Ruthless Gods

by Emily A Duncan

  “There are powers at play that you cannot stop,” the voice continued. It was deep and grating, bones splintering, a landslide consuming everything in its path. “If you do nothing. If you don’t act. What will the gods of your enemies do?”

  Serefin leaned back against a tree. He shouldn’t have let Velyos lead him into the forest, but he only had a shred of control left and it was taking all he had to keep his hand over his eye; to keep the horrors locked there. His hand trembled.

  You are my enemies’ gods, he said. It was petulant, but he couldn’t help it.

  “You are so simple. One day you might find your home crumbling because everything it has used to build itself up has disappeared. Those gods you hate so much, beings you turn to.”

  The taste of copper filled Serefin’s mouth. The thought was abhorrent. He had fought too long for his cause; he believed in it.

  Never.

  “You misunderstand. You would not have a choice. All it would take is one simple action, by someone with enough power to take away a single choice and change this world forever.”

  Serefin frowned. He almost lifted his hand away from his eye.

  “The girl. You tracked her down once and she escaped. Now you must go under the guise of friendship.”

  I thought you wanted the Black Vulture dead.

  “You do not need to understand how the pieces in this game are being moved. You cannot see. You cannot understand how vast this is, just how insignificant you are. I want many things, boy, and you have given yourself to me so I might take them. Stop the girl, kill the boy, or you will lose more than you can imagine.”

  Serefin closed his eyes. This was going to destroy him.

  27

  NADEZHDA LAPTEVA

  Svoyatova Maruska Obukhova: Only a young girl, Maruska prophesied the death of Tsaritsa Milyena and was burned at the stake for it. Tsaritsa Milyena died of a snake bite a mere hour after Maruska.

  —Vasiliev’s Book of Saints

  Nadya slipped out of the cell she had been given and onto the monastery grounds. She was restless to move on, and a dull, unceasing ache in her hand wouldn’t allow her to think about anything else, much less sleep.

  The night air was the painful kind of cold she knew well, the kind that settled deep in her bones, with a permanence to it she had almost missed while in Tranavia.

  She walked up to the wall’s ramparts, settling her elbows between the gaps in the wooden spikes that lined the wall.

  Hushed voices pierced the dark. Across the ramparts, Nadya could make out Parijahan’s tall form leaning over the wall. Malachiasz’s lanky sprawl was recognizable sitting at her feet, his back against the wood.

  She hated the twang of distrust that pulled in her chest. They had been friends before Nadya crashed into them, and while she knew for certain she couldn’t trust Malachiasz, she also wasn’t entirely certain about Parijahan, who had her own moral code that didn’t align with Nadya’s pragmatism nor Malachiasz’s sheer disregard.

  Nadya didn’t know what game Parijahan was playing and it worried her.

  “Oh, so no one is sleeping.”

  Nadya jumped as Rashid leaned against the wall beside her. He watched Parijahan and Malachiasz before turning to Nadya.

  “What are they up to?” Nadya asked.

  Rashid shrugged. “Parijahan is worried that someone from her Travash will track her down.”

  “The Travash are like royal families, right?”

  “A simplistic way to put it, but yes. Her house has held power in Akola for the last three generations, which, for Akola, is a very long time.”

  “Are you from a different house?”

  “That is also more complicated.”

  “Enlighten me,” she said, shifting slightly closer to Rashid’s warmth. He moved, wrapping an amiable arm around her shoulders.

  “You mean you don’t know Akola’s long and delightfully convoluted history?” He pretended to be shocked.

  “My education was rather specialized.”

  He smirked. “It used to be five countries. Tehra, Rashnit, Tahbni, Yanzin Zadar, and Paalmidesh. All very different cultures, very different languages. I’m from what was once Yanzin Zadar, Parijahan is from former Paalmidesh. Her people are closer to … well, Lidnado, if we’re thinking in borders. Mine are closer to the middle of Kalyazin.”

  “Those are opposite ends of the country,” Nadya said.

