had to recover.”

Aleja looked behind her.

She wished she hadn’t.

From her vantage point on the ridge, she could see a quarter of a mile into the distance. The Umbramares and Astraelis elks moved like a herd of animals spooked into a stampede. There were so many Authorities in the air that the sky behind them was obscured—an apocalypse of eyes and wings, blotting out the blue of the realm. It was nearly impossible that one hadn’t already devoured one of their soldiers.

The enemy knew their plans.

But Aleja had promised Nicolas she would protect Val, and she had promised herself she would save the damn world and go to Italy. There might not be time to devise a plan to bring down dozens of Authorities, but perhaps the old Lady of Wrath could—and she was only a bite of fruit away.

Garm seemed to understand as she clumsily tugged at her zippers, her hands shaking.

“Will you have time?”

“Buy me a few minutes.”

“But—”

“I don’t know what I’m doing, but she might. Garm, go protect Val. If it comes down to saving one life—me or his—I swear to the Second and all he stands for, I will haunt you until the day you’re dismissed as a hellhound.”

Garm licked her face with his rough tongue. “Yes, Lady of Wrath,” he said. Although it did not entirely sound like a promise, there was no more time to argue and no more time to hesitate. The fig was soft and juicy in her hand, as ripe as it had been on the day she’d plucked it directly from the First Tree. Aleja’s hand paused as she brought it to her lips. She was about to die, in a way. The woman who had been this Alejandra Ruiz would be no more.

The juice was both sweet and bitter against her tongue. It tasted like coming home.

But as soon as she felt the sweet relief of it, there was a spike of pain and Aleja could not help the scream that tore out of her mouth.

“Stupid girl,” someone said, brushing Aleja’s hair out of her face. “You really shouldn’t have done that.”

Aleja tried to move, but every time she lifted her head, she feared she was going to vomit the bile churning in her stomach. “Where am I?” she managed.

But she already knew in her heart. She had been here before—what felt like a lifetime ago—when she was swallowed by the Remnant of an Authority in the well of the village where they had kept Violet. It was the inside of that locked door in her mind, the one that housed the person Aleja had invented long before she’d realized part of herself was missing.

“I need my memories to fight them. I need to be her, or Nic will die. Everyone will die,” she said. Even though she had forced her eyes open, there was nothing to see but a murky field of greens and blues, much like her grandmother’s dreamworld.

“How many times do we have to go over this? There is no distinction between the person who was and the person who is.”

Aleja blinked furiously, trying to focus, but the figure in front of her remained a blur of golden skin and dark red hair—a feature as unusual now as it had been in her nameless kingdom by the sea.

“Military tactics. I need my knowledge. I was High General. I need to be her again,” she choked out. Her head pounded worse than when she had eaten the first fig. Maybe her skull would explode and save her the trouble.

“Hm,” her indistinct self said pensively. “Then, as now, knowledge must be earned. Why do you think the Astraelis guarded the First Tree so zealously? Back when the world was young and the Astraelis and Otherlanders were one, they ate from the tree ravenously—until the serpent was forced to stop them. No Otherlander would ever admit it, but there are some things even our minds cannot comprehend.”

“Stop with the damn philosophy lesson,” Aleja snapped, though she knew these thoughts had come from her own subconscious. “Some of my friends are probably dead, and there will be a lot more if you don’t give me my fucking memories back now.”

“You may not like everything you?—”

“If we are the same, then it shouldn’t matter whether or not I have my memories.”

“It’s not that,” the other woman said. “What good do you think you’ll be on the battlefield when you wake up disoriented, overwhelmed by memories you cannot fully parse?”

“I’ll be fine,” Aleja said firmly. She had no choice. She had to be.

“You’ll suddenly be experiencing seven hundred years of pain, anger, and regret.”

