Wicked Saints

by Emily A Duncan

  Izak Meleski turned toward her and Nadya was hit by a crushing, agonizing weight. The man’s power could send horrors into Nadya’s mind, but she had seen horrors. There was little left to frighten her.

  She pulled her voryen up to use as a channel for her power, pushing flames down onto the floor and toward the king. They were tinged with darkness. The flames touched the king, but he backed away, forcing a new horror into Nadya’s mind.

  She shook it off. Light tipped her fingers and she called a pillar of blinding power down from the sky—from the hole in the veil—to slam down upon the king.

  For a heartbeat, she thought she had him. But a constricting power beat down upon her, forcing her still.

  Blood vessels burst in her eyes from the strain weighing down heavy upon her. Blood dripped down from her nose, leaked from her eyes, she could feel it pooling in her ears.

  She was dying.

  SEREFIN

  MELESKI

  When his father turned away, it felt like Serefin was coming up for air after being drowned. He gasped, choking on blood, and forced himself to his feet.

  The cleric stood, frozen. White light surrounded her head—almost a halo—but something about it was tainted and it shivered in erratic tremors. Blood drained out of her like water. Serefin took a step closer but his knees gave out. He had nothing left; a few moths that fluttered weakly around him, not enough blood left to cast. He was drained dry.

  Like a shadow, the Akolan girl whom Serefin had seen trailing the cleric slipped into the center of the room. She snapped out with her wrist in a violent blur. It was a whip, Serefin realized dimly. The blunted leather struck Izak Meleski directly in the temple and he stumbled.

  “Nadya!” the Akolan girl screamed as the king’s attention turned on her. Her limbs seized.

  Serefin glanced at Malachiasz, who watched impassively from his throne, chin in his hand. All that power and yet he did nothing. Hatred burned in Serefin’s veins. He had known the Black Vulture was a danger, yet he had let himself believe with foolish hope that perhaps he had an ally, when he was just another monster.

  35

  NADEZHDA

  LAPTEVA

  Svoyatova Valentina Benediktova: A cleric of Marzenya whose path became clouded when it crossed that of the Tranavian blood mage, Urszula Klimkowska. All records of Valentina end there. No one knows whether Valentina killed Urszula, or vice versa. Her canonization was due to the miracle she performed when she was twelve of defending the city of Tolbirnya. There is no record of her death; her body was never found.

  —Vasiliev’s Book of Saints

  Nadya pushed her hands out and shattered the king’s hold. He stood with his attention on Parijahan, torturing her. Nadya gripped her blade in her bloody hand and tugged at her power, putting herself across the room in the space of a heartbeat. She slammed her blade into the king’s back.

  Divine magic and blood magic and something else, something different. Power that should not be combined; power strong enough to take apart the one who wielded it. Magic that was so in opposition that in another circumstance, held by another person, it would destroy itself before being bound into a formidable spell.

  But Nadya knew divine power, and she had touched Malachiasz’s power, knew the shape of it, dark as it was, and she knew her own well of magic.

  She forced the torrent of magic through the blade and into the king. This would kill even a god.

  He jerked, his body shuddering. Nadya pulled the blade out, staring at it in abject horror before she plunged it back in his body a second time. She stumbled to her knees. Parijahan crumpled, blood welling at the corners of her mouth.

  There was silence.

  Then the single, ringing sound of footsteps on the marble floor. Nadya lifted her head with some difficulty to watch as Malachiasz stepped down from his dais, the chalice he had been toying with back in his hand.

  The expression on his face was strange. Eyes glassy, sweat beading at his temples. He swallowed hard, gaze flicking to Nadya in a glimmer so fast she wondered if she imagined it.

  “Thank you,” he said, his voice soft. “I didn’t think it would work, you see, there were so many variables along the way, so many things that could go wrong, but you have done exactly as I hoped.”

  Nadya stiffened. She watched, mutely, as Malachiasz kicked at the body of the king, adjusting it so the fast flowing blood drained into the chalice.

