Page 75 of No Greater Sorrow

Panic gripped her.

“Aleja, I am losing my patience. It has been centuries since I last offered someone a bargain. Seize the chance while you can.”

Think, she told herself.He won’t accept just anything, not for a bargain as big as this. He’s probably glad to be rid of Nicolas, a Knowing One who broke the rules again and again.

“Shall I make him forget you?” the Second said. Dropping his hands on the table, he leaned toward her. His fingers were tipped with curved claws that scratched through the altar cloth. “Ah, yes. There was a flicker of fear in your eyes at that. Are you unwilling to punish yourself in the same way you once punished him?”

“I didn’t punish him. You did. Or, at least, you tried to. Please, don’t—not his memories,” she whispered.

“But it’s something you don’t want to give, Aleja.”

“Take something from me. Take half my life in exchange.”

“No. You’re a Dark Saint now. Practically immortal. That’s not good enough.”

Her knees wobbled, but she hoped this moment of weakness was hidden by Garm’s body. “I’m already going to win this war for you. What more do you want? The Messenger’s head on a platter?”

The Second fell silent. Aleja wondered if she’d made a mistake. The worst kind of mistake, where she’d irreversibly fucked something up but didn’t know what.

“The life of the Messenger in exchange for the life of the Knowing One. A fair deal. I will bring your husband back, but you must bring me the Messenger’s heart in place of the one you failed to bring me from Nicolas. And you must kill her with your own hands. If you cannot do this before the war is over, then the bargain is null. You will wander this realm aimlessly until some future Knowing One decides he needs a hellhound.”

Aleja was about to protest. Why the hell would the Second let her get away with this? After what he’d just put her and Nicolas through, it certainly wasn’t out of some sense of obligation. What had she just done?

“Wait, can you tell me?—”

“No. Will you shake my hand?”

“I will,” she said hesitantly.

“Then the bargain is sealed, Dark Saint of Wrath.”

If Nicolas’s skin was inhumanly warm, the Second’s was almost unbearable. She dropped her hand, barely stopping herself from wiping her palm to rid herself of the feel of him—ancient and pebbled, like roughhewn stone.

“You’re cruel,” she said softly, no longer caring if the Second retaliated. “You’re vindictive. Your Dark Saints preach about free will and knowledge, but you can’t bear the thought of anyone disobeying you, can you? Well, I’m using my free will to tell you to fuck off. I will win your war, and after that, I hope you rot beneath your well.”

Aleja sucked in a breath as Garm tensed against her.

“There is much you don’t understand, Dark Saint of Wrath,” he said. His voice was distant, but in the surreal atmosphere of the room, Aleja could not tell if he’d softened his words or if he was simply drifting away, back to his well, uncaring that he’d just shattered her life.

“Then,tell me. You’re the original Knowing One. Dispense some damn knowledge. Or do you not do that anymore?”

But with a rush of air from his wings, the Second was gone.

The black candle on the table had reached the end of its life, with the wax now a mass of asymmetrical lumps. With a brief flicker, it went out, and Aleja was plunged into darkness. She sensed the room had emptied, aside from her and Garm.

The lights in the room returned. Wood and gold foil from the cracked and broken paintings lay scattered across the floor. Aleja noticed that the images on the canvasses had become sharper, and depicted a Greek myth she’d thought of many times since coming to the Hiding Place. Not Persephone with her pomegranate, but Eurydice, dragged back into the underworld after her husband’s moment of weakness. But in all these pictures, it was not her trailing Orpheus out of the land of the dead—no, she was in front, glancing over her shoulder with a look on her face that was something between hope, faint surprise, and dread.

Aleja steadied herself by grabbing the table, the silk cloth slipping through her fingers. Strangely, she was relieved. She’d already done the most reckless and dangerous thing she could do, yet she was still standing, at least for now.

“Garm, can you sense Nic?”

“No,” the dog said.

A new passage had opened, while the long, indistinct hallway they’d come through was now closed off. Fresh mountain air drifted in. Aleja stopped herself from running to it. She needed to find Nicolas.

Garm’s floppy ears perked up, and he barked, “There!”

Aleja chased after him, surprised by how quickly her body reacted. The transition from her old life into a new one as Dark Saint was as brief as stepping from a dark room into an outside filled with sunlight. There was not a period of light-headedness as there had been when she’d struck her bargain with Nicolas.

---