Page 20 of No Greater Sorrow (Our Lady of Fire #2)

9

THE HERETIC

“Summoning the Dark Saints is a dangerous pursuit, even at the best of times. Like the Knowing One, they can be cruel and petty to those they deem unworthy of their help. This can especially be said of the Dark Saint of Wrath, who delights in imparting revenge on behalf of her devotees.”

—Excerpt from Ten Myths of the Otherlanders by Emiel Nasir.

“Nic has to come back, right? The Second said he would revive him?” Amicia asked. She looked worse for wear, but there was a dreaminess to the way her silk dress moved around her like liquid. Aleja hadn’t had much of a chance to explore her new senses as a Dark Saint, but she could sense magic in the fabric—Amicia’s dresses were armor of their own.

“That’s what he said,” Aleja told her. At some point, she’d dropped her chin onto her folded arms, and hadn’t found the strength to lift her head again. Garm moved restlessly in her peripheral vision, pacing the small space as though trying to find a way to escape. Aleja hadn’t the strength to tell the whole story, leaving out that Garm was the one to take down Nicolas and that she had been forced into a bargain.

Bonnie made her way into the war room at some point, but stayed silent, lurking in the corner as if she could avoid Taddeas’s notice. Aleja couldn’t blame her for the outburst against Val. She too was wondering why Taddeas seemed so intent on protecting the traitor who’d sold them out to his mother.

“Then, where is he? Back in the cave?” Bonnie muttered.

“The Second sealed the way back. I couldn’t reach him—believe me, I tried.”

Orla sighed. “I’ll go look. The Second has always been strangely fond of me.”

Aleja lifted her head. She could feel the creases her sleeves had pressed into her forehead. “I’ll come.”

“Not a good idea. Help move the camp. I’ll be back with news soon.”

Before Aleja could ask what Orla could possibly have to say to the Second, she was gone from the room. The air she left behind smelled of rain and damp herbs. Aleja was too broken to do anything more than slump lower in her chair.

“Val wants to speak with the Knowing One. You should stand in for him,” Taddeas said, after a long moment during which those left in the tent regarded each other grimly, as if they were in a stand-off and whoever voiced their thoughts would be the first shot.

“You’re his High General, Tad, not me. I don’t have the experience yet,” she replied.

“I resign,” he said quietly.

Aleja and Bonnie stared at him. Even Garm made a low rumble of confusion.

“I will be there with you on the frontlines, but I refuse to send anyone else to their deaths. I was clear with Nicolas when I came to the Hiding Place, and we have Our Lady of Wrath back now. I’ll stay on as your advisor until you feel confident enough to make decisions on your own.”

“Taddeas—”

“I’m sorry, Al. If you don’t want the position, offer it to Orla. For now, decide if you’re going to talk to Val or not.”

“I’ll… fine. I’ll talk to Val.” In truth, Aleja wanted to know why . Why Violet set the Astraelis on a path that could destroy everyone Aleja held dear—not to mention the countless other witches that would die. And since she couldn’t talk to Violet, Val was the only one with answers.

The air in the medical tent always felt fresher and sharper. Still in iron chains, Val looked even worse than during his first week in the camp, when he was never more than a wrongly phrased sentence away from death.

One of the wings had fallen from his mask in the scuffle—leaving only five now, arranged asymmetrically. Where the feathers were missing, Aleja could see the curve of a pale cheek, dotted by freckles. She wondered when that part of his face had last seen sunlight. If there was anyone who knew what he looked like beneath the mask.

As it was, all she could read of his expression was from his mouth, hanging slack. He gestured with his head at the bandaged stub where his right hand had once been. He was in shock, Aleja figured—a distant memory from her time as a caretaker with the Gentle Hearts Agency. Unsure of what to do, she sat on one of the stools and crossed her arms, attempting to keep her anger from igniting the alcohol-based tonics in the tent like bombs.

Her skin was so, so hot.

“Why did you stay back?” she asked with no preamble. If Val didn’t have a good reason for being here, she might start believing it would have been better to leave him to the angry soldiers.