  “Indeed. The Travasha were an attempt at unification that—” He paused, searching. “—mostly failed. The three richer countries have worn down the others as the families wrest power from each other any chance they get.”

  Nadya considered that. “So, what we call the Akolan language?”

  “Is mostly you foreigners being rather dense.”

  She snorted.

  “It’s Paalmideshi. I truly don’t expect any of you to know this. You’re rather busy up here in the north. Our squabbles aren’t really of the world-ending variety.”

  “Understatement of the century, Rashid.”

  He chuckled.

  “So, how did you and Parijahan meet? You never said.”

  His face fractured and smoothed. “There was a debt my family needed to repay. I worked in her household.”

  Nadya could hear the things he wasn’t saying. A whole world of stories the scribe wasn’t yet ready to tell. She wouldn’t press him. She knew part of Parijahan’s story and part of Rashid’s. That was enough for her.

  “I’m still not quite sure how Parj and I found our way into this mess,” he said softly. “But I’m glad we stumbled our way to you.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere, Rashid,” Nadya said dryly, but he winked at her, his usual irreverence laced with sincerity. “Do you ever miss it?”

  “Akola? Yes. Though, I don’t really have much left there. My sister is happily married and my parents died of an illness that nearly took half of Irdistini with it. I was in Paalmidesh when that happened.”

  Nadya leaned her head against his shoulder. “Well, I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I could do without the near-death dramatics myself.”

  Parijahan eventually made her way over to them, leaving Malachiasz sitting on the ramparts, his head tilted back as he gazed up at the sky.

  “Is he all right?” Nadya asked as Parijahan ducked under Rashid’s other arm.

  “No,” Parijahan replied.

  Nadya sighed. She worked her way out from under Rashid’s arm and crossed the ramparts. Malachiasz didn’t move when she leaned against the wall next to where he sat.

  “Dozleyena, sterevyani bolen,” she said quietly.

  “Czijow, towy dżimyka.” His eyes were closed and his lips tugged into a small half smile.

  She dropped her hand into his hair. A strange tug of power momentarily canceled out the ever-present ache in her palm—before Malachiasz reached up and twined his fingers between hers.

  Odd.

  But she didn’t pull her hand away. Their argument in the refectory had made her realize she was tired of pretending she didn’t want him near. If she was going to betray him in the end, would it make it worse if she let him in—just a little—or better? Had he wrestled with these same feelings when plotting to betray her?

  “Ow.” She shifted her palm away from his, the ache becoming a sharp pain.

  Malachiasz frowned in concern.

  “There’s nothing to be done, don’t look at me like that.”

  “Sit,” he said, a gentle plea.

  She hesitated, but sat down, back against the wall. “You’re not going to be able to fix it.”

  “Does it hurt now?” He was still holding her hand but his palm was cradling the back of hers, fingers twined together.

  She nodded, biting her lower lip. He rolled her sleeve back and she shivered as the cold hit her skin.

  He smiled, thumb tracing the line of her arm, and dipped his head, kissing the inside of her elbow. Her breath caught, eyes closing as he trailed his lips down
the sensitive flesh of her inner forearm. He kissed her wrist and she was fairly certain her insides flipped completely upside down. Then, very carefully, he pressed his mouth to her palm.

  Everything inside her lit up. Her hand moved to his cheek so she could yank him to her. She kissed him hard, gratified by the startled noise he made, how his hand wrapped around her side and pulled her closer.

  “It’s yours,” he said when they broke apart, warm breath mingling in the frigid night air. His pale skin flushed, pupils blasted out. He was painfully human. He kissed her again, tugging at her lower lip with his teeth in a way that burned through her.

  She had to force herself back. To pass through the haze and focus on what he said. His mouth looked bruised in the moonlight and it only made her want him more.

  “What is?”

  “The magic pooling in your hand. It’s your power.”

  She shook her head, confused, lifting her hand between them.

  “Then why is it doing this?” Why does it hurt?

