Ruthless Gods

by Emily A Duncan

  “We couldn’t exactly storm the Salt Mines, could we?” he returned.

  When they had woken and found Nadya gone, Serefin had been more relieved than anything else. He wasn’t ready to face Żaneta, and Nadya had taken the burden upon her shoulders.

  “You let her go to do what? Get Żaneta back?”

  Serefin nodded.

  Ostyia’s eye glared. “And that’s all?”

  “What she does down there is her business.” He moved past her and stoked the fire before digging in his pack for something to eat. The Akolans had wandered off to get a closer look at the entrance to the mines, likely to their detriment. “Stop questioning my decisions.”

  Her fists clenched. “You can’t be serious, Serefin!”

  “Do you have a better plan?” he snapped.

  “She’s going to bring the person who murdered you back when we’re having a grand old time dealing with things without his meddling, so, yes, I do have a better plan. But it doesn’t matter because it’s not like you ever listen to me!”

  “Why should I listen to someone who has lied to me for years?”

  Her jaw dropped. “I never lied,” she said coldly. “You weren’t exactly asking after him.”

  Kacper was watching their fight like he was afraid they were going to turn on him next. Serefin couldn’t think of a single time he’d fought with Ostyia like this but he couldn’t stand having every decision he made questioned when everything was falling through his fingers.

  No wonder no one in Tranavia took him seriously. He could never get a word out without someone questioning him. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do, Serefin?” “Isn’t there a better way to handle this, Serefin?” “Surely you could stand to have a little more tact, Serefin?”

  “You’re acting like I’ve wronged you when you’re the one letting the enemy go off to sway back the person who had you killed. I cannot believe I had to say that twice.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Serefin said. “It doesn’t matter. The decision is made and what’s done is done.”

  “If you make a decision that’s stupid and going to end in your death, do you really think I’m not going to try to stop you?”

  “It’s every bloody decision I make, Ostyia. Not just the stupid ones. It’s everything. I can’t do anything without you questioning me.”

  She frowned.

  “Both of you do,” Serefin continued.

  Kacper sat up straighter, shooting Serefin a wounded look.

  “How can you rule if your subordinates step all over you?” the voice said, settling in the back of Serefin’s head.

  He needed a drink. But the voice wasn’t wrong, exactly.

  “Blood and bone, that’s why the entire court thinks I’m a weak drunkard, easy to plot around, isn’t it? Because everywhere I go you two are undermining my decisions.”

  “Serefin—” Kacper started.

  “Or because you are a drunk,” Ostyia said.

  Serefin closed his eyes as anger tore through him.

  “Ostyia!” Kacper said sharply, desperately trying to keep this from spiraling out of control.

  “We never should have left,” she continued. “Your mother isn’t going to be able to stand against Ruminski, and no one will believe you left for your health—coincidentally, another thing the slavhki love to gossip about. And every single one has decided you’re as mad as your father, but at least he knew what he was doing, because you clearly don’t. You’re right, Serefin, I do tell you when you’re reckless, because no one else will. Everyone is happily waiting to see you fall, and—”

  “Stop,” Serefin said, voice level.

  “Waiting to see the young king fall. Waiting to see him swallowed up by the enemy from the west. An animal, hungry and waiting to snap you up in its jaws so everything can go right back to the way it has been for a century. It will spin on and on and on and you will have let it happen.”

  “Why should I?” Ostyia asked. “What’s the point? We’re not going to have anything to go back to at this rate. And the Black Vulture is going to kill you because you’re going to let him.”

  “Do you really think you can be free of me, child? Are you really that naive?”

  “Stop.” Serefin didn’t know if he was talking to the voice or Ostyia, but the word came out strained and snappish and so forceful that she fell silent. “He’s my brother,” he finally said.

  Kacper gave a low gasp. Ostyia’s eye was wide with shock.

  “No,” she whispered. “No, he’s your cousin.”

