Page 72 of No Greater Sorrow

“My dove,” Nicolas said. “Even knowing how it would end, I’d do it all again. Be good when you can and villainous when you cannot. Garm!”

The massive hellhound took a step back, shaking his head like he was flinging off water. “I really don’t want to, boss.”

“You made me a promise, hellhound. Fulfill it.”

Before Aleja registered what was happening, Garm pounced.

A wordless noise erupted from her chest. She rushed forward, but Aleja couldn’t match a hellhound’s speed. Garm’s claws curled into the tattooed skin of Nicolas’s chest. Blood seeped into the thirsty ground, disappearing into black soil that soaked it in as eagerly as rain.

Her fingers tried to get a grip on Garm’s fur, but he shook her off with no effort, using his weight to grind more deeply into Nicolas’s torso. The Knowing One made a choked sound as blood pooled around his mouth.

It was a horrible reversal of their positions when Nicolas and Aleja had found each other again after centuries. This time, he was the one being ripped to shreds by a hellhound and she was the one pleading for the dog to back off. Aleja’s sweat-dampened palms could scarcely pull the sword from its scabbard.

“Garm, please. I don’t want to hurt you,” she sobbed, raising the weapon over her head. But Garm didn’t relent when she brought the heavy blade down on his side. His skin was too thick. The sword only opened a pink wound, not deep enough to bleed.

Aleja lifted the sword again, but Garm leaped from Nicolas’s body and slunk away, whimpering, his tail between his legs.

The sword fell from her hand, landing in the grass with a thud as she rushed to Nicolas’s side. He was still alive, but each exhale came with a spurt of dark blood from his chest. His tunic had been torn apart by Garm’s claws, revealing a mess of skin underneath. The snake tattoo was barely recognizable—a chunk of body in one place, a reptilian eye pierced by a thorn in another.

“I can’t believe you would…”

“Survive this. Return to the others as the Dark Saint of Wrath and help them win the war.” By the end of his last sentence, Nicolas’s breath gurgled like he was drowning in the open air.

“Why would you do this?” Aleja sobbed. She wanted to touch him, but there seemed to be no place where his skin wasn’t torn apart by claws. In the field, Garm gave a pained wail.

YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE LEFT, said the Second.

Nicolas’s eyes paled—the silver of storm clouds fading into the almost translucent color of a winter lake. A cold light. A weak light. And it was growing weaker, even as he pulled his sword forward so that the leather wrapping the hilt brushed against Aleja’s fingers.

THIRTY SECONDS.

“The bargain—” Nic managed.

The words made no sense. All she could manage was a single, “No.”

Aleja would not cut out his heart, no matter what the Second demanded. She’d had enough of his cruel games. If Garm was allowed to leave this place, he could tell the others what had happened. Perhaps their deaths would plant a new seed of rebellion in the minds of the Otherlanders—against the Second beneath his mountain, who promised them freedom but only as he saw fit.

Nicolas stilled.

The world grew dim.

The hills surrounding Aleja were being swallowed by shadow, bit by bit until all that was left were the ruined pillars. Fire engulfed her body, wrapping her in a mantle of flames. Unsummoned, it had simply come as she watched Nic’s body, waiting for him to take another breath.

“Aleja,” Garm whispered.

“Don’t fucking talk to me,” she said, but her voice was low, scarcely audible over the crackle of her fire.

“Nicolas made me promise to protect you. I had to?—”

“Don’t say another word.”

Aleja was distantly aware she couldn’t breathe—not because she was dying, but because Nicolas didn’t move when she brushed a strand of damp hair away from his forehead and straightened the snake pin on his lapel. It didn’t seem right that the Knowing One’s body seemed so frail. His torso looked like it had been torn into strips, and someone had taken the time to try and smooth it down, only for the wind to whip everything into disarray again.

“Garm, I need you to help me carry him. We need to get him to the healers,” she eventually said.

“They can’t help, Al.”

“You did this, so you’re going to help me,” she snapped.

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