Page 79 of No Greater Sorrow

“Of course not. I sabotaged by own work and escaped into enemy territory, in case you’ve forgotten,” Val answered, raising his voice. “But what would happen if the First was allowed to… to… explode? She would drag her many,manychildren into emptiness along with her.”

Aleja didn’t know what to say. Apparently, neither did Taddeas. She watched the herbal smoke drift across the tent, trying to think of what the Knowing One would do, without picturing Nicolas’s dead face.

“Why not come to us for help, if that was the case?” Taddeas eventually asked.

“Would you have believed her?” Val said.

“I’m not sure I believeyou,” Aleja said. “How long before she enacts this plan, now that the Astraelis have the Third?”

“I can’t be sure. The First does not communicate with us like the Second does to the Otherlanders. Finding her will be difficult. Getting her to assume a form in which she can be killed, even more so.”

“Then, why the hell aren’t you helping? If what you’re saying is true, we’re all dead, aren’t we?” Taddeas asked.

“Because I still don’t trust my mother completely. With Death on her side, her power is absolute. It does not bode well for anyone. After she kills the First, who do you think she will come for next?”

“The Second’s death would have consequences. The First’s must too,” Aleja muttered.

“Itisa concern,” Val said, acting as though he was again going to hesitate, but caught sight of the fire behind Aleja’s eyes and decided the better of it. “As I mentioned, my research was focused on the Second. The First came up only tangentially. It may be possible to… I’ll need time to think, and perhaps your librarians to help.”

“No fucking way. We’re not handing you more ammunition to give to your mother.”

She tried to catch sight of Taddeas’s eyes to see if he looked at her with approval or dismay. However, she couldn’t do so without revealing how much she felt like a bird that had been pushed out of the nest before feathers had sprouted from its puckered skin.

Val’s mask widened, covering the pale spot on his cheek. “I know what this must look like, but for what it’s worth, I was forced to choose a side, and I chose yours.Again.”

“Keep him in chains. We should take him to the palace whenever we get the chance. Eventually, one of the soldiers here will get to him, and besides, I’ll have more questions for Val later.” Aleja wiped her palms on her trousers, dampening the red glow emanating from them.

“Of course,” Taddeas said.

Aleja barely heard him as she stepped back in the night air. Garm’s cold snout pressed against the back of her hand, and for a moment, she thought she might burst into tears in full view of their armies. But perhaps it was her newfound Sainthood that allowed her to steel herself and ask Garm, “We’re fucked, aren’t we?”

“Don’t think like that. You’ve already done this. You won a war once. You can do it again.”

“I’m going to ask Orla to take over.”

“I thought you wanted this.”

“When I have more experience,” Aleja hissed. “I can’t take all these lives into my hands without ever having so much as cracked a textbook on military theory. I don’t want to talk about this now. I need to find Nic.”

“I have an idea. Follow me.”

Bounding between two tents, Garm was enveloped in a heavy shadow. Aleja waited for him to reappear on the other side, but before she could get annoyed that he’d forgotten she could not travel through shadows as the Otherlanders could, she saw…

In the center of the shadow was a slash of light, like a glimmer of sun between almost-closed curtains.Just take a step, Nicolas had once taught her, back in the tower with the myriad paintings lining its walls. After building up the courage to lift her feet out of the mud and follow Garm into the sliver between worlds, the tower was exactly where she found herself.

The room was quiet. Now that she knew what she was looking at, Aleja regarded the paintings with less the eye of an art historian and more that of a curious traveler handed the key to every locked door in the world. The Third’s ultramarine realm was empty. On another canvas filled with wide oak trees, a raven fluttered from one branch to another.

“There you are!” Garm barked, circling the rug at the room’s center. “See the one up there? Nicolas used to go there a lot before you found me in the scrying mirror.”

He pointed his muzzle at a painting chest-height to Aleja. An open field at twilight, surrounded by rolling hills. It felt familiar, even though the first time she’d seen it had been in her Trials. Small chunks of the frame lay on the rug below, as if it had been decaying for some time yet no one had bothered to clean it up.

Garm leaped through the canvas before she could protest, and with a grumble, Aleja followed. She was glad for the dog’s absence as she tried to lift her leg high enough to step inside.

A deep blue sky awaited her as she stumbled, ignoring Garm’s snort of amusement. The fresh air was a welcome reprieve from the smokiness of the army camp, yet beneath the tang of salt in the breeze was a hint of distant industry, greasy and electrical. The sound of waves on the other side of the hills was paired with the breathing of a highway, and the pillars were ringed by a low chain to keep tourists from wandering too close.

But there was something else—something in the air that was neither a smell, nor a sound, nor a physical sensation like the press of humidity. It was as though she was at the center of a tangled knot, and all the strings around her were being pulled gently but persistently.

“You’re a Dark Saint now. People are calling to you. You can hear them.”

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