Page 16 of No Greater Sorrow (Our Lady of Fire #2)
The Knowing One touched his chin. Leaves crackled beneath his boots as he shifted his weight. “We can’t leave our armies alone any longer, not if the Astraelis are on the move. If the Third chooses to look for us, he’ll find us there.”
This time, Aleja was prepared for the feeling of taking too wide a step and losing balance. Garm pressed against her side to steady her as she blinked her eyes open, expecting to be back in the army camp.
Instead, they were in a forest.
A Throne tore through the clouds overhead.
Aleja was on the ground before registering that the Throne’s lower belly had been torn open. The tangled branches overhead saved them from a torrent of blood. One of the Avisai came barreling after it. When it struck the injured Throne, both tumbled and disappeared into the trees. Aleja didn’t see where they landed, but the impact sent leaves raining down.
“This can’t be—How are they already here?” Nicolas snarled.
The scent of charred flesh and smoldering wood filled the air. “Garm,” Aleja panted, pushing herself to her feet. “You’re faster. Go help the others. We’ll be right behind you.”
Garm bounded toward the source of the shouting.
Nicolas drew his sword, its black flames roaring to life. Making their way toward the sound of clashing troops wouldn’t be easy. The tree trunks were so thick that the gaps between them would force her and Nicolas to squeeze through single file. That was not to mention the vines. Every branch was choked with them, dropping low and limiting her view to no more than a few feet in every direction. There would be no using Umbramares here.
Nicolas was right. Bonnie could be terrifying when she wanted to be. And while this forest would be fantastic for slowing the Astraelis’ ground approach, Aleja and Nicolas were trapped in it too.
“Which way?” she gasped.
“Follow the sound,” he told her. He tightened his grip on the sword hilt, his knuckles straining against his skin. The blade crackled as he swept it through a layer of vines. As they burned, they filled the air with a plume of smoke that made Aleja immediately nauseous. She doubled over, coughing so hard that she almost didn’t notice Nicolas had also reacted violently.
He recovered quickly, pulling her away from the dissipating smoke. His voice was still raw, as if his throat was stripped of tissue. “Dammit, Bonnie! No fire unless we have no other choice.”
Another Throne ripped across the sky, tearing a chunk from the canopy and allowing moonlight into the labyrinth of trees. Aleja unhooked her sickle from her belt, the blade glinting in the light. As they moved toward the sound of fighting, she used it to hack away the thick vines, but another layer always waited. The process was so slow that all Aleja could picture were her friends’ faces, slack and covered with blood. When she spotted a figure moving among the trees, her hands nearly erupted with fire on instinct, but Nicolas tightened his shadows around them, hiding their bodies between the trees.
She crouched, at first thinking a Throne had been foolish enough to try to fight in a dense forest. But no. It was an enormous stag. A huge set of antlers erupted from the animal’s head—so wild and dynamic that they appeared to be expanding, as if Aleja was watching the explosion of their growth in real time.
Nicolas too was frozen in place, watching the black stag glide through the dangling vines. Something sweet, carrying a hint of cinnamon, replaced the scent of trees and moldy leaves.
“Come out, Knowing One. Your wife too. I’d hoped we’d had this talk for the last time,” said a soft voice.
“The Third,” Nicolas whispered. “We need to make this quick.”
As the stag grew closer, she saw that its massive antlers were dotted with eyes blinking at uneven intervals. Like the statue she’d seen in the second Trial, a blindfold was pulled tightly over the stag’s face. A dark line of blood dripped from beneath the ribbon, barely visible against glossy black fur.
An odd peace came over her. A cold peace, as if her inner voice had returned and whispered, It’s okay, darling. You can stop hurting now .
Nicolas squeezed her wrist.
The Third stopped when he was close enough for Aleja to smell his breath—cinnamon again, and the drunken heaviness of overripened figs. She blinked and the stag was gone; in his place stood a slight man wearing a heavy cowl that hung low over his face. The ribbon remained over his eyes, as did the blood—a single streak following the curve of his cheek. Only his lower face and hands were visible, but a myriad of embroidered red eyes blinked out from the fabric.