  Serefin shook his head. “He looks nothing like Sylwia or Lew and you know it. He does, however, look a hell of a lot like Klarysa.” Malachiasz was taller than Serefin, slighter, with paler skin and sharper features. But they both had those ice pale eyes.

  She was shaking her head slowly. “This changes nothing.” But she was rattled.

  “Well, yes, in that, at least, you’re right.” Serefin stood. Ostyia took a step back. “There’s no changing what he did. I just get to live with the agony of wondering if I could have done anything to stop it had I known he was alive for the past eight years.”

  Ostyia winced.

  “How long did you know?”

  She took a sharp breath and didn’t answer.

  A thought slithered in and took root. It was horrible and he wasn’t sure what led him to voice it, but it didn’t feel like he was talking anymore.

  “You were jealous.”

  She shook her head vehemently, but there was a shift in her posture, a blow landed.

  “You were the only friend I had,” she said, voice soft and close to breaking. “After the attack—after—” Her hand lifted, going to her scarred eye socket.

  Many noble children had died in that attack. Serefin and Ostyia had lived. No one would ever fault the heir to the throne, but Ostyia had faced the resentment that came with being one of the only ones to walk away.

  “I’ve made my decision. You will not speak to me like that,” he said slowly, still unsure who he was talking to. “If you question me again I’ll have you sent back to the front on a tour that has no end.”

  And he didn’t know if it was the rod of iron in his voice, the way it had dropped to a toneless, dead hum, or the words themselves, but tears were burning in her one blue eye. She clenched her fist, fraught with anger, and stormed away.

  Nervous silence filled the camp before Kacper let out a long breath.

  “Whatever you’re about to say, don’t,” Serefin snapped.

  Kacper lifted his hands. He was still watching the spot where Ostyia had disappeared.

  “Is it safe for her to go off alone?”

  “Do you want to go after her? By all means.” It came out more venomous than Serefin intended. His skin was too hot, sweat beading at his temples. He dug in his pack for his flask.

  Kacper flinched, but his eyes searched Serefin’s. “Are you all right, Serefin?”

  “Stop asking me that.” He scanned the fields. Ostyia was far enough out that his wretched vision couldn’t see her. “Are you going to decide what’s best for me as well? Because I don’t need you, either.”

  “You know what? I’m going after Ostyia. I’m not about to be your punching bag. Go ahead and drink yourself to death.”

  Serefin slumped down onto the ground with the flask and watched him go.

  * * *

  The forest was dark. The leaves were thick, heavy, so no moonlight caught between the branches, instead plunging the underbrush into a darkness that was total and complete. A shadow shifted between the trees—too fast to see properly. There was a groaning in the earth, like something ancient and vast was waking up and pressing its way to the surface from underneath. A cold wind blew, icy fangs biting at Serefin’s skin as he gasped awake.

  He didn’t know how he had ended up in this place.

  He didn’t even know where here was.

  Serefin turned, searching for a path to follow home, but there was only underbrush and dead
leaves.

  “Well, you are unexpectedly talented at being in two places at once.”

  Serefin spun around, recognizing the voice. High, melodic, like reed pipes. He didn’t see anyone, but he had heard someone speak.

  “What do you mean?” Serefin spoke out loud. At least, he thought he did. He shivered.

  “I mean what I mean. You are here but you’re not. Not much good to me there but you’ll come in time.”

  Serefin didn’t like how confident the voice sounded.

  “What do you want with me?”

  “Oh, your power, your status, your clever, clever mind. The realm of the divine is vast and far reaching, but it is mortals who change this world, and mortals will see our whims into reality.”

  “You need us?” Serefin asked. He hated having to acknowledge this being. He was Tranavian. The gods were useless. That’s what this was, wasn’t it? Some god?

  “Unfortunately, I have my own problems to deal with and they don’t include coming … here…” Serefin trailed off. Wherever here was.

  “How long do you think you can run, boy? How long do you think you can survive as I take you, piece by piece?”

