“You had me murdered.”
He grinned. “I did nothing but suggest that Izak would need a powerful mage for the spell.”
A pang struck through Serefin’s chest. His father had chosen him to die. He was never going to be good enough for his father; Izak had taken the out to get rid of him the first moment he could.
“You could do perfectly well for Tranavia,” Malachiasz continued. “Current decisions notwithstanding. I could be convinced to let go of some of my previous plans.”
“I have a Kalyazi god trying to tear me apart from the inside out,” Serefin replied wryly, “there was ultimately only a singular course of action.” There was something oddly heartening about Malachiasz admitting that maybe he didn’t need both thrones. It didn’t change anything, Serefin was still set on his path, but the confirmation that the Black Vulture could, in fact, make a mistake was nice.
Malachiasz made a thoughtful sound. “The same god that brought you back?”
Serefin nodded.
“Interesting.”
“Not particularly. He’s spent a lot of time telling me I wasn’t his first choice. Nadya was, but circumstance made her unavailable.”
Malachiasz eyed where Nadya was walking with the tsarevna farther ahead.
“What is she planning, Malachiasz?”
“Transcendence, of a sort,” he said. “But I don’t think she realizes it. Don’t worry. I have Tranavia’s best interest at heart, Serefin, I always do.”
Sure. You only instigated a coup that’s causing us to crumble. Tranavia’s best interest, indeed.
“I think we should be glad the god took you and not Nadya,” Malachiasz murmured.
Serefin shot him an incredulous look, but Malachiasz’s gaze was faraway.
“She’s dangerous enough on her own.”
33
NADEZHDA LAPTEVA
Svoyatova Valeriya Zolotova: A cleric of Omunitsa, she drowned in a flood sent by her goddess to wipe out the ancient city of Tokhvoloshnik.
—Vasiliev’s Book of Saints
The conversation with Serefin left Nadya shaken. Obviously Malachiasz was lying. That wasn’t it. But the suggestion that, oh, no, Malachiasz had very much accomplished what he had wanted, he simply didn’t know how to handle it—Nadya didn’t know what to do with that.
Malachiasz had relics. Malachiasz had slaughtered her people. Magic was changing.
She had nearly finished with her prayer beads. It was hard to remember the order of the beads, and as she worked at them every evening—while those around her argued about whether to risk a fire, while Malachiasz sat curled over his spell book in a way that was suspicious—she didn’t really know if it mattered if she got the order right.
Or perhaps it would make all the difference. What if there truly was a hierarchy that Nadya was ignoring? One she’d never even known about?
And she still couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a bead missing, but whose? Every time she counted twenty.
“Of course the church didn’t want you to know about the fallen gods,” Katya said as Nadya sat next to her one evening. “They don’t want anyone to know. People get curious; people would try to wake them up.”
“It’s more they didn’t want me to know,” Nadya said, frowning.
Katya scoffed. “What makes you so spe—” She broke off. “Oh.”
Was that what it came down to? The church was afraid that Nadya would communicate with the others, the ones outside the pantheon? Technically, she already had. She supposed their fear was justified; the first thing she had done once she had spoken with one of the fallen gods was to set him free. But she wouldn’t be so easily swayed again.
Except she knew that didn’t matter.
“What are you doing all the way out here?” Nadya asked instead.
“Avoiding my father, mostly,” Katya said with a frown. “And trying to keep that boy from unleashing the monster that’s in his head.”
“Technically, I freed Velyos,” Nadya said.
“I can’t believe no one ever told you who he was.”
Everyone thought it better to protect her, to shelter her, then throw her to the wolves.
“It’s not really Velyos that’s the problem,” Katya continued. “It’s the implication that Velyos can lead to those who are older.”
Malachiasz sat down next to Nadya. Katya hesitated, but kept speaking.
“And the other fallen, well, they’re bad, but we’ve survived worse.”
“But there are gods older than that?” Nadya asked.
