Page 19 of No Greater Sorrow

“Yes, but I’ve taken the liberty of asking for a ride.”

One of the Avisai rose over the hill, beating its enormous wings. Violet stepped back and threw her hand over her mouth, but Aleja’s eyes merely widened. In her last life, she’d loved to watch the Avisai, especially on the full moon nights, when they danced through the sky in coordinated spirals—some ancient ritual whose meaning and purpose was only known to them.

“Is that a dragon?” Violet asked.

“Technically, it’s a wyvern,” Aleja pointed out.

“Nerd,” Violet muttered with affection.

The Avisai landed heavily in front of them. As dawn approached, pink light filled the gaps between the mountains, gleaming off the Avisai’s black scales, giving them a deceivingly soft appearance. Overhead, the sky was filled with thin, scraggly clouds, like someone had dragged their nails through a dollop of foam.

“There is no way I’m getting on that thing,” Garm barked.

“You don’t have to. Head northwest and you’ll pick up the camp’s scent.”

Garm looked to Aleja, waiting for her instructions. Good.

“Go on,” she told him before turning to Nicolas. “Please don’t tell me I’m supposed to know how to ride a creature as big as a school bus.”

“You shouldn’t have to do much, and to be honest those scales chafe. Still it’s better than walking. Give me a moment.”

Nicolas lifted his hands, and the light in the clearing changed as he manipulated it. It felt good to use his magic like this, so close to the Second’s cave—the heart of all Otherlander power.

“Everything looks wrong. Like a painting with conflicting light sources,” Aleja said. “Wait. You don’t just command the shadows. You commandlight, and the shadows respond in turn.”

Nicolas felt guilty for enjoying the impressed gleam in her eyes as his shadows coalesced near the Avisai and began to transform. First, came a saddle draped over the dragon’s back—black on black and barely visible. A rope followed, trailing from the saddle to the ground.

“You can make the shadows corporeal?” Violet asked. She was the first to approach the Avisai. Of course, the girl who was unafraid of hiking alone would have no problem wandering up to a dragon hiding rows of sharp teeth in its massive snout.

“Yes. I can grant them a bit of my power too. Let them think for themselves.”

Aleja shot him a look. “My grandmother always said not to dabble in magic that had a mind of its own.”

“With all respect to your grandmother, she’s not the Knowing One,” Nicolas answered. “Hurry and get on. The Avisaireallydon’t like wearing those saddles. You don’t want him to lose his patience and buck you off.”

The Avisai crouched low, light shining through the most translucent stretches of its wings, illuminating the network of capillaries underneath. Aleja hobbled closer, and Nicolas caught the wince of pain she tried to hide.

“Fine. I just ran more than I ever have in my entire life. Don’t underestimate how much my feet hurt. Come on, Vi. You love heights. You’ll need to hold me when I have a panic attack.”

Nicolas hadn’t forgotten the feeling of flying next to Aleja—the way her hair whipped into her face, and how the wind’s speed made the air taste like peppermints. But until now, he’d never been able to recapture this strange mix of exhilaration and relief. The feeling of escape.

Yet every wing beat made his chest burn. If it had been another person to love her—a thought that awakened something wretched and bitter in him—he could have found a way around the bargain. Hellfire, he would have resorted to ripping the person’s heart out himself, if he had to. When the Knowing One was both the lender and the man in debt, finding a loophole was more… difficult.

The only solution was dangerous, reckless, and depended entirely on old magic. Magic belonging to the Hiding Place. Not to mention, the cooperation of the Second himself. He couldn’t ask it of Aleja—not when she had already sacrificed so much for him.

As the army camp came into view over the ridge, the dragon flew toward an open field to the east. Its landing shook the ground, claws digging small trenches in the earth. If they cleared the weeds here and dug into a deeper layer of dirt, the scars of the last war surely still existed.

Aleja slid down the dragon’s flank. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

Violet followed her a moment after. “Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad.”

“Says the person who was clutching me the entire time.”

“I was making sure you didn’t fall off.”

The camp was quiet as morning mist crept into the valley, displaced by the occasional gust of an Avisai flying low. The weary night watch disappeared into their tents as waking soldiers stumbled toward the smell of breakfast coming from the cook’s wagon.

“It’s really happening, isn’t it? War,” Aleja said.

---