  The voice’s tone chilled him to his core. Serefin touched his bad eye. The fear of losing control of his eye was too close, too real. He had to get out of here.

  “As long as it takes,” he finally said.

  “It’s been so long,” the voice said. “So long kept in a prison created by mortal priests. Your world has become a place where my kind watch from the shadows as you build your walls and your veils and destroy a balance that has been in place since the dawn of time. Your arrogance is precious. You think you can control the stars, change the heavens. Little fools. You can’t run, little fool, you can’t hide from this.”

  Serefin covered his eyes. If he stopped seeing the forest, he would stop being in the forest. This wasn’t real. He was at the camp outside the Vulture’s nest. This was a trick and nothing more.

  He would wake up and Ostyia and Kacper would be back and less angry and Ostyia would stop needling him. Everything was fine; everything had to be fine.

  Serefin gasped awake.

  He was still in the forest.

  11

  NADEZHDA LAPTEVA

  Sofka Greshneva was beautiful, transcendent. She was touched by Marzenya. Until she wasn’t. Until there was nothing. Until there was only silence.

  —The Books of Innokentiy

  Nadya didn’t know what would haunt her the longest: Żaneta’s eyes, pitch-black, blasted out, the whites swallowed by darkness, her dark skin uncomfortably sallow, her frantic sobs, or that when she had bared her teeth there had been rows of iron nails and fangs.

  Żaneta had scrambled for Nadya’s hand when she was being pulled away, desperate and panicked. Her voice garbled and wrong but pleading for Nadya to not let them take her. The noble girl was still there somewhere, just as Malachiasz was within the monster.

  Żywia went to lead Nadya out of the room, but the Black Vulture stopped her.

  “No,” he said softly, “leave her.”

  Nadya took a steadying breath as something subtly dangerous shifted.

  “She’s not afraid, isn’t it curious?” He slouched back on his throne. “There’s no scent of it on her. Nerves, maybe, but not fear. Let her stay; let her see.” He grinned. “Let her fear.”

  Żywia let Nadya go, waving her back to a corner; Nadya gladly fled to it.

  “I have better things to do than deal with a Kalyazi witch anyway,” he muttered, shoving himself off the throne. “Tell Tomasz to bring me a new one.”

  Nadya’s hands were shaking. She slowly sunk to the floor, catching Żywia’s eye. The girl nodded as Nadya slid back into the shadows.

  The new one, as it were, was a man dazed out of his mind. His clothes were ragged and Nadya couldn’t tell if he was Tranavian or Kalyazi but she didn’t want to know. Whatever was about to happen to him wouldn’t be less horrible for the knowing.

  Żywia crouched next to Nadya.

  “What’s he doing?” Nadya whispered.

  “Always moving forward,” Żywia said, watching the Black Vulture with rapt attention. “Always reaching for the next step, the next scrap of magic that will make him more, better, and as far from human as possible.”

  Nadya’s stomach turned. The Black Vulture lifted up the man’s chin with an iron claw. The man stared, unseeing.

  “Would be better if he were more lucid,” the Black Vulture murmured. “But I’m not sure he would have survived that much magic being pushed into him any other way, do you think, Żywia?”

  “That, and he’d struggle when you do the removal.”

  “Oh, but the fight is half the fun,” he said absently.

  Nadya covered her mouth, gasping as he slammed his clawed hand into the man’s chest, wrenching open his ribs, and yanked out his still-beating heart.

  She buried her face against her knees, frozen with terror as it played out again and again behind her eyelids. And the sounds, the sounds—was it worse that the man hadn’t screamed? That there had been nothing but the creaking and snapping of bone and the sound of wet as blood sprayed everywhere.

  She could hear the blood dripping to the cool stone floor. Hear the thud of the man as his body fell. She lifted her head only slightly, to see the Black Vulture regarding the heart, dispassionately contemplative.

  He smiled, slight and cruel. “Ah, there’s the fear.” He tossed the heart to Żywia, who caught it, close enough that blood splattered over Nadya.

  It was still warm.

