He turned his attention back to the cup of tea. “Did you … did you pack this? Did you just have this with you?” Serefin moved for Kacper’s pack behind them. “What else do you have in there? Did you fit the royal kitchens?”
Kacper laughed and shoved Serefin away. “Blood and bone, I wish. My greatest regret is learning how it is you people eat.”
“It’s better than peasant fare,” Serefin said solemnly.
“It sure is,” Kacper agreed.
Serefin frowned. “Kacper, this is very important.”
Kacper lifted his eyebrows.
“Do you have alcohol in there?”
“You drink that first. I might have something.”
“You are too good to me.”
“That is very true.”
As Serefin sipped at the tea, Kacper did what he could with the cuts on Serefin’s face. If they got infected Serefin would be in a whole new world of trouble.
“Are you going to tell us what’s going on?” Kacper asked.
Serefin took a drink to avoid answering right away. He was still struggling to figure it out and apparently he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about this second god. Panic needled at him.
Nadya and Malachiasz were arguing about something across the clearing, but Serefin couldn’t hear them well enough to make out what.
“I’m just trying to get rid of any divine nonsense,” he said.
“And then?”
“What do you mean?”
Kacper leaned back on his heels. Serefin sighed.
“I have to survive this first.”
“I am not going back to Grazyk if I have to suffer Ruminski’s court,” Ostyia complained.
Serefin rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t laugh at her words. If he didn’t survive this, there might not be a court in Grazyk to return to. There might not be much left of Tranavia at all.
Katya moved over to where the three of them sat. Ostyia shifted over slightly and the tsarevna sat down between her and Serefin. Her dark hair was wild and tangled around her head. She sighed and put her chin in her hands, eyeing Nadya and Malachiasz.
“Does he have your relics?” Serefin asked.
“I don’t know. But she has a relic that can kill him.”
Serefin straightened, earning a sound of protest from Kacper. “What?”
“Svoyatova Aleksandra Mozhayeva’s shin bone—”
“Blood and bone, you people are morbid,” Kacper said.
Katya shrugged. “I can’t imagine where she got it, but if there was anything that could kill a Vulture of his power, it’s that.” She leaned back on her hands. “Neither of them are what I expected.”
Everything was easier when Serefin thought of the boy on a throne of bones watching as Izak Meleski tortured the son he had murdered hours before. It was easier when Serefin only knew Malachiasz as the Black Vulture, cruel smile and cold words and plans for treason.
He didn’t want to confront the teenage boy across the camp, grinning brightly at the Kalyazi girl sitting next to him.
“If I can get that dagger, all we’ll need is the right moment to strike.”
35
NADEZHDA LAPTEVA
Svoyatovi Sergei Volkakov: Even when his hands were cut off and his tongue cut out by Tranavians, Svoyatovi Sergei did not rest and brought a mountain down upon the heretics.
—Vasiliev’s Book of Saints
“This isn’t going to be pretty.” Malachiasz was eyeing the border.
It was only more forest. Nadya could feel it, the place where the forest went from mortal to divine. Their map had been surprisingly accurate, though even if it hadn’t been, there was no missing the power emanating just out of reach.
“What if you just walk into it?” he asked.
She looked up at him. She was sitting on the ground, his spell book in her lap. She couldn’t read much of it—his handwriting was far too messy. She was mostly searching for the sketches tucked between the pages, hidden amidst the spells. He pretended like he didn’t know what she was doing.
“Do you want to test that?”
“No, I’m only—”
“I don’t think anything would happen, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t think any of us would be struck down the second we stepped past the border.”
He tied his hair back as he considered the magic.
“My guess is anyone who walks into it will end up turned around and back in the regular forest,” she said, continuing to flip through his spell book. She found a lovely profile sketch of Parijahan, whose expression made it clear she knew he was drawing her. “Or torn apart by monsters.”
Malachiasz made an appreciative noise. “Sound theories.”
“Ooh, high praise.”
He rolled his eyes. “Do you think I could just wander into it?”
“Yes. You have to figure out how we can walk into it with you.” Maybe not with him. Nadya wasn’t entirely sure just when the forest would claim him. She wondered if it had already started. If his slight, anxious trembling wasn’t so benign. She gently pushed those thoughts away, he was nervous, that was all, it was going to be a complicated spell.
“Give me the spell I dog-eared.”
“You monster.” She flipped to the marked page but didn’t tear it out, instead handing the book to him. “I’ll not have your devil magic.”
“Just your own,” he said, voice prim. “You’re in a good mood,” he noted.
Maybe she was tired. It was so exhausting feeling things all of the time. The dark omen hung over them, right at the beginning of the end, and she didn’t want to think about it. Only he could ferry them across the border, and it would destroy him. She had led him by the hand to his destruction, holding the promise of absolution before him that—regardless of his lack of remorse—he desired.
“I used enough power in the clearing that I should be dead … I’m mostly trying to forget about it,” she replied.
