Page 65 of No Greater Sorrow

They followed the Third to where a tree lay on its side against the ground, with its root network exposed like an enormous cobweb. Leaves partially obscured the creature whose fall had brought it down.

An Avisai must have torn open the Throne’s stomach. Although the bleeding had slowed, the wound opened into a dark purple mess. With every labored breath came a deep sound akin to a peal of thunder. Two massive wings in a spectrum of pale colors continued twitching, though it no longer seemed like those muscles were under the Throne’s control. Aleja knew she shouldn’t feel sorry for the beast, but it looked so mundane now—an animal that had been conscripted into a war, dying alone with its guts torn out by an enemy combatant.

The Third pulled his hood back, and his body changed once more. Another Throne now stood before them, black with eye-studded wings. The Third crouched low next to the corpse as it took its final breath and nuzzled their heads together with the tenderness of a mother comforting her cub.

“I’ll take my leave now. Thank you again for the sickle, Alejandra,” the Third said without turning to face them. “I will heed the warning you have given me. There is nothing more you can do.”

Before Aleja could sigh with relief, the world went pale.

It was the only way she could describe the way the shadows lightened. Nicolas reacted faster than she did, dragging her to the ground so quickly that it felt like her shoulder popped out of its socket. Wet leaves pushed against her open mouth. On instinct, she tried to raise her head to see what’d caused him to react so violently.

The shockwave hit her first.

Nicolas clamped a hand over her eyes, but the light sweeping across the forest was blinding through the minuscule gaps between his fingers. The prickle against her skin felt like vibrations.

That wasn’t to say they weren’t painful.

Aleja was sure her bones were being ground into dust inside her. She was never standing up again, not with her body so broken beyond repair. One of her childhood fillings cracked, flooding her mouth with the taste of metal and old rot.

She tried to speak, but it came out as a desperate wobble of a sound, inaudible over the cracking tree trunks. It felt as though the Hiding Place was finally falling apart. It had spent too long without its Dark Saints, and with a Knowing One who followed the rules only when it suited him. For the first time in her life, Aleja was afraid that the sky itself might shatter and fall on them in deep blue shards.

Then, everything stopped.

She could think, which meant her brain wasn’t as bruised as she’d feared. And could still move her arm, so she had bones that were keeping the rest of her body in place. It was a promising start. “Are we alive?” she gasped.

“I think so,” Nicolas answered. He didn’t sound particularly confident.

When she was able to crane her neck and look up, all Aleja could see were tree branches. They’d been lucky. One of Bonnie’s massive oaks had toppled over, and its canopy had formed a makeshift cage around them.

“What the hell was that?” she said, clutching the back of her neck. Everything hurt. All the leaves around them had vibrated off their branches, and most of the trees were either cracked or stripped bare. Overhead, the sky was a dark purple.

“I don’t?—”

“Knowing One. Lady of Wrath. Rise slowly, with your hands over your heads. If you attempt to use your magic, we will kill you immediately.”

The Messenger. Aleja recognized the soft voice, but her eyes couldn’t focus. The piece of herself that remembered training for a job at the Gentle Hearts caretaking agency chimed in that she probably had a concussion, yet her inner voice was silent.

Help me, she pleaded.Tell me what to do.

Nothing responded.

“I’m going to protect you, dove,” Nicolas said, so low that she knew it was meant for her alone. “Whatever happens, I’m going to protect you.”

The words pierced her heart like an arrow. Nicolas wasafraid.

Ghost vibrations moved across Aleja’s skin. After her eyes cleared, she caught sight of three figures—Violet, Val, and the Messenger. Something large and black moved in her peripheral vision. The Third, still in this Throne form.

Run, she wanted to scream at him.

The Messenger held up her hands, showing she was unarmed. “No tricks, Knowing One. No one has to die, as long as you do not attempt to prevent us from taking him.”

“Let the human women go. They haven’t finished their Trials; they’re not Dark Saints yet. Do that and we can talk,” Nicolas said.

Aleja yanked on the bond in protest, but the realization of what he was trying to do hit her a second later. If he was to die here, he wanted Aleja to return to the others. To make one final push to foil the Messenger’s plans.

Fuck that, Aleja thought. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen to both of them. She met Violet’s eyes, trying to communicate that she should flee if she had the chance, but Aleja’s blood froze. Violet was not in chains. There was no weapon at her back to force her to march through the forest. And Val too was free to move his hands, both of which gripped one of the small bright spheres, like the one they’d recovered from the Third’s realm.

The magic that had almost killed Nicolas and her, and locked the Third in place, was not the Messenger’s, but Val’s. It was he who’d insisted the Astraelis had not yet finished the chains—who’d led them to believe that it was still safe to warn the Third.

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