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

“There is no reason to fear knowledge, as long as you are the only one to hold it.” —The Book of Open Doors , Part I: The First Gate

That evening, Nicolas kissed her so desperately that she was forced backward onto their bed, tumbling together as if they were one of the beasts of flame and shadow. Garm had whined as they closed the door behind them, but the tap of his nails had disappeared several minutes ago, leaving only the beat of Nicolas’s heart as she clawed off his shirt to reveal the black snake tattooed on his chest, still tortured by thorns.

“You did good,” Nicolas whispered against her mouth, pulling away only long enough to let the words fall before burying his face into the crook of her neck to nip at the skin there, still marred by scars. Aleja arched against him, one hand reaching blindly for the gauzy black drapes surrounding their bed. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment they had reclaimed this room, with a painting of their past selves watching them from above, slashed by the claws of their enemies.

Aleja wanted to ask if those men had deserved to spend the rest of their lives running, but it was already clear from the devotion in his silver eyes what he thought of the situation. You’re a Dark Saint now , she told herself, trying to sound like the inner voice she’d lived with for twenty-three years. It’s your job to bring wrath unto those who have earned it. You should feel no more guilty than a storm passing over a village.

Nicolas must have noticed that her breaths had gone silent. “Dove?”

“Did I do the right thing?” she asked, turning her face into the sheets. They were fresh but smelled faintly of vanilla and the incense that burned constantly throughout the palace.

“Did Josephine deserve to feel safe?”

“Yes, of course, but I don’t think I’m exactly qualified to dole out judgment.”

“The Second would not have allowed you to take the Trials if he believed you were not worthy to be a Dark Saint. Neither would I have.” He crawled up her body so he could take her chin in his hand. She met his eyes without protest, wondering how she had ever shrunk away from the intense silver of his irises.

“You’ll get used to it,” he went on. “And if you don’t, you’ll figure out your own way to be a Dark Saint. We all do.”

“Okay,” Aleja breathed.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.”

She tilted her head up in invitation, and Nicolas was never one to miss an opportunity. This kiss was more tender than the first; he scooped a hand beneath the arch of her back, pulling her against him. As he coaxed her mouth open again, he tugged at the bond with a silent question. With a shudder, she understood how desperate he was to touch her skin. She felt the way he wanted to devour her until they were indistinguishable from one another.

Nicolas’s clothes slipped away easily until they were pressed against each other. She moaned in protest when Nicolas pulled back until he was kissing his way down to her nipples, taking each one in his mouth for a brief moment before drifting lower and burying his face between her legs. Aleja was so slick already that there was no resistance as he pushed two of his fingers into her, pumping in time with the lazy strokes of his tongue. His other hand made its way to her stomach, pressing down as if she might try to scramble away.

And she did, after the first orgasm raced through her, deep and intense from the curl of Nic’s fingers inside of her and the lavish way he lapped at her clit. She expected him to crawl back up the bed and fuck her until the bond overwhelmed them and they came together, but Nicolas did not relent when she gasped his name, half-heartedly trying to push his head away from her sensitive core. But it wasn’t a full-throated attempt, and Aleja relented when he lowered his head again, tasting her until the sensitivity passed and she was moaning again, her back arching in a sharp curve off the bed.

He didn’t rise until her inner thighs were quivering from a second climax and every touch made her flinch with a pleasure that was almost too much to bear. “Sleep,” he muttered against her hair, as if his erection wasn’t pressed firm against her thigh.

“No, you should—let me?—”

“Sleep,” he said again. “That magic took a lot out of you, and we have a meeting first thing in the morning.”

It was the first she had heard of it, but a profound wave of exhaustion proved Nicolas right. Aleja had barely turned onto her side so he could curl around her before she drifted away to dreams of fire, shadow, and great wings beating against the sky. In a locked box, at the other end of the room, a chunk of bone torn from the body of a dead angel lay dormant.

The presence of the librarians around the palace was strangely exciting. Aleja liked the soft shuffle of their robes and the ever-present rustling of pages, like a gentle draft that moved through the halls. But when she greeted them over her rushed breakfast, they scattered at the sight of her.

When she asked Nicolas about it, he had waved a hand. “Can I be honest, dove? You always liked to…talk to them. About art. History. Whatever was on your mind. I think they’re afraid you might distract them from their work.”

“Oh,” Aleja said, frowning. “So, I was a nerd back then too.”

“I’m afraid so,” Nicolas said with a grin.

