Page 11 of Each Their Own Devil

A new figure had joined them: an enormously tall woman who might have appeared human if not for the circular, winged mask obscuring the upper half of her face. In her raised right hand, a sword glimmered with specks of gold and red. The Messenger’s figurine sat apart from the miniature battlefield, as though no one had known where to place her.

Aleja forced her gaze downward. Everyone in the room knew she had gone to meet the Messenger and then fled the battlefield with Violet, an almost-Dark Saint turned traitor.

“All right,” Nicolas began. “Let’s talk strategy?—”

Aleja’s relief was short-lived.

“No,” Orla interrupted. “Our Lady of Wrath left our last meeting to see the Messenger. We’re all eager to know how that turned out.”

Aleja—aware enough of politics to know that she couldn’t let Nicolas answer for her—cut him off before the first syllable escaped his lips.

“It’s okay, Knowing One,” she said, her voice steady despite the weight of so many stares. “It’s their right to know. The Messenger—and Val—claim that something is coming. It’s…an apocalypse. They call it the Avaddon and say it’s already happened many times, a cycle of creation and destruction. The Messenger told me that her armies can’t know the truth, but that she didn’t actually capture the Third to kill the Second. She captured him to kill the First. Based on Val’s research, it might be the only way to stop this Avaddon once and for all.”

The silence that followed wasn’t complete. On the war table, the Messenger’s figurine stood to the side, waving her flaming sword in circles as though she could fan the room’s growing unease.

“Does no one have anything to say?” Aleja asked.

Orla cleared her throat. “Yes, we all have a lot say.”

“Then say it,” Aleja all but shouted, immediately regretting her decision to antagonize not one of the Dark Saints, but potentially all of them.

“Does she already know about the last time she fell for the Messenger’s shit?” Orla said, looking to Nicolas. Despite the sharp tone, it didn’t seem meant to intentionally offend Aleja. By now, Aleja was beginning to appreciate Orla’s straightforward nature. If it were up to Bonnie and Amicia, she wasn’t sure she’d ever hear of her past failures.

“Yes,” Aleja said.

“You know, but you don’t reallyknow,” Orla continued, turning to face Aleja. “Believe it or not, I don’t take any pleasure in holding your missing memories over your head, Wrath, but I am begging you to see reason. The Messenger knows that, right now, you are the only Dark Saint she has any hope of deceiving. She has played to your sense of mercy before.”

“There’s something else,” Aleja admitted, knowing she couldn’t convince them without revealing the memory she hadwitnessed through the Unholy Relic. She glanced at Nicolas, who gave her a subtle nod. Carefully, she recounted what she had seen when channeling with the bone. By the time she finished, Orla was pinching the bridge of her nose.

“My past self would have known she’d been fooled by the Messenger,” Aleja concluded. “But she still chose to send me that memory. Back then, when the Messenger confided that she planned to kill the First, she had no idea I would be the one taking Nicolas’s punishment.”

“Your past self was distraught,” Orla said. “She had little time to decide what memory to leave—if she should leave one at all. I respect you, Wrath. I know we don’t always agree on every aspect of this war or the last but try to understand my reasoning. If the Messenger is lying to you, we are handing her victory on a silver platter. There will be no more Hiding Place. No more Otherlanders. No more Second. And no more humans who use his gifts. Complete and total annihilation.”

“And the alternative?” Aleja said, grinding her elbows into the table. “If the Messenger is telling the truth, we risk that anyway. If we survive the Avaddon, at least we have a chance to keep fighting.”

“There is no evidence for the Avaddon other than the word of the Messenger and her son. The Messenger is a master manipulator, and you, Aleja, are naïve to her ways. Val could very well be a plant meant to introduce this ruse, and we’ve fallen for it. What’s your strategy, Wrath?” Orla continued, leaning back with her arms crossed. Her bracers clanged together with a heavy, dangerous sound.

This time, the silence that followed was absolute. Even the little figurines on the war table stopped moving. The Messenger’s sword lowered mid-swing. From the other end of the table, Nicolas fixed Aleja with a look—a mix of questioning and confidence. Without the marriage bond tethering them likea two-way radio, Aleja doubted she would have been able to interpret it.

“The Messenger thinks I can be convinced to help her kill the First and stop the Avaddon, if she then helps me kill the Second in a way that doesn’t destroy the Hiding Place. I…let her believe that might be the case. That I wanted revenge for what the Second has done to me,” Aleja said.

Her thoughts flickered back to the Second’s monstrous form as he had appeared to her after the last Trial—an enormous, horned beast that resembled the devils from medieval paintings far more than Nicolas ever had. She remembered the leathery feel of his skin under her palm as she agreed to deliver the Messenger’s heart, desperate to save Nicolas’s life. Still covered in his blood at the time, if she had been holding her sickle, she might have tried to kill the Second herself.

Orla raised a bright red eyebrow. “What did you tell her?”

“That I would consider it, of course. We know more about their position now. The Astraelis may have captured the Third, but without Val’s research, they’re at a standstill.”

“The Messenger would need a way to contact you,” Taddeas interjected. “How did she say she would reach out again?”

“I’m not sure. Only that she would get a message to me,” Aleja answered. She should tell them about Violet’s relic, but if she were sitting on the other side of this table, she would admit that her friendship with Violet compromised her judgment—no matter how many silent pledges she had made to think of Violet as the enemy. She stayed quiet, and despite the faint thrum of a question through the marriage bond, Nicolas said nothing either.

“I’ve had enough of letting the Astraelis dictate our war strategy. Let us not forget that we have the Messenger’s son in our dungeons. We’ve treated our prisoner with civility long enough. If I may, Knowing One, it’s time for torture,” Orla said.

“No,” Aleja snapped, the word leaving her lips before she could stop it. “I mean, we should think about this. If the Messenger is telling the truth, then we need her—and Val too. She cares for him. If we resort to torture, then any chance of a potential alliance is dead before it begins.”

“Alliance?” Orla scoffed. She was the only one to speak, but the rest of the room shifted uneasily in response—a discordant rustle of leather and armor grinding together. “There will be no alliance with the Astraelis—not now, nor ever. You would agree with me if you could remember.”

Nicolas crossed his arms over his chest, a move that felt like a prelude to intervention. Aleja tugged sharply on the bond, silently imploring him to stay out of it.

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