“But also knowledge and experience. Do it,” Aleja shouted, her throat filling with the taste of bitter venom. How much time had already passed? Were Authorities surrounding her, unable to believe their luck at having so easily hunted down the Lady of Wrath?

When the woman reached out, her hand came sharply into focus. Aleja jumped back, summoning fire to her hands. Here, the fire burned in jewel tones—blurry sapphire blues and emerald greens, strikingly beautiful despite her desperation to return to the battlefield.

“I’m trying to help you,” the woman whispered. “I understand that it hasn’t been easy, hosting me all these years.”

“Save the apologies for later.”

“Exactly. I don’t think you know what you’re asking for. In both our self-interests, I’m not going to give you what you want. At least, not right away.”

“What? You can’t do that. I need?—”

“You’re right. You’ve already eaten the fruit; I can no more stop the memories from returning to you than you can stop the hordes of Authorities by asking them nicely. But I can take the memories for you, keep them here in this locked room, until you’re ready to receive them.”

“What the fuck?” Aleja screamed, unable to stop herself from hurling a wave of ocean-colored flames at her other self. Despite the cool tones of this world, conjured entirely by the fig, the fire burned as it did only when she was at her most wrathful. Her other self was unfazed.

A sob tore from Aleja’s chest as her fire sputtered out. “Please don’t do this. I need to save him. I need to save all of them.”

“You already can. The last Lady of Wrath didn’t know anything you don’t already know. I will give you your memories back, I promise, but it will be like waking from a dream?—”

“You can’t do this. I ate the fig. It was a gift from the First Tree to me—you can’t?—”

“My dear Lady of Wrath,” said the indistinct version of herself, in a tone dangerously close to pity. “As we’ve already rehashed several times during this conversation, we’re the same person. I’m not doing this to you. You’re doing it to yourself.”

With that, her other self rushed forward with such speed that Aleja was caught off guard. As she tumbled backward, the fall pulled her back to the world she had come from.

She opened her eyes to the scent of burnt feathers, smoke, and the metallic twang of magic. As she rolled to her side, Aleja realized she was on the edge of a precipice that hadn’t been there a moment ago. To her left was a gaping void—like the ones Orla summoned—from which came the sound of screaming.

“What the hell are you doing, Wrath? Wake up!” Orla shouted. Her Umbramare, lighter and quicker than the others, had been the first to reach Aleja. But she could feel the ground vibrating beneath her from the approach of the others.

“Where are?—”

“Taddeas and his armies were forced to retreat. Where is Val?” Orla barked.

“We need to buy him more time.”

“That’s not what I asked. Your orders were to guard him. Why have you abandoned your post?”

Aleja didn’t have a good answer for this. Desperation had driven her to take a bite of the red fig, and she’d gained fuck all. “I can help,” she said weakly.

“I have no problem pulling rank on you. Go, Wrath. Protect Val. We’ll do all we can to lure them away,” Orla said, turning her Umbramare away before Aleja could argue.

As she ran back down the hill, Aleja searched her memories, but there was nothing new—only the slightly hungover feeling she’d had the last time she ate the fruit of the First Tree. Garm was there to greet her as she made it back to Val’s position.

The hellhound stood over the body of a mutineer who must have made it down the hill ahead of the others. Half of the Principality’s mask was torn off, exposing a pale cheek. Garm’s helmet was smeared with blood.

“How much time does he need?” she asked.

“Eight minutes,” Garm barked, “but Val hasn’t spoken in a while.”

Her legs shook beneath her. This was taking too long. She clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms, as if pain could anchor her—could make up for the helplessness clawing at her chest. Aleja’s eyes shot to where Val had stood by the Third’s cage. He was on his knees now, swaying slightly. The Third was in a similar state—lying on his side in the cage, taking rattling breaths. The eyes that usually blinked unevenly from his wings were slow and hazy.

In front of Val, a cavern had opened. It was strikingly familiar, though it took Aleja a moment to recognize it. She’d seen it before—during her second Trial, when she and Violet had fought over the First’s glass heart.

