Wicked Saints

by Emily A Duncan

  “This isn’t fair!” she cried, to no one and to nothing because she was alone. Entirely alone in the kingdom of her enemies. Her best hadn’t mattered.

  “I have only ever done what was asked of me,” she said, her voice feeble and broken. She leaned back against the door and slowly slid to the ground, ignoring the wrenching agony that followed, the blood that she could still feel dripping down the backs of her legs.

  The veil had been uncomfortable, stifling, but she could always hear Marzenya’s voice if she reached. This was different. This was purposeful and had nothing to do with Tranavia’s machinations.

  A line in a history book would half-heartedly mention the cleric who had tried to save Kalyazin but only managed to be forsaken by the gods. There would be no canonization after death for Nadya, just a quiet passing of the cleric who had failed.

  She clenched a fist, ignoring the pain, only to cause more blood to slide down her wrist from her sliced-up palm.

  Please don’t let this end here. If she cried out with everything left within her would she get an answer? Or would she have nothing but the ashes of the only thing that had ever made her life worth living? Zhalyusta, Marzenya, eya kalyecti, eya otrecyalli, holen milena.

  Her plea went unanswered. Nadya was dropping into despair when something flickered at the corner of her vision. Nothing more than her addled mind playing tricks on her.

  But the light grew stronger. Nadya frowned and slowly crawled to the other side of the room, fingers reaching blindly until they closed over Kostya’s necklace. The spiral at the center was giving off a low light.

  Some gods require blood.

  She swallowed hard. Taking the pendant in her fist, she let the blood soaking her hands drip into the ridges.

  She held it closer to her face, peering at the soft, almost eerie light.

  “You deserve to know the truth about the beings that chose you.” Nadya startled at the unfamiliar voice chiming in her head. It was speaking in holy speech and usually she didn’t understand the tongue without the gods’ blessing.

  Nadya inhaled sharply, hit with a sudden barrage of images. The wave of pain that slammed into her nearly knocked her out.

  Creatures with knotted joints like the whorls of a tree, faces enshrouded in fog, four eyes, six, ten. Beings with eyes on their fingertips, mouths at their joints. Iron teeth, iron claws, iron eyes.

  One after another after another. Sinuous wings, feathered wings black as tar. Eyes of light, of darkness. And blood. So much blood.

  Because that’s just it. It was always, always blood.

  Feeling sick, Nadya dropped the necklace. The images stopped. She was panting, fighting for air.

  She tentatively reached out for the voice again, only to be met with silence. She wasn’t used to silence in her own mind. When she picked up the necklace again, she was careful to not touch the spiral ridges but apparently any contact was enough. When the cool silver touched against her skin all her senses were flooded with white light. Purity with rivulets of blood staining it all. It fell in tiny droplets, from her fingertips, off her arms. There was nothing but the blinding white and the blood.

  What is this? What are you?

  “Does that matter?”

  She was surprised when the voice—unusually high, like reed pipes—responded.

  Are you … one of the gods? There were gods she had never spoken to, was this one?

  There was a long silence, leaving Nadya suspended in the blood-soaked white space. She was vaguely aware her pain was only a dim buzz now. It surrounded her like a fog, barely noticeable.

  Then: “Once upon a time, yes.”

  And once upon a time that answer would have terrified Nadya. A few short weeks ago, the girl in a monastery who believed so wholly in her gods and her cause would have looked upon this with horror, disbelief. She would have written it off as hallucinatory heretical magic. But now …

  Now she had allowed herself to doubt. Now she was tired. Now she had been forsaken and abandoned. She sat down, crossing her legs underneath her, conscious of the floor wet with blood beneath her. There was nothing left to do but hope for answers.

  How does one become something that is no longer a god?

  “How does a human girl become something divine and feared by the gods that gave her the power she wields?”

  Nadya frowned, puzzled. I think you’re mistaken.

