Page 67 of What Is Dark Within Me

“No.”

“Hm. Perhaps you can’t hear their true names yet. This was the old war room.Yourwar room, High General.”

Aleja wiped the dust off a stool with her sleeve before sitting down as she fought back a sneeze.

“There are three hierarchies of Astraelis. You know these ones, the foot soldiers. The Astraelis call them Thrones; intelligent, but subservient to the others. The Remnants you’ve encountered were born from this rank. Can you see this one now?” he asked, holding up a figurine.

“Yes, it’s clearer. It looks like the one from the memory. A lion crossed with a dragon.”

“Good. Your mind is adjusting. This type of Throne was one of the most common. All teeth and claws. Then, there’s the second hierarchy, the Authorities.”

Nicolas gestured to another figurine. This one shifted as the Remnants had, but she glimpsed wings and… eyes. Too many eyes. “That’s hard to look at,” she admitted.

“Consider yourself lucky. These were the Astraelis’s generals, and,” he said, flicking it over with his index finger, “were especially problematic. They absorbed their victims’ knowledge.”

“What does that mean?” She remembered the scarred battlefield Liam had taken her to, but she had already betrayed his trust once. To share his intimate memories of the war seemed a step too far.

“Think of an enormous mass of wings and eyes with a gaping mouth at the center that moves across a battlefield, devouring everything in its path. As it eats, it adds both eyes and memories to its collection. If they captured one of our officers, then the opposite side would be privy to all our plans.”

“Sounds like you were fucked.”

“We were. Many times,” Nicolas said with a laugh. “We figured out how to kill them eventually, but we lost many good soldiers in the process.”

A sacrifice, she remembered. A soldier willing to carry a magical bomb into the open mouth of a beast. Aleja pictured the battle carved into the throne room doors. A war fought with magic and monsters; no wonder humans had so many stories about Otherlanders. “War seems so pointless,” she sighed.

Nicolas blinked, his head tilted slightly to the side. “That’s not the first time you’ve said that. You pushed for peace, even after the Astraelis started attacking us here, in our home.”

“What changed my mind?”

“The third hierarchy; the Principalities, and their leader, who calls herself the Messenger. She has taken over in the First’s absence. You found out what they’d been doing in secret. Remember when I told you we and the Astraelis have a different philosophy regarding humans?”

“Sure,” she said.

“Our relationship with humans always puts us at risk. Your friend captured my hellhound, and she was merely a young witch. When you grant a human knowledge or power, there’s always a chance one of them might grow clever enough to turn it on you. Like stealing half your magic,” Nicolas said, moving a strand of hair from Aleja’s face.

The suddenness of his touch surprised her, but she rolled her eyes. “That was hardly on purpose, Knowing One.”

“Either way, it’s a risk the Astraelis don’t like to take. They’ll grant other gifts to their favored humans—health, riches, longevity—but nothing that could displace the balance of power. For that, humans turn to us.”

“And the Astraelis didn’t like that,” she said, letting her hand brush against his in a quiet invitation to touch her again.

“They did not. So, the Astraelis did what many people do when they fear witches, real or imagined. They burned them.”

She drew back, her brows knitting together. “They killed humans?”

“Not directly. But all it took was a whisper into the ear of the right person; an accusation that a woman confers with spirits in the forest at night, that the girl who speaks oddly hides a black candle under her bed, or that a man who does not act the way his father wishes is loyal to me instead.”

“Witch Trials. Purges. Who knows how many thousands died?” she asked, gripping the table.

“They hardly cared whether those they targeted were my devotees. The fear was the point. As humans became afraid of the shadows, afraid of the Silent Art—not because of what it entailed, but because of what might happen to them if they were caught—it weakened the Hiding Place. And the Astraelis saw their moment to finish what they had started.”

“Fuck,” Aleja breathed.

“Fuck,” Nicolas agreed.

She paused, trying to find words to frame the question in her mind. “When you realized who I was, did you ever watch me?”

He hesitated as well, but kept his eyes fixed on her face. “I checked in on you once, that was all. It was one of your fencing tournaments. You fought like her. Smart, quick, always one step ahead of your opponent. I knew it would destroy me if you ever looked at me with fear in your eyes, so I stayed away until Garm attacked, and I couldn’t anymore. And it did, in the end.”

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