“We have to get Val down there,” Aleja muttered.

“How?” Garm whined.

“I’ll take care of him,” she said, with little idea how. “Can you pull the Third’s cage?”

“Yes,” Garm said, but the battle’s scent had reached even her nose. “But the others?”

“Help me get him and the Third down there, then you can come back up. My orders are to make sure the ritual is completed.”

“You got it, boss,” Garm said, though his voice lacked its usual confidence.

“Garm, listen. The Avisai who helped me is injured in the field where I fought the first Authorities. When this is over, make sure Nicolas goes to help her, okay?”

“Don’t talk like you’re not going to be here after this,” Garm growled. He looked like he wanted to say more, but instead, he darted the last few feet to the Third’s cage and grabbed one of the handles with his enormous jowls.

Inside, the Third barely reacted, flexing his claws uselessly.

Aleja was quick to Val’s side, taking hold of his hand. “Listen,” she whispered desperately. “You’ve almost done it. The First’s chamber is open, but the battle is coming. You need to complete the ritual down there. Will you let me lead you?”

“Mother?” Val asked weakly.

“No. It’s the Lady of Wrath. Come with me.”

“I’m not sure I can—everything hurts?—”

“Just a few steps forward, then we walk downhill, okay? This is almost over.”

The heavy sound of wingbeats was already approaching—a deep, rhythmic thud. Aleja wondered if it was the bite of the fig urging her to turn around and rush toward the advancing army—her old self coming to life within her—but she forced her feet to move, dragging Val along. The downhill slope helped propel them forward, but even with her new Dark Saint strength, it was difficult to haul him. She was easily two heads shorter and likely half his weight, and Val stumbled as though drunk.

“Is this interrupting the ritual?” she asked.

“No,” Val gasped, sparing a glance at Garm, who was dragging the Third’s cage with his massive jowls. “He agreed to let me channel him.”

“What?” Aleja paused, despite the weight of the moment bearing down on her.

“Well, it was easier than if he hadn’t agreed,” Val muttered. “You can thank Violet for that. But channeling death isn’t pleasant, and I can only hold on to this for a few minutes longer before I succumb myself—and then no one will be happy.”

“You know how to get the First to appear, though, right?”

“I—I have a very good idea of how I can do that. Just get me down there.”

A few more yards brought them to level ground, but by then, Aleja could hear the sounds of battle overhead. When the ring of sunlight above was suddenly overcome by shadows, she felt a flicker of relief. Nic was still up there and in control enough to use his magic.

“How long will this take?” she asked. “Your mother is out there too.”

“My mother,” Val spat, his voice suddenly sharper, “loves me without knowing how to love me. I’m not doing this for her—I’m doing it for me.”

“Enough talking,” Aleja said, though her voice cracked, burning tears rising in her eyes. Another wave of unnamed emotion swelled within her, too overwhelming to parse. “Let’s get this over with.”

They entered a chamber not unlike the one housing the Second, though it lacked the grand decoration of its counterpart. It was clear the Astraelis had not been here in centuries. Statues filled the room, reminiscent of the Venus of Willendorf—a curvaceous female figurine unearthed nearly thirty thousand years after its creation, representing bounty, fertility, and sensuality. But these statues were massive, towering magnitudes larger than the four-and-a-half-inch figure that art historians had studied for decades.

Aleja would have met them eye to eye if she hadn’t been hunched over, still supporting Val as they moved deeper into the chamber.

The statues filled her with an inexplicable warmth. Aleja had never known her mother. Once born with her dark red hair, it had been assumed she would be her family’s final sacrifice to the Knowing One. Her birth mother had run off, unwilling to raise a daughter doomed to die. Aleja understood, in a way, and she hadn’t needed her mother, not really. She’d had her grandmother, her cousin Paola, and later Violet.

