Page 73 of What Is Dark Within Me

“It’s not supposed to happen. When you undergo your Trials and become a Dark Saint, you cut your old life out completely, but our circumstances were different. Jack was on his deathbed, and to the Second’s chagrin, Nic is good at finding loopholes. I will serve the Knowing One as High General until he finds a suitable replacement,” he said with a pointed glance at Aleja. “The war ended long before I came here. Strategy and planning are one thing, but I can say in all honesty that I never hope to see bloodshed on such a scale—nor be the cause of it.”

“And Jack?” she asked. “What happened to him?”

“We have a house on a lake not too far from here. You should visit sometime. Jack has taken to the Hiding Place even more than I have. He’ll be excited when you tell him you’re considering the Trials.”

“The Trials?” Aleja asked, knowing she wouldn’t be able to avoid the subject this time. The idea had been in the back of her mind for days now, but she hadn’t voiced it out loud.

“I can see it in your eyes. You’re one of us, Al,” Taddeas said, squeezing her shoulder before dropping his hand. “Does he know you’re considering it?”

The subject of his question was obvious. “I don’t think so.”

“The Trials are different for everyone, but they’re always dangerous. Many people die trying to gain the Second’s dark blessing. If you decide to go through with it, I’ll train you as well as I can, but we’ll have no idea what you’re training for.”

“Is that how a soft-spoken professor turned into a tattooed, axe-wielding warrior?” she asked, not expecting the way Taddeas’s face darkened in response.

“That happened out of necessity. And as much as I want to tell you what my Trials were, the Second has forbidden us to speak of them to new candidates. Normally, I wouldn’t give a damn what he thinks, but the Second wasn’t pleased when I tricked my way into bringing Jack here.”

“It’s okay, I understand,” Aleja said.

“I can tell you this: when the Trials start, you will get the choice of one weapon. Consider what you pick very carefully.”

* * *

Nicolas wasn’tin his office, but the palace was in a decent mood. Aleja found a new room containing a lovely sketch she thought might be by Artemisia Gentileschi, her favorite among the few known female artists of the Renaissance.

But the joy of the discovery faded quickly and was replaced by an emotion too complex to separate into individual pieces. Bits of anger and grief and frustration and curiosity and unfulfilled need, all melted together into a monster she couldn’t tell if she wanted to fight or embrace.

When she spotted a black flash of fur dashing from one room to the next, Aleja shouted, “Garm!”

The dog came bounding toward her, his paws landing on her chest so he could lick her face. “No, no,” she gasped, the wind knocked out of her as she tried to avoid his tongue.

“There you are!” he barked. “I just got back. There’s a lot to tell! Come on!”

Garm dashed away before Aleja could get out a word to stop him. Her sore thighs burned as she followed the tip of his black tail, briefly visible whenever he turned a corner.

“Hold up,” she called. Aleja skidded into the wall as she made a sharp turn leading to a room where a statue of Perseus held Medusa’s screaming head aloft. Garm crashed into it as he entered with too much momentum for a clean stop, and Aleja winced as the statue rocked on its base.

Nicolas’s black wings widened as he noticed the dog. Something felt foreboding about the sight, though she no longer feared him as she once had. Perhaps it was déjà vu again, based on some memory trapped deep inside of her. For when the Knowing One wore his wings, it meant they were going to battle.

“What did you find, Garm?” he asked.

Violet’s sun-kissed face filled Aleja’s vision. The guilt had been so overwhelming that Aleja wanted to beg Nicolas to take her back to the human world, even if only a few days had passed there. Whenever Aleja ate Bonnie’s food, held hands with her grandmother, or stared at paintings few humans had ever seen, Violet was still in the cold dark place.

“I waited outside James’s house until after the firefighters were gone. Eventually, someone showed up who could get past the wards.”

“An Otherlander?” Aleja said. Garm’s front feet tapped in what seemed like surprise.

“Yes, but he concealed his face with a winged mask, as the Astraelis do. He left the house with nothing.”

“I suspect we’d already taken what he was after,” Nicolas said. “Were you able to track him?”

“We went into the mountains, far past the place where we found Thierry Laurent. The pass opened into a valley, but I could go no further. The entire forest was ringed with ironsalts. But this Otherlander was not the only person to travel in and out of the valley while I watched. Some humans wandered into the woods to forage or fish in a near-frozen pond beyond the boundaries,” Garm said. It was, perhaps, the most coherent paragraph Aleja had ever heard him speak, and it reminded her of the wicked thing that Violet had once trapped on her own.

“What the hell is Roland up to?” Nicolas muttered.

“The Otherlander never emerged. Or if he did, I didn’t see him. But there was one more strange thing, boss. The people I saw all looked extraordinarily healthy. Well-fed, even.”

“Why is that odd?” she asked.

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