Page 19 of No Greater Sorrow (Our Lady of Fire #2)

The door disappeared behind them. As she realized what was happening she attempted to shove past Garm into the darkness where Nicolas’s body lay prone. But the Second’s magic was too quick. They were now trapped wherever the portal had brought them.

She snarled, glad she’d thought to grab the sword before she left Nicolas’s side, so she had something to brandish into the air. “Where is he, Second?”

CONTINUE, ALEJA.

She stumbled forward, desperate for something , though she could no longer say what it was. When the murkiness coalesced, Aleja found she was in a long hallway covered in burgundy wallpaper. Indistinct paintings hung askew to either side of her, but she couldn’t quite make out their contents—only the shadows of great black wings, moving softly on the canvasses, as if they had come to life.

The hall ended abruptly, opening into a circular room with an altar at its center. She’d seen this table before. On top of a dark silk cloth sat a dagger and a chalice encrusted with red jewels. An unlit black candle stood at the center, but what drew her eyes were the objects laid around it like small offerings. A black queen from a chess set and a fencing rapier. And propped against the table was a rosewood guitar polished to a pink sheen.

This was her great-great-grandfathers’ altar.

Aleja’s hand flew to the sword when three figures stepped from the shadows. They moved slowly and made no motion to come closer once they surrounded the table.

It was not a vision of her ancestors as she’d expected.

There was the woman from the nameless kingdom by the sea, no longer resembling a withered corpse. Dark red hair tumbled over her shoulder, slightly curled from humidity. The second figure, who donned the armor of the Dark Saints, regarded Aleja fiercely but kept her hands at her sides. And the last, young and bright-eyed, wore a white nightgown with a bloody mess across her chest.

Aleja readied herself for another fight, but the others merely watched her.

KNEEL BEFORE THE ALTAR , the Second said.

“No,” Aleja said. “I don’t kneel for anyone. Especially not you.”

At her side, Garm gave a nervous whine.

VERY WELL. LIGHT THE CANDLE.

Aleja approached the altar cautiously. Garm stayed close, his tail occasionally grazing her thigh. Is this a test ? Aleja pleaded with her inner voice.

Again, no answer.

Fire crackled around her fingers as she reached for the wick. As soon as the candle flared to life, the rest of the room went dark. All that was visible of the other Alejas was the reflection of firelight in their hair.

Two great leathery wings spread through the darkness. The brief, wild joy she felt at thinking Nicolas had returned to her was extinguished just as quickly. This figure was much too big. A pair of spiraling horns erupted from its head, but its face was featureless aside from eyes that glowed like embers.

Despite Aleja’s earlier proclamation, her legs almost buckled beneath her. Her sword clattered to the ground, but she could not look away from his red eyes nor move to retrieve her weapon. It was like being pulled into the orbit of a black hole.

“Where’s Nicolas?” she managed.

“He’s gone. Seeing as he failed to pass his title onto someone else first, you’ll have to make do with me,” the Second said. The words burrowed into her—not merely her mind, but her veins, her bones, her soul.

“What is this?” Aleja asked, her voice cracking.

“You’ve passed your Trials, Dark Saint of Wrath. Would you like to make a bargain as well?”

“Bargain?”

“You should be familiar with the concept, Aleja.”

She looked at the eyes of her other selves, who watched in judgment. “I don’t…” she began dumbly.

“You have vexed me enough to last two lifetimes, and now you have destroyed my Knowing One. If you want to be a Dark Saint again, so be it. Anything else must be on my terms.”

“But—”

“No more arguments,” the Second snapped. The room rumbled and one of the unseen paintings clattered to the floor. “If you want to make a bargain, make me an offer.”

“I want him back.”

“I cannot bring back the dead.”

“You brought back Garm.”

“He was a hellhound—never truly gone in the first place.”

Aleja had seen Garm nervous, but not afraid, not like this. He was crouched low against her, breath coming in ragged pants.

“Exactly. Hellhounds are the product of unfulfilled bargains. They roam this place like ghosts before they’re summoned. I never took his heart. Nicolas’s spirit is here . Do you want another Dark Saint? Then give me back my Knowing One,” Aleja cried. “You have the magic; I know you do. Bring. Him. Back.”

“The Third will be?—”

“You fool. The Third has been captured by the Astraelis. They plan to use him to kill you. And now you’ve lost a potential Dark Saint and killed your Knowing One. When they come, there will be no one to save you. Not without Nicolas to lead us.”

