Page 17 of No Greater Sorrow

I agree, but that doesn’t change the situation. This girl isn’t real.You are. You have friends and a lover who will die if you don’t unhook that sickle from your belt loop right now.If you can’t do this, how will you send your soldiers into battle?

Aleja knew her inner voice was right; this was just an illusion. Yet it didn’t stop her hands from shaking as they fumbled for the clasp that held the sickle to her belt.

“What’s that?” the girl asked.

“It’s a sickle. Sometimes, it’s called a reaping hook. It’s usually a farming tool, but this one has magic. Do you want to take a closer look?”

For the first time, the girl seemed wary of Aleja’s presence. “Iknowwhat a sickle is. Why do you have it? The uncles don’t let us into the rooms with the artifacts.”

Garm moved off the girl’s lap, sending another sorrowful look in Aleja’s direction. Never once taking her eyes off Aleja’s weapon, the girl uncrossed her legs and pushed herself to the edge of the rug.

“Why do you have that?” she asked again.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t want to do this,” Aleja said.

The girl’s eyes widened. She shook her head in shock and disbelief. Then, she ran.

Aleja was faster. Her sickle easily sliced through the pool cue the girl picked up to defend herself when she made it to the game room downstairs and stumbled to her knees.

* * *

“FUCK YOU,”Aleja screamed, throwing one of the vases full of bright red flowers, like those she’d seen in her vision of the throne room. “Fuck you, Second. I don’t want your fucking powers.”

The estate’s windows shattered, leaving shards glimmering on the floor like geodes. Garm sat silently in the corner, ears and shoulders low, watching as she threw anything that could be thrown, including portraits of her ancestors ripped from the walls, a six-string guitar that crashed against the curio cabinet with a pained twang, and a bright red stone that rolled into the hallway beyond.

“Aleja, we should go. You did it. This Trial is over,” Garm said, as if he were speaking to a child. It was strange to hear this tone of voice coming from a puppy with skin loose enough to carry him by.

She said nothing. The Aleja that had entered the labyrinth knew what it was to kill, but with a burst of fire, before they had a chance to beg for their lives. Before they looked at her with unguarded fear. She might be going back to her room at the palace, but she would not be returning as the same person she’d been this morning.

Go on, little villain, said her voice, gentler than usual.Don’t let the Second see how he fazed you.

All around her, the broken house glittered. Aleja investigated her satchel, where the shards of glass had fused together after being reunited—a translucent heart splattered with opaque blood.

“Come on,” Garm said, nudging her thigh with his muzzle. “I can lead us out of here.”

If Aleja had thoughts while she followed him out of the estate, she couldn’t voice them. The memory of the girl’s pained screams clung to Aleja like an animal on her back, its teeth sinking into her neck.

“We’re here,” Garm barked, bounding the last few yards to an arched passageway that looked like it led back to the caverns.

“Where’s Violet?” Aleja asked. The pain in her shoulder was a pressing ache, and the heat of it whispered of infections to come if she didn’t clean and bandage herself soon.

“I can barely smell her. Maybe she found another way out.”

Aleja turned back to the labyrinth. “Can you track her, Garm?”

She expected her inner voice to chide her for turning away from the exit, but there was silence aside from Garm’s nails clicking against the gravel path. “This way. I don’t think she’s far,” he said. The dog picked up his pace and Aleja struggled to keep up, knowing that if she faltered and lost sight of him, she might not make it out of the maze alive.

Something thudded up ahead. A deep sound, like stone meeting stone.

“Violet!” Aleja called. She had no idea where the rush of adrenaline came from when every part of her body and mind felt deflated. As a woman’s scream reverberated through the tunnels, Garm turned a corner and she ran to follow.

Aleja saw Violet first, slumped on the ground with her arms crisscrossed by gashes. Although the black armor had protected her torso, Violet struggled to breathe, as if it was too tight. A mass of wings and eyes was forcing its way through the narrow passage behind Violet. An Authority, like the one that’d almost killed them both just weeks ago.

Aleja didn’t stop to think. The well of magic within her was nearly exhausted, but she managed to draw up a spear of flame that shot over Violet’s head and into the Authority’s wings. It let out a hiss as a clump of its feathers burned away.

The passage was too small for it to easily squeeze through. Aleja sent another wave of fire and rushed to Violet’s side, hauling her up. “Garm, lead us back to the entrance!” she snapped.

Stone crumbled behind them as the Authority wrenched one of its wings free, filling the corridor with the smell of burned hair. Chasing Garm, they ran together until the arched passage appeared in the walls up ahead.

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