Page 31 of Each Their Own Devil

“I think I’d rather splatter as I hit the ground than let Orla have a memory of me falling off one of your shadow ponies,” Aleja muttered.

“We all had to spend a lot of time in close quarters during the last war. Believe me, that would be one of the least embarrassing things Orla has seen you do,” Nicolas said, but the words were accompanied by a frown so quick that Aleja only caught it from the slight dimple that appeared to the side of this mouth. Whatever openness Nicolas had felt about talking about Aleja’s past life was gone. “You’ll be fine. It’ll be slow going to the border. Just sit up straight, and keep your heels down and yourlegs relaxed against the Umbramare’s side. They’ll follow my lead.”

“Great,” Aleja said; the thought of pushing Nicolas to let her ride with him again while Orla was in earshot was worse than the thought of clumsily pulling herself atop the closest Umbramare’s back. Just as Aleja decided she had to nudge it with her heels, as she had seen in movies, the creature took off after Nicolas’s mount.

She gasped, but the sound was lost to the rolling thunder of hoofbeats against the pebbled ground. There was a time in Aleja’s life when it would have been a relief to escape the claustrophobia of Bonnie’s forest, dense with brambles, but the field they entered only forced Aleja’s eyes to flicker to the sky in search of Thrones.

Nicolas’s Umbramare eventually slowed, allowing Aleja to pull up beside him. Ahead, Amicia and Orla pushed on, occasionally turning their heads to one another, in a conversation shouted over the wind.

“Garm, go make sure they don’t kill each other before we get to the meeting place,” Aleja said. With a nod that caused bands of reflected sunlight to dance over the surface of his helmet, Garm picked up his pace, tongue lolling from between his jowls.

“See? You’re a natural,” Nicolas said. The movement of the Umbramare beneath him lent a deep vibrato to his voice.

Aleja hadn’t failed to notice the additional shadows brushing against her thighs. “Technically, you’re letting me cheat. You don’t seem nervous about this meeting.”

“It’s a defense mechanism. If I’m focused on acting like I’m not afraid, it gives me less mental space to panic.”

Aleja snorted. This was unfortunate, as they were currently riding through a swarm of gnats. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“The Astraelis wouldn’t come to us unless they needed something. If they’re trying to negotiate, it means we have the upper hand.”

“To what end?” Aleja asked, trying not to sound resigned. A part of her wanted to retreat back to the safety of the palace, to wander forever among the paintings of saints, heroes, and demons, none of which could betray her.

“To whatever end we can, dove.” Nicolas dug his heels into his Umbramare’s sides, and the creature picked up the pace. Aleja’s mount followed, and she hunched, trying to lower her center of gravity as they tore across the meadows that led to the wards around their realm.

The Astraelis, like the Otherlanders, could punch small holes through the wards with little effort. Larger ones, like the magic that had let their troops in, were dangerous and likely to backfire on the caster, not to mention almost impossible to create undetected. They only did it when they believed they truly had cause to—like their last skirmish, conducted while the Otherlanders were still reeling from the previous attack.

Her Umbramare was the last to catch up to where the others had paused atop a very low hill that looked down on the wards. Garm’s hackles stood on end, pushing up against his helmet in a mane of dark fur. Aleja followed his gaze downhill; as promised, the band of Astraelis was small—five in total, unless there were others hidden among the sparse vegetation.

As she had surmised, all were Principalities, standing tall in their winged masks. One wore the robes of a mage, shimmering with opalescent waves of pale blue and pink. Their last battle had been too chaotic for her to recognize any details of their masks. Had they watched her burn their comrades to death on the field?

The thought struck Aleja with enough force to make her feel unsteady as she climbed down from the back of the Umbramare. She had killed before, but each time had felt monumental—a sharp turn in her life, where the road she had come from disappeared behind her, leaving her with no way of finding a path back to the person she had been. But she had barely wondered if she should feel guilt for the Astraelis she had taken down on the battlefield.Dove, Nicolas called her. Always the first to push for peace. Could she survive a second war without betraying the woman she had once been?

Orla nudged her side. “Focus, Wrath. Put on your game face.”

“I don’thaveone of those,” Aleja muttered, doing her best to flatten the line of her mouth.

“Stop whatever you’re doing right now and forget I said anything,” Orla said, then sighed. “I still say we kill everyone down there before they get the chance to do the same to us, but it’s clear I’m outnumbered. Are you doing the talking, Knowing One?”

“Yes. Don’t make a move without my signal,” Nicolas said. He did not dismiss the Umbramares as she had seen him do in the past. Their eyes blazed with violet fire—a color so unnatural that it was difficult to stare at for too long. Aleja’s attention returned to their small party, with Amicia at the rear, looking paler now that they were out of the forest’s mottled shadows, with Garm hulking beside her.

The mutineers had chosen their meeting place well. The sun hovered over their mage’s right shoulder, casting long shadows that looked like windmills from the silhouette of their winged masks. If it came to blows, she and the other Dark Saints would need to get behind them to avoid a fight with the sun in their eyes.

“Knowing One,” the mage said. The words might as well have been spat on the ground. Behind him, the wards between their realms shimmered almost imperceptibly. If it were not for the gap between them, sending rippling waves of magic from their point of entry, they might not be visible at all.

“I need no introduction, but I can’t say the same for you,” Nicolas said with a bored sigh, as if he’d been expecting little in the way of an interesting conversation. “What is the name of the Astraelis who disobeys the Messenger and meets with the Otherlanders on their territory?”

Though the mage’s face was hidden, his chin moved slightly from the left to the right as he took in their small party. Garm panted slightly from the run, but the effect did nothing to make him seem vulnerable. Each shallow breath left his throat with a low rumble that smelled of sulfur.

“You can call me the Dissenter,” the mage finally said.

Nicolas shifted his weight onto his left leg. “That’s what you have called us Otherlanders for millennia and now you want to claim the title for yourself? Try again, with some creativity behind it.”

The Dissenter’s—or whatever he was to be called—mask twitched slightly, and Aleja had to stop her eyes from darting to Nicolas. He had been so insistent on hearing the Astraelis out, but now he was…goadingthem. But the answer came to her without needing to tug on the marriage bond in question. He was testing the Astraelis. Seeing how desperate they were for the Otherlanders’ help.

“No,” the mage said, this time with his mask steady.

“Yes,” the Knowing One told him. His wings widened slightly behind him, but aside from that, he did not shift again. “There will never come a day I entertain an Astraelis who calls himself a rebel, a dissenter, or a revolutionary in the land that the Second created to defend the Otherlanders when we broke ranks. So, choose a different name or try to run back through that hole in the wards and see how far you get before my hellhound rips you to shreds.”

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