If the Knowing One was a force of nature, then the Third was something beyond that. He was the rules nature followed, the immutable law that all things die eventually. Yet nothing about his presence made her want to shrink back, even when he pointed at Nicolas and said, “I see the poison in your heart, Knowing One. You will be joining me soon.”
“That’s between myself and the Second,” Nicolas said. “The Astraelis are attempting to capture you. You must resist whatever methods they use to lure you to them.”
“I was coming for the woman. You snatched her away,” the Third replied, as if Nicolas had said nothing at all. His voice was low, like the thrum of the ocean.
“It was intentional. I needed to impart a message, and now I have. Please. Go .”
“You’ve caused enough problems for me, Nicolas. No doubt the Second feels the same. Would he complain if I took you back with me now?”
It was only Nicolas’s hand on Aleja’s wrist, squeezing gently against her pulse point, that kept her from defending him.
“The girl should have come with me. It was time for her to receive my gifts and find safety among those who have walked the path before her. No more warnings, Nicolas. You are the hand of the Second, remember that. It is your duty to maintain the order of things.”
“Tell that to the Astraelis. They plan to use you to kill the Second,” Aleja said.
The Third’s gaze snapped to her. “The Astraelis can do no such thing.”
“It’s true. Their scholars have found a way,” said Nicolas. “We were trying to warn you. We were desperate. Now, you’ve been warned. Leave, Third. You can return to punish me at another time.”
The Third appeared to consider this. He brushed away the line of blood that streamed from beneath his blindfold, only for it to be quickly replaced by another. Aleja wondered if these were his tears, some eternal sorrow for the dead, or if there were two gaping wounds where his eyes had been.
This is taking too long , she thought. The sounds of the battle were fading and it had been several minutes since the last Throne raced by overhead. Aleja pushed away the worst of her thoughts—that the Astraelis had easily overtaken the Otherlander armies, that Violet and the Dark Saints were dead, and Val had been imprisoned by his mother. And to make matters worse, she and Nicolas had managed to lure the Third directly into the Astraelis’s hands.
“This petty conflict between the Astraelis and the Otherlanders means nothing to me, Nicolas,” the Third finally said. “Until the last living creature takes its final breath, I will remain. Then, I too, will join them.”
“But if they trap you—” Aleja began.
“They will not have the opportunity,” the Third, giving her a soft smile. The candidness of it shook her. It was the kind of expression that was both tender and long-suffering, like one might give an old friend during a disagreement.
“But what if they do ?” she pushed on. “What will happen to the people you are supposed to help? You loved a mortal woman once, didn’t you? What if there hadn’t been someone to guide her?—”
Aleja stopped talking when she noticed Third’s smile had turned into a frown.
“Our Lady of Wrath. You’ve cheated death yourself, I see. May I look at that sickle?” the Third said, voice dropping an octave.
Aleja locked eyes with Nicolas, and when he nodded, she unhooked the weapon from her belt. The Third was careful not to touch her skin as he reached for it, but Aleja felt another wave of cold all the same. The Third shed cold as Nicolas did heat, but it wasn’t unpleasant—more like the first day of autumn after a long and blistering summer.
Ignoring the frown Nicolas sent in her direction, she said, “You can have it back if you promise to leave.”
“How did you know it belonged to me?”
“It didn’t belong to you. I wouldn’t have been able to wield it otherwise It belonged… it belonged to her, didn’t it? The human woman you loved. You had it made for her, so she could protect herself.”
She felt a small tug on the marriage bond—Nicolas asking without words if she had any idea what she was doing. Aleja didn’t answer because she had no fucking clue. Everything she’d told the Third was a guess, pieced together from the snippets she’d learned about him.
“I thought it lost to the human realm,” the Third said.
“It was in the collection of an occultist named James Thomson. At least, that’s what he called himself,” she told him.
“Yes, I remember him. He sent many witches to my realm. Was the fire that engulfed him yours?”
“Yes,” Aleja said, not knowing if she was making a terrible mistake. She had no idea how the Third felt about murderers—even those who did so in self-defense.
“Then, the sickle is yours.”
“I don’t want it,” she said. “It never felt like it belonged to me.”
The Third slipped the sickle into his robes and his hand reemerged empty. “Very well. In exchange, I can grant you a favor.”