“So my mother wouldn’t decimate your army,” Val said. “She refused to let her guards kill me when I ran. That’s when I knew she wouldn’t mount a full-scale attack while I remained among the Otherlanders. Not if it risked my life.”

The immediacy of his answer surprised her, considering how listless his expression had been when they entered. Aleja dug her fingernails into her palms. “You helped her. You could have refused if you really wanted us alive. Are you still feeding her information?”

“No, I never was. I never needed to. It was Violet in communication with my mother through her bond with the Authorities. It was Violet who realized that the chains were finished. It was also Violet who found your bed empty, figured out where you’d gone, and told my mother that the time to act was now.”

“Bullshit,” Aleja spat.

“It’s true whether you want to believe it or not. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have allowed her to channel with the Authorities. I knew the connection went both ways, but I didn’t understand how deeply. However, it is also true that what Violet explained to me changed my mind about helping my mother.”

“What did she tell you?” Aleja stood, even though it would reveal she was flustered. In her peripheral vision, Taddeas motioned for Val to answer the question.

“That my mother has no real interest in overthrowing the Knowing One, or even… in killing the Second. She lied to me.” Val attempted to bring a hand to his face but rapidly returned his bandaged arm to his lap with a choked noise of distress.

“What does she want then?” Taddeas asked, apparently unable to keep silent any longer.

“It’s not the Second she wants to kill. At least, not yet. It’s the First.”

Outside the tent flaps, the evening bustled with the sounds of soldiers disbanding the camp. A draft snuck in through gaps in the linen, disturbing the steady plume of smoke from the medicinal herbs that the healers kept burning in the corner. Something like incense briefly replaced the smell of sweat, mud, and iron.

“Why would she want to do that?” Aleja asked, feeling as though she was balanced at the edge of some precipice. Eventually, she would fall, and the cliff wall would be too steep to reclimb. The world would be divided into two distinct periods: the time she had spent above and the time that stretched ahead of her in the below.

“I…” Val began.

“Tell her, Val. I defended you. Don’t make me regret it,” Taddeas said.

Val dropped his gaze back to his lap again. “She must have seen it in my research before I did. She must have…”

“Val, talk,” Taddeas snapped.

“Like the Hiding Place, the Astraelis realm has been in a state of decay for centuries now. We’ve been better at keeping it a secret than you, but the problem exists all the same. The First has been absent—she no longer chooses new Messengers. Some say she is sleeping. Some say she has gone mad. My research indicated a rising vibrational energy. A flood of incoming magic, reversing the gradual decay we have been experiencing for over a century. Like a star, preparing to supernova. But I couldn’t understand what it meant.”

“What are you trying to say? Simple terms, please. I haven’t spent decades studying theoretical magic,” Aleja asked when Val paused again.

“We have a theory that our realms, as well as the human realm, exist in cycles. A series of genesis and apocalypses if you will. My mother’s interpretations of these energy readings suggest that we may be entering one of these periods of ending. We have a word for it in our language that would sound like Avaddon to you.”

“How would killing the First stop this?” Taddeas said, his brow furrowed.

“Like smothering a supernova before it begins, it could stop the release of energy that would take the rest of the realm with it.”

“But you don’t know for sure.”

“My research is sound, but no. My mother directed me to study whether the Second could be killed without destabilizing the realm?—”

“It would kill all the witches,” Aleja interrupted. “That was acceptable to you?”

“Of course not. I sabotaged by own work and escaped into enemy territory, in case you’ve forgotten,” Val answered, raising his voice. “But what would happen if the First was allowed to… to… explode? She would drag her many, many children into emptiness along with her.”

Aleja didn’t know what to say. Apparently, neither did Taddeas. She watched the herbal smoke drift across the tent, trying to think of what the Knowing One would do, without picturing Nicolas’s dead face.

“Why not come to us for help, if that was the case?” Taddeas eventually asked.

“Would you have believed her?” Val said.

“I’m not sure I believe you ,” Aleja said. “How long before she enacts this plan, now that the Astraelis have the Third?”

“I can’t be sure. The First does not communicate with us like the Second does to the Otherlanders. Finding her will be difficult. Getting her to assume a form in which she can be killed, even more so.”

