Page 89 of What Is Dark Within Me

Aleja stumbled, turning to watch him raise his black sword. She tried to obey him—she truly did—but it was impossible to look away from the thing rising out of the darkness.

Wings. Eyes. Gold. Light. A writhing mass so large she couldn’t believe it had been curled at the bottom of a well for centuries. Her brain struggled to put its separate parts into something whole. It was as if she were back in time, watching an Authority glide across a battlefield, absorbing soldiers in black armor; not merely her army, but also her friends.

A villager screamed.

Despite her panic, a bitter thought shot her through her mind.You were more than happy to sacrifice sick young women and drink the Astraelis’s well water, but the moment you find out what you’ve been feeding, you can’t handle it.

KNOWING ONE. YOU’VE COME WITHOUT YOUR ARMIES.

Not completely without his armies. His High General was with him. But Aleja she crawled toward Violet, she understood why he’d begged her to run. Even with his wings outstretched, and his sword in hand—what could a single Otherlander do against something like the creature towering over them?

“Vi, are you okay? Come on. We have to go,” Aleja whispered, brushing a strand of hair from her friend’s face. The burn across the bridge of Violet’s nose was already weeping, but it appeared she’d been spared the worst of it. Her frail body shook in Aleja’s arms.

“I can’t. This is all a dream.”

“No, it’s not. Stand up.”

“You don’t understand. I drank the well water. Even after I escaped the first time, it wouldn’t stop calling. I came back on my own.”

Aleja risked a glance at Nicolas who was speaking to the Astraelis, but with the constant sound of wings beating against one another, she couldn’t understand what he was saying. He was buying them time, she realized.

“It won’t happen again. I won’t let it.”

“You don’t understand,” Violet repeated. “It took a piece of me and replaced it with… with… I saw everything it knew. Everything it wanted.”

The world shifted as the Astraelis moved and a rush of air knocked Aleja off balance. She glimpsed a flaming black sword and magic sparked at her fingertips. The woman inside her screamed to be let out and fight at Nic’s side, as she had always done.

“Did it have any weakness, Vi? Anything you can think of, anything we can use,” Aleja said, grabbing her friend’s forearm in the one place not marbled by fresh burns.

“It—it—”

Nicolas roared, and blood-spattered feathers exploded across the air in a flurry of motion. Aleja couldn’t stop herself from looking back. The Astraelis had already recovered, its wings blocking her view of his body.

“It sees through the eyes of those it absorbs. When I tasted the water, I felt the pain of everyone trapped inside of it. They’re scared in there. They’re angry.”

She wanted to press again, but Violet was barely holding onto consciousness. Even if she was willing, Aleja didn’t think she would make it more than a few feet on her own.

“Stay with me,” she whispered as Violet staggered, hissing in pain as her burns scraped against Aleja’s clothes. “You drew a binding circle on the floor of Agnes Flanders’s basement, and well… it’s a long story, but can you undo it?”

Violet’s eyes were cloudy, but she nodded. Aleja felt the ghost of her touch again, tracing a sigil on her skin—the binding circle in reverse. She almost wanted to laugh. After everything they’d fought through, everything they’d struggled to find, here was Violet, undoing the spell that had irreversibly changed the course of Aleja’s life with a few simple motions.

“It’s done,” Violet said.

She wondered if Nicolas had felt a surge of power as the binding was broken. They could run now, Aleja realized. Even if he died, she would be safe. Even if a war was coming, she didn’t need to take part in it. But she remembered his words: “I’ll find you again, I swear. I’ll crawl through any hell to get to you.”

Aleja pushed the sickle into Violet’s hands. “Take this. If any of the villagers try to stop you, use it. Stand up and run in that direction until you reach the ring of ironsalts. Once you’re there, call for Garm. He’ll come to you in the form of a black dog. Don’t be afraid. Tell him to take you to the Hiding Place.”

“The Hiding Place?” Violet muttered.

“Go. I’ll be right behind you, I promise.”

Violet looked as if she knew Aleja was lying. Her chapped lips twisted into a frown. “I’m sorry for all the secrets I kept,” she said. “I was trying to protect you.”

“I’m sorry for all the secrets I’m keeping. I’m trying to protect you,” Aleja answered, giving her a gentle shove on the shoulder. “Go.”

She watched Violet take a few unsteady steps then turned to face the fight. Blood splattered the Astraelis’s wings, and its feathers lay scattered on the ground, but when she spotted Nicolas, she knew he was in trouble. He’d been forced from his position, staggering back to the well with his blade dragging in the dirt next to him. One of his wings was in tatters, torn through by claws.

No, she realized.Teeth marks. Somewhere inside the mass of wings and eyes, a mouth had enjoyed a nice appetizer of Dark Saint and was ready for its second course.

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