Looking at these statues now, she realized mourning would have been pointless. She had always had a mother. Every living thing did. The First had been there for every tender newborn creature opening its eyes to the world and would remain until the last of them was ushered away by the Third.

“Val, are you sure this is the right thing to do?” Aleja whispered, her eyes locking on a rough-hewn stone sarcophagus in the room’s center.

With the fire around her left hand, she sent embers drifting toward ancient candle wicks, which sputtered to life with crackles and the smell of burnt dust. Garm dragged the Third’s cage the rest of the way down. Inside, the Third lay on his side, his ribcage rising and falling slowly. This deep, Aleja could no longer hear the sounds of battle above, nor did she dare reach out with the marriage bond, fearing she might distract Nic.

“Don’t get sentimental,” Val growled, his voice entirely unlike himself. “She is making you feel those things, just as much as the Second was able to trick your senses during your Trials. Get me to the sarcophagus.”

“Okay,” she breathed. It was only a few steps before she could no longer support Val, and he fell to his knees.

“Quiet now. You can let me go. I need to concentrate,” he whispered.

Aleja didn’t know what else she could do but step closer to the Third’s cage. Saliva matted the fur around his mouth and the mane beneath his chin. What had once been shiny black fur had dulled to matte gray, clumped together like scabs forming around open wounds. One of his claws was broken off. Aleja wondered grimly if a soldier had pocketed it—a macabre souvenir of the time their leaders had captured death itself.

As she placed a hand on the cage, a wave of vibration pulsed through her—not tender and sweet like the First’s energy, but cold and sour. The sensation traveled through her stomach and into her bones.

“Almost done,” Val whispered. “I just need a few more minutes.”

Aleja hardly heard him. Finally, she gave in and reached for the marriage bond, hoping for its familiar warmth, but the void she encountered was deliberate, like Nicolas had shut her out.

It seemed like ages until Val was back on his knees, drawing something on the dirt floor with the index finger of his remaining hand. When Aleja forced her mouth to open, it felt like her tongue was fused to the roof of her mouth. Each word came out raw.

“Val, everyone is probably dying up there?—”

“I know,” he said, trembling. Aleja recognized that tone and desperately hoped she was wrong; it was the voice of someone who had just realized they’d made a terrible mistake. “I can hear her. She’s so close, but she won’t come to me.”

“There has to be a way I can help. I was a witch before I was a Dark Saint. Just tell me what to do,” she snapped.

But Val could no longer speak. He slumped forward, his mask softening the impact of his head against the dirt floor, leaving only a muted thump.

“That was bad, right?” Garm whispered, his voice unusually subdued.

Aleja’s gaze shifted to the Third, whose deep voice rasped faintly from the cage. “The Astraelis was wrong…” he murmured. “The First cannot be forced to appear. She must be convinced.”

The Third’s voice matched his form, as if every word were dragged from the grave itself. His wings, with their weary eyes, now hung slack against the bars, tattered in the faint light.

“What do you mean? What do we have to do?” Aleja demanded. “You must know how to get her to show. Tell me, Third. You owe me. I gave you Nyra’s sickle back. I tried to warn you.”

The black Throne shifted slightly. “I’m trying,” he breathed heavily. “Nyra would want me to help you, and I?—”

“Just tell me what I need to do.”

“I can speak with the First. She is my sister—she gives life, and I take it away.”

“Then do it,” Aleja whispered fiercely.

“I cannot. Val has performed his magic correctly, but he won’t let me in. Not all the way.”

“Why not?”

“Because it will kill him. He always knew, but he thought he could find another path.”

Aleja’s next breath lodged in her chest, sticky and unyielding, like swallowing tar. “But he’ll die anyway,” she said quietly. “We all will.”

“He knows,” the Third said, his voice softening, “but he’s trying to fight it. He’s not ready.”