“Then, why the hell aren’t you helping? If what you’re saying is true, we’re all dead, aren’t we?” Taddeas asked.

“Because I still don’t trust my mother completely. With Death on her side, her power is absolute. It does not bode well for anyone. After she kills the First, who do you think she will come for next?”

“The Second’s death would have consequences. The First’s must too,” Aleja muttered.

“It is a concern,” Val said, acting as though he was again going to hesitate, but caught sight of the fire behind Aleja’s eyes and decided the better of it. “As I mentioned, my research was focused on the Second. The First came up only tangentially. It may be possible to… I’ll need time to think, and perhaps your librarians to help.”

“No fucking way. We’re not handing you more ammunition to give to your mother.”

She tried to catch sight of Taddeas’s eyes to see if he looked at her with approval or dismay. However, she couldn’t do so without revealing how much she felt like a bird that had been pushed out of the nest before feathers had sprouted from its puckered skin.

Val’s mask widened, covering the pale spot on his cheek. “I know what this must look like, but for what it’s worth, I was forced to choose a side, and I chose yours. Again .”

“Keep him in chains. We should take him to the palace whenever we get the chance. Eventually, one of the soldiers here will get to him, and besides, I’ll have more questions for Val later.” Aleja wiped her palms on her trousers, dampening the red glow emanating from them.

“Of course,” Taddeas said.

Aleja barely heard him as she stepped back in the night air. Garm’s cold snout pressed against the back of her hand, and for a moment, she thought she might burst into tears in full view of their armies. But perhaps it was her newfound Sainthood that allowed her to steel herself and ask Garm, “We’re fucked, aren’t we?”

“Don’t think like that. You’ve already done this. You won a war once. You can do it again.”

“I’m going to ask Orla to take over.”

“I thought you wanted this.”

“When I have more experience,” Aleja hissed. “I can’t take all these lives into my hands without ever having so much as cracked a textbook on military theory. I don’t want to talk about this now. I need to find Nic.”

“I have an idea. Follow me.”

Bounding between two tents, Garm was enveloped in a heavy shadow. Aleja waited for him to reappear on the other side, but before she could get annoyed that he’d forgotten she could not travel through shadows as the Otherlanders could, she saw…

In the center of the shadow was a slash of light, like a glimmer of sun between almost-closed curtains. Just take a step , Nicolas had once taught her, back in the tower with the myriad paintings lining its walls. After building up the courage to lift her feet out of the mud and follow Garm into the sliver between worlds, the tower was exactly where she found herself.

The room was quiet. Now that she knew what she was looking at, Aleja regarded the paintings with less the eye of an art historian and more that of a curious traveler handed the key to every locked door in the world. The Third’s ultramarine realm was empty. On another canvas filled with wide oak trees, a raven fluttered from one branch to another.

“There you are!” Garm barked, circling the rug at the room’s center. “See the one up there? Nicolas used to go there a lot before you found me in the scrying mirror.”

He pointed his muzzle at a painting chest-height to Aleja. An open field at twilight, surrounded by rolling hills. It felt familiar, even though the first time she’d seen it had been in her Trials. Small chunks of the frame lay on the rug below, as if it had been decaying for some time yet no one had bothered to clean it up.

Garm leaped through the canvas before she could protest, and with a grumble, Aleja followed. She was glad for the dog’s absence as she tried to lift her leg high enough to step inside.

A deep blue sky awaited her as she stumbled, ignoring Garm’s snort of amusement. The fresh air was a welcome reprieve from the smokiness of the army camp, yet beneath the tang of salt in the breeze was a hint of distant industry, greasy and electrical. The sound of waves on the other side of the hills was paired with the breathing of a highway, and the pillars were ringed by a low chain to keep tourists from wandering too close.

But there was something else—something in the air that was neither a smell, nor a sound, nor a physical sensation like the press of humidity. It was as though she was at the center of a tangled knot, and all the strings around her were being pulled gently but persistently.

“You’re a Dark Saint now. People are calling to you. You can hear them.”

Nicolas had his wings glamoured away and his back turned to her. He did not turn as she approached, even when she ran to him, breathing hard, and wrapped her arms around his waist. The smell of vanilla and woodsmoke brought a fresh set of tears to her eyes.

