Page 85 of What Is Dark Within Me

“We can all go grab a coffee if you feel like reminiscing,” she said.

They made it to the clearing with the well at its center. All was quiet, aside from the bleating of sheep being herded toward the meadow on the other side of town. Even the chickens had fallen silent, aside from the patter of their feet as a vulture’s shadow frightened them. Aleja’s ribs and sternum felt like they were beset by hairline cracks and would shatter if she breathed too quickly.

“Where’s Nicolas?” Aleja finally said. “What did you do to him?”

“My friend in the relic was lucky to be released by a Knowing One at half his power. Don’t you want to look?” Roland said, again gesturing into the well’s darkness.

“Don’t do it.” Violet’s hand tightened slightly around Aleja’s arm. “Once you look, it’ll never leave you. I tried to forget it. I tried to carve it out of me, butit won’t let me go.”

“Why would you keep a Remnant alive? You saw what they do. They killed your friends,” Aleja told Roland.

He finally seemed to lose his composure. “The Second forced me to abandon my family, no matter how much I wept. No matter how I argued Nicolas had brought hiswifeinto the Hiding Place, and that I had served you both loyally. When I saw the chance to help James, I took it. The Astraelis was barely alive, and I buried him deep—deep where no one would ever find him—until I could contact my brother in secret. And when the Astraelis officers came to claim their own, they heard my story. They taught me how to keep their fallen comrade alive. The life of a witch, but only when it starved, only when it begged. Why do you think we’ve kept your witchling alive for this long?”

“Your brother didn’twantto go, did he? He was a devotee of the Astraelis.” Aleja knew she should say more, knew she should try to keep him talking, but no other words came. She would be the worst kind of hypocrite if she claimed she wouldn’t have done the same to help those she loved; she had lit the black candle to get to Violet, and people were dead because of it.

“I won’t tell anyone about it, not even the Knowing One. Please. Let us walk away,” she pleaded. It hurt to breathe. The words crackled, as if being played back on a decayed recording.

Roland advanced on her, and Aleja shoved Violet back. “It’s too late.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

He grabbed her by the back of the neck, his eyes locked with hers, and Aleja’s body went limp. There was a thump as Violet fell against the cobblestones. Aleja struggled in Roland’s grip, but the motion merely yanked a handful of hair from her scalp.

“You didn’t mean towhat, Aleja? To kill a man who kept this village alive for centuries? Who these people relied on, who they loved?”

“Your brother led a cult. What about the women he killed to do it?” she spat, digging her heels into the ground as he dragged her toward the well’s edge.

“One witch every five years, that was all that was needed to keep dozens alive, not to mention my brother—a healer, a doctor for centuries. He saved hundreds. What has your little witch friend ever done?”

She tried to scratch his face, to kick his knees, but nothing affected him until she unhooked the sickle from her belt loop. Aleja attempted a swipe at his torso, but her grip was unsteady. He used his free hand to knock her arm back, sending the weapon skidding across the cobblestones.

“How many died so you could live? Nicolas tried every justification for that stunt. Did you know that? But as the Second saw through him, so did I. And you—you got to purge the memories of every horrific thing you did. A reward more than a punishment. So now you are going tolook.”

He shoved her head forward. Aleja nearly toppled over the edge of the well, but a painful grip on her hair kept her in place as her feet left the ground. She screwed her eyes shut as her face plunged toward the darkness.

“Look or I will make you watch as I throw your friend into this well right now,” Roland said, shaking Aleja’s head so much that her chin scraped the rock. The smell of blood filled her nostrils. Magic was building in her again, if she could just get her hands free—

LOOK.

The voice echoed through her mind like that of the Unholy Relic. A word came into her head. A word she had thought of many times since a black-winged, silver-eyed Otherlander had held his hand out for her to shake.

Sublime.

At once, beautiful and terrible.

Her eyes snapped open.

The thing in the well was ill. That was obvious. Its feathers were oily and clumped together, its many eyes bloodshot. Interlocking rings moved slowly around each other, like a worn-down machine, and Aleja felt like she was being thrown back in time.

Paola passing a note to her during a private tutoring session at the family estate that simply read:I’m running away the first chance I get. Want to come?

Violet, goading Aleja into taking a selfie from a viewpoint over a wide river, and the way she had involuntarily cracked a smile when Violet nudged her in the ribs.

Nicolas on the battlefield. Smoke rising around them as he kissed her, his hand tangling in her hair. Even in the memory, she knew this was a performance. The Astraelis had to believe that Nicolas and his armies relished this death, this destruction. That their hearts were black. That they were and always would be the adversaries.

She heard her trembling voice ask, “Why did you do that, Nic? You could have ended the war with no more bloodshed.”

“No. Our very existence is a threat to them. They were going to execute you, declare the war done, and then wipe us out while our guard was down. You’re safe for now, dove. So is everyone else who hides here.”

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