Ruthless Gods (ARC)

by Emily A Duncan

  Kacper had a list of nobles who had allied themselves with Ruminski. He would need to see it after this, he had a sinking feeling he might know a few of the names already.

  Ruminski stood. “Good evening, Kowesz Tawość, I do hope my point was made.”

  “Not really,” Serefin replied.

  He leaned down closer, gesturing vaguely to the doorway Nadya had left through. “Her paperwork is forged. She is a fraud. And Kowesz Tawość? You must get some rest, you don’t look well.”

  The man strode away. Serefin hurriedly got up, fleeing the hall before any more slavhki could corner him. He was drunk. He was tired. And he still had to deal with the Vulture.

  Ruminski thought he had orchestrated his father’s death, greedy for the crown. That Serefin had always made it perfectly clear the throne was the last thing he wanted didn’t matter. He had a suspicion this was about something else entirely: Serefