Page 20 of Each Their Own Devil

Silmiya stepped closer, her expression sharp with concentration. Behind her, Garm huffed again, his fur so dark that the blood he’d shed only showed on his teeth—dark red against burnished yellow. The younger soldier who had accompanied them up the hill was trembling, her sword hilt clattering softly against her armor. Silmiya gave the soldier a sharp look, then dropped a hand onto her shoulder and squeezed.

“The Messenger isn’t here,” Silmiya confirmed. “But they must have an officer, and we know they’ve brought mages. The Astraelis don’t attack in roving bands. It’s too dangerous to punch a hole in the wards big enough for this many soldiers to get through.”

Above the battlefield, Aleja watched a wave of shadows creep across the field, and not for the first time, she felt true relief at seeing the darkness overtake something. But even Nicolas had his limits. A band of golden light—eerily similar to the magic Val had once conjured—surged in response, pushing the shadows back.

The light originated from a cluster of Astraelis soldiers. Their masks glowed brighter than the others, shades of coral and pastel pink that would have once struck Aleja as beautiful. Now those colors only filled her with dread.

“Like Silmiya said—mages,” Orla muttered grimly. “The Astraelis don’t come unprepared.”

“They’re vulnerable,” Aleja said suddenly, the realization blooming unbidden in her mind. Her painting analogy hadn’t been far off. There was a gap in the mages’ formation—like a missing petal in a flower. Her gaze flicked to the edges of the battlefield.

“They’re concentrating all of their forces on breaking our line,” Aleja whispered. “Their flanks are weak. Look.”

The sight of the Avisai taking its last bloody breaths was difficult to ignore, even as she directed the others’ attention to the gaps in the Astraelis formation. “There are openings,” she insisted, pointing with a steady hand. “They don’t think we have the resources to attack them from the side.”

“Wedon’thave the resources,” Orla said sharply. “This was an ambush. Half our troops couldn’t get here in time and the others have been sent to protect the palace with the rest of the Avisai.”

“There’sus,” Aleja said. Her mind shot back to every time that she and Nicolas and used their magic together—fire and shadow—as a distraction. “We don’t need to take their entire army down. We just need to pull away enough of their soldiers to give Nicolas and the others a chance to overtake them.”

“We are not going to make it through that flank, even if the Astraelis are concentrating their forces elsewhere,” Orla said, but Silmiya was silent.

Silmiya’s thick lashes lowered, briefly obscuring her eyes. “We did it once before, Orla. At the battle for Vespera.”

“We had seven Avisai in the air at Vespera. The Astraelis were essentially fighting us on two fronts. I have maybe one more void left in me and?—”

“I’ll go back down to the center,” Aleja interrupted. “They might assume that we’re desperate, making one last push to hold them back. They’ll concentrate their forces on me. Garm, go with the others.”

“No. I swore to the Knowing One that I would protect you,” Garm growled.

“Go with them. It’s an order,” Aleja said.

“Listen,” Orla told her in the soft voice she reserved for moments when she thought Aleja wasn’t completely incompetent. “The mages know even we Dark Saints have our limits. Once you appear on the field, their first priority will be to drain you as much as possible. And when that happens, all you’ll have left is your blade—a blade they’ve been training against for decades, if not centuries. And you can barely hold the hilt correctly.”

“Then you’re going to have to work fast,” Aleja said.

Orla bit her lower lip. “Don’t get killed. I’ll never hear the end of it from the Knowing One. If it comes down to hand-to-hand combat, the Astraelis are most vulnerable at their throats.” She pressed her index finger into the soft tissue just below herjawline, where the edge of the Astraelis’s masks would fall. Orla, mercifully, didn’t mention that Aleja might not be tall enough to reach it.

Garm whined as she separated from the group, but, true to her command, he did not follow. Sprinting down the hill, the sounds of the battle below echoed off the land behind her. For a brief moment, Aleja was propelled forward by the slant of the ground beneath her boots; every survival instinct screamed for her to turn back. But she pushed forward, even as her legs trembled and her breath came in shallow bursts.

From overhead, it might have been easy to distinguish between the Otherlanders in black and the myriad pastel shades of the Astraelis masks and armors, but when the colors surrounded her, they blurred. This did nothing to hide Aleja when she called flames to her hands.

A Principality shouted something in the language of the Astraelis. She rained fire on the one closest to her before he had a chance to raise his sword, but it was only seconds before Aleja realized the truth of Orla’s words. One of those golden bolts of magic she had seen aimed at Taddeas swerved toward her.

There was nowhere to fall back. Another Principality charged her from the rear. Aleja was too panicked to aim properly; her fire hit his armored legs with a hiss, producing smoke that raced painfully to her lungs.

“What are you doing down here?” someone growled.

Taddeas appeared beside her, knocking away an enemy that had snuck up on Aleja’s flank. She had never really seen Taddeas fight. His eyes were filled with the same red light that surrounded his axes. “Distraction,” she gasped, sending out another spit of flame that narrowly missed one of their own soldiers.

“You shouldn’t be—dammit—” Whatever Taddeas had wanted to say was lost as he turned to block another goldenmissile with his axe. Aleja lost sight of him in the chaos once again.

She was caught off guard from the left. A massive broadsword drove into the ground beside her, so close that it clipped the laces of her boots. Val may have towered over her, but this enemy soldier had a mask so large it seemed to blot out the reddish sun like a tower. Her only saving grace was the weight of his sword; even with his immense size, she had one last opportunity to engulf him in flames before he could swing again.

This time, her fire caught his mask. He roared in pain as the feathers ignited.

The fire did not stop him from swinging at her torso once more. The world seemed to slow as she watched the blade arc toward her. Her body refused to move quickly enough to avoid it. She nearly closed her eyes, bracing for the blow—but silently, the sword was pushed back.

The thrum against her skin was unmistakable as Nicolas’s shadows surged forward. The Principality gurgled behind his winged mask, his mouth forced open as shadows poured inside. By the time blood spilled from his lips, Aleja was moving again. This time, the Knowing One was beside her.

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