Page 78 of No Greater Sorrow

“I’m sorry, Al. If you don’t want the position, offer it to Orla. For now, decide if you’re going to talk to Val or not.”

“I’ll… fine. I’ll talk to Val.” In truth, Aleja wanted to knowwhy. Why Violet set the Astraelis on a path that could destroy everyone Aleja held dear—not to mention the countless other witches that would die. And since she couldn’t talk to Violet, Val was the only one with answers.

The air in the medical tent always felt fresher and sharper. Still in iron chains, Val looked even worse than during his first week in the camp, when he was never more than a wrongly phrased sentence away from death.

One of the wings had fallen from his mask in the scuffle—leaving only five now, arranged asymmetrically. Where the feathers were missing, Aleja could see the curve of a pale cheek, dotted by freckles. She wondered when that part of his face had last seen sunlight. If there was anyone who knew what he looked like beneath the mask.

As it was, all she could read of his expression was from his mouth, hanging slack. He gestured with his head at the bandaged stub where his right hand had once been. He was in shock, Aleja figured—a distant memory from her time as a caretaker with the Gentle Hearts Agency. Unsure of what to do, she sat on one of the stools and crossed her arms, attempting to keep her anger from igniting the alcohol-based tonics in the tent like bombs.

Her skin was so, so hot.

“Why did you stay back?” she asked with no preamble. If Val didn’t have a good reason for being here, she might start believing it would have been better to leave him to the angry soldiers.

“So my mother wouldn’t decimate your army,” Val said. “She refused to let her guards kill me when I ran. That’s when I knew she wouldn’t mount a full-scale attack while I remained among the Otherlanders. Not if it risked my life.”

The immediacy of his answer surprised her, considering how listless his expression had been when they entered. Aleja dug her fingernails into her palms. “You helped her. You could have refused if you really wanted us alive. Are you still feeding her information?”

“No, I never was. I never needed to. It was Violet in communication with my mother through her bond with the Authorities. It was Violet who realized that the chains were finished. It was also Violet who found your bed empty, figured out where you’d gone, and told my mother that the time to act was now.”

“Bullshit,” Aleja spat.

“It’s true whether you want to believe it or not. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have allowed her to channel with the Authorities. I knew the connection went both ways, but I didn’t understand how deeply. However, it is also true that what Violet explained to me changed my mind about helping my mother.”

“What did she tell you?” Aleja stood, even though it would reveal she was flustered. In her peripheral vision, Taddeas motioned for Val to answer the question.

“That my mother has no real interest in overthrowing the Knowing One, or even… in killing the Second. She lied to me.” Val attempted to bring a hand to his face but rapidly returned his bandaged arm to his lap with a choked noise of distress.

“What does she want then?” Taddeas asked, apparently unable to keep silent any longer.

“It’s not the Second she wants to kill. At least, not yet. It’s the First.”

Outside the tent flaps, the evening bustled with the sounds of soldiers disbanding the camp. A draft snuck in through gaps in the linen, disturbing the steady plume of smoke from the medicinal herbs that the healers kept burning in the corner. Something like incense briefly replaced the smell of sweat, mud, and iron.

“Why would she want to do that?” Aleja asked, feeling as though she was balanced at the edge of some precipice. Eventually, she would fall, and the cliff wall would be too steep to reclimb. The world would be divided into two distinct periods: the time she had spent above and the time that stretched ahead of her in the below.

“I…” Val began.

“Tell her, Val. Idefendedyou. Don’t make me regret it,” Taddeas said.

Val dropped his gaze back to his lap again. “She must have seen it in my research before I did. She must have…”

“Val, talk,” Taddeas snapped.

“Like the Hiding Place, the Astraelis realm has been in a state of decay for centuries now. We’ve been better at keeping it a secret than you, but the problem exists all the same. The First has been absent—she no longer chooses new Messengers. Some say she is sleeping. Some say she has gone mad. My research indicated a rising vibrational energy. A flood of incoming magic, reversing the gradual decay we have been experiencing for over a century. Like a star, preparing to supernova. But I couldn’t understand what it meant.”

“What are you trying to say? Simple terms, please. I haven’t spent decades studying theoretical magic,” Aleja asked when Val paused again.

“We have a theory that our realms, as well as the human realm, exist in cycles. A series of genesis and apocalypses if you will. My mother’s interpretations of these energy readings suggest that we may be entering one of these periods of ending. We have a word for it in our language that would sound like Avaddon to you.”

“How would killing the First stop this?” Taddeas said, his brow furrowed.

“Like smothering a supernova before it begins, it could stop the release of energy that would take the rest of the realm with it.”

“But you don’t know for sure.”

“My research is sound, but no. My mother directed me to study whether the Second could be killed without destabilizing the realm?—”

“It would killallthe witches,” Aleja interrupted. “That was acceptable to you?”

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