Though this was the last time Aleja attempted to bother the librarians, it was not the last she saw of them that morning. They seemed to favor Nicolas over her, trailing after the Knowing One with their oversized, rickety carts piled high with books, whispering in hushed tones. Aleja couldn’t understand why their news failed to bring her any relief. So far, there was no mention of the Avaddon in their texts. In fact, there was no indication that anything like the Avaddon had ever happened—or even could happen.

“I need to warn you about something before the meeting,” Nicolas said, as the librarians took another look at Aleja and scattered. Moments later, realizing they had left their cart behind, they returned, dragging it away together with the discordant patter of their mismatched footsteps.

“Gods,” Aleja said. “If you’re going to tell me I was even more socially awkward in the last life than this one, don’t worry, I’m way ahead of you.”

“It’s not that. It’s about our meeting with the other Dark Saints; it’s unlikely the librarians haven’t already spoken to at least Orla. By now, all of them will know that there is no evidence of the Avaddon.”

Aleja tried to swallow but gave a low, choked sound instead that she was glad no one but Nicolas was around to hear. “They won’t believe me, will they?”

“I can’t say what the Saints will do. You can count on Taddeas to give you the benefit of the doubt, but the others might not be so keen.”

“I know they don’t trust the Messenger,” Aleja interjected, but Nicolas was already speaking.

“It’s more complicated than that. You were tricked by her before. The war went on for decades, Aleja; there are hundreds of stories that you don’t know. But toward the end, you had the chance to kill the Messenger’s top general, her second-in-command, but she offered you a prisoner exchange instead. The prisoner in question was a woman from Orla’s command. You wanted so badly to save her and…it was an ugly scene in the end.”

“It was my fault?” This time, the sentence was hardly a rasp. Aleja wasn’t even sure if she meant it to be a question or not. A shudder ran through her as the full weight of Nicolas’s words settled—something cold and jagged clawed its way up her throat.

“No,” Nicolas said firmly. “There are no good choices, and you took the option that you believed would save Otherlander lives?—”

“But it didn’t,” Aleja snapped. “Why didn’t you tell me until now?”

For a moment, it seemed as though Nicolas was about to argue, but then the corner of his mouth twitched. “There was no reason to. There are thousands of stories from the last war, and last night, you needed to be thinking straight. The Messenger appealed to your sense of mercy.”

“And now you think I’m falling for it again?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” he repeated, teeth flashing. The gray streak in his hair scattered as he ran his hands through it. “There were times when you tricked the Messenger too. In fact, far more of the latter. The point is that it will be harder to convince the others.”

“Convince the others? I don’t even know if I can convince myself!” Aleja said, raising her arms. She wanted to pace, but the librarians had left behind tall ziggurats of books even in the throne room, and she was blocked in every direction.

“Breathe,” Nicolas said. “It’s different this time. We have the Messenger’s son, and the Messenger has the Third. The stakes are different. We are different. If you believe the Messenger, then I trust you.”

“I’m not sure if I trust me?—”

“You can,” Nicolas said firmly. “Your instincts have always been your greatest strength. We’ll deal with the others. Just look me in the eyes and tell me that you truly believe that Val and the Messenger are telling the truth about the Avaddon.”

Aleja was finally able to take a proper breath, but it was not satisfying, nor did it alleviate her lightheadedness. “I— No. I don’t trust her, but gods, I hate to say it—I trust Val. And, in a fucked-up way, I trust Violet. She’s a traitor, but… I don’t think she would have done it unless she saw something that made her believe that the Avaddon was coming.”

“Then, okay,” Nicolas said. “We’ll convince the others.”

“Will we?” she whispered back.

Nicolas’s fingers grazed her hair. “It won’t be easy. And although I have never made it a habit to lie to the Dark Saints, you hold no such obligations. If there are things you need to keep secret until you have enough evidence—until you’re sure?—”

“Hush, Nic. Don’t forget that they can overthrow you. I need you to promise me that you won’t burn the world down again for my sake.”

“You could ask almost anything of me, but that is the one promise I will never make you. I want to visit Amicia first. See you in the war room in twenty minutes.” Nicolas’s tone was firm but edged with something Aleja couldn’t quite place—regret or resolve, perhaps.

“Is she going to be okay?” Aleja asked, as they began the slow ascent back to their chambers above the throne room.

“Yes, but if I don’t reign her in, she’ll have a full harem in the healer’s quarters by noon.”