He stiffened, and Aleja stepped back, wiping her face. “How did you get here?” she asked. It seemed like the simplest question to begin with.

“I woke up here about an hour ago,” he said.

“You knew about the hellhound loophole. I know you did. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I knew the Second would force you into a bargain. That was unacceptable. What did you offer him?”

“That was my choice to make.”

“Exactly. And you made it without any interference from me. What’s done is done. What did you offer him?”

Aleja swallowed, half-wishing he would turn around so that she could see his face and confirm it was truly him. She again reached out for her inner voice, but knew, deep in her heart, that as a Dark Saint, she might never hear from that Aleja again.

Another person who’d betrayed her. Only this time, it was a part of herself.

But, no… Maybe she couldn’t hear the voice, but she was certain the strength that prevented her from collapsing beneath the heaviness in her chest came from something behind that door in her mind. The door that was no longer locked.

“He asked for the Messenger’s life in exchange for yours,” she told him.

Garm seemed to have taken heed of the tension between them during what should have been a joyful reunion—at least on Aleja’s part. The dog slunk between two ruined columns, only visible by the pale brown patches of fur on his face and stomach.

“That doesn’t make sense. There must be more to it. You shouldn’t have—” Nicolas began.

“You were dead . Actually fucking dead. You weren’t going to come back, Nic. It wasn’t like the last time.”

He sighed and finally turned to her. The wind had turned his hair into clumpy tangles, but his eyes were as bright as they’d been the evening they first met.

“I did what I had to do,” she continued, hoping to stave off any more argument from the man who, until recently, was being poisoned for falling in love with her. But finding the words to express what she wanted to say was as difficult as being tossed into a body of water and being told she had to swim across an ocean.

“I did what I had to do,” she said again. “Just as we always have. And if you’re going to be angry at me for that, then fine. I know the feeling. But I won’t apologize and I won’t plead with the Second to let me reverse my decision. So come back to the army camp because a lot has happened since you’ve been gone.”

Nicolas was focused on something in the distance over Aleja’s shoulder. Tiny headlights swerved through the hills; the car’s occupants were unaware that the Knowing One and the Dark Saint of Wrath were arguing on the spot where they’d been married centuries ago.

“I want forever with you. I won’t accept anything less. When the time comes, I’ll watch as you slaughter the Messenger,” Nicolas said, and this time, it was Aleja’s turn to sigh.

“Fine. Then, we’ll have a little side project of our own. By the way, she’s trying to kill the First too.”

“The First?” Nicolas asked, his brows knitting together. He looked less worried than she’d assumed he would, but after dying and being brought back in the span of a few hours, Aleja figured almost anything else was anticlimactic.

“You’ll hear the whole story when you come back to the Hiding Place,” she said.

Her return to the human realm was causing a strange emotion in her. It was something between grief, wonder, and curiosity. She could feel the tug of witches lighting candles and sticks of incense, calling to the Lady of Wrath. If she concentrated, she could even form a picture of them in her mind. There was a young woman in Tallinn who’d escaped her abusive husband with their infant child in tow. A girl in Jakarta asking for strength to care for her younger brother after her parents were killed in an accident—her grief was still raw enough to feel like anger. Aleja finally understood what Bonnie had said so long ago; it was awful to feel them calling and not be able to help.

“You’ll be able to shut it out soon enough. And when the war is over, I’ll teach you how to help those you want to help and exact your wrath on those you don’t,” Nicolas said, perhaps catching the unfocused expression in her eyes. Aleja hadn’t meant to derail his emotions with her own, but she was unable to find the words to apologize.

“Aleja…” he continued, finally meeting her gaze and holding it. “Marry me?”

She opened her mouth and closed it again. “We’re already married, aren’t we?”

“Technically, yes. But we’re here, and… This news about the First sounds bad, Aleja. Is it bad?”

“Yeah, Nic. It’s really fucking bad.”

“Okay. We’ll deal with it. But I want the chance to be your husband again. Properly, without lies, deceit, or secrets between us.”

“All right,” she breathed. “What do we need to do?”

