Page 7 of No Greater Sorrow

“Of course not. Any scouts who are captured are instructed to give false information before they’re killed. We already have dummy troops set up several miles downwind of here. Guerrilla tactics are going to be our only hope.”

“Good.”

Taddeas hesitated. “I’ve sent Jack to the fey realm. Amicia said he would be safe there.”

Jack was Taddeas’s husband. Nicolas missed his gregarious presence around the palace. “A wise choice, Tad. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. And Aleja is going to be okay too. She’s good. She’s smart,” Taddeas replied, as if he could see her reflection swimming in Nicolas’s eyes. Half his mind was still trapped in the moment she’d descended into the Second’s cave.

Heshouldhave told her earlier about the poison spreading through him—the punishment of a bargain, unfulfilled. But every time he’d pulled Aleja against him, and she huffed out a surprised laugh, Nicolas hadn’t found it in him to break her heart. Not again.

A sudden commotion came from below. In a flash, Nicolas had his sword in his hand. It erupted in dark flames, muting the brightness of everything around it.

“An attack?” he asked Taddeas, already scrambling down the ridge toward their encampment.

“I don’t see anything, but be ready.”

The Avisai continued to fly with no sense of urgency. With keen eyes like the Astraelis’s Thrones, they’d likely been a single species before the first war had separated their ancestors. The one overhead was black aside from its pale gray belly. Aleja used to love watching them swoop through the mountain clouds, their wings whipping up the snow at the summits when they dove low.

A slow wind beat against the tents of the makeshift encampment, and a flag bearing a coiled red serpent flapped irregularly like an injured bird. Soldiers stepped aside to let Nicolas and Taddeas pass, most offering the traditional salute of the Hiding Place, touching the index and middle finger of their left hand briefly to their left temple.

“What’s going on?” Taddeas asked Silmiya, a middle-aged woman in an officer’s uniform. She’d come to the Hiding Place long before the last war. Nicolas had not been the Knowing One to grant her refuge here, and if she was open about her past, it wasn’t with him.

“A group of scouts found an Astraelis close to our border. He claims to be seeking sanctuary,” she said. Silmiya wore her dark hair in a long braid, swept over her right shoulder. Like Nicolas, gray streaks decorated her temples. The colorful bangles on her wrist were bright against her brown skin, but stayed silent as she saluted.

“Is he alone?” Nicolas asked.

“As far as we can tell,” Silmiya said. “But the other side have tried tricks like this in the past. Although he’s submitted to our bindings, we haven’t let our guard down.”

“Good. Take us to him.”

Silmiya led them through the encampment, the sound of clanging metal and the heat of a forge triggering memories that’d haunted Nicolas for centuries. He drew his wings in closer to his back. Nicolas wouldn’t lie to his soldiers about their chances, but he wasn’t about to let them know he could taste death in the back of his throat, and it wouldn’t go away no matter how much he swallowed.

“Should I go fetch one of the librarians as well?” Silmiya asked.

The librarians had retreated deep into the mountains shortly after the creation of the Hiding Place. Most Otherlanders knew little about them, other than that they tended to a library carved into a massive limestone cave. They welcomed all into the library, but Nicolas couldn’t read their language even after becoming the Knowing One. When two librarians had descended from their home to help with the last war effort, he’d been shocked. As far as he knew, they were the first to leave their enclave.

“Have Red gather her books,” Nicolas said. The soldiers knew them only as Red and Gray, based on the color of the robes they wore.

“Yes, sir. The prisoner is in there.” Silmiya pointed to a non-descript tent, surrounded by armed guards. Most resembled humans or fey, but they were joined by a squat figure with amphibious legs and tremendously sharp teeth.

The tent’s interior smelled of the Astraelis. It was a pleasant scent, reminiscent of magnolias, honey, and fresh raindrops. Taddeas shifted and the sound of pebbles grinding beneath his boots joined the prisoner’s unsteady breathing. A large figure bound in meteorite iron chains huddled on the ground, human in shape if not size. The Principalities generally towered at least a full head over Nicolas, who was tall even among Otherlanders.

Despite the chains, the prisoner had his face tucked into the crook of his elbow. A shock of very pale hair covered his forehead. Nicolas had never seen an unmasked Principality before. Even in death, they used magic to conceal their true appearance.

“Please. My mask. My magic is suppressed by your bindings. I can’t perform a glamour,” the Principality said.

The mask lay in the dirt a few feet away. Even when soiled, it was a lovely thing, with six wings colored by a hint of pale blue. The wings continued pulsing gently, leaving an imprint in the soil like a snow angel.

“You have thirty seconds to explain why a Principality was sneaking around our borders,” Nicolas said, forcing down the urge to gather every shadow in the tent and send them down their prisoner’s throat—his preferred method of killing in the last war. It was the Astraelis’s fault Garm was dead. Garm may have shed, drooled, and only listened to orders when Aleja gave them or when it was convenient, but his absence hurt worse than the poison Nicolas’s own heart had cruelly designed for him.

Taddeas brushed the dirt off the mask with his sleeve before placing it at the prisoner’s feet. The cynic in Nicolas recognized the strategy. They were to play contrasting roles. Taddeas—reasonable, empathetic. And the Knowing One—intimidating, needlessly cruel. But Nicolas, who had appointed Taddeas as High General specifically to avoid war at all costs, wondered if Taddeas was just being kind.

With his hands bound, the Principality clumsily secured the mask over his face. The wings stiffened briefly before resuming their steady pulse. “I’m Val. Thanks for not killing me right away,” he said in a soft voice.

“I’ll be killing you in twenty-five seconds if you don’t explain what you’re doing here. I’ve already asked once and there is still much work to do around the camp. Don’t waste my time.”

The tent flap shifted as one of the librarians slipped in, dragging a wagon full of large books behind her. Red was very slight and looked mostly human aside from her owl-like eyes, which produced their own soft light so she could read in darkness. Her face was otherwise hidden by a thick woolen cowl covering her to the nose.

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