  His eyebrows tugged down, pulling at the tattoos on his forehead. “I don’t have it all figured out yet, but I think it might be because you’re rejecting it?” His voice dipped up hopefully.

  Pelageya had said Nadya was drawing power from somewhere else, but even she hadn’t known what that meant. Now Nadya said as much to Malachiasz, and he frowned. He tucked her against his side where it was warm, and continued to inspect her hand. Their breath steaming out before them in the bitter cold. His slender hands were red, and she was starting to miss her glove.

  “What changed?” he asked, after the quiet had grown comfortable between them.

  “Nothing,” she said, wrapping and unwrapping a lock of his hair around her finger. Marzenya wants me to topple Tranavia and I can’t bear to keep shoving you away because I’m going to lose you for good, she thought. Because I haven’t told anyone the stories about the forest and crossing the border is going to destroy you.

  He shot her a dry look.

  “I don’t—I don’t know, Malachiasz. I don’t know how to fight this.” That was the truth; she could give him that, at least.

  He made a thoughtful sound. He was only half listening.

  “It feels like your power but different. Darker. Like it’s you but also something else.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I’ve always been able to sense magic. Everyone’s magic feels unique to them.”

  She had been avoiding her hand, but as she leaned her head against his shoulder, she studied it. The black from the scar twined around her fingers in inky vines, pouring down over her wrist to taper off like veins on her inner arm. Her fingernails very nearly like claws. She waited for the sick feeling to overtake her but there was only curiosity. She wasn’t the same girl horrified by every monstrous thing.

  “What does my power feel like?” she asked.

  “When it’s you, or when it’s one of your gods?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  He nodded. “It feels distorted, when it’s their power. Yours feels…” He trailed off, considering. “Warm, bright, but not necessarily with light because there’s always been a thread of darkness. Like a fire in the center of a blizzard.”

  Darkness?

  “This feels like you, not like you’re channeling something. What if you used it? Stopped fighting it?”

  “You can’t explain this part,” she said, wiggling her fingers at him. “Until I know it’s not going to kill me, I’ll pass.”

  “What’s life without a little experimentation?” he asked lightly. His grip on her hand shifted so he was holding it again.

  The way he looked at her made her want to flee. But mostly she wanted to press into his warmth and kiss him. And she hated that she was trapped in this place of wanting him far away and close all at once.

  He coughed, burying his face in the crook of his arm, an uncomfortable sounding rattle in his chest. There was blood on his sleeve when he lowered his arm.

  She rested her fingers against his chest. “Are you all right?” she whispered.

  He leaned away from her and spat out a mouthful of blood, his face contorted. He let out a ragged breath.

  “You know not to worry about me.”

  “Not to interrupt.” Rashid’s voice drifted over from the other side of the ramparts. “But we have company.”

  Nadya blushed and buried her face in her hands. Malachiasz grinned wickedly at her, kissing the side of her head before jumping to his feet and leaning over the wall.

  So much for distance.

  “This is a nightmare,” she muttered. It took her a few seconds to collect herself before she stood.

  “I am,” Malachiasz said as Nadya leaned over the wall next to him.

  “Please don’t make me want to toss you over the edge more than I already do.”

  He glanced down dubiously. “Oh, I’d survive that.”

  “Pity.”

  “Why is your heart’s desire defenestrating me?”

  “There hasn’t been a single window involved in this.”

  “Semantics.”

  “Gods,” Rashid said to Parijahan. “You owe me so much money.”

  Parijahan sighed.

  There were spots of light dancing within the dark forest that could only be torches. “Oh no,” Nadya whispered.

  “Place your bets,” Rashid said. “Tranavian or Kalyazi?”

  Neither option was good. Malachiasz shivered. Whatever spell he had used to mask the shifting plane of his face slid away.

  “Tranavian,” he said, voice bleak.

  “How can you tell?”

  “There’s a Vulture with them.” His voice tangled around sharp iron teeth, eyes darkening.