The Second fell silent, but the candle flickered, as if someone had exhaled too close to the flame. The other versions of herself drew closer around him. “You might be in luck, Aleja. What would you give to have your husband back?”

She floundered, not having considered this outcome until now. “I don’t—” she began, but clamped her mouth shut before going on. Aleja no longer needed Garm to remind her that she shouldn’t show uncertainty in front of the Second. Whatever she spoke next had to be definitive and capture the enormity of what she was asking for.

Aleja bit the inside of her cheek as she thought. Offering her own life in exchange was not an option. Without Violet, they would be lacking a Dark Saint, which put them in a precarious situation ahead of true war. The Hiding Place needed their Lady of Wrath, and Nicolas would never want her to sacrifice herself again.

Talk to me, please , she begged her inner voice. But it was as though her other self had managed to pick the lock of the room inside Aleja’s mind and slipped away.

Panic gripped her.

“Aleja, I am losing my patience. It has been centuries since I last offered someone a bargain. Seize the chance while you can.”

Think , she told herself. He won’t accept just anything, not for a bargain as big as this. He’s probably glad to be rid of Nicolas, a Knowing One who broke the rules again and again.

“Shall I make him forget you?” the Second said. Dropping his hands on the table, he leaned toward her. His fingers were tipped with curved claws that scratched through the altar cloth. “Ah, yes. There was a flicker of fear in your eyes at that. Are you unwilling to punish yourself in the same way you once punished him?”

“I didn’t punish him. You did. Or, at least, you tried to. Please, don’t—not his memories,” she whispered.

“But it’s something you don’t want to give, Aleja.”

“Take something from me. Take half my life in exchange.”

“No. You’re a Dark Saint now. Practically immortal. That’s not good enough.”

Her knees wobbled, but she hoped this moment of weakness was hidden by Garm’s body. “I’m already going to win this war for you. What more do you want? The Messenger’s head on a platter?”

The Second fell silent. Aleja wondered if she’d made a mistake. The worst kind of mistake, where she’d irreversibly fucked something up but didn’t know what.

“The life of the Messenger in exchange for the life of the Knowing One. A fair deal. I will bring your husband back, but you must bring me the Messenger’s heart in place of the one you failed to bring me from Nicolas. And you must kill her with your own hands. If you cannot do this before the war is over, then the bargain is null. You will wander this realm aimlessly until some future Knowing One decides he needs a hellhound.”

Aleja was about to protest. Why the hell would the Second let her get away with this? After what he’d just put her and Nicolas through, it certainly wasn’t out of some sense of obligation. What had she just done?

“Wait, can you tell me?—”

“No. Will you shake my hand?”

“I will,” she said hesitantly.

“Then the bargain is sealed, Dark Saint of Wrath.”

If Nicolas’s skin was inhumanly warm, the Second’s was almost unbearable. She dropped her hand, barely stopping herself from wiping her palm to rid herself of the feel of him—ancient and pebbled, like roughhewn stone.

“You’re cruel,” she said softly, no longer caring if the Second retaliated. “You’re vindictive. Your Dark Saints preach about free will and knowledge, but you can’t bear the thought of anyone disobeying you, can you? Well, I’m using my free will to tell you to fuck off. I will win your war, and after that, I hope you rot beneath your well.”

Aleja sucked in a breath as Garm tensed against her.

“There is much you don’t understand, Dark Saint of Wrath,” he said. His voice was distant, but in the surreal atmosphere of the room, Aleja could not tell if he’d softened his words or if he was simply drifting away, back to his well, uncaring that he’d just shattered her life.

“Then, tell me . You’re the original Knowing One. Dispense some damn knowledge. Or do you not do that anymore?”

But with a rush of air from his wings, the Second was gone.

The black candle on the table had reached the end of its life, with the wax now a mass of asymmetrical lumps. With a brief flicker, it went out, and Aleja was plunged into darkness. She sensed the room had emptied, aside from her and Garm.

The lights in the room returned. Wood and gold foil from the cracked and broken paintings lay scattered across the floor. Aleja noticed that the images on the canvasses had become sharper, and depicted a Greek myth she’d thought of many times since coming to the Hiding Place. Not Persephone with her pomegranate, but Eurydice, dragged back into the underworld after her husband’s moment of weakness. But in all these pictures, it was not her trailing Orpheus out of the land of the dead—no, she was in front, glancing over her shoulder with a look on her face that was something between hope, faint surprise, and dread.

