Page 73 of No Greater Sorrow

“He’s dead. And there’s nowhere for us to go.”

She tore her gaze away from Nicolas’s face. Garm was right. Darkness was all around. Nothing except for the pillars remained, lit in shades of red and gold from the fire surrounding Aleja’s body, as if she were a star and they were orbiting around her. She waited for the Second to kill her. For the relief of it. She would never have to feel the grief that strained against her chest, trying to push its way out with the force of a supernova.

But her heart was still beating after Nicolas’s skin grew cold under her fingertips. And it was still beating when a door between the pillars opened, as if the empty space had ripped away to form a passage.

“Go, Garm. Get out of here. If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you,” she whispered.

“Not without you,” he said.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

She and Nicolas could lay to rest here, in this dark world that still bore a trace of the field where they’d married. Garm sat back on his haunches. Even in the light of Aleja’s fire, all she could see of him was the reflection of his eyes, made red by the flames.

THE TRIAL IS NOT OVER, LADY OF WRATH. TAKE HIS HEART. GO THROUGH THE DOOR.

“Fuck you,” she said. “What was the point of all of this? To take revenge on a man for disobeying you to save his wife? To punish me for returning here, for taking the Trials so I could defend my friends? You’re no better than the Astraelis, you petty asshole.”

Aleja waited to die in silence. She pushed Garm’s muzzle away when he nudged her shoulder, his body once again in the form of a Doberman with floppy ears. A pink blister appeared on the top of his nose.

Hellhounds, she thought dimly. The product of an unfulfilled bargain.

“I’m not taking the heart,” she said again.

The wind sounded almost like the Second sighing.THE TRIAL IS NOT OVER, ALEJA. GO THROUGH THE DOOR, he said again, with what she could only interpret as a hint of resignation.

An unhinged laugh escaped her. Yes. Hellhounds, trapped in limbo. That had to be right. There was no way the Second would kill his Knowing One in a time of war, not like this. And when she returned to him, it would be as a Dark Saint.

Her flames dimmed as she reasoned with the situation. But when she finally took a step toward the door—the last bit of light left now that her fire had receded—it felt like abandonment.

Garm approached her with his tail tucked between his hind legs. “I had no choice. I made a promise to him that I would always protect you, even if it meant choosing your life over his.”

“Later,” she whispered.

Together, they moved on.

* * *

The door disappeared behind them.As she realized what was happening she attempted to shove past Garm into the darkness where Nicolas’s body lay prone. But the Second’s magic was too quick. They were now trapped wherever the portal had brought them.

She snarled, glad she’d thought to grab the sword before she left Nicolas’s side, so she had something to brandish into the air. “Where is he, Second?”

CONTINUE, ALEJA.

She stumbled forward, desperate forsomething, though she could no longer say what it was. When the murkiness coalesced, Aleja found she was in a long hallway covered in burgundy wallpaper. Indistinct paintings hung askew to either side of her, but she couldn’t quite make out their contents—only the shadows of great black wings, moving softly on the canvasses, as if they had come to life.

The hall ended abruptly, opening into a circular room with an altar at its center. She’d seen this table before. On top of a dark silk cloth sat a dagger and a chalice encrusted with red jewels. An unlit black candle stood at the center, but what drew her eyes were the objects laid around it like small offerings. A black queen from a chess set and a fencing rapier. And propped against the table was a rosewood guitar polished to a pink sheen.

This was her great-great-grandfathers’ altar.

Aleja’s hand flew to the sword when three figures stepped from the shadows. They moved slowly and made no motion to come closer once they surrounded the table.

It was not a vision of her ancestors as she’d expected.

There was the woman from the nameless kingdom by the sea, no longer resembling a withered corpse. Dark red hair tumbled over her shoulder, slightly curled from humidity. The second figure, who donned the armor of the Dark Saints, regarded Aleja fiercely but kept her hands at her sides. And the last, young and bright-eyed, wore a white nightgown with a bloody mess across her chest.

Aleja readied herself for another fight, but the others merely watched her.

KNEEL BEFORE THE ALTAR, the Second said.

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