Page 4 of No Greater Sorrow

And in return, you’ll give me the heart of the next person to fall in love with you.

“Shit. I thought you said you’d find a way around the bargain. That the wording was vague,” Aleja whispered.

“It was, and I will. Other pressing matters have arisen. I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

She looked from the tattoo to his face. It was as stoic as ever, and the sight of it made Aleja’s palms heat with magic again. “What happened to ‘no more lies?’ You said I was the only one you could trust,” she snapped.

Nicolas’s jaw tightened. “Youarethe only one I can trust. This is my burden to bear. I told you, I’ll figure it out.”

“And what will the Second do then? Do you think he’ll forgive you for giving me power, and then ignoring the price I was supposed to pay for it? You said it yourself, there arerules. Rules you keep breaking.”

Aleja couldn’t decide what she was more upset about: that Nicolas had hidden the truth from her or that he was flaunting the Second’s laws again, so soon after Aleja had gotten him back. All her life, everything she’d loved had felt as fleeting as a pretty bird that’d briefly landed on her outstretched hand before being frightened away.

“I won’t make excuses. We had a moment of happiness. I wasn’t ready to let it go.” The snake on his chest writhed as he spoke.

“Does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Answer the question, Nicolas.”

“Yes.”

“Will you die if the bargain goes unfulfilled?”

“I think so.”

“Then,fix it, Knowing One. I didn’t come here to take the Trials and go to war, only to have you die because of a stupid bargain with a witchling in a Satanist’s basement.”

“I—”

“No. We’re not speaking about this again until you find a solution. Fall out of love with me if that’s what it takes.”

She hesitated before touching his chest. Would a mere graze from her fingers make him wince? Aleja waited for a sign that she should stop, but Nicolas gazed at her so fiercely that she almost needed to squint to block his eyes’ silver light.

His skin burned against her palms. Aleja could nearly feel the snake squirming as it tried to twist away from the thorns—and perhaps she imagined that it stilled for a moment as she ran her fingertips along its body. Nicolas watched her with an intense, unreadable expression. Though she might still be no more than a witchling, she had the Knowing One completely in her thrall.

The most powerful of Otherlanders trembled beneath her touch. It should have brought her a dark joy, but right now it merely made her angry.

“I’ll fix it,” he said again, unprompted, as if he could read her thoughts.

Reminding herself of her anger, she forced herself to turn away.

She hadn’t understood the word desperation until the first time they’d kissed like two animals trying to devour one another in a hungered frenzy. Since then, her desire for him never stopped gnawing at her stomach, but she’d always been good at self-control—good at pushing everything she didn’t want to feel into that locked room inside her mind.

But Nicolas made her slip too often. Especially now, that he must have interpreted her closeness as permission to touch her. One of his hands tangled into the hair at the base of her skull, tightening just enough to make her eyes narrow. “What are you doing, Knowing One?”

“Trying not to fall apart.”

His voice was so rough that it hit her like a physical thing. If she let this continue, she was going to be the first to break. She pushed her way from the room before Nicolas could say anything else, trying not to look at the painting outside the door of Persephone with blood-red pomegranate juice on her hands and mouth.

Aleja struggled up the stairs to her grandmother’s tower, but Catalina wasn’t there. She sat in the ruins anyway, watching blue dragonflies dodge frogs near a puddle, until she could barely remember that the smell of salt came from an ocean that only existed in dreams.

And when Aleja finally forced herself back down the spiral staircase, the palace rearranged its hallways for her again and again, until she had no other choice but to exit into the rose garden and learn it was time to return to the Second’s cave beneath the mountain.

* * *

In silence,the Knowing One led them toward the cave mouth. With his wings in view and the sun at his back, his shadow stretched across the mountains, resembling another row of jagged peaks. His sword reflected the last violet streaks of twilight.

---