  “Mistakes are not things I generally make,” the voice replied.

  Where am I? What do you want? The being never answered her first question, but she held back asking again in hope she would receive some answers.

  “Where you are is as irrelevant as it is immaterial. What I want is better answered by the question of what you want.”

  Can I see you?

  “You do not want to.”

  Nadya flipped the pendant between her fingers. It had come with her. Had she been carrying this being around her neck all this time? Where had Kostya—of all people—found this? Why had he given it to her?

  What … did she want?

  “You have it already,” the voice said from behind her. When she turned there was nothing but the white and the blood. “But you don’t realize it. So long spent under the thumb of the pantheon has tainted your understanding.”

  Tainted? Nadya asked, feeling sick. Whatever this was, whatever this being wanted, would only lead to danger. But what option did she even have?

  “You think they can take your power away from you?”

  Nadya grew cold.

  They can. They gave me this power; they can take it at their will.

  “That is incorrect.” The voice sounded amused.

  Nadya trembled. Her vision blurred, shifting back to darkness before being flooded with white once more.

  “Our time together grows short. You must make a choice, little bird. Do you continue on with your wings clipped or do you fly?”

  Darkness plunged back around Nadya—abrupt and severe—as the necklace slipped out of her hands and pain crashed back down onto her.

  26

  NADEZHDA

  LAPTEVA

  Velyos is a god but not a god. He is a was and an is and never again, never again.

  —Codex of the Divine, 50:118

  When Nadya came to there was an itching in her veins unlike anything she had felt before. She shoved the necklace down into her pocket, careful to keep it off her skin, though it no longer glowed. If blood sparked the connection, she would have to be especially careful not to touch the pendant again, as blood was slick around her still.

  The itching in her veins grew stronger, and Nadya shut her eyes. Remembering the well of power during the attack on the church when Marzenya had given her free rein of her magic, she groped in her own mind, trying to find that place once more. If what the voice said was true, it was hers to use, and she needed to find it.

  Fog clung to her. It was as if she was lifting a heavy curtain. What she found on the other side was white and shining and powerful. Refrains of holy speech unlike anything she had ever heard. Pure raw magic. She opened her eyes and stood, ignoring her body’s protestations as her cuts reopened, blood dripping down. White points of light emanated from her fingertips and she touched the door, drawing symbols with the practiced ease of someone who had cast magic this way all her life. She knew—intrinsically—how she was to use this power, how she was to twist the words of an immortal tongue into raw magic.

  The door shattered before her hands. She jumped back, wincing as shards pierced her already broken body. She wasn’t going to stay conscious for much longer.

  There was no one outside and Nadya wilted with relief against the doorframe, giving herself a moment to breathe through the pain and flashes of wooziness, before she put one foot in front of the other and slowly stumbled forward.

  She turned the corner and ran directly into someone coming down the hall. The well of magic flooded down into her hands and she reacted without thinking, shoving out with the power. She saw the
figure’s arm lift, blood on their palm. Her magic crashed off them harmlessly, deflected by their own power.

  “Nadya?”

  She froze, taking a step back. Fear and relief tangled in her chest and she wanted to bolt. If the Vultures had Malachiasz again they could use him against her and she couldn’t fight him. Not in the state she was in now. So she ran.

  Nadya was tired and battered and it took him no effort to catch her. He grabbed her arm and yanked her to a stop. Dimly, she realized she was shaking. She heard him hiss out a low breath as he took in her mess of wounds.

  “It’s just me,” he said, gently turning her to face him. “I went to your rooms. Parijahan was gone and the place was ransacked.”

  No mask; it was tied to his belt. It was just him. Hair tangled and dark smudges of exhaustion under his pale eyes. He was here looking for her, not because he had been brainwashed to kill her. She let out a long, shuddered breath.