Aleja felt a momentary swell of relief that the Third might actually listen to them, but her hopes were dashed when he continued by saying, “You carry a small box. Do you know what it contains?”
“No,” Aleja said, the word no more than a breathy exhale.
“The bones of a Dark Saint. Most never get to see their own skeleton, but you’re a special case.”
The answer hit her all at once. The glove belonging to her past self with its missing pinkie finger. “She created an Unholy Relic of herself. There might be memories…”
Aleja was desperate to ask another question, but the forest grew silent, except for the cawing of corpse-hungry ravens.
“Come. There is someone I must attend to,” the Third said, as if the knowledge he’d granted her was more than enough to make them even and he had nothing more to say on the subject.
“No. You have to go,” Aleja said, but the Third breezed away on bare feet like he hadn’t heard her.
Moving through the forest was easier with the Third ahead of them to clear a path. Nicolas did not let go of Aleja’s hand; perhaps he was still expecting the Third to punish him for saving Louisa. His usually warm complexion was washed out, as if all his color was migrating to the black ink on his chest. For a moment, Aleja was filled with a dreadful thought. Perhaps the Third hadn’t left because he was here for Nicolas .
They followed the Third to where a tree lay on its side against the ground, with its root network exposed like an enormous cobweb. Leaves partially obscured the creature whose fall had brought it down.
An Avisai must have torn open the Throne’s stomach. Although the bleeding had slowed, the wound opened into a dark purple mess. With every labored breath came a deep sound akin to a peal of thunder. Two massive wings in a spectrum of pale colors continued twitching, though it no longer seemed like those muscles were under the Throne’s control. Aleja knew she shouldn’t feel sorry for the beast, but it looked so mundane now—an animal that had been conscripted into a war, dying alone with its guts torn out by an enemy combatant.
The Third pulled his hood back, and his body changed once more. Another Throne now stood before them, black with eye-studded wings. The Third crouched low next to the corpse as it took its final breath and nuzzled their heads together with the tenderness of a mother comforting her cub.
“I’ll take my leave now. Thank you again for the sickle, Alejandra,” the Third said without turning to face them. “I will heed the warning you have given me. There is nothing more you can do.”
Before Aleja could sigh with relief, the world went pale.
It was the only way she could describe the way the shadows lightened. Nicolas reacted faster than she did, dragging her to the ground so quickly that it felt like her shoulder popped out of its socket. Wet leaves pushed against her open mouth. On instinct, she tried to raise her head to see what’d caused him to react so violently.
The shockwave hit her first.
Nicolas clamped a hand over her eyes, but the light sweeping across the forest was blinding through the minuscule gaps between his fingers. The prickle against her skin felt like vibrations.
That wasn’t to say they weren’t painful.
Aleja was sure her bones were being ground into dust inside her. She was never standing up again, not with her body so broken beyond repair. One of her childhood fillings cracked, flooding her mouth with the taste of metal and old rot.
She tried to speak, but it came out as a desperate wobble of a sound, inaudible over the cracking tree trunks. It felt as though the Hiding Place was finally falling apart. It had spent too long without its Dark Saints, and with a Knowing One who followed the rules only when it suited him. For the first time in her life, Aleja was afraid that the sky itself might shatter and fall on them in deep blue shards.
Then, everything stopped.
She could think, which meant her brain wasn’t as bruised as she’d feared. And could still move her arm, so she had bones that were keeping the rest of her body in place. It was a promising start. “Are we alive?” she gasped.
“I think so,” Nicolas answered. He didn’t sound particularly confident.
When she was able to crane her neck and look up, all Aleja could see were tree branches. They’d been lucky. One of Bonnie’s massive oaks had toppled over, and its canopy had formed a makeshift cage around them.
“What the hell was that?” she said, clutching the back of her neck. Everything hurt. All the leaves around them had vibrated off their branches, and most of the trees were either cracked or stripped bare. Overhead, the sky was a dark purple.
“I don’t?—”
“Knowing One. Lady of Wrath. Rise slowly, with your hands over your heads. If you attempt to use your magic, we will kill you immediately.”
The Messenger. Aleja recognized the soft voice, but her eyes couldn’t focus. The piece of herself that remembered training for a job at the Gentle Hearts caretaking agency chimed in that she probably had a concussion, yet her inner voice was silent.