  He licked blood off his slender fingers. “It’s not perfect,” he said. “But it is something.”

  Żywia, less enthusiastically but just as curiously, tasted the blood coating her hands. She made a soft, affirmative sound.

  “Could always … take it all, I suppose.”

  “I just had dinner, too,” he said mournfully, and his voice sounded so much like Malachiasz that Nadya jolted.

  Żywia cast her a sidelong glance before throwing the heart back to him. He brought it to his mouth, biting into it.

  Nadya fainted.

  * * *

  Nadya let Żywia drag her through the halls, too dark for Nadya to ever escape. She tried to block out the screaming, but it was constant.

  “How do you stand it?” she asked.

  “It’s enough to know that this time, it isn’t me who’s screaming,” Żywia replied bleakly.

  Nadya had woken up almost immediately after passing out, but the Black Vulture was gone. Only Żywia remained. Her head pounded and her throat was painfully dry. She felt like throwing up and swallowed hard when her mouth filled with moisture.

  “You’re not leaving,” Żywia had said. “He won’t let you. But you can come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “To where we keep our guests, obviously.”

  “Are you helping me, or trying to sabotage my efforts?”

  Żywia laughed. “I’m sure it feels like both.”

  The Vulture took Nadya to a dimly lit room, sparsely furnished. Not uncomfortable, ascetic in a way that Nadya was used to, in fact. The Vulture lit a torch and set it in a sconce on the wall. She shut the door.

  “I thought the king was dealing with this,” she said. “I thought Malachiasz was getting what he deserved.”

  Nadya sighed. She sat down on the bed, suddenly exhausted. Not that she would sleep here. “The situation changed.”

  Żywia folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the closed door. She wore a crimson tunic, the sleeves long and tattered, over a pair of black breeches.

  Nadya’s hand grasped for the hilt of the bone dagger at her belt.

  Żywia rolled her eyes. “I struggle to believe you’ve had a sudden change of heart.”

  This wasn’t about Nadya’s feelings. This was about being pragmatic. If she was going to figure out what was eating away at her hand—if she was going to fix anything—she needed Malachiasz.<
br />
  “That is precisely what has happened.”

  The Vulture regarded her with a frown, rubbing her thumb down the tattoos on her chin.

  “It all leads to the same end,” Nadya pointed out.

  Żywia’s gaze grew distant. “What he is now is all we’re made to be. But he is so scattered, his brilliance dimmed by the chaos he’s caught in. And I selfishly miss my friend.”

  “A monster can do that?”

  “We monsters can do a lot of things.”

  “But you don’t think I’ll succeed.” Nadya didn’t think she would, either, frankly, but she had to try.

  “I don’t know. He knew what he was doing. I’m glad you’re willing. And I’ll see what I can do about Żaneta, though I give no promises. It’s his call whether she stays or goes.”

  “Thank you, that is unexpectedly kind.”

  “It’s not kindness,” Żywia said. “You’re Kalyazi, dear, and this will surely spell disaster for you. But I will go get you some food. That will be a kindness.”

  “Then thank you for that.”

  * * *

  She found herself wandering blearily through the darkened halls the next day, aware the choice could very easily end in her death, yet unable to wait until Żywia fetched her.

  “Tell me—” He appeared out of the darkness, startling Nadya so badly that she drew her voryen. He gave it an amused, dismissive glance, his features settling on Malachiasz’s for a split second as he nudged the blade easily to the side.

  She slowly sheathed her blade and waited for him to continue. Instead, he started walking down an adjacent hallway.

  Nadya let out an exhausted sigh. “Tell you what?” she asked, jogging after him.

  “Why would a cleric think herself safe to walk these halls?”

  Suddenly her back hit the wall, her hand trembling as it reached for her voryen, knowing it would be useless if he struck. Her heart pounded wildly, her breath hostage in her lungs.

  He braced a hand beside her head. She could hear the scratch of his iron claws against the stone. His other hand tipped her chin up.