Katya nodded. “I’ve never found anything but whispers. Most of their names have been banished from memory. But there is one … Chyrnog. Entropy. So few remember him and that is exactly how he wished it.”
Malachiasz was tense at Nadya’s side.
“And maybe I’m being overly cautious—there’s no proof that an elder being has stirred—but I can’t help but feel like this is the start of a much greater disaster. There are many things the church has wrong,” Katya said. “And, gods, I never thought I’d say that to the cleric, but you don’t seem held particularly strongly under their sway.”
Nadya elbowed Malachiasz hard before he could say something smug.
“What else does the church have wrong? Magic?” Nadya asked, lifting her arm and threatening to elbow him again. He was like a dog straining at his leash; she could feel how much he wanted to break into the conversation.
“Oh, absolutely.” Katya vaguely explained the magic she had access to, casting Malachiasz distrusting glances the whole time.
It made sense: the rituals, the prayers to call on saints for spells. It clearly came from an understanding of divine magic, only altered for those not strictly touched by the gods. “And the church accepts this?” Nadya asked, turning over a small icon Katya handed her.
“No,” Katya replied. “It’s bleedingly occult. Saints aren’t gods, so the magic isn’t holy.”
Malachiasz groaned, tipping backward and draping an arm over his eyes. “Not more theology.”
“No one is talking to you,” Nadya pointed out. She turned back to Katya, confused. “How, then?”
“How does the tsarevna use occult magic without being hanged for it?” Katya asked dryly. “The church looks the other way when it comes to the Voldah Gorovni. Something needs to kill the abominations.”
Nadya ignored Malachiasz’s little scoff.
“It’s hardly safe Kalyazi magic,” Katya allowed.
“So anyone caught using it who was not Voldah Gorovni would be hanged.”
Katya nodded, unperturbed and unaware of the look Malachiasz was shooting Nadya from his vantage point on the ground. She covered his face with her hand and pushed it to one side.
“But how long has this magic been used?”
“It’s old, old magic.”
Nadya frowned. That didn’t make sense. She had been taught that there was only divine magic—only that was acceptable. Malachiasz sat back up, reaching over and pulling the glove off Nadya’s left hand. Katya’s face changed almost imperceptibly, a shock she kept carefully masked. Nadya’s hand was that of a monster’s, twisted and corrupt. She drew it close to her chest, suddenly deeply ashamed. What was he doing?
“Wait,” Katya said, tugging at Nadya’s hand and uncurling her fingers. “That’s Velyos’ symbol.”
Nadya nodded, biting her lip. It had been so stupid, what she had done, but there hadn’t been any other way.
“I woke it up,” Nadya said. The darkness. This power she was avoiding. She had blamed losing control of her magic on the relic, on touching a god, but it wasn’t Krsnik’s power—she had used that before, she knew the shape of it. This was something else.
Like dark magic of her own.
“Kostya said the church feared I would be corrupted. They knew there was something wrong with me from the beginning,” she whispered. She was going to cry.
What if she had never been the hope Kalyazin needed to survive? What if
she was only ever going to be its destruction? So easily she had fallen for the enemy; so easily she had turned to darker magic to see her end goal. What if she had never been divinely blessed, but rather a creature of dark power? Where was Marzenya in all of this? Where was she now? Nadya reached for her and got no answer. Despair flooded her.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, towy dżimyka,” Malachiasz murmured, taking her hand. Her heart wrenched painfully. She didn’t deserve his kindness. Using him as he’d used her was a novel idea at first, but it hadn’t quite factored in how much she cared for this awful boy.
Katya wasn’t as certain as Malachiasz. She tugged her braid around one shoulder and was absently unraveling it and rebraiding it, long fingers working fast.
“You think that’s connected with the fallen gods?” Katya asked Malachiasz.
He shook his head slowly. “The others, perhaps.”