All other feelings were dulled by the elation swelling in her chest. She wanted this more than anything, despite all they’d been through, but she hadn’t expected it. Especially not here and not so suddenly.

“We can do it right here if you like,” Nicolas said; it was one of those rare moments when he sounded hesitant, as if Aleja had erupted into flames and he was carefully approaching her with a bucket of water.

“Now? Don’t we need… What’s the Hiding Place’s equivalent of a priest?”

He gave a low chuckle. “We don’t have one. We could summon the others if you want, but marriages between Otherlanders can be sealed by whatever sort of ceremony we like. Including a private one.”

Aleja bit her lower lip. “They’re probably sick of us if I’m being honest. Let’s do it alone.”

“It’s how we did it the first time,” Nicolas said.

“It is?”

“Yes. We spent the day in the ocean collecting mussels for dinner. I didn’t mean to ask you then, but we were neck-deep in the water, and your skin was warm from the sunlight beneath the waves. And when you kissed me, I knew there was nothing else I could possibly say at that moment but ask you to be my wife.”

“I agreed?”

“Surprisingly, yes. And when I asked when you’d like to go to the temple, you suggested we instead marry ourselves in ruins belonging to gods even more ancient than our own. We made our vows to each other that night.”

“I can’t remember,” Aleja said, the anguish of her lost lives as keen as it ever had been. “I wish I could. Maybe we can make a new memory.”

“I would like that, Aleja.”

“So would I.”

He took her hands, running his thumb over the ridges of her knuckles. It was a relief to feel his heat again after the horror of his body cooling while she could do nothing to stop it. “We’re going to fix this,” he said, suddenly and fiercely. “We always have, and we’ll do it this time too. And if the Second tries to take you away again?—”

“Hush. There’s no one here but us tonight, understand? No traitors, no Messenger, and certainly no Second. Just us.”

“Should I go?” another voice asked. Aleja and Nicolas both startled, then fell into laughter against each other.

“Yes, Garm. Go back to the camp and see if you can help. We’ll be back in a few minutes,” Aleja told him.

“A few hours,” Nicolas amended.

“Hours?” Aleja asked.

“I’m not trying to be presumptuous?—”

“Garm, tell them we’ll be back before midnight,” Aleja said, waving the hellhound away. Garm seemed very much inclined to take her up on the command and disappeared into a shadow.

“What do we do now?”

“We say vows however we see fit.”

“I didn’t have a chance to prepare any,” she said.

“It’s better that way. Say whatever is on your mind.”

“Do I have to go first?”

“No.”

“Then, you do it. I need time to think.”

“These aren’t the vows I gave to you, back then. It wouldn’t be right to repeat them, not after so much as happened between us. But they’re similar enough. Just give me a moment…”

He paused, looking away.

“On that very first day, when you smiled at me as you were coming out of the forest, I knew that my life would never be complete without you by my side. You—miraculously—seemed to agree, and since that moment, my existence has been dedicated to keeping you safe, keeping you happy, even in the times that I faltered. For those, I beg your forgiveness. And I pray that you will let me belong to you from this moment on. Again, and forever.”

Aleja swallowed and squeezed his hands. “If you need to hear it said, then, yes, I forgive you.”

They surged forward at the same time, lips meeting so violently that Aleja tasted blood and didn’t care. Nicolas was alive. Nicolas was with her, tugging her tunic up so that he could run his hands along the length of her spine. He pulled her against his body so quickly that if Aleja didn’t have the advantage of Otherlander instincts, she would have stumbled. But there was no break in their kiss, even when it felt like all the air had been yanked from her lungs.

She had no idea how he managed to maneuver her to the ground, but the cool grass against her bare back made her gasped at the sudden cold—a sound that was swallowed by Nicolas as he kissed her again, his tongue slipping into her mouth. Vanilla and woodsmoke surrounded her, filling her, until she was drunk on the taste of it.

A part of her wished he would indulge the burning need between her legs right away—that he would hitch her shirt up and yank her trousers down and fill her as she wanted to be filled. But Nicolas simply trailed a line of burning hot kisses down her throat before whispering, “Give me your vows. Tell me what you want.”

