Page 97 of What Is Dark Within Me

“Good. I have pride. I was aninfluencer,” Violet said.

“What’s that?” Garm asked Aleja quietly, as if for once, he was hesitant to interrupt. She didn’t blame him. The anger in Violet’s eyes was enough to make Aleja want to take a few steps back, as if Violet was full of fire magic, too.

“Why do you think I summoned a hellhound? Why do you think I listened to a man who told me there was a magic well that could erase the cancer from my body? Because I will do anything it takes to live, to reallylive—even if it might kill me. And if the Knowing One doesn’t agree to take me to the Second, then I will appeal to him myself,” Violet finished.

She was nearly out of breath by her final sentence, but she stared at the three others in the clearing with absolute determination. Nicolas looked at Aleja, a question in his eyes. After a long moment, she nodded, wondering if she was signing her friend’s death warrant.

“All right then, Violet Timmons,” he said. “It’s a long walk into the mountains. If you have the strength, follow us.”

* * *

Aleja expectedthe Second’s resting place to be as opulent as the palace, and she was surprised when—half a mile above the tree line—Nicolas pointed to a large cave entrance in the distance and said, “There it is.”

Garm, who’d mostly lingered at Violet’s side, sat back on his haunches, eerily still until a whimper escaped him. The wind whirled around the mountaintop, carrying with it a scent Aleja couldn’t identify—something like rock and bones and dust from a museum unoccupied for centuries.

“The Second is almost as old as time. Literally,” Nicolas said. “He won’t relate to you. You won’t relate to him. The three of us will go in. I’ll tell him you two are my nominees for Wrath and Pride, and that I request the Trials set for a year and a day from now. Even if he speaks, ignore him unless he addresses you directly. Especially you, Aleja. This mortal life was supposed to be a punishment. I’m not sure he’ll be happy you found a loophole.”

Aleja sat on the nearest boulder and took a swig of water. She scooted to give her friend room, but Violet shook her head. The potion must have worn off hours ago. Violet’s bangs hung limp against her forehead, framing a pallid face. “If I sit down, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get back up,” she said softly.

“Just a few more minutes. We’re almost there,” Aleja told her.

“Is he, like, your boyfriend?” Violet asked. Her face brightened a little, and Aleja felt so relieved at the sight that her eyes almost filled with tears. “I mean, he’s pretty—for a guy, anyway—but the Knowing One, Aleja? What would your family say?”

“My grandmother hit me with a shoe when I told her.”

“Come on,” Nicolas called. “We shouldn’t stay here any longer than needed. Garm, watch the entrance while we’re inside.”

Nicolas didn’t say what Garm was supposed to be watching for.

“All right. Let’s get this over with. Has he told you what the Second will be like?” Violet breathed. Despite her gaunt face and the tremor in her thighs, she sounded more confident than Aleja felt.

“Not really, but I get the sense they don’t enjoy each other’s company.”

Aleja gave Garm a quick scratch behind the ears as she passed, and his tail wagged, disturbing the gravel path.

“Be careful,” he said, sneaking a lick to the back of her hand. “The Second hates weakness. Don’t let him know you’re afraid.”

The cave entrance opened into a large chamber, and Aleja’s eyes had trouble adjusting to the space while light poured in behind her. Signs of the Otherlanders were everywhere; tall pillars carved into the rock, wrapped in spiraling sculptures. Tiny human figures with bat-like wings slayed Astraelis in a repeating pattern. It was as if they depicted the same battle, happening again and again in a cycle persisting through the ages.

“This way.” Nicolas gestured toward an arched passage between two columns. Great curtains of moss hung wherever the sunlit hit, dripping moisture into shallow pools beneath. A serpent above the archway had long since eroded into a ghoulish, almost featureless thing.

“Remember, you’ve done this before,” he said, squeezing her hand. She’d been apprehensive about what could await her in the Trials, but she’d accepted the uncertainty with a sort of numbness. Now, she stared down at the true face of it all. Losing her humanity, losing what family she had, enlisting in a war that had nearly killed her once already.

She looked back at Violet, who watched the passageway with intense concentration, then to Nic. His eyes were soft, his mouth slightly parted, as if he wanted to plead with her one last time to turn back. But Aleja wasn’t doing this for herself. She was doing it for them.

“Okay, let’s go,” she said.

They descended into the mountain.

Statue-filled nooks sat nestled within the cave walls, better preserved where the wind couldn’t touch them. She peered through the gloom at satyrs playing violins, snakes coiled around fig trees, and a triad of three women offering a book, a lantern, and a key to whoever stood below. Enormous chunks of red crystal surrounded the path. Aleja guessed they must have looked like flames once, when this was the Second’s seat of power.

“There,” Nicolas said, pointing to a large pool at the chamber’s center. The faint crimson glow it gave was the only illumination in the room other than the mageflare Violet had summoned. Some humans imagined the Hiding Place as a kingdom created from fire and blood. This room would surely have convinced them they were right.

Chipped tiles crunched beneath their feet as they followed Nicolas to its edge. Was this where she’d begged the Second to let her take Nicolas’s punishment as her own?

A rumble came from beneath, sounding like a distant earthquake. A sensation crept over her, and she almost retched over her boots. She’d felt dark magic before. She’d done dark magic before. But this…

It seeped into her like a disease that shriveled her insides. Violet coughed, but when Aleja looked back, she realized she was the one in worse shape. There was a sheen of sweat on Violet’s brow, but she’d stayed upright while Aleja doubled over.

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