“Can you channel through me?” she asked, the words escaping before she could scare herself into silence. Before she could let the truth sink in. This choice meant she would never see Nicolas again. They would never dance in Italy. She would never patch things up with Violet, something she now wanted desperately, though she had denied it to herself for so long.

“Aleja?” Garm said, his head whipping toward her so quickly that his helmet shifted atop his broad skull. She had to ignore him. If she spoke to her hellhound, she would lose the courage to go forward.

“Answer. Can you possess me?” she asked the Third, sinking by his cage until they were eye level with one another—or would have been, had a blindfold not covered the upper half of his face.

“Yes,” the Third whispered. His breath carried the unsettling scent of cinnamon and overripe fruit. Though sweet, it was also rancid, clinging to the air like decay masked by perfume.

“Then do it. Enter me and speak to the First. Val will make sure the ritual is complete.”

“Al, no,” Garm growled.

Aleja finally found the courage to meet his eyes.

“I love you, Garm. You’re a good boy. Tell Nicolas that I wasn’t afraid, okay? Tell him that I’ll wait for him in the ultramarine realm. And tell Violet that I forgive her—and to eat the damn fig, if she hasn’t already. And tell the Messenger that she owes me in a way she can’t truly understand. If she wants to make it up to me, she’ll make peace with the Otherlanders.”

“Aleja,” Garm said again, his tone trembling with grief. But she had already turned back to the Third.

“Do it,” she told him. “I’m ready.”

The Third’s enormous jowls opened, as if he were about to speak again. For a moment, Aleja thought he might protest—but when they shut, she only had a heartbeat to brace herself.

The wave of cold that followed was like nothing she had ever experienced, seeping through her skin and into her core. The space between realizing what was about to happen and the moment it did stretched unnaturally long, as if the universe itself paused to acknowledge the gravity of her choice.

She had died before—almost twice, really, if she counted the snakebite that had nearly killed her. She remembered the black candle Nicolas had lit in his desperation, the bargain he struck to claim his Dark Sainthood and pull her back from the brink.

But this was different.

Death was not still nor gentle. She could feel something moving through her—scraping the inside of her veins like rough sandpaper. Even her thoughts hurt, like a sharp spike each time she wondered what the hell she was supposed to do next. She could distantly hear Val’s voice, but it was overshadowed by the Third, who used her body like a marionette.

Aleja’s mouth moved, but she had no control over it. “Hello, dear sister. It has been so long since we were together; come talk to me.”

Her body dropped to its knees, but Aleja couldn’t tell if this was because she was rapidly losing strength or because the Third had forced her down. A distant part of her remembered Nicolas’s words from long ago: You don’t bow, you don’t kneel, for anyone or anything else.

And, to date, she hadn’t. Even when she had faced the Second, she had stood her ground, submitting to no more than a handshake.

“Sister, please,” the Third said, as her vision filled with the ultramarine blue of his realm. It was the same color as the sky in the painting of Orpheus and Eurydice that Nicolas had made in the grief of her absence. She wondered if he would search for her in the Third’s realm. She wondered if, this time, he would ever accept returning empty-handed again and again.

“We cannot be in the same place for long, little brother. Don’t you remember?” came a deep female voice from beneath the rocks. It was enough to quicken Aleja’s pulse, reminding her that her blood hadn’t entirely frozen yet.

“Nonsense. We have always existed in the same place; I could not reap if it were not for the richness of your soil and the sweetness of your sun. Sweetness that will soon be going away. Let us talk. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

There was another silence, so complete that Aleja could hear her blood rushing through her skull. If Garm and Val were speaking, their voices were beyond her now.

“It does,” the First said quietly. “But it shouldn’t scare you. We will sleep, and one day, some small being will open its eyes and see light for the first time, and when it sees light for the last time, you will be the one to usher its tender soul away.”

“We have nothing to fear, but they do,” the Third said in Aleja’s voice.

“All things die. You know that more than anyone.”

“But they don’t have to this time?—”