Pelageya giggled. “Can one have a crisis of conscience if one has no conscience to begin with?”
Malachiasz leaned back in his chair, gaze flicking to Nadya and away again.
“The Vulture disappeared. Poof! There one night, gone the next, leaving his cult to scramble in his absence. Because the Vultures need direction, they need their Black Vulture to lead them, and he had vanished.”
Nadya was listening at a distance, refusing to let the witch’s words catch up to her, to connect all that she was hearing, but she knew, she knew. Would that it had been so simple, that Malachiasz were just a Vulture recruit who got scared and fled. The world was falling out from underneath her and she had no anchor, she had nothing, because nothing was even real.
It was Malachiasz. It had always been Malachiasz. The leader of the cult, the one who had spun all of this into motion, the one who had smiled and charmed his way into Nadya’s trust because he could do terrible things with her power if he had access to it. She wouldn’t be sitting here with bandages covering her body if not for Malachiasz.
“But he fled?” Nadya asked. If she pretended the one they were speaking of wasn’t sitting in front of them, listening in calm contemplation, maybe that would make this easier.
“He did,” Pelageya said. “But he came back. Do you think that is coincidence? That this clever boy and his clever magic have returned now?”
“Malachiasz?” Nadya said, her voice smaller than she would have liked, weaker. She willed him to look at her.
He looked different, sitting in the witch’s chair in a way that made it seem almost a throne. His black hair parted far on the right side, falling over his shoulder in inky waves, his pale eyes cold and blank. Less a boy, more a monster. Was that all he was? The silly boy who smiled too much and felt too deeply just a mask for the monster underneath?
Had she fallen for his lies exactly as he wanted her to?
He finally met her gaze, eyes softening, growing familiar. “It’s all right, towy dżimyka,” he said, voice soft.
It wasn’t. Not at all.
Pelageya laughed. “Is that supposed to make her feel better?” She stood up, walking around Malachiasz’s chair. “Is that supposed to earn her trust again?” She hooked a finger underneath his chin, forcing his gaze up to hers. She looked young. Nadya didn’t know when the shift had happened but knew the witch was a force of nature. A magic just as old and dangerous as either of them possessed, made worse by the wisdom of her years. “What have you done, Chelvyanik Sterevyani?” she whispered. “What will you still do? I don’t think love is such a force that it will stop you. I’m not sure you’re even capable of it.”
Nadya closed her eyes. Her breath hitched. She wasn’t going to cry, she was too scared for that, too deeply shattered. She wanted to, though. Cry like a village maid who’d had her heart broken, not a girl touched by the gods who fell for a monster and was devoured. This was her fault. She’d ignored the signs, ignored her goddess even. Now it was too late. Now they were here and her heart had been compromised and maybe this was a mistake, maybe he wasn’t lying at all, maybe he had changed, he would help them, and this was all just the witch trying to tear a rift between them that would ruin everything and hand the war to Tranavia.
“I just want to end what I started,” Malachiasz finally said.
Nadya felt her heart lift with hope but she quashed it. She wanted to trust him, desperately, but how could she?
Pelageya’s eyes narrowed. “How careful you are with words, Veshyen Yaliknevo.” Your Excellency.
“Don’t,” he said, pulling away from her touch.
“What?” she asked innocently. “I’m just giving you the respect you’re due. Would you prefer if I used your name?”
His jaw clenched.
“I thought so. Malachiasz Czechowicz. Such power in that name. It was wise of you to hide it from Tranavia, but then you gave it away in Kalyazin. I’m still puzzling over that, surely you knew what you were doing by that act. You have proven to be exceedingly clever.” She paused in thought, pulling a face of almost deranged glee. It was unsettling. “But, this isn’t just about you, Veshyen Yaliknevo. Chelvyanik Sterevyani. Sterevyani bolen.” She sat down on the arm of his chair and he shifted to the opposite side, as far from her as he could possibly get. “This is about the little scrap of divinity you’ve drawn to the depths of Tranavia.”