Nadya let out a tiny, strangled whimper. He had to be wrong. He had spoken of her power in terms of divinity, not eldritch horrors like his own magic had become.
“It’s hard to know,” he continued. “It’s not like there’s a wealth of others using magic this way that we can compare it to.”
Katya frowned, eyeing Malachiasz appraisingly, like she was seeing him for the first time. She was seeing the boy who liked puzzles, not the Black Vulture. It wouldn’t last. Even as they sat on the underbrush with the weight of the forest bearing down on them, Nadya could feel a tense thread of hatred strung between Malachiasz and Katya.
He slid his index finger down Nadya’s before pressing his knuckle against her palm. She shivered.
“Magic is changing,” Nadya said softly.
“Is this why you’re here?” Katya asked.
Nadya nodded slowly. She caught the twitch of Malachiasz’s eyebrows. She was hardly lying. She was here to figure out what had happened to her magic … and do something that would finish off this war once and for all.
“Divinity corrupts,” Malachiasz murmured. “We are not made to hold this much power without it twisting us.”
He shivered, clusters of eyes opening on visible skin. It was quite a statement.
“But you think this is my power.”
He said nothing, just lifted his eyebrows, a gentle entreaty for her to understand. But she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to confront the idea that there was possibly some other reason the church she had trusted so much was so afraid of her, so quick to assume she would falter. If divinity was a thing of monstrosity, truly, then what did it all make her?
Katya watched Serefin where he stood on the other side of the camp, talking to Ostyia and Rashid. “You freed Velyos?”
“Yes,” Nadya said, grateful for the focus to pull away from her.
“Then why does he have Serefin?”
Now that was a question.
Nadya didn’t want to talk about this anymore. She was terrified that Serefin might fail at breaking himself out of the very thing Nadya was trying to get back for herself.
“What would that other one do?” Malachiasz asked. “If it were set free? The older one, I mean.”
“Devour the sun,” Katya said bluntly.
And if Malachiasz was lying maybe he already knew, divine creature that he was, but he only looked curious. Nadya didn’t like the clear providence leading them all to the same place. She especially didn’t like that the Tranavians had a word for Bolagvoy as well; it meant something very different to them. Gods’ seat, it meant in Kalyazi. Wellspring.
In Tranavian it meant hellmouth.
How dare Marzenya be silent with her now?
Katya and Malachiasz gave each other wide berths as they traveled. Malachiasz was erratic, growing more visibly nervous each day, and Katya had noticed. It was hard not to, the way his pale fingers were consistently red and bleeding because he wouldn’t stop picking at them, nails chewed down to slivers.
It was strange, to have another Kalyazi to travel with who wasn’t from a monastery. Katya was shockingly irreverent, even by Nadya’s standards, and she got on surprisingly well with Serefin. To the point where, as the days turned into weeks, Nadya was fairly certain they were friends. It was bizarre.
Ultimately, though, all of this felt transient. The days that passed felt unreal. They were here, in this place, by fate and circumstance alone, and when the spell was broken they would turn on one another. Malachiasz and Serefin were the enemy, no amount of careful friendship was going to change that. The way Malachiasz would catch her fingers with his as they walked—careful, fleeting touches—didn’t matter, their time was limited and fast running out. She couldn’t think about it. She didn’t think about it.
They came upon a clearing, unnatural in how the massive trees broke into a circle. Within the clearing was a series of immense statues, and Malachiasz grew tense beside her. She glanced up at him at the same time he looked down at her. His pale eyes were unfathomable.
She didn’t like when his face was so hard to read.
Her breath caught. The eyes of the gods were turning toward her once more and she could feel it.
There were forty statues in a ring around the clearing.
“Oh, this isn’t strange at all,” Rashid said as the rest of the group caught up.
Kacper took Serefin’s arm, yanking him back into the woods. Ostyia followed. Parijahan watched Malachiasz with the same careful wariness that Nadya was feeling. Katya stepped up beside Nadya, curious.