Garm tried to bound into the room before Nicolas could fully escape, forcing them to squeeze past each other. “Not on the bed,” Nic called from the hallway, but it was too late. A massive Doberman with floppy ears was already leaving splotches of drool on the satin sheets, squirming to get comfortable. He let out a low whine when Aleja stepped away, moving to the drawers in search of clothes from her human life that seemed appropriate for a war council.

“You saw Violet,” Garm said. Aleja’s eyes flicked briefly to the locked box containing the bone Violet had given her. Alongside it were the Astraelis fig a sick woman had paid in her bargain to the Knowing One and an Unholy Relic, sliced from Aleja’s own hand centuries ago.

“I did,” she said simply. Usually, she was comfortable keeping close counsel with Garm, but even mentioning Violet now felt like swallowing fabric that clogged her throat.

Garm yawned, baring sharp teeth before pawing at Nicolas’s favorite pillow. “Did she try to kill you?”

“No.”

“Then maybe she’s not so bad after all.”

“You’re too quick to forgive,” Aleja said. Garm could threaten to tear someone’s throat out two sentences before calling them his best friend. “Have you seen Bonnie yet?”

“Yes. She’s been in her cabin, cooking. I’m pretty sure she’s fried no fewer than thirty sausages since the sun came up. Even I had to walk away.”

“So, she’s coping perfectly well then,” Aleja muttered, fastening the last few straps of her armor over her clothes. She had lost her second weapon—a black sword nearly identical to Nicolas’s—in the last Trial, but the Knowing One kept an array of daggers tucked throughout the room. Aleja had quickly learned to test any cushioned surface before sitting down. Stuffed into an unused blanket in the armoire, she had found a thin stiletto dagger she could roughly place as from the Italian Middle Ages. The blade was too needle-like for her usual sheath, but it tucked comfortably into a red sash she’d looted from elsewhere in the palace.

“I visited your grandmother,” Garm said. Of all people, aside from Violet, her grandmother was the last person Aleja wanted to be reminded of at the moment. She had yet to learn if her grandmother knew she was a Dark Saint, and as far as Aleja was concerned, she was already fighting a war on one front. There was no reason to open another.

“What did she say?” Aleja asked reluctantly.

“She misses you. She can’t find your dreams anymore.”

“That’s for the better,” Aleja mumbled, shifting the dagger into place. “I’ll go visit her soon. Come on, we’re going to be late for the meeting.”

Perhaps it was the presence of all six current Dark Saints and the Knowing One that had wrestled the palace into submission. Though the painting-lined hallways—shifting and merging as if guided by some unseen intelligence—were often dangerous to roam, Aleja walked through the Gothic galleries with sure footing, Garm at her side.

The murmur of voices reached her only as she turned a corner and stepped into another era. Renaissance paintings of centaurs, women with tender eyes, and Roman gods draped in satiny red fabrics seemed to watch her as she approached Nicolas’s office.

Bonnie and Taddeas’s conversation halted the moment Aleja appeared. Two sets of weary eyes turned her way, and the heavy silence that followed told her that their discussion had likely centered on her. “Is everyone already inside?” she asked, aiming to steer the conversation away from any mention of her whereabouts.

“Yeah. I’ll see you both in a moment,” Taddeas said quickly. He slipped into the room with a swiftness that made it clear he intended to leave Aleja alone with Bonnie.

Aleja’s dark eyes moved to Garm. “Be a good boy and go inside, would you?”

Once the door with the stained-glass rose clicked shut, Bonnie’s shoulders slumped in a rare show of vulnerability. “What did Violet say?”

“The Trials were not kind to either of us, Bonnie. We had to betray each other in the second one. We both said and did horrible things, and I…” Aleja hesitated, choosing a carefully crafted shade of the truth. She had rehearsed this speech in her head, but time had been short, and even in her mental reenactments, it had never sounded convincing.

“That wouldn’t be a good enough reason for her to leave. She must have said something ,” Bonnie pressed.

“She thinks the Messenger is right, and we’re all going to die.”

Aleja had only seen Bonnie’s eyes harden a handful of times, and it was usually followed by large, thorny plants erupting from the earth to impale whoever had earned her anger. But this time, the expression vanished before Aleja could decide whether she needed to take a cautious step to the left.

“So, the Messenger really isn’t keeping her prisoner, then?” Bonnie asked.