Malachiasz ripped the spell from his book before handing it back to her. His forearm was sluggishly bleeding and he used his fingers to sketch blood onto the page. He placed the spell into the open air. A shiver, a crack, a shattering of the vision of the woods before. A high, black wall appeared.
She whistled low, tilting her head back to gaze up at it.
“If you’d like to test your theory…” He gestured dramatically.
Slamming face-first into a wall wasn’t something she particularly wanted to do. She glared at him.
“I think you’re right, though—”
“Oh, I love hearing that. You should make a habit of saying that.”
“—it was merely undetectable. If someone unwittingly stumbled in here they would be turned back home.”
“Or monsters.”
“Nadya, we’re going to see plenty of those without you invoking them so cheerfully.”
She shrugged. They were doomed to die anyway. Might as well make it interesting. Uncertainty passed over his face. “We’ll get out of that,” he said softly.
“We won’t, the omen is set, but please continue being so delightfully optimistic, it’s a good look on you.”
He sighed as he wiped his hands and forearm off. He lightly touched his fingers to the wall. Dozens of inky black eyes snapped open along his arm, up his neck, across his face. He yanked his hand back, letting out a low hiss through his teeth.
“Is this going to be worth it?” he whispered.
Worth showing Tranavia that they won’t be able to raze Kalyazi with their magic any longer? Nadya considered. Worth ending this war? Worth winning back the favor of the gods?
Yes.
But she didn’t think he was talking to her. Nadya met his icy pale eyes and nodded.
“Can we wait until morning? I would rather not open this now.”
His unease was telling. But it was growing dark and Nadya understood. Her quips about monsters edged too close to the truth. She didn’t know what they were going to face on the other side, the monsters her
e were bad enough, and truthfully … she didn’t want to lose Malachiasz just yet.
She handed him his spell book. He clipped it to his belt before folding himself up next to her. He took her scarred hand. The blackened veins hadn’t spread farther, but they looked like death. He carefully traced the scar with an index finger. He had been so enamored with it since that moment at the monastery and she still wasn’t entirely certain what that had been. But it didn’t hurt so much anymore, not since the clearing. Maybe the constant ache truly was her rejection of the power. Maybe using it wouldn’t hurt her. But … she didn’t know if she really believed that.
“There were a lot of statues in that clearing,” he commented.
Nadya was not ready to have this conversation.
“There were,” she allowed. Likely he was right. There must be some kind of ascension the Kalyazi did not discuss—if they even knew. “If you’re smug about one single thing, I’m shutting this conversation down,” she said before he could continue.
He looked only a little smug.
“You said yourself that spell didn’t do what you thought,” she said. “You’re not in that clearing.”
“But could I be? We don’t know where those came from.”
“But what does that matter?”
“Because you ascribe so much importance to twenty—but only twenty—of the beings in that clearing. What of the others?”
“Somewhere along the way the Church must have…”
“This isn’t a matter of apocryphal material, Nadya.”
She leaned back on her hands, her fingers catching his. He wove their fingers together as he looked up at the wall. Her face grew warm.
“I don’t think we’re approaching this from the right direction,” she mused.
“We?”
Her face flushed hotter. Gods, she hated him. “Fine, Malachiasz. You had a fucking point about the intersections of power and godhood.”
He grinned so brightly that it felt like she had been punched in the chest. It had been so long since she’d seen him smile like that.
“That’s all I wanted, thank you.”
“Don’t get used to this. You’re wrong about that intersection undermining the concept of godhood.”
“Why do you think the others have been kicked from your pantheon?”
That, she didn’t know. Clearly knowledge of those gods and what had happened to them existed. Katya knew bits and pieces—not enough, by any means, mere fragments—but it had been held back from Nadya because, what, the Church feared she would seek them out? Why would she be led to do that? If she had never been given the pendant trapping Velyos, she never would have known about these others.
Unless … this meeting was inevitable.
She contemplated her hand. “I don’t think this changes anything.”
Malachiasz let out a breathless laugh. “You’re so stubborn. How can this not change anything?”
“The gods are still there. I can still talk to them.”
Malachiasz made a face. She rolled her eyes—yes, that wasn’t wholly true, but even if they wouldn’t speak to her directly, they were there.
“So, what you did in the clearing? What was that?”
She had ripped the monster into oblivion with nothing but her power.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Two displays of a stunning amount of magic. I wonder if you could always cast like this but were holding yourself back.”
“For good reason! I can’t control this!” She had killed so many people in a moment of divine, what, bliss? She tried to not remember how good it felt to use that much power, even if it was completely out of her control. “I don’t know what I am. I thought…” She didn’t know what she thought. If she could always cast like this then she should have ended the war a long time ago. But it wasn’t about that. It wasn’t about which side of this damned war had more power to throw around—if that was the case Tranavia would have ended it years ago.
