Page 27 of Each Their Own Devil

She tried. The Avisai shook its head like Garm when he got water in his ears but then grumbled in resignation when she tugged it away from the deer carcass. The only small sign of its displeasure—and Aleja was using the term “small”veryloosely—was a flash of its teeth.

Aleja’s hand tightened around the reigns as she tried to remember how easily Violet had hooked her foot into the stirrups and swung her opposite leg over the Avisai’s saddle. “Good. I think that was step one. You’re not going to help me out by kneeling or anything, are you?”

The Avisai huffed.

“I thought not. At least this indignity is mine and mine alone to remember.”

It might have been a graceful climb if Aleja wasn’t the kind of person to forget how to bend her elbows and knees when she had to scramble atop something taller than herself. Her Dark Saint body might be stronger and faster than her human one, but it was apparently no more agile. “I need you to take me to the edge of the wards, near the abandoned army camp,” she said, speaking slowly and sharply.

She didn’t expect the words to work.

Against her inner thighs, the Avisai’s rib cage expanded. The rise was so sudden that the constellations sharpened as dragon and rider left the smoke of cooking fires that lingered around the palace. An involuntary noise left Aleja’s throat. As an art history student, she had spent most of her life with an instinctual disdain for anyone whowhooped—sports and art history seemed to be natural, ancient enemies—but she had to force herself to make a silent apology now.

The thrill of the journey was almost enough to make her forget that she was headed to a potential trap. Alone. With heronly weapons, her magic and a thin dagger that would force her to fight at close range.

“There,” she barked at the Avisai, pointing at a small clearing near where she had once met the Messenger and immediately regretting that she had taken a hand off the reigns. As the Avisai dove, she was forced to scramble to regain balance. Like turbulence in an airplane, Aleja’s body dropped before her mind caught up, and the two parts of her seemed to snap together.

As they approached, she searched the ground for troops, but they were at the edge of the mountains here. While foothills might have provided near endless places for an army to hide in any other realm, the Hiding Place’s mountains were so steep and craggy that they were impossible to traverse in significant numbers. But a lone figure in white, barely visible, paced across the clearing by herself.

“Shit,” Aleja hissed. Her hands gripped the reigns so tightly that it felt like her bones might burst through her skin. She felt a subtle change in angle in the Avisai’s shoulders as it prepared to rise but tightened her inner thighs around the saddle.

“We’re going to land,” she said in a voice that sounded doubtful to her own ears. “If something happens, and I can’t get back in the saddle, head back to the palace and raise hell. Lead the Knowing One back here.”

The dragon’s response was a grunt, but it changed course, wings steadying into a glide as they neared the ground. The Messenger did not look up to watch the Avisai land as she leaned against one of the jagged standing stones that littered this part of the Hiding Place. Nor did Aleja leave the Avisai’s back as they reached the ground. The last time she and the Messenger had met like this, it had ended with a flock of Thrones appearing over the mountains to attack her.

“You can relax, Lady of Wrath,” came her booming voice. “I’m unarmed.”

“You’re not who I came here to meet,” Aleja called back.

“I understand your frustration. Unfortunately, Violet was indisposed at the last minute. She sent me to speak with you instead.” The Messenger examined her nails, but with the circular, winged mask over her face, it was impossible to tell where her eyes were focused. “I’ve come to deliver information that can only help your comrades in the Hiding Place, but if you’d rather go, I won’t try to stop you. One of those Avisai took a chunk out of my shoulder once. I’m not eager to relive the experience.”

Aleja’s eyes darted to the Messenger’s side; her sheath was empty.

“No tricks this time,” the Messenger went on. “My army doesn’t know I’ve come. From what I hear, you’re properly back on the battlefield. It saved me some trouble; less mutineers to execute when they limped back home after disobeying my orders.”

Aleja let no surprise show on her face. “Losing control of your soldiers, Messenger?”

“I’m allowing them to think I am. Let’s talk. The heat of the Hiding Place doesn’t agree with me; I would like to spend as little time here as possible.”

“Wearetalking. There’s no one around,” Aleja said. Her toes flexed in her boots. Orla had been right. The attack on the Hiding Place hadn’t come from the Messenger’s command, and this was her chance to find out more.

The Messenger’s circular mask rotated slowly in the breeze. It was hotter near the wards, where the volcanic churn escaped from the vents on the side of the mountains. “It’s a matter of dignity, Wrath. I’d rather not have this conversation while trying to shout over your dragon’s panting.”

Despite the silence, she could imagine what her old self would have said.Show the Messenger that you have no reasonto be afraid of her. She is weak. She is losing control of her armies. She may have the Third, but you have her son.

“Fine,” Aleja said. “I could use a stretch anyway. But one wrong move and my dragon will mow you down with fire, if I don’t get the chance first.”

“The Avisai don’t breathe fire, Wrath,” the Messenger said.

“That’s what we’ve wanted you to believe all along.”

The Messenger’s mask shifted to the left—it seemed like the equivalent of her raising an eyebrow. “Who knows you’re here?”

“That’s not your right to know, Messenger.”

“No one, then. Good. Let’s walk. I think better on my feet. Bring your damn dragon, if it makes you feel better.”

There were wards to the north of them and jagged rocks to the south. To the east, the edge of Bonnie’s forest lay a few yards away, nearly at the Astraelis border. There was nothing to do but bank westward. The damp ground was dented by heavy boot fall in a single size, moving in two directions. The Messenger, pacing as she waited for Aleja to come.

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