  He glanced over his shoulder. She lifted her hands, staring at them. What had she done? What was this power she was using? It was blasphemous; the door would never reopen to her if she kept this up. When she lifted her gaze, Malachiasz was watching her with a tentative expression on his face.

  “My magic…” she started.

  But then he tensed, head whipping around, and suddenly her feet were off the ground and he had swept her down the nearest hallway and into what appeared to be a closet.

  It was dark. She was immediately hyperaware of just how close she was to him, face against his chest. His breath ruffled the soft hairs at the base of her neck, sending shivering jolts down her spine. She could feel his hands hovering inches above her waist, clearly afraid to settle on the chance he would place them directly over an open wound.

  Footsteps clattered through the hallway. Loud and fast moving. Someone had discovered that Nadya was not where she was supposed to be. Once things grew quiet again, he shifted, taking her hands in his, her palms up.

  “Show me,” he said softly.

  She swallowed hard. Grasped at the well of magic that flowed too deeply for her to understand. White light like cold flame sparked at her palms.

  An odd little half smile flickered at his lips, lit by the glowing magic at her hands. Magic that was … hers? She didn’t know. She opened her mouth to ask him, because he would know, but something stopped her. She didn’t understand how he knew these things about magic; didn’t want to be swayed to his heretical point of view. But …

  What if he’s right? He always seemed to be right about her, about magic. She didn’t understand.

  “The things you could do,” he whispered. He touched his fingertips against hers and she had to swallow down her heart from where it lodged in her throat. A faraway look appeared in his eyes, but he blinked and it was gone. “We need to get out of here.”

  She nodded. There was a second, a tremor, where she wanted to break into pieces and cry. She wouldn’t—she refused to crack so easily. But she threw her arms around him, fingers digging into his back, indulging in the comfort of his warmth.

  He let out a startled breath and his hand weaved through her hair to cradle the back of her head. “I’m glad you’re safe,” he whispered, lips soft against her temple. “Let’s get you to someone who can see to the worst of your wounds.”

  Nadya reluctantly pulled away. She reached out to the gods again as she reached for Malachiasz’s hand. He twined their fingers together without a word.

  And, again, from the gods, she was met with silence.

  * * *

  Nadya looked up at the winding staircase with trepidation. The glass tower was beautiful, light glittering through the panes. It had more stairs than Nadya would be able to climb in her current state.

  “I could—” Malachiasz started, but quickly fell silent when Nadya held up a hand.

  “I will not be carried,” she said.

  “It would be no trou—”

  “Do not offer again.” But the reality of the situation hit her and she leaned her head against his shoulder. She felt dizzy, each wave of pain threatening to knock her flat.

  The witch lived at the top of the spiral staircase. Apparently she was their best bet to getting Nadya any help at all. Malachiasz softly kissed the top of Nadya’s head.

  “Are you certain?”

  “Not at all,” she mumbled. She was in pain and tired and didn’t want to walk up however many thousands of stairs were in front of her.

  She straightened, pulling away from Malachiasz and gripping the railing as she started up. He let out a frustrated breath behind her.

  “I lived at the top of seven thousand stairs,” she said. “What’s a few more?”

  Her head spun and she swayed backwards. She gripped the handrail enough to twist herself around so she was sitting instead of toppling down the stairs.

  Malachiasz leaned against the railing. “Written in the history books will be the story of a Kalyazi cleric, killed before her time not by her Tranavian enemies, but because of a flight of stairs.”

  Nadya let out a pained whimper. Cuts reopened and started to drip blood down her back. “I hate you.”

  “I offered to help.”

  She looked up at him. “Written in the history books will be the story of a deranged former Vulture, murdered—quite terribly—after making one too many awful quips.”

  “Deranged?”

  “Abomination is too biased a word. You have to stay objective in history.”

  “That’s not even remotely true. Are you going to sit here all night? Someone is going to wonder where I am.”

  She was fairly certain the world had begun to spin around her in addition to her already dizzy head. She held a hand out in front of her face and squinted at it. She was seeing far too many hands.