Malachiasz was quiet. His long fingers slowly found the pins holding her braid coiled around her head, tugging them free. Her hair fell in pale waves around her shoulders. He ran a strand through his fingers.
“Nadezhda Lapteva,” he said contemplatively.
She shivered, hearing something in his voice that she couldn’t place. She was going to betray him. It wasn’t a matter of what her heart wanted anymore—and a tiny part of her did want him to hurt for what he had done.
“I told you, once, that you could make this world or tear it to pieces,” he said quietly. “That’s still true.”
“Things were supposed to change,” she said. “But you…”
“I did what I thought was necessary,” he replied. “And that didn’t change much, either.”
She lifted an eyebrow. Lying.
“You have extra eyes opening up on you at all times, Malachiasz, you can’t really say not much changed.”
His smile was mournful. “To be perfectly honest, that clearing terrified me. If your twenty can work through you, those can as well.”
“You think they’ll try to use me?” Is that why everyone has been lying to me?
He nodded.
“The gods can’t technically force a mortal’s actions.”
“Can’t or don’t for some ethical code half the others may not care about?”
Nadya frowned.
He tilted her chin up. “And what could those others do with you? Now that we’ve seen what you’re capable of?”
“I can’t even get the twenty who spoke to me before to acknowledge me,” she said dryly. “I doubt I’ve caught the attention of those older and more primal.”
He did not look convinced. In fairness, she had caught the attention of one older and more primal already. But she had forced that meeting into fruition. Would it have happened at all had she not been in such a desperate place?
“Nadya, you’re like a beacon with all that power. I was drawn back to you across Tranavia even when I was…”
“Like that?” she offered.
“Like that,” he repeated.
“Completely out of your mind? Totally insane? A barely coherent, soulless monster?”
“All right, I get it.”
“You’re still all those things.”
“Thank you.”
“That’s how you could talk to me, though. Intersections of divinity.”
“I can’t figure out if it was a product of you stealing and binding my magic with yours, or simply because I am pulled to what you are. I wouldn’t be so sure that you haven’t caught the attention of older, far more dangerous gods.”
A chill of fear gripped her. She curled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. His fear wasn’t something she had considered, but it was a valid one.
“And…” He paused, shaking his head. “Your power is terrifying, Nadya.”
“At the monastery—”
“At the monastery I wanted to see if you were drawing from some fallen god and you’re not. You’re not drawing from anything, whatever Pelageya says. But what you have feels…” He paused, searching for the right word. “Ancient.”
She stared at him wordlessly.
“When we go past the wall, I don’t know what you’re going to be opening yourself up to,” he finished.
“No, but you’ll finally get a taste of the power you crave,” she snapped, knowing she only said it because he was scaring her.
“That’s not why I’m here and you know it.” He bristled, something dangerous and erratic sparking in his voice.
“Playacting emotion isn’t going to work again, you know that, right?”
He sighed and tilted his head back. “Nadezhda Lapteva.” His tone was a little bit chaotic monster, a little bit melancholy boy.
“How much of this is ulterior motive?”
Too fast and too suddenly he had her face between his hands. His touch was gentle, but oh, he made it too easy to remember how swiftly he could kill her. How quickly iron c
laws could embed in her skull.
“You stupid, infuriating, clever girl,” he murmured. “I want to help you.”
“Insults are definitely the way to get your point across. Keep going, you’re doing marvelously.”
He let out a frustrated groan and rested his forehead against hers. “You need my help,” he finally said. “I’m helping. It’s not enough, but I’m trying.”
“None of it is enough,” she said softly. “I know you’re lying to me.”
“Am I?” he asked carefully.
“I was in that clearing, too, Malachiasz,” she said. “I know what I saw. Your mask did not hold up when confronted by other beings of power.”
“And what do you think you saw?”
“I don’t know,” she said, taking his face in her hands in turn and studying his features, sharp cheekbones and long eyelashes. The flickers and shifts had become mundane despite the horror. But her mortal brain didn’t like to remember how he had looked in the clearing; it skipped over it entirely.
What had all that power done to him? Aside from turning him into a monster made of pure chaos. Was he still mortal? And if what he said about her own magic was true … what was she?
“Can you be killed?”
“Are you going to try? It’s been a while since you’ve held a knife to my throat.”
She slid her hand down until it was wrapped around his throat. She lightly pressed her thumb against his windpipe. He shivered.
“Would cutting your throat even kill you?”
“It depends on how you went about it,” he said, a little breathlessly.
She released the pressure, but kept her hand on his throat a few seconds longer, until she finally shifted, weaving her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck.
“You’re trying to ask me something,” he said.
“Are you immortal?”
He blinked. “Blood and bone, I hope not. I don’t think so.”
“You’ve said there are Vultures who are ancient.”
“There are. I’m the Black Vulture, though. Someone’s going to kill me eventually for the throne.”
He said it so matter-of-factly. Not like he didn’t care, but more like it was an inevitability. It broke her heart.
Ruthless Gods Page 35