Nadya lifted her chin. She wasn’t going to let them see she was falling apart.
“She followed you a long, long way from home. What did you tell her to make her come so far without putting a blade in your back?”
Malachiasz mumbled something Nadya didn’t hear. Pelageya laughed.
“Of course, of course. Without cutting your throat, I should have said. Now that you point it out she does have the look of a girl who goes for—” She leaned over and tipped Malachiasz’s head back again, baring his throat. His fist clenched over the arm of the chair, nails now just long enough to be visible claws. “—sensitive flesh.”
Malachiasz inhaled sharply.
“I never told her anything that wasn’t true,” he said, voice carefully restrained.
Pelageya looked to Nadya. For what, confirmation? She shrugged.
“Apparently it was all in what he never bothered saying, or how he chose to say it,” she said. It’s all still lies.
Pelageya slid her hand down Malachiasz’s neck. “I don’t think you realize just what you’ve done, Veshyen Yaliknevo.”
He frowned, looking over at Pelageya for the first time.
“Oh, you think you do, for you are so clever, and all the pieces have fallen into place remarkably for you.” She brushed a fingertip against a trio of gold beads that were threaded through his hair. Nadya narrowed her eyes; she didn’t remember ever seeing those before. “How much will you come to regret this?”
“We’re going to stop this war,” Malachiasz said evenly. “There is nothing to regret.”
Pelageya smirked. “Dasz polakienscki ja mawelczenko.”
Nadya frowned. The words were Tranavian, but she had no idea what any of them meant. Clearly, Malachiasz understood, his face paled.
“Nie.”
“I suppose you’ll find out.”
“I think someone should explain to me what’s going on,” Nadya said slowly, finally working up the courage to speak. She felt like a child. Far too young to understand what was going on. Their words were spinning just out of reach over her head. Right now it was hard to believe Malachiasz was only one winter older than her; there was a darkness around him that made him seem so much older and more terrible. She hated it and she wasn’t going to let them do this to her. She wouldn’t be used, not by Malachiasz, not by this witch.
Pelageya glanced at Malachiasz. Reluctantly he returned the look and waved a hand; suddenly this action that had seemed so benign before appeared uncomfortably imperious.
“By all means,” he said. “She’ll be killing me soon enough and I’m fascinated by what you have to say.”
The condescension, however, made more sense now.
“No, actually, I’m more interested in your excuse,” Nadya said. She wished her voice wouldn’t shake. She wished she could face this without feeling like something was being ripped away from her.
The witch grinned and his expression wearied. He glanced at Pelageya again, clearly hesitant to speak in front of her.
“Why are you here, Malachiasz?”
“I have told you. My reasoning hasn’t changed just because you know what I am now. I want to save my country. I’m one of the few people who can; surely you understand that.”
He was giving her nothing, less than nothing.
“I don’t believe you,” she said softly.
Pelageya ran a hand through Malachiasz’s hair. He looked like he was an inch away from tearing her arm off.
“You’re young, sterevyani bolen,” she said. “How were you to know that your heart still beat in your chest after what’s been don
e to you?”
He snarled, knocking her hand away and standing in one fast, dangerous movement. “Don’t mock me, witch.”
Pelageya lifted an eyebrow, lips twisting into a slow smile. Then her attention was back on Nadya.
Nadya, who didn’t know how to hold herself together after this. Nadya, who couldn’t pull her gaze away from Malachiasz, unable to reconcile that the boy she had traded jokes with, that she had kissed, was a symbol of Tranavian heresy. A monster greater than all others.
She feared the Vultures more than she did the Tranavian nobles. She feared the Black Vulture more than she feared the Tranavian king. It didn’t make sense. That the silly, anxious boy sat on a throne built on the bones of thousands of people. Idly, she realized her hands were shaking. The room was too cold. Everything was wrong, the world shifted too far to one angle, unfamiliar and treacherous.
She thought she knew what she was doing, coming here, but now she was in a foreign country, surrounded by her enemies, and the one she had anchored her safety to had been lying to her from the start.