  Nadya’s voryen was in her hand, the blade flat against his cheek as she turned his face down to hers.

  “If you let yourself fall, can you bring yourself back?”

  He gritted his teeth before nodding once. She hoped he was telling the truth. She was fairly certain he was lying.

  “The Vultures still want you, Nadya,” he said. “They want the potential that can be unlocked with your power.”

  “So why didn’t they take me in the Salt Mines?”

  He shot her a blank look and pointed at himself.

  “You think you’re very important,” she said primly.

  “I am incredibly important,” he replied, vaulting over the wall and disappearing.

  “He’s also incredibly stupid,” Rashid said dryly, peering over the wall.

  “This monastery is fortified,” Nadya said with a sigh. Large structures made of sharpened logs lined the wall, traps that would be sprung only by blood magic. “He’s not impaled himself down there, has he?”

  “No,” Rashid said. “He’s fine.”

  “I hate him.”

  Rashid dashed off to alert the monastery. Nadya watched the lights in the distance, a nervous calm settling over her.

  “Should we run?” Parijahan asked.

  Nadya shook her head. “I ran last time. I won’t run again.”

  This monastery was far more prepared for an attack than Nadya’s home. There was no need for tolling bells; those would have alerted the enemy. The Kalyazi knew they were there.

  A woman joined the girls on the ramparts, her gaze dismissive until she recognized Nadya as the cleric.

  Nadya wished she could tell her to expect no miracles from her.

  “How’s your aim?” the woman asked Parijahan.

  “Good.”

  She tossed her a crossbow and a pouch of bolts. Malachiasz returned, black feathery wings vanishing into twin splashes of blood against his torn coat back as he landed on the ramparts. He slammed a hand over one of the sharp points of the wall, blood coating the wood under his palm. Nadya watched him carefully; it was taking too long for his eyes to clear. A cluster of eyes flickered open and closed down his cheek before they shivered away. He removed his hand, grimacing.

  Nadya supposed that was as effe
ctive a method as any for him to drag himself back to clarity.

  The Kalyazi woman’s face had gone white as a sheet, her trembling hand pulling out her venyiornik. Malachiasz casually wiped the blood off his palm and wrapped his hand before tying his hair back.

  “And?” Nadya prompted him.

  “Three Vultures. One full company.”

  The woman looked at Nadya, eyes wide. Oh, they’ll expect me to kill the Vultures, then.

  Malachiasz rubbed his jaw, covering an odd swirling decay that chewed at his skin. “Are you in charge here?” he asked the woman.

  She nodded, fear turning into bewilderment. “Anya.”

  “Malach—actually, no, that doesn’t matter. That monk didn’t tell anyone I was here, did he?”

  Anya shook her head.

  “Excellent.” He scaled the wall, balancing on the sharp points in an uncomfortably graceful and vaguely inhuman way.

  “He’s with me,” Nadya said wearily, the lights growing ever closer. She had assumed Ivan would have told everyone. “Just—warn your men about him.”

  Anya’s shock had not yet melted to anger. Hopefully she would remain pragmatic. Nadya moved to where Malachiasz crouched, his lanky body hunched and rigid, the monster settled right under the surface.

  He wordlessly held out his hand and Nadya placed her wasted hand in his.

  “Stop fighting it,” he said softly. “If your goddess won’t give you the power you need, you must use your own.”

  “I’m not fighting it,” she hissed.

  His eyes were murky, but his touch was soft. He lifted a lock of hair that had fallen from her coiled braid and tucked it behind her ear. She could still feel the pressure of his mouth against her lips.

  Suddenly he slashed an iron claw across her palm. She yelped, more in surprise than pain, and he shushed her.

  But as blood welled readily from the wound, power raced up her arm and flooded her body. A torrent, once held back and far away. She grabbed the wall, her other hand clutching on Malachiasz’s as her knees weakened. He wasn’t even unbalanced as his grip tightened on her hand, holding her up, blood smearing between their palms.