“No.” Aleja shook her head. “I wish I could tell you more, but it all happened so fast, and?—”

Bonnie silenced her with a sudden hug, her arms flung tightly around Aleja’s neck. Beneath the rye-and-wheat crown woven in her hair, Bonnie smelled of warm bread, freshly tilled soil, and bright green tomato leaves. “Remember what you promised me,” she whispered. “Come on, let’s go to the meeting.” And just as quickly as the embrace began, Bonnie pulled away.

Nicolas’s office was empty, but Aleja knew the hidden hallway that branched to the left, leading to a war room unused for centuries until now. Bonnie trailed behind her, avoiding eye contact with anyone as she quietly settled into a seat next to a withered houseplant that instantly perked up in her presence. Though the table was round, Nicolas and Taddeas were unmistakably the focal points, their heads inclined together as they seemed to converse entirely through furrowed brows.

Across the room, Merit and Orla lounged in throne-like chairs. Merit, with his brown curls and angelically androgynous features, appeared distracted, idly twirling a strand of hair around his finger. His face and hands were smudged with gray soot from the forges at the army camp, from where he had evidently been summoned.

Orla, in contrast, fixed Aleja with a sharp gaze as she entered. Once adorned with bangles, her forearms were now encased in gold bracers set with emerald-green stones. Two gold ear cuffs rose into sharp points through her vivid red hair, giving her a fey-like appearance. The only Dark Saint absent was Amicia, presumably still under the care of the healers.

Aleja hesitated for a moment, unsure whether to sit or stand, before deciding that if she was going to be reprimanded, she might as well be comfortable. The chair scraped against the floor as she pulled it back and sat down. At the center of the table stood the figurines of the Astraelis—Thrones, Authorities, and Principalities—that had once made her feel as if she were staring at a double-exposed photograph. The miniature figures shifted subtly: Thrones tossed back their lion-like heads, while the many wings of the Authorities flapped unevenly.

A new figure had joined them: an enormously tall woman who might have appeared human if not for the circular, winged mask obscuring the upper half of her face. In her raised right hand, a sword glimmered with specks of gold and red. The Messenger’s figurine sat apart from the miniature battlefield, as though no one had known where to place her.

Aleja forced her gaze downward. Everyone in the room knew she had gone to meet the Messenger and then fled the battlefield with Violet, an almost-Dark Saint turned traitor.

“All right,” Nicolas began. “Let’s talk strategy?—”

Aleja’s relief was short-lived.

“No,” Orla interrupted. “Our Lady of Wrath left our last meeting to see the Messenger. We’re all eager to know how that turned out.”

Aleja—aware enough of politics to know that she couldn’t let Nicolas answer for her—cut him off before the first syllable escaped his lips.

“It’s okay, Knowing One,” she said, her voice steady despite the weight of so many stares. “It’s their right to know. The Messenger—and Val—claim that something is coming. It’s…an apocalypse. They call it the Avaddon and say it’s already happened many times, a cycle of creation and destruction. The Messenger told me that her armies can’t know the truth, but that she didn’t actually capture the Third to kill the Second. She captured him to kill the First. Based on Val’s research, it might be the only way to stop this Avaddon once and for all.”

The silence that followed wasn’t complete. On the war table, the Messenger’s figurine stood to the side, waving her flaming sword in circles as though she could fan the room’s growing unease.

“Does no one have anything to say?” Aleja asked.

Orla cleared her throat. “Yes, we all have a lot say.”

“Then say it,” Aleja all but shouted, immediately regretting her decision to antagonize not one of the Dark Saints, but potentially all of them.

“Does she already know about the last time she fell for the Messenger’s shit?” Orla said, looking to Nicolas. Despite the sharp tone, it didn’t seem meant to intentionally offend Aleja. By now, Aleja was beginning to appreciate Orla’s straightforward nature. If it were up to Bonnie and Amicia, she wasn’t sure she’d ever hear of her past failures.

“Yes,” Aleja said.

“You know, but you don’t really know ,” Orla continued, turning to face Aleja. “Believe it or not, I don’t take any pleasure in holding your missing memories over your head, Wrath, but I am begging you to see reason. The Messenger knows that, right now, you are the only Dark Saint she has any hope of deceiving. She has played to your sense of mercy before.”

“There’s something else,” Aleja admitted, knowing she couldn’t convince them without revealing the memory she had witnessed through the Unholy Relic. She glanced at Nicolas, who gave her a subtle nod. Carefully, she recounted what she had seen when channeling with the bone. By the time she finished, Orla was pinching the bridge of her nose.