Help me , she pleaded. Tell me what to do .
Nothing responded.
“I’m going to protect you, dove,” Nicolas said, so low that she knew it was meant for her alone. “Whatever happens, I’m going to protect you.”
The words pierced her heart like an arrow. Nicolas was afraid .
Ghost vibrations moved across Aleja’s skin. After her eyes cleared, she caught sight of three figures—Violet, Val, and the Messenger. Something large and black moved in her peripheral vision. The Third, still in this Throne form.
Run , she wanted to scream at him.
The Messenger held up her hands, showing she was unarmed. “No tricks, Knowing One. No one has to die, as long as you do not attempt to prevent us from taking him.”
“Let the human women go. They haven’t finished their Trials; they’re not Dark Saints yet. Do that and we can talk,” Nicolas said.
Aleja yanked on the bond in protest, but the realization of what he was trying to do hit her a second later. If he was to die here, he wanted Aleja to return to the others. To make one final push to foil the Messenger’s plans.
Fuck that , Aleja thought. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen to both of them. She met Violet’s eyes, trying to communicate that she should flee if she had the chance, but Aleja’s blood froze. Violet was not in chains. There was no weapon at her back to force her to march through the forest. And Val too was free to move his hands, both of which gripped one of the small bright spheres, like the one they’d recovered from the Third’s realm.
The magic that had almost killed Nicolas and her, and locked the Third in place, was not the Messenger’s, but Val’s. It was he who’d insisted the Astraelis had not yet finished the chains—who’d led them to believe that it was still safe to warn the Third.
“What the hell is this?” she snapped. “We trusted you. We helped you.”
“I didn’t lie,” Val said. His mask drew close around his face, as if it could shield him from her words. “I swear it, but once Violet told me what?—”
Violet turned her head away, unable to meet Aleja’s eyes. And Aleja, for her part, could not find the words to address her. She’d known Violet hid things, but this ?
“How long have you been a traitor?” Aleja asked, her voice low. It took all of her willpower to suppress the flames that wanted to claw out of her and set the trees ablaze. “Was it before the second Trial or after? When you talked me into handing you a glass heart, did you already know you would give us up to the Messenger?”
Violet said nothing. She kept her gaze fixed on the ground. Behind them, the Third thrashed and yowled like a lion caught in a trap, but Aleja didn’t dare turn around. She was still dizzy. Blue flashes of light filled her peripheral vision like she’d screwed her eyes shut for too long.
“Lady of Wrath, whether you know it or not, your friends have done you a great favor. Hands down. Attempt to strike us and Val will kill you all,” the Messenger said.
“Mother,” Val protested but silenced himself when she raised an index finger.
Aleja glanced back, half to hide the angry tears in her eyes and half to see what had become of the Third. Bright blue chains, crackling with electrical magic, bound his legs and torso. The eyes on his wings blinked frantically as his back strained against the bonds, but it was useless. Whatever magic held him in place was too powerful, too potent. Despite stalling and sabotaging his work, Merit had done well.
They needed to stop this. Even if it meant that they would all die here, and only the Third would walk away. In the future, another Knowing One would rise. That person would appoint new Dark Saints, and the whole bloody cycle could begin again.
Aleja wished she’d had the chance to tell Nicolas that she forgave him. That if she had any say in the matter, she’d do as he’d once promised and crawl her way through hell to return to him. But another tug on their bond made her push down the rising fire within her. Maybe he had a plan. One last wild hope for them to make it out of here.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt them if I helped you. If I told you when they—” Violet’s voice was so weak, Aleja almost didn’t hear it over the rustling leaves.
“And I intend to keep that promise,” the Messenger told her. “Step aside, Knowing One. Neither you nor your wife need die today. Let us leave with the Third and you can return to your armies.”
“Until you invade our lands and kill the Second,” Nicolas said.
The Messenger gave a low chuckle and turned to Val. “Is that what you told them to make sure they would give you the refuge you sought?”
It seemed impossible for Val’s mask to squeeze his head any more tightly, but the wings still tried to bend around his skull. Aleja wished she could rip the mask off his face and stare into the eyes of the man who’d damned her friends to death.
