Page 50 of Each Their Own Devil

“What if I walked away without taking either?”

“Then I’d say you were a fool.”

“Do I need to eat the fig here?” she asked.

“I would recommend it. They are so delicious that you will surely want another once you’ve consumed the first. You might as well be nearby.”

“No, then,” Aleja muttered. The violet fig felt heavy, even before she yanked it from the vine. It was warm in her hand—textured, with dry skin, except for a few slits where the fig’s juice had pushed through.

I’ve never even likedfigs, Aleja thought bitterly.

She swung her backpack to her front and placed the fig carefully in a pouch stitched to its interior. But before she could clinch the bag shut, her eyes drifted to the other fruit, ripe and fat on the tree—the color of the snake’s eyes, the color of Aleja’s hair, the color of bloodshed and war.

As the snake’s head bobbed in approval, she noticed it looked like less of a viper—the angle of its eyes were too sharp, the ridges of its brow too pronounced.

And because the Trials had made Aleja an Otherlander through and through, she snatched the other fig off the branch as well.

10

THE WHITE PENNANT

“You surrender not to your foes, but to the fear of your own potential.” —The Book of Open Doors, Book VI: The Crossing of Worlds

The previous warhad lasted approximately thirty years. At least, it had felt like thirty years from the Hiding Place, where time was sluggish compared to the human realm. The first time Nicolas had returned there to make a bargain after the fighting had ceased and Aleja had taken his punishment as her own, it had been winter. He’d followed the light of a black candle to France and a man desperate to keep his business afloat despite mounting debts.

Nicolas nearly hadn’t taken the bargain, but Aleja would have found it amusing for a man to strike a deal with the devil on Christmas. During their conversation, the man sputtered the date, and by the time Nicolas shook his hand, he’d been thrown off-balance. Less than three years had passed in the human world. The air outside smelled of roast goose and mulled wine,and behind the frosted windows, families laughed while bathed in golden light.

It was a foolish thing for a Knowing One, whose power was rivaled by few beings in any world, to feel sorry for themselves, but no human knew how close the balance of the world had come to shifting irrecoverably. No one knew how close Nicolas’s world had come to ending in a literal sense, nor that it had ended in a metaphorical sense.

In all the centuries since that he had spent replaying the war in his mind, punishing himself for every misstep that had led to Aleja’s disappearance, he had never seen the Astraelis holding what he saw now.

The skies were clear of Thrones. Against the pale golden clouds flew a white pennant.

Which was confusing considering the fact that the Astraelis armies seemed to be fighting against…themselves. Nicolas was the first to reach the summit of one of the dizzying hills atop his Umbramare and raised an arm to stop the troops at his back from going farther.

“What the hell is going on down there?” Taddeas asked from beside him.

“Huh,” Orla answered, before Nicolas could. Her golden armor had been polished to such a fine sheen that it reflected the slow movement of clouds overhead. “I supposed the mutineers were tired of waiting for a deal. Maybe if we stand by long enough, they’ll wipe themselves out.”

“No,” Nicolas muttered. “Only one side has Authorities and it’s not the side waving the white flag. It’s going to be a bloodbath.”

“Good,” Orla said.

“Is it?” Taddeas asked, his voice barely audible over the chaos below. “If the mutineers win this, the Messenger will be theirnext target. If the Authorities have joined with the mutineers, not even she will be able to hold their armies back.”

“And the Messenger has Aleja and the Third. We need to reach them first.” Nicolas could hardly keep the growl out of his voice.

“We have to think about this, Knowing One. Hearing out the Astraelis is one thing; fighting with them…fuck, fightingforthem is another. There are a hundred Otherlander soldiers behind us who barely tolerated our prisoner of war at their camp. Do you really think you’re going to be able to convince them to follow you into battle to come to the aid of the Messenger’s armies? We came here on a mission, and it didn’t include saving Astraelis lives.”

Below them, one of the Authorities barreled through the field—injured but still flying, wings beating haphazardly against its shapeless body.

“We don’t have time to convince them, nor do we have to,” Nicolas said, desperately wishing that Aleja was back at his side. She had always been better at dealing with the Authorities than he was. “Taddeas, return to our troops and lead them west. Hold your formation. Direct no one to attack until my signal. Orla, you’re going down there with me.”

“Ah, yes,” she said briskly. “I’d forgotten the two of us can easily take on a horde of Authorities all on our own.”

“Without the Authorities, the mutineers don’t have the manpower to overtake the Messenger’s forces. If we can draw them away, it will give them a fighting chance.”

“Without Aleja, it’s going to be hard bringing even one of them down,” Taddeas said.

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