Her back arched, allowing one of Nicolas’s hands to swoop under her, drawing her torso closer to his. Their hearts beat in tandem now, not as before, when she was human and hers had an extra pulse in the quiet space between his.

“I want all of you,” she whispered, feeling like she only had a few frantic moments to get her words out before she fell into a silent rapture from his hands, his mouth, his hard cock digging into her hip. “I want all of you, with no secrets, with nothing left unspoken. I want you to kiss me like the world is about to end every single time . I want to love you until it hurts, until it makes me want to tear myself apart, and I want you to do the same. You make me a monster, Nicolas. So let me be a monster. Let me love you selfishly, wildly, until it destroys us both.”

“Yes,” Nicolas moaned into her mouth. “Ruin me as much as I want to ruin you.”

Hellfire, this kiss hurt , and Aleja couldn’t get enough of it—she nearly gasped in protest as Nicolas wrenched his mouth away to bite at the soft skin at her collar. She knew she was grinding against him desperately, relishing in every small bit of pressure on her core, but she couldn’t stop herself any more than a starving animal could stop from devouring its kill.

She arched into him, the need for more contact overwhelming. Her leggings were gone with her hardly having noticed Nic fumbling with the waistband, but instead of the press of his cock against her, she was suddenly hauled up. Aleja’s back met the cool stone of one of the pillars as he lifted her, and her legs wrapped around his waist on instinct.

Two of his fingers slipped beneath her underwear, but Aleja was able to drag herself away from his kiss for long enough to mutter, “Need you now .”

She was so wet that Nicolas pushed into her with no friction. They both shuddered the moment he was seated inside of her—a mixture of relief and need. And then, he began to thrust, one hand on her ass to keep her steady, another on the ruined pillar he’d pressed her against.

There was no artfulness to their fucking, no sense that one of them was trying to seduce the other. Aleja shifted until she could free one hand. It flew to Nic’s hip, her fingernails curling into him like claws, urging him to move deeper, faster.

When she screwed her eyes shut, he growled, “No. Watch me. And let me watch you.”

Her legs spasmed around Nic’s waist, but he responded by pushing her more firmly against the stone, forcing her to take him deeper. A wild moan left her mouth. Maybe it was the freshly renewed marriage bond, maybe it was the long weeks she’d spent denying herself the Knowing One’s body, but the climax moved through her in waves, each more intense than the last. Her open eyes met the sky, and it swirled over her in bands of magenta and deep blue—colors that had always been there, but she was seeing for the first time.

Nicolas seemed to forgive the sudden break in their eye contact, because his mouth met her throat, and then he was spilling himself inside of her.

She didn’t realize there was blood beneath her fingernails until Nicolas slumped against her with one final shudder. If he’d any qualms about the lines she’d carved into his back, he made no mention of it as his mouth again captured hers.

It took a long time for Nicolas to release her legs, so she could place her shaky feet on the ground. A trail of his seed slipped down her inner thigh, but she had no desire to wipe it away, no desire to free herself from the ways he had marked her. From the ways they had marked each other.

The Knowing One trembled in her arms. Our Lady of Wrath had always been the only one who could bring him to his knees. “My Aleja,” he said, trailing another line of kisses along her jaw, punctuated by a nip at her earlobe.

They stood with their foreheads pressed together for a long time, listening to the sound of crickets in the tall grass and the humming streetlamps on the other side of the hill. A part of her wanted to take Nic’s hand and ask him to show her the place where their little hut had once stood. She wanted so badly to replace her memory of this landscape from the Trials with something else, something real. But the Hiding Place awaited them, no matter how much she wanted to stretch this night into eternity.

“Sorry,” Nicolas eventually murmured, inelegantly pulling on his trousers. Aleja couldn’t help but smile at seeing the Knowing One like this, trying to balance on one foot in the wet grass as he dressed.

“What? Why are you sorry?”

“Our marriage bed probably shouldn’t have been a patch of mud and a few ruined pillars?—”

“Stop. It was perfect. It was us ,” she said.

Nicolas smiled at her, and for a moment, she could forget everything that waited for them just a few minutes away, on the other side of a shadow.