  “No…” she whimpered. She tried to get up, to knock over the chalice and stop whatever Malachiasz was about to set into motion, but she couldn’t. Her limbs refused to move and she remained frozen in horror as Malachiasz lifted the chalice, swirling the blood inside slowly.

  “Malachiasz, please.” Nadya had to force the words past her lips.

  She felt Rashid’s hand on her shoulder. He approached Malachiasz.

  Malachiasz lifted a hand and rested his iron claws on Rashid’s chest, his eyes still on the chalice of blood. “Do not try to stop me,” he said softly. He slowly met Rashid’s pleading gaze. “Please.”

  “This isn’t going to fix anything, Malachiasz,” Rashid said.

  “You don’t understand,” Malachiasz snapped. “This”—he waved to the body of the king—“won’t be enough to stop this war. Those Kalyazi gods will grind Tranavia to ash like they’ve ground out their own country. I cannot let it happen. I won’t.”

  “This won’t help.”

  Nadya struggled to her feet. She took a shaky step toward him, curled her fingers over his on the cup. He was trembling.

  “Is this what you wanted?” she asked faintly. “All the lies, all the planning, for this?” A flash of clarity, the understanding that he had wanted Serefin’s death, to take the secular throne out of the equation entirely and claim it all. “You think you’re going to save these countries,” she whispered, horrified. “This will just cause more destruction, Malachiasz, please, the gods aren’t like this.”

  “Nadya, I showed you freedom. You know what will happen now.” His voice shifted, tone accusatory. “You knew it the whole time.”

  She did. And she had been willing to sacrifice Tranavia to save Kalyazin. Her quest was divine and the Tranavians were heretics. But he was wrong; it wasn’t going to end that way.

  “I’ll become more,” he said, sounding frantic. “Can’t you see? I told you.”

  She blinked, startled. He had. He had told her the Meleskis needed to be deposed. That the gods needed to be deposed.

  She’d been too wrapped up in him to put the pieces together.

  She reached up, winding her hands through his hair, clasping them on either side of his head. “Are we so different, Malachiasz? It’s over. Let it go. This will destroy you.”

  The Black Vulture shook his head. “I’ve waited for this too long.” He lolled his head, gaze unfocused. “Why go back when you can go further? Why let Tranavia burn when I can save it?”

  His knuckles whitened as his grip tightened further. He pushed away from her and tipped the chalice back, draining it in one long draught.

  No.

  Nadya’s heart sped in a fluttery, sick way. She felt Malachiasz’s power still within her burning against her hold. What has he done? She stepped back.

  Malachiasz shuddered, and the chalice fell from limp fingers. His head tilted back, Adam’s apple bobbing, as he swallowed hard. His face wrenched. Blood dripped from the corners of his eyes.

  Iron claws, iron teeth, blackened horns that twisted back into his long hair. Vast, feathered wings drenched with blood sprouted from his shoulder blades. His pale eyes flickered onyx.

  Physical changes that had been burned into his body by those of his kind. Why go back when you can go further?

  What was further? Further was a power so corrosive that Nadya—through her terrible connection to Malachiasz—could already feel it eating away at him. Further was the veins underneath his pale skin turning black with poison.

  Further was the power of a god—not even a god, this was wor
se than any divine power Nadya had ever touched. This was something horrible and eldritch, twisting his body and choking his soul. Draining the dregs of his humanity to be replaced with something vicious and mad.

  Nadya let out a scream of pain. It felt as if every manifestation was happening on her. The cut on her hand heated, burning up her arm, filling her veins with fire.

  Iron spikes jutted from his body, dripping with blood. As he stood, chest heaving, Nadya gasped. He fit the image of the monsters that terrorized her nightmares.

  “Fascinating,” Malachiasz murmured. He pressed his clawed hand over his heart and frowned, as if he was feeling something only mildly unusual. His head twitched, wrenching painfully. Lightning and thunder and a groaning in the earth crashed around them.

  She stepped closer. Rested one hand over her racing heart. Tears spilled over as she reached out and brushed her fingers against his cheek.

