Page 11 of No Greater Sorrow

He led her to the nearest cabin, where curtains fluttered out of an open window like ghosts trying to escape. Aleja flattened herself against an exterior wall and listened, but all she heard was a whisper in a language she couldn’t understand. She crouched to peer in. What she saw nearly made her fall back into the weeds sprouting from the unkempt garden.

The thing inside had Aleja’s reddish-black hair and vestiges of her face—her plump lips, her round cheeks—but skin sagged on its bones, hanging in ghoulish sheets the color of a dying plant. As it shuffled through the cabin, staring at an object in its palm, even the weight of its tattered clothes seemed too much. Aleja gave a soft gasp and dropped lower.

“What is that thing?” she hissed at Garm.

“It smells like a corpse,” he told her.

Great. Her corpse, from the look of it.

The creature spun in Aleja’s direction, but only seemed interested in the object tucked into its palm—a shard of bright red glass.

You know you’re going to have to get that, don’t you? said the voice in her head.

Yeah, yeah, I get the gist. Shut up, I need to concentrate.

If you insist.

“Garm, can you distract her?”

“Sure, Al. Why?”

“Because I need the shard of glass in her hands.”

Garm whined and sat on his haunches. “It has the smell of the Second’s magic on it, Aleja. Are you sure that’s what you’re here for?”

“Do you have any other ideas?”

“Nope!” Garm said brightly, wagging his tail. “I’m a puppy, I have no ideas whatsoever. I’ll lure the corpse-you away.”

“It sounds dangerous when you put it like that.”

Before she could say anything else, he disappeared. Aleja’s thighs burned from huddling beneath the window, but her body snapped to attention when she heard a soft bark. The corpse took a few hulking steps toward the black dog in the doorway, its attention never completely leaving the red shard in its hand.

What’s her deal?Aleja asked her inner voice.

You’ve had three lives, Aleja. This must be the woman you would have been if not for a snake that lunged for your ankle as you bent to drink from the river after a long hunt.

Why would the Second want me to see this?

How am I supposed to know?

The corpse shot forward, toppling a candle on a small table next to the bed. Depending on how she looked at it, that black candle had either saved Aleja’s life or doomed her. In another timeline, in another world, she would have succumbed to the snake bite. Her husband would have mourned her, and she would never have been reborn.

And that makes you angry with him? said her voice.

No. I’m not angry about that. I would have done the same.

Why?

Because… because I care about him. He’s arrogant and cynical, and he doesn’t understand when to leave well enough alone, but fuck, I care about him.

Yet you’re still angry?

Yes. Because he lied to me. Again. Why the hell are we having this conversation now when the corpse is getting away?

That, Lady of Wrath and Fire, is entirely your fault.

Aleja took off after Garm and the corpse, but hesitated to use her magic, having no idea whether that would destroy the shard. Hopefully, Violet was having a more pleasant time than chasing a dead version of herself through an abandoned Mediterranean village.

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