“Well, Knowing One,” the Messenger continued. “Will you let us take the Third, or are you going to start a fight that you cannot win? You witnessed my son’s capabilities. Who are you willing to sacrifice in order to stop me?”
“Listen to her,” Violet pleaded. “ Please . You have to believe me—when I looked into the Authorities’ minds, I?—”
“Fuck. You,” Aleja snarled, but the curse was lost beneath the Messenger’s voice.
“Violet, that’s enough. Your friends have all the information they need to make a decision.”
She tugged on the bond again, hoping for some response from Nicolas. After a second, there was a tug back, accompanied by emotions. Sadness and regret. Love and devotion. It was a goodbye that nearly shattered Aleja, as if vibrations had spread hairline cracks across her entire body.
Aleja answered in turn. With love and blood and fire .
The flames erupting from her hands were the same color as those that usually engulfed Nicolas’s sword—black as pitch. His powers and hers, combined. The Messenger could barely utter a sound of disappointment before Aleja let loose. Not at the Messenger, but at Val.
The Messenger dove for him, and fire engulfed her.
“The sickle still has Val’s magic in it. Get the Third free,” Aleja screamed over the roar of the flames.
Nicolas disappeared in a blur of movement, but Aleja could not let her attention drift. It took more effort to use her magic like this than in bursts, and the Messenger was quick to recover. Aleja saw only the flash of a sword before the Messenger was upon her.
“Fools,” the Messenger hissed, finding her opening when Aleja’s flames sputtered. The air filled with the smell of burning trees and scorched flesh. A woman screamed. And in the deepest part of herself, Aleja hoped Violet had managed to duck before the fire hit her.
The Messenger was right. Aleja was a fool.
Aleja jumped back as the Messenger’s blade tore a chunk of bark from a felled tree. Another plume of dark fire surrounded her hands, but the Messenger was prepared. Her sword deflected Aleja’s torrent and forced her to retreat over the uneven ground.
“Fucking Otherlanders,” the Messenger laughed, “You think you know everything, don’t you?”
Again, came her sword. This time, Aleja didn’t move fast enough, and the blade sliced through her leather tunic. Blood poured down her arm before the pain registered, but then, she’d never expected to survive this anyway. She only needed to stall the Messenger long enough for Nicolas to free the Third.
With the distance closed between them, she could do nothing against the Messenger’s advances. The next blow did not come from her blade, but from her sword hilt, cracking against the side of Aleja’s head.
The trees spun, a kaleidoscope of black and green. It’s okay , whispered her inner voice. I’m here. I’m sorry I left you for so long.
Aleja couldn’t answer. She spat blood from her mouth, only realizing after it had splashed back into her face that she’d fallen to the forest floor. Something cold and sharp pressed against her throat.
The Messenger whispered close to Aleja’s ear, “In a moment, my son is going to let his magic loose again, and when you wake up, this will all seem like a dream. But I hope you remember this: whatever your Knowing One has led you the believe, I am not your enemy.”
The Messenger stood and the blade against Aleja’s neck dropped away. “Violet, stay behind my son. Val, go ahead.”
“But, Mother, you’ll be?—”
“I can handle it. Now .”
Aleja’s vision was already darkening. The gash in her arm bled freely, drenching her hip and arm. With a last burst of strength, she turned her head, hoping to catch a glimpse of Nicolas. And in that moment, her heart swelled with hope.
The Knowing One had cut the Third’s front legs free with the sickle, and the blindfolded Throne reared up to take a swipe at the Messenger. But the world again lightened. The leaves changed from pale green to yellow. Nicolas swung once more, slicing through the last of the chains around the Third’s legs. But the blade never made it all the way through.
This time, the tremors began in the soles of her feet. The tooth that had lost its filling shattered altogether, gritty against her tongue. Aleja’s cells felt like they were vibrating apart; she tried to look at her hands, to see if they were still intact, but she could no longer move her head.
It’s okay , her little voice repeated. You did all you could. Soon, nothing will hurt anymore.
But the voice lied. The pain was unrelenting. Aleja tried to scream Nicolas’s name—to scream something, anything—a plea to the Messenger, or a prayer to the Third to take her now so that she wouldn’t have to feel this pain any longer. When she closed her eyes for the last time, only coldness, silence, and a shade of ultramarine blue answered.