  “What have you done, Malachiasz?” Everything she had felt for him was nothing more than ashes at her feet, but still her broken heart lurched at the thought of losing him.

  There was madness in his black eyes—madness and something terribly close to divinity.

  Which was, in essence, the same as madness.

  He didn’t speak, just shook his head. He took a step away from her. Desperate and heartbroken, she pulled him closer and ignored his iron teeth, his madness, and kissed him.

  He tasted like blood; he tasted like betrayal.

  “I can feel it,” she whispered, her hands smearing blood on his neck. “What have you done? I can feel it.”

  His eyes flickered back to their icy pale, agony stark within them. “Myja towy dżimyka. Myja towy szanka…” He tilted her face up. Kissed her again, careful with his razor claws, his touch achingly gentle. When he pulled away his eyes went onyx once more, the ice bleeding away into darkness. “It’s not enough.”

  “Malachiasz?” Her voice broke and she clutched at him even as she felt him moving farther and farther away.

  One of his hands lifted; the backs of his fingers brushed against her cheek.

  He thought this would heal the gaping wound of his tattered soul, save his kingdom. She was watching him destroy himself. Spiraling into pieces as he was twisted into something far past a monster.

  But he still has his name, she thought, a desperate, fleeting, irrelevant thing.

  Tears dripped down Nadya’s face and she caught his hand, pressing it against her cheek. She kissed the back. His hand slipped from hers.

  His vast, black wings snapped open and he rose, crashing through the high window in the chapel and sending fragments of broken glass raining down upon them. Nadya stood, blood staining her skin, fingers to her lips.

  The veil over Tranavia was ebbing away, the gods’ touch returning. Now their presence felt wrong. Nadya braced herself for Marzenya’s anger, but nothing came.

  She could feel the gods, but they did not speak to her.

  36

  SEREFIN

  MELESKI

  Svoyatova Evgenia Dyrbova: The last known cleric, Svoyatova Evgenia Dyrbova, a cleric of Marzenya, fell on the battlefield. Her last words were considered a prophecy of doom—the gods would recede, their touch would lessen, clerics would be even more of a rarity. Kalyazin would be doomed, if nothing changed, if the war continued.

  —Vasiliev’s Book of Saints

  Serefin woke on the sanctuary floor surrounded by dead moths and shards of glass. He opened his eyes just in time to see the cleric faint, her Akolan friend not quite reaching her in time to keep her from crashing to the floor.

  Light still haloed her head.

  “Nadya,” the boy whispered, picking her up. He glanced at Serefin, going rigid when he noticed he was awake. He gently set the cleric down and picked up a discarded dagger.

  “You know, if we killed you as well we could end this war even faster,” he said. He crouched next to Serefin, the dagger held lazily between his long, brown fingers.

  “Go ahead,” Serefin mumbled. Where was Ostyia? He’d lost track of her in the madness.

  The boy studied him. He looked out towards the entrance to the sanctuary. He shook his head. “No. I don’t think you’re anything like your father.”

  Those words flooded Serefin with relief. “Is she going to be all right?” He worked himself up to a sitting position. He shouldn’t be moving at all; he had lost far too much blood.

  The Akolan boy looked at Nadya. His features softened. “I don’t know. But your asking makes me even less inclined to kill you.” He stuck out a hand. “Name’s Rashid.”

  Serefin stared at him, amused by the absurd normalcy in the gesture. He shook the boy’s hand. “Serefin.”

  Rashid stood and walked over to the Akolan girl, unconscious a few steps away. As he was checking on her, one large, gray moth fluttered down to the ground in front of Serefin.

  “Are you the only one left?” he whispered, nudging the moth onto his index finger. The moth’s wings fluttered. No. The moths would return; the stars would return. He had been altered and now he had to figure out what that meant.

  “Get off me, I’m fine, I’m fine.” The Akolan girl’s voice rang out. She sat up, holding her head. Her eyes narrowed as she scanned the room. “Where’s…” but she trailed off, her question going unfinished.

  She moved, kneeling next to Nadya. Lightning jolted the room, too near for comfort, but the rain outside was now only rain. Serefin scrambled to his feet, searching the hall for some sign of Ostyia.

  He found her lying underneath a pillar like a discarded rag doll. Panic gripped his chest. It didn’t look like she was breathing. No, not Ostyia. He knelt beside her, hesitant to look any closer. He didn’t want confirmation of a tragedy. He didn’t want to know.

  “You’re not allowed to die,” he rasped. When he touched her, a constellation of stars formed around his hand. “If I’m not allowed to die, you’re not either.”

  Ostyia took a gasping breath. She began to cough, shoulders shaking. “Serefin?” Her voice was scratchy.

  “Didn’t we have this conversation already?” He tried to joke but it came out flat. He’d almost lost her. He had so little; he was unable to even consider what might have happened to Kacper. He couldn’t lose them.

  “We have to find Kacper,” she said, straightening. Her eye grew wide as she reached up to touch the skin underneath his left eye. “Can you still see out of this?”

  When he closed his good eye, his bad eye was still a blurry mess. “It’s the same, why?”

  “It’s full of stars, Serefin.” Her voice was hushed, awed. “You’re surrounded by stars.”

  He leaned back on his heels, unsure what to say. Yes, this is what happens now just didn’t seem to do it justice. He didn’t know what it meant.

  Behind them, the cleric stirred.

  NADEZHDA

  LAPTEVA

  Nadya’s head pounded. She stared up at the beautiful ceiling of the cathedral and contemplated giving up.

  Maybe what they had done would change things. Maybe things would be better now. Or, maybe, they had just set into motion something far worse. Her hand ached with a dull, throbbing pain. The spiral would scar into her palm, a reminder.

  Nadya sat up slowly, looking up to the window where Malachiasz had disappeared. He had lied to her, betrayed her, and now he was gone.

  She felt hollow, utterly used up. The prince knelt down in front of her, obviously in pain.

  Nadya smiled faintly. She stuck out a hand.

  “I don’t think we’ve ever been introduced,” she said softly. The tight hold she had been keeping over the way she spoke Tranavian loosened, and her Kalyazi accent melted into her words. “My name is Nadezhda Lapteva, but you can call me Nadya.”

  His scarred eye looked different. It was a deeper blue than his other pale eye, and stars glittered in constellations in its depths. He took her hand. His was warm as his fingers wrapped around hers.

  “Serefin Meleski, and please, just cal
l me Serefin,” he replied. A huge gray moth fluttered down from the ceiling and landed in his brown hair. “Did you know you have a halo?” he asked. The awkward, strangely charming boy was still there, underneath the exhaustion and the stars. Underneath the power that felt divine.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Did you know you have a moth in your hair?”

  He smiled and nodded.

  A crash of lightning struck right outside the chapel doors, making them all jump.

  The dead body of the Tranavian king was across the room. A chalice lay on the ground beside him. His blood had dried on Nadya’s hands, leaving them stiff.

  Her gaze passed over the body, locking onto the chalice. She felt like she’d been punched in the chest as she looked at it.

  So she had done what she set out to do; so she had killed the king, she had broken the veil. At what cost? A higher price than she had been prepared to pay and more questions than she had been willing to answer.

  She cast a prayer up to Marzenya. She had no prayer beads, she had nothing.

  Her prayer was met with cold, deliberate silence and it needled at Nadya’s heart, but she knew the goddess heard her. The veil was finally, truly, gone.

  Nadya looked up at the shattered cathedral window once more, glass fragments dusting the ground around her. Malachiasz’s black power itched underneath her skin as it fought against her own divine magic.

  She would release it if she thought she could; if it would do any good at all she would purge it, break off the last piece tying her to the Black Vulture.

  Her palm ached and she shifted the fingers of her left hand, feeling the skin stretch and tighten around the spiral wound. She rose to her feet, movements slow. Lying on the ground some space away from the body of the dead king was an iron crown. She picked it up, returning to where Serefin sat looking vaguely confused.

  “The king is dead, long live the king,” she said, handing it to him.