Nadya pulled Kostya’s necklace out from her pocket, holding it up to Pelageya.
“What is this?”
“A vessel, a chamber, a trap,” she said. “Velyos is within. Did he give you his name? No, he likes to be mysterious. Mystery is something more appealing to someone divine.”
Nadya shut her eyes. She didn’t understand what was happening.
“Have you heard of him? I suppose not. The veil went up, Velyos broke away. Your gods were probably relieved, but now here he is once more. You cannot feel the touch of your gods because the king is sending blood magic out in waves around Tranavia. Why do you think he’s kidnapped lovely young blood mages to siphon out their power? He’s cut off any access to the divine in preparation for his end goal. It’s been building for years in Tranavia, this veil, this darkness.”
A chill cut through Nadya hard enough to frost her skin. A shard of ice digging into her stomach. His end goal, some theory Malachiasz had provided to him. Power.
“The veil isn’t the problem,” Malachiasz muttered.
Pelageya ignored him. “But, you see, your world has taught you there are only two things,” Pelageya said. She slid off the armrest until she was lounging sideways in the chair Malachiasz had previously been sitting in.
He leaned against the fireplace, arms crossed over his chest.
“There is your magic, which is good, of course. And then their magic. Blood magic. Heresy.”
“It’s just magic,” Malachiasz said.
“I don’t think she wants to hear this from you,” Pelageya sang.
Nadya glanced at him. Hadn’t that been what he had tried to show her from the day they met? Hadn’t that been his entire point when they were at the wayside shrine? He had been trying to give her some form of freedom—his form of freedom—and until this point she had been considering it, wavering.
“But then there is my magic, except a witch is just a girl who has realized her power is her own. Then, perhaps, there is something else yet.”
Nadya forced her hands still before they reached for the prayer beads she did not have. “What are you saying?” she whispered. But she didn’t want to know. She wasn’t ready to indulge, she wasn’t ready to step away from her gods. She didn’t want this.
She held her hand out in front of herself and small flames lit around her fingertips. “That’s wrong.”
“That’s magic.”
Nadya shook her head.
“You’re here to kill a king and change the world,” Pelageya said. “One will, of course, follow the other. How did you think you were going to do that? How were you going to get around the fact that your Chelvyanik Sterevyani doesn’t have the control over his cult that he used to?”
Malachiasz’s jaw tightened. Nadya felt almost relieved. The witch had said it to sow more discord, but if he didn’t have full control of the Vultures, maybe that meant he actually was helping them? She shouldn’t give in to hope. She hated that she was so damn hopeful.
“Did you drag this out just to taunt us that our goal is impossible?” Malachiasz asked.
Us. Our. She looked at him just as he glanced down at her. She was in a thousand broken pieces and she didn’t know what to do.
No, she did. His was a game she could play perfectly. She would keep her distance, let him think he had gotten away with it, and then she would get her answers.
“Of course. A bit. But also to help, because you do need help.”
A sudden insistent knock on the door made all three of them pause. Then a voice, terrifyingly familiar, came from outside.
“Pelageya? I need to speak with you.”
Of course it would be the prince.
27
SEREFIN
MELESKI
Svoyatovi Klavdiy Gusin: A cleric of Bozetjeh, Svoyatovi Klavdiy Gusin was a master of time, bending it to his will. Until, one day he disappeared and was never heard from again, his body never found.
—Vasiliev’s Book of Saints
There was a rattling from inside the room as Serefin waited with Ostyia and Kacper. He could hear hushed voices snapping at each other before the door opened.
“If this is a bad time I can—” He cut himself off. Firstly, because he realized even if it was a bad time, he would not wait or come back. There was no time. Secondly, because when the door was opened it was by someone he thought he would never see again.
“Malachiasz?”
The boy on the other side of the door blinked in surprise, something undefinable flickering over his features. Serefin realized immediately that Malachiasz didn’t recognize him the same way.
