Page 71 of What Is Dark Within Me

It was a shock when he stepped forward. He couldn’t have been more than ten feet away, but she hadn’t heard so much as a rustle of leaves beneath his feet. Nicolas looked oddly at home in the night forest. But then, the Knowing One had always been the being you called to in the dark. Aleja felt another twinge of guilt. Maybe Liam had noticed Nicolas and thought she’d betrayed him.

He would have been right.

“I didn’t scare him away,” Nicolas said. “He never showed. Your attractive secret friend isn’t making a good case for his innocence.”

“Andyouare being extremely annoying. Maybe he’s at the cave already. Come on.”

It was rough going, with the deer trails grown over. Aleja led the way, but it felt strange, being here without Liam. She’dmissedhim. Now she wondered if it would be better to never see him again. To assume he’d simply had no reason to venture into the lowlands once the herds returned for their grazing season in the hills.

The trail opened to another clearing, and Aleja spotted a dark figure curled among the tall grass. Her palms warmed, a deep red light washing over the forest’s blue shadows as her magic flared to life. But Nicolas placed a hand on her shoulder and guided her back.

“Wait. That’s not a Remnant,” he said.

He was right. It didn’t seem to flicker or shift when she looked at it through her peripheral vision. A pungent smell of scorched flesh hung in the air. She was only stopped from gagging by the voice in her head that said:You’ve smelled worse and lived to talk about it. Sort of.

“No,” she murmured into her hands as she clapped them over her mouth. “It can’t be.”

She followed Nicolas as he took a few cautious steps forward, and one of her embers illuminated the slumped human form. A hunting dagger rested a few inches away from a blackened hand stiff with rigor mortis.

“Shit,” she said, nearly falling to her knees. “Do you think he—?”

Nicolas did not speak right away. Aleja knew shehadto look. She needed to be this strong if she had any hope of fighting the beings holding Violet captive, but seeing Liam’s scorched corpse was not like looking at James after the fire engulfed him. Liam had been her friend. Liam had tried to help her. And if she hadn’t lingered in the clearing, waiting to betray him, he might still be alive.

“The Remnant must have got in a lucky shot. They rarely retain their magic…” Nicolas trailed off, turning back to Aleja. “I’m sorry about your friend. Truly. Did he tell you which village he was from? We can return his remains in the morning.”

“No,” she said, in a voice no louder than the hum of insects swarming a puddle near the cave mouth. “But… but the deer graze there when the blueberries in the lowlands have dried up.”

“Bonnie will know. Until then, nothing in these woods will touch the remains.” Nicolas draped his overcoat over the body and whispered something she couldn’t make out. The Knowing One and the Hiding Place were inexorably tied to each other. Even with half his power gone, the forest went still.

Don’t cry, said the voice.He isn’t the first casualty and won’t be the last.

But her words couldn’t stop Aleja’s eyes from filling with tears. She’d betrayed Liam twice now. She watched the body through blurred vision until she felt Nicolas’s hands on her shoulders. “Come, dove. The forest will protect him.”

“He said there was more than one Remnant here,” she managed.

Nicolas scanned the dark woods, but after a long moment, he shook his head. “They may have scattered once their packmate fell. This… this complicates things. We should find Violet as soon as possible and break the binding. I need to be at my full strength.”

Aleja knew she shouldn’t show weakness like this, but she allowed Nicolas to guide her back to her room and shoo one of the cats off her bed. She let him unlace her tunic, slip off her socks, and make a nest of blankets, leaving only the top of her face exposed. When he bent to place the ghost of a kiss on her forehead, she nearly begged him to stay, but he spoke before she could get a word out.

“I have to contact Garm,” he said softly. “Sleep as much as you can. We may need to leave sooner than expected.”

He whispered something else in a language Aleja did not understand, but that seemed to settle the woman behind the locked door in her mind. The woman she realized was Our Lady of Wrath, Our Lady of Fire, the High General of the last war between the Hidden Ones and the Astraelis.

He’s right. Rest now,the voice said.

Fuck you. When will you leave me alone?Aleja answered, burying her face into the pillow as she heard Nicolas close the door to her room.

When you don’t need me anymore.

And when will that be?

That, my Dear Lady, is entirely up to you.

* * *

Aleja couldn’t sleep,but she couldn’t cry either. She wanted to. Yet every time the tears welled in her eyes, it was as if the voice in her head yanked them back.

I’m not you, she pleaded. I’m not strong like you are.

---