Aleja steadied herself by grabbing the table, the silk cloth slipping through her fingers. Strangely, she was relieved. She’d already done the most reckless and dangerous thing she could do, yet she was still standing, at least for now.

“Garm, can you sense Nic?”

“No,” the dog said.

A new passage had opened, while the long, indistinct hallway they’d come through was now closed off. Fresh mountain air drifted in. Aleja stopped herself from running to it. She needed to find Nicolas.

Garm’s floppy ears perked up, and he barked, “There!”

Aleja chased after him, surprised by how quickly her body reacted. The transition from her old life into a new one as Dark Saint was as brief as stepping from a dark room into an outside filled with sunlight. There was not a period of light-headedness as there had been when she’d struck her bargain with Nicolas.

But she couldn’t bring herself to care. All she could think of were silver eyes, widened in fear and pain.

“Nic?” she shouted, racing toward the passage after Garm.

A blast of cold air sent goosebumps racing up her exposed arms. It was the early hours of the morning. Pink clouds stretched across the sky so tightly, it looked like a single breeze would dissolve them. The Avisai that she and Nicolas had ridden was curled up on a high ledge, with its wings covering its face to block out the light.

“Nicolas!” Aleja screamed.

“I can’t smell him,” Garm said.

“He’s still in there,” Aleja answered, spinning to find the passageway covered by a dense layer of hanging vines like the ones Bonnie had grown around their camp. Aleja reached for her sickle, remembered it was missing, and then searched for the sword. That too was gone. She must have left it behind in the altar room.

Fire erupted from her with frightening effortlessness, but the vines were still green and untouched when she lowered her hands. It seemed the Second had taken her warning to heart; perhaps this was a way of defense, should the Astraelis arrive with the Third in tow.

The distant smoke of Merit’s forge reached her nose, but the only movement was one of the other Avisai, circling lazily over the foothills. It was strange to be this… alone. Every other Trial had ended with her and Violet stumbling out of the caves to meet Nicolas. The first time, they’d been quietly elated, and the second time, they’d been seething, but they’d still been together . Two people who’d shared an experience that was incomprehensible to almost anyone else.

“Let’s go. Maybe he’s already down there,” Aleja finally said, when the dawn light cleared and the sky turned blue—a rarity in the Hiding Place. She knew that this restlessness would either precede the greatest relief or the greatest grief she’d ever experienced. Just like Orpheus, thinking he had saved his wife from death only to learn a moment later that he’d condemned her for eternity.

“What’s going on?” Aleja muttered as the Avisai descended. The camp looked even more like the burned ruins of a cathedral after the raid. A large group of soldiers had coalesced around the tents where the Dark Saints slept, but she saw no sign of any approaching attack.

Why would the Astraelis bother ? she thought miserably. They’d already taken everything they wanted.

The Avisai veered to the left in search of the meadow where its companions grazed. Garm was waiting when she got there, shrinking into the body of a dog.

“There’s shouting,” he said. “Come on!”

Aleja wished she’d kept the sword, even if it was just to have something to fidget with. She didn’t know what she was going to say when the others asked why she’d returned without Nicolas. The commotion centered around Val, who was back in chains. Taddeas stood beside him, with one of his axes drawn.

“What’s happening?” Aleja asked, finding Orla at the edge of the crowd. The soldiers all spoke at once—an arrhythmic chorus of shouts made unintelligible by the clatter of armor as they jostled to be heard.

“Oh, you’re alive. That’s good,” Orla said, grabbing Aleja’s hand and pulling her forward. Amidst the crowd of soldiers, Aleja managed to catch a glimpse of Val’s mask, its wings clumped together with mud and dirt. The crush of people parted to accommodate Garm, but few gave Aleja more than passing glances. A fitting welcome for the new Dark Saint of Wrath.

“A somewhat sizable number of our soldiers are demanding Val be executed for his betrayal. Where’s Nic? He needs to settle this.” Orla’s eyes met hers. They were nearly as gold as the twine decorating her hair. “Where is he, Aleja?”

“He stayed behind to speak with the Second,” Aleja lied, knowing that if she said anything else, she would break down entirely. “We had to tell him about the Third. He’s not happy.”

“Of course not. Come on. Let’s get the others to back off. This is a matter for the Knowing One to decide,” Orla murmured.

The relief Aleja felt was like a single drop of rain falling on a house fire. It must have been obvious to Orla that there was more of the story to tell, but now was not the time to demand it.