  “Are you in shock, Nadya?”

  She squinted up at him. “Is that what this is? You lose a lot of blood and you’re perfectly fine. I lose a lot of blood and I go into shock? How is that at all fair?”

  He laughed. She grinned through her pain-filled haze. She liked the sound of his laugh. She held her hands out to him. He could at least help her stand.

  As she rose, everything spun so hard around her she only had enough time to shift her footing so Malachiasz could catch her when she fainted.

  * * *

  Nadya woke for the third time that day, but this time it was on a chaise that smelled of mildew. There were bandages wrapped tightly around her torso and limbs. Her tattered dress had been replaced with a simple one of gray wool. She sat up slowly, every inch of her protesting.

  “Ah, she awakens,” a voice said from across the room. “Good, it was growing awkward with this Vulture here. Never did like his kind.”

  Malachiasz made an affronted sound.

  Nadya rubbed at her eyes. “How long was I out?”

  “Not long, not long at all.”

  The witch looked to be in her seventies. Her eyes sparked onyx bright in the dim light of the room. Her face was lined, her curls white but threaded with black.

  Nadya met Malachiasz’s eyes from where he was sitting across the room. He smiled faintly, but seemed preoccupied.

  “Do you know my name, child?” the witch said. “Because I know yours and that doesn’t seem fair.”

  Nadya stiffened. “H-how do you know my name?”

  She waved a hand. “My name is Pelageya, in case you weren’t aware. I know his name, too,” she said, hooking a thumb in Malachiasz’s direction. “Which is the true feat.”

  Malachiasz tensed, but he didn’t move from his seemingly relaxed posture. His gaze grew wary as he eyed the witch.

  Nadya frowned, puzzled.

  “It’s been a long time since I was in Kalyazin, but I recognize a girl of snow and forest well enough even with dark magic’s touch upon her. And this palace has been without any blessing of the divine for so long that you were practically shining when you stepped inside. But…” she trailed off, peering closely at Nadya. “Not enough light to guide you no
w.”

  Pelageya grinned. “What if I provide some illumination for this dark path? You came to the right place, though I’m surprised your Vulture brought you here. I’ll tell you a story.” The witch promptly sat down on the floor. “A story about our king and a young prodigy Vulture.”

  Nadya looked up in time to see Malachiasz’s fingers curl into a fist.

  “Though,” she considered, tugging at a spiral curl, “he’s not your king. Not mine, either. He’s not even sterevyani bolen’s king, now, is he? Is it treason if we all here swear to different crowns? Except…” Her gaze narrowed on Malachiasz. “You can’t really swear to your own crown, now can you?”

  “Careful…” he murmured. He flexed his hand over the arm of his chair, nails flashing iron in the dim candlelight.

  Pelageya smiled.

  “You see, our Tranavian king has become a paranoid man, certain that because his son is a more powerful mage, it will spell his doom. So he needs more power, always more power.

  “And amidst the Vultures was one who rose through the ranks at such a very young age. More clever than most and more dangerous by far, he spent his time with ancient books and old tomes and discovered the very secret the king was looking for.”

  Nadya felt a chill of dread settle in the pit of her stomach. Malachiasz leaned his chin on his hand, listening intently.

  “So, he offered it to the king. It was theoretical, of course, nothing that could ever actually be done. But the idea was there and this talented Vulture wanted his cult to be on better terms with the Tranavian king. The Vulture queen who ruled before him did a poor job, you see. She ground the order down to near insignificance and this talented Vulture wanted his order to have power again. He wanted a partnership of equals between the crowns. Perhaps he even wanted something in return for this gift, but who could say? But then the king asked him to perform this theoretical ceremony. Surely, he could do it. He was the ultimate success of his cult, the one whose power had been tortured into him to a higher point than even the oldest Vultures ever reached. If anyone could do this, he could.”