His cousin had disappeared when they were children. He never thought he would see him again; his aunt acted like he was dead, so Serefin assumed some accident had befallen him that the family didn’t speak of. But the lanky boy leaning in the doorway to the witch’s chambers was the eighteen-year-old version of the wild boy Serefin had played with as a child.
“Your … Excellency?” Ostyia said, obviously trying to fill in the awkward space that had arisen between the boys.
Malachiasz lifted his eyebrows. “Yes?”
“This is unexpected.”
Serefin felt his stomach drop as Malachiasz responded to the Black Vulture’s honorific with a sharp-toothed smile. How can it be him?
Malachiasz pushed away from the doorframe and winked at Serefin. “My second informed me you were asking after my health. Truly, I’m touched.”
“What a plot this is turning out to be!” Serefin recognized Pelageya’s voice. “Get out of the way, sterevyani bolen, let your prince inside.”
“Can he be my prince if his father isn’t my king?” Malachiasz asked. “Since that was so important to you a moment ago.”
But he opened the door wider, cutting Serefin another odd look as he took a step back. Józefina was sitting on a chaise by the fire. Blood stained her hands and face.
A sick feeling settled in Serefin’s stomach. He should have walked her to her chambers; he shouldn’t have left her alone. The Vultures must have taken her the minute he had his back turned.
Malachiasz stepped toward her, but received an icy glare that made him veer off, and he ended up leaning against the fireplace. She drew her knees up to her chin, finally meeting Serefin’s gaze. She shot him a tentative smile.
“Józefina, I thought…” Serefin trailed off. “I’m glad to see you well.”
“She was in a sorry state when I found her, do you know something about that?” Malachiasz asked. He tilted his head, waiting for Serefin’s answer.
Is he goading me? Serefin thought, confused. He doesn’t know me. Something knotted in his chest. It bothered him, that this boy—his cousin—didn’t know him, that he only knew him as the petulant High Prince.
Serefin could feel a headache starting to form behind his eyes. He was so tired. He collapsed in an empty chair, indifferent to the broken image of himself he was sh
owing to the Vulture. He could pick a fight at a later date if he survived this.
“Your Highness looks unwell,” Pelageya noted.
“His Highness has been in a perpetual state of ‘unwell’ since he returned to Tranavia,” Serefin muttered. “What is he doing here?” He pointed to Malachiasz.
“You know I was wondering that myself. Unfortunately, for all of us, he’s as woven into this mess as the rest of you,” Pelageya said. “I think you’re all even working for the same goal, which would be novel, now, wouldn’t it?”
Pelageya stood in the center of the room, hands on her hips, as she slowly scanned the group. She frowned at Ostyia and Kacper.
“Stumbling in a dark so thick you cannot see your hand in front of your face. I know, I know. I’ve been watching you all as you stagger toward a similar end, but none of you seem to know where you’re going. You’re close, you’ve planned well, but the king has eyes, the king has ears, the king knows.”
Serefin straightened. Józefina appeared troubled.
“What are you talking about, witch?” Ostyia asked.
“You. Want. To. Kill. The. King.” Each word was emphasized by Pelageya flinging out one of her bony fingers from her fists. She held up her hands, showing six fingers, and grinned. “All of you do! Oh, how our Tranavian king is hated. I wonder, though, truly, will you all turn your attention on the Kalyazi tsar next? Or is this a one-ruler assassination plan?”
No one spoke. Tension fell heavily over the room.
“The girl, the monster, and the prince,” Pelageya said with a sly giggle. “And here you all are.”
Serefin lifted his head. There was more to that prophecy. He didn’t miss the Vulture’s frown, or Józefina’s look of puzzlement.
“We are missing a few,” Pelageya mused, rocking back on her heels. “But…” She shrugged. “Their part will come later, or never, for if you all fail none of you will survive! I wonder, truly, if you have a plan for this coup? How will you keep the nobles from revolt? How will you keep the Kalyazi from swarming Grazyk? Or, gods forbid, the Salt Mines?”
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