Page 15 of No Greater Sorrow

Before she could answer, the room exploded. Garm threw his body over hers, but in this new form, he was too small to shield her from the flames. She heard his yelp and smelled burned fur as the statues around them shattered. If it wasn’t for the pillar, which held out despite the rush of heat, they both would have been incinerated.

“Go! We need to move,” Garm barked.

Smoke filled the room. Aleja could not see the woman but heard her laugh in response. “This ismykingdom, thieves.”

But the Dark Saint didn’t expect the chunk of marble Aleja threw at her face. The woman fell back, clutching her temple, and Aleja and Garm took off again.

The throne room doors were such a relief that Aleja let out a scream as she slammed against them—a primal sound, born of fire and blood. She hardly registered that the space was not nearly as empty as in her time. Red flowers bloomed in tall vases, bright as celestial bodies in the darkness. One of the vases bursted, filling the room with the scent of caramelized honey but Aleja did not stop.

Garm reached the door to the upper chambers first, and Aleja slammed it shut behind them. Seconds later, it shattered. Splinters burrowed into the flesh of her shoulder, as her eyes shot to the painting of her and Nicolas above the bed.

The war had already tarnished it; slashes cut across their bodies, and the word WHORE screamed out in red paint. But there was the shard, embedded at the center of Aleja’s portrait. She scrambled for it, nearly losing her footing on the bed. A second later, the shard was in her hand as a furious Dark Saint watched from the smoldering doorway.

“Put that down,” the woman said.

“I need it,” Aleja panted.

“So do I,” the woman said. It was almost… a plea, as if she hadn’t been the one shooting torrents of fire at them a few seconds ago. Aleja looked up, half expecting a wall of fire to hit her in the face, but the other woman only seemed stricken.

“It’s my heart. If you take it, I’ll lose everything. I’ll lose my life. I’ll lose my friends. I’ll lose my husband.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t have any other choice.”

The woman’s lower lip twitched. This was the last night of her life as a Dark Saint, as the High General of the Knowing One’s armies, as a wife, as a confidant, as part of the Hiding Place’s family. “Please,” she whispered, so quietly that Aleja could only tell what she said by the shape of her lips.

“Come on,” Garm said, tugging Aleja’s pant leg with his mouth. “We should get out of here.”

“I’m sorry,” Aleja murmured again as they passed. Though the Dark Saint made no other attempt to stop them, Aleja didn’t fail to notice the silent tears streaming down her face, nor the blank expression behind her eyes, as if the enormity of this loss had been enough to break her.

The woman did not answer, and when Aleja turned back to the throne room…

Once again, she was between the high stone walls of the labyrinth. A gust of wind blew snow off the mountain tops. Whatever scent it carried was lost beneath the smoke lingering on her clothes.

“Aleja, your shoulder,” Garm said.

Her plain leather tunic had not protected her as armor could. It looked like something had taken a great bite of flesh from her upper arm. The sight of it made her retch, and though her stomach was empty, her ribs squeezed her torso painfully. She smelled of copper and something reminding her of the rain-soaked gloom of the Pacific Northwest—rotten mushrooms, perhaps.

“Any sign of Violet?” she panted.

“No, but I smell warm candle wax. This way.”

Aleja pulled the shards from her bag. The two she’d collected fit together at one jagged edge, but it was obvious a third was missing. “Fuck,” she muttered, wondering how the hell she was going to take another step. Garm nudged her leg, and she winced. The pain was already so intense and widespread that it was the only sensation she could grapple with.

“Come on. We need to keep moving,” Garm said.

“I can’t.”

“You must. I promised the Knowing One that I would take care of you. Come on, Aleja.Walk.”

Do it, said her inner voice, so sharply that Aleja jumped.

Everything hurt, but at least she was upright again. “Which way?”

“Follow me.”

She barely perceived the walk. Left, right, left, left, then a backtrack of a few yards. Eventually, Aleja looked up, reminding herself that she wasn’t in a dream.

Her childhood home rose in front of her. Two rows of palm trees lined the driveway of the sprawling Miami estate, which sat awkwardly among the mountainous terrain of the Hiding Place. Aleja took a slug of water from her flask; her throat was raw from smoke, and it felt like pouring sand into her mouth.

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