What would it be like, to be a casual observer of the divine and the occult like Katya? None of this would ever truly touch her. She would continue with her place of power and her necklace of Vulture teeth and all this divine madness would spin around her.
Some of the statues appeared older than others. While Nadya had never seen any of the figures in the statues—strange, eldritch, bizarre figures—she recognized half of them intrinsically. That High Twenty of the pantheon. They had found something very old.
Malachiasz’s pale gaze was on her as she took the first step past the boundary holding them back. It struck her immediately, the presence within the clearing, the war that was being fought around them without anyone knowing.
Gods, we started something terrible, she thought, spinning in a slow circle, taking in each statue.
She knew twenty of the statues. Each monstrous figure. Each sharp tooth and extra limb. Each body twisted into unreality. Each face made incomprehensible. And one she knew better than the rest.
She wanted to burn this image from her brain. The teeth that lined down a lithe body—barely human—the elegant, curling horns. The eight unblinking eyes, unfathomable in their carved stillness. The skeletal upper body.
Death and magic and winter.
Death.
Eighteen years Nadya had lived with this goddess speaking to her, through her. Eighteen years and finally Nadya understood what she was dealing with.
Nadya was very small and very young and very insignificant in the face of this being who had claimed her soul.
Our lady of death and magic.
Marzenya was, of course, silent.
Nadya had tried to be the hand of death her goddess desired, but she kept faltering, failing. It wasn’t even a matter of compassion; Nadya simply had too much doubt.
That wasn’t even remotely all the horror Nadya had to confront as she cracked. She was not made to witness this. She was not supposed to know.
There were twenty more to contend with. These were the ones where time had eroded the figures. These bordered on something that Nadya’s brain couldn’t quite find words for; her eyes wanted to skip past them, she didn’t want to consider them. But she felt a pull; she was drawn to them. And above it all there was the thought that had been haunting her for months:
What if the gods aren’t gods at all? Fallen and eldritch and mad.
What were they doing?
“Nadya.” Malachiasz’s soft rasp ripped her from her thoughts. She was having trouble getting air. His hand was at the small of he
r back. He cupped his other hand against her face, shielding her eyes from the statues as he turned her to him. “Come back down, towy dżimyka,” he whispered.
“Malachiasz?”
He shivered at the sound of his name. She watched his face, watched as he took in each statue.
“It’s a lot of power,” he said contemplatively. “Each statue, the smallest of tastes.”
His mask was slipping.
It was pieces at first, easy to miss because it had been happening for months; she had grown used to the eyes blinking open from his skin, the decay that ate at him, the mouths and strange teeth. But over time his edges had grown shadowy. What she had seen of him in the Salt Mines—that shifting, chaotic horror—wasn’t even the worst of it.
Serefin was right.
Malachiasz had all that power at his fingertips. And Nadya wasn’t so sure that he didn’t know what to do with it. She couldn’t believe that he wasn’t capable of harnessing the nightmare he had become.
His mask fell back into place when he looked down at Nadya. Just a boy, Tranavian, beautiful, lonely.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She pressed her face against his chest. His arms wrapped around her, one hand cradling the back of her head. She needed to breathe—all the air had been sucked out of the clearing and she would die here, in the center of this circle, surrounded by gods and not gods and what if these gods we worship aren’t gods at all?
What if?
What if that wasn’t the right question? So what if the gods, as they were, were something else? So what if they had ascended to this state from something lesser? They were there. That wasn’t the thing that immediately made Nadya want to flee.
It was the other twenty.
The fallen, the lost. What had happened there, and what would happen if they were to rise? And what was she that she felt some draw to—not even the fallen, but the older ones? The ones created from a void so complete and deep that it had been forgotten because to remember was to go mad.
Divinity and an unknowable darkness.
“There are more here than I thought your pantheon held,” Malachiasz said thoughtfully. His sharp chin rested on top of her head.
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