“My past self would have known she’d been fooled by the Messenger,” Aleja concluded. “But she still chose to send me that memory. Back then, when the Messenger confided that she planned to kill the First, she had no idea I would be the one taking Nicolas’s punishment.”

“Your past self was distraught,” Orla said. “She had little time to decide what memory to leave—if she should leave one at all. I respect you, Wrath. I know we don’t always agree on every aspect of this war or the last but try to understand my reasoning. If the Messenger is lying to you, we are handing her victory on a silver platter. There will be no more Hiding Place. No more Otherlanders. No more Second. And no more humans who use his gifts. Complete and total annihilation.”

“And the alternative?” Aleja said, grinding her elbows into the table. “If the Messenger is telling the truth, we risk that anyway. If we survive the Avaddon, at least we have a chance to keep fighting.”

“There is no evidence for the Avaddon other than the word of the Messenger and her son. The Messenger is a master manipulator, and you, Aleja, are na?ve to her ways. Val could very well be a plant meant to introduce this ruse, and we’ve fallen for it. What’s your strategy, Wrath?” Orla continued, leaning back with her arms crossed. Her bracers clanged together with a heavy, dangerous sound.

This time, the silence that followed was absolute. Even the little figurines on the war table stopped moving. The Messenger’s sword lowered mid-swing. From the other end of the table, Nicolas fixed Aleja with a look—a mix of questioning and confidence. Without the marriage bond tethering them like a two-way radio, Aleja doubted she would have been able to interpret it.

“The Messenger thinks I can be convinced to help her kill the First and stop the Avaddon, if she then helps me kill the Second in a way that doesn’t destroy the Hiding Place. I…let her believe that might be the case. That I wanted revenge for what the Second has done to me,” Aleja said.

Her thoughts flickered back to the Second’s monstrous form as he had appeared to her after the last Trial—an enormous, horned beast that resembled the devils from medieval paintings far more than Nicolas ever had. She remembered the leathery feel of his skin under her palm as she agreed to deliver the Messenger’s heart, desperate to save Nicolas’s life. Still covered in his blood at the time, if she had been holding her sickle, she might have tried to kill the Second herself.

Orla raised a bright red eyebrow. “What did you tell her?”

“That I would consider it, of course. We know more about their position now. The Astraelis may have captured the Third, but without Val’s research, they’re at a standstill.”

“The Messenger would need a way to contact you,” Taddeas interjected. “How did she say she would reach out again?”

“I’m not sure. Only that she would get a message to me,” Aleja answered. She should tell them about Violet’s relic, but if she were sitting on the other side of this table, she would admit that her friendship with Violet compromised her judgment—no matter how many silent pledges she had made to think of Violet as the enemy. She stayed quiet, and despite the faint thrum of a question through the marriage bond, Nicolas said nothing either.

“I’ve had enough of letting the Astraelis dictate our war strategy. Let us not forget that we have the Messenger’s son in our dungeons. We’ve treated our prisoner with civility long enough. If I may, Knowing One, it’s time for torture,” Orla said.

“No,” Aleja snapped, the word leaving her lips before she could stop it. “I mean, we should think about this. If the Messenger is telling the truth, then we need her—and Val too. She cares for him. If we resort to torture, then any chance of a potential alliance is dead before it begins.”

“Alliance?” Orla scoffed. She was the only one to speak, but the rest of the room shifted uneasily in response—a discordant rustle of leather and armor grinding together. “There will be no alliance with the Astraelis—not now, nor ever. You would agree with me if you could remember.”

Nicolas crossed his arms over his chest, a move that felt like a prelude to intervention. Aleja tugged sharply on the bond, silently imploring him to stay out of it.

“The Astraelis cannot be trusted,” Orla went on. Aleja didn’t have to imagine that Orla’s voice cracked a bit. It was obvious. “ So many of my soldiers died at their hands. Not just in battle, but as prisoners of war, under circumstances when they should have been protected. Remember Roland, the previous Dark Saint of Pride? He became a war hero for breaking himself and his fellows out of an Astraelis prison, where they were tortured and starved for no crime other than defending their homeland. That was why the Second allowed Roland to take the Trials, despite his youth. I won’t defend Roland, especially after he aligned himself with our enemy, but I also can’t pretend that there will ever be a circumstance where I trust the Messenger and her followers.”