“Stay back,” Taddeas roared, in a voice that was so unlike the mild-mannered college professor that Aleja’s heart jumped. The deep-red glow surrounding his axe was ominous enough to keep the crowd back a few paces.

“What are you going to do with him?” one of the soldiers asked—the first voice that’d broken through the jumbled noise of the crowd.

“We don’t execute our prisoners of war without a trial. That’s all you need to know, soldier. Now, all of you, get back to your duties. The Astraelis could be back at any moment. Let’s not hand them another victory,” Taddeas said.

“ He handed them the victory. He told the Astraelis how to defeat us. He told them when and where to attack. And the whole time, he was whispering in Violet’s ear. Making her doubt. Making her fear,” said a woman’s voice. Aleja was so surprised by the tone that she doubted it was Bonnie until spotting her rye and wheat crown.

“His punishment is for the Knowing One to decide, not you. I’m in command while he is away, and again, I’m ordering you all to return to your posts,” Taddeas said. He must have caught sight of Aleja’s return because his next words came with the hint of a relieved sigh. “We need to start packing. We’ll have more answers soon.”

For a moment, Aleja thought they were going to listen. The crowd quieted, and Orla’s shoulders relaxed. Yet even with her sharpened instincts, Aleja was too slow to react when one of the soldiers stepped forward and swung his sword at the Astraelis prisoner whose tattered mask barely hid his face.

But Taddeas hadn’t let his guard down and raised his axe to knock the sword away. It worked, partially. The attacker aimed for Val’s neck, but was forced to change course, so the sword came down on his forearm instead. Aleja was on the wrong side of him to see the wound, but she smelled the blood. When a limp hand hit the mud with a splat, she had to divert her eyes to keep from retching in her mouth.

Val hardly made a noise, but his soft gasp of surprise was audible in the hush that swept over the encampment.

“Medics!” Taddeas called—a shout that did nothing to slow his axe as he blocked the offending soldier from running. The red light surrounding Taddeas’s blade rapidly expanded, encasing the other man within a sphere. When the soldier pushed frantically against it, but it was as if the magic had formed solid walls around him.

One of the fey medics appeared but hesitated when she saw the mess of flesh at the end of Val’s forearm.

“Cauterize the wound now ,” Taddeas growled. It was enough to get the medic moving, though she shot the imprisoned soldier a worried glance. Aleja could not tell if it was given in sympathy or distress.

“Get this one in iron chains. We’ll let the Knowing One decide what to do with a soldier that disobeys an order to stand down,” Taddeas continued. The flurry of action had driven most of the others away, but Aleja recognized the commanding officer who stepped forward. Silmiya, who’d stood outside of Val’s tent, quietly listening to his hymns for nights on end.

Bonnie didn’t retreat either. Mud crept up the hem of her yellow dress as she stood with her hands clamped over her mouth, as still as one of the oak trees she’d grown to protect them. “I’m sorry, Tad, I didn’t mean to rile them?—”

“We’ll wait in the meeting room,” Orla said as she took Bonnie by the shoulders.

There was a loud hiss, followed by the smell of burned flesh. Val looked small beneath his chains as the healer led him away. His mask was plastered to the sweat on his face, so that for once, Aleja could see the shape of his brow. She did not expect him to speak to her as he passed, clutching his arm against his chest. The end of it was blackened, giving way abruptly to clammy paleness. “I didn’t mean for it to happen this way.”

“We’ll deal with you later,” she said.

Taddeas looked ill as the two prisoners, one Astraelis and one Otherlander, were dragged away. One of his braids had come loose, partially covering the scar on his face. “Our Lady of Wrath. You did it. We should celebrate,” he said, trying to summon a smile that wouldn’t come.

The words were such a juxtaposition from the bloody mud beneath her feet and the severed hand of an Astraelis sinking into it, that Aleja could only give a grim smile as she pressed her cheek against his chest. His heartbeat was steady and strong against her ear. Aleja closed her eyes for a long moment, letting the rhythm of it calm her.

“Where’s Nic?” he asked. The joy of Aleja’s return appeared to have been brief. His eyes drifted back to the place where Val’s hand lay, still twitching slightly.

“I…” Aleja began, but she could no longer hold back the tears that filled her eyes.

This time it was her turn to be ushered away with Taddeas’s strong hands around her shoulders. The silence was heavy, as if someone was holding an iron chain over Aleja’s body that would crush her the moment they let it go.