Page 25 of No Greater Sorrow

“That’s a lot sadder than I expected,” Aleja said, stopping in her tracks. The sky was low and a uniform dark blue like the rest of this desolate country—low hills and a featureless river, repeating again and again as if they had been walking in circles.

“It is,” Nicolas agreed. “Now, come on. Try some fire. We can test the wards.”

“Geez, Knowing One. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so flustered.”

“Repetition annoys me. Go on.”

The flames came so easily. Before her Trial yesterday, she’d needed to concentrate to make her hands erupt with fire, but with one down, she was a step closer to becoming a Dark Saint.

“Very nice,” he said, as she let off a torrent running opposite to the small stream. The fire advanced a few yards before hitting an invisible barrier, causing it to jut upward until the flames dissipated.

“You have magic too, you know?” She sighed. It felt as if the monotony of this place was an enchantment on its own, meant to lull them into a trance. Their surroundings appeared slightly indistinct as if she was viewing them through stained glass.

“It’s not nearly as impressive as yours. But if you insist.”

She had already known that Nicolas could manipulate light and shadow. It was forged within the name some had given him in the human realm. Lucifer. The light-bringer. The Morningstar. But her breath still hitched. What light existed here gathered around Nicolas in a pulsing orb, bright enough to make her squint. Through the glare, he raised his left hand. The light flew toward the wards like a missile, just like her fire had. However, instead of being deflected, it was absorbed. The ward lit up like a spiderweb at the first touch of dawn, and Aleja saw how enormous it was—how delicately translucent, but also impenetrable.

Except for the hole punched through it, like a small doorway to their right.

“Why would the Third need a door to get past his own wards?” Aleja asked.

“He wouldn’t,” Nicolas murmured. “Keep your eyes open, dove. I don’t think we’re alone.”

She knew she should say something about the nickname, especially when she was definitely,certainly, very much committed to not thinking about him in those terms until he fixed his chest and did some groveling to boot. His fingers danced through the air again and the glamours hiding his wings and sword dissolved. In the colored light of the Third’s realm, the gray streak of hair by Nicolas’s left temple was pale blue.

“Where’smyflaming sword?” Aleja grumbled.

“Somewhere in the Second’s caverns, I’d venture. I noticed that Violet was wearing your old armor.”

“She needed it more than me,” Aleja said. She’d pulled the leather gloves back on before leaving the Hiding Place, and her left pinkie stuck out, pale against the dark material.

“You still have your sickle,” he said, as they made their way toward the gap in the wards.

“Great. You get a magical sword engraved with the names of your enemies, and I get a gardening tool.”

“We can have one of the smiths emboss something on the blade if you like. ‘You reap what you sow’?”

“Ugh.Corny.”

“Oh no. Puns are not allowed unless I give express permission. It’s the only thing that will get you kicked out of the Hiding Place.”

“Shut it, Knowing One. You go through the spooky portal first.”

He raised a finger to his lips and slipped through the opening in the ward. Aleja expected to see the same landscape on the other side, but as she stepped through, her first thought was that they had entered a cemetery. Leafless trees grew in contorted shapes—weeping willows stripped bare, aside from the tattered flags strung between their branches. To her left, an enormous marble foot was covered in brown vines. Even on tiptoes, Aleja wouldn’t have reached the gentle curve of its ankle bone. It was a piece of a statue on a scale she couldn’t comprehend until she saw others that were more intact on the horizon.

Impossibly large stone women wept into their hands, their bodies hunched with grief. A towering city of sorrow.

“This place used to be beautiful,” Nicolas said, watching her take stock of the landscape. “It was a labyrinth of willows, and everywhere you walked, you had to push aside great curtains of leaves. The statues came later.”

“What happened to it?” she asked, keeping her voice low. The world was quiet, aside from the rush of another distant river.

“For all the grief Third has caused in the world, he never felt it himself until Nyra died. If he’s here, we’ll find him at his tower.”

“Are there creatures here?”

“I’ve never seen them—only heard their calls, like owls.”

Aleja stoked her magic in case she had to call it up on a moment’s notice. Yet as they walked on, it seemed impossible that flame could survive here. Unlike the landscape on the other side of the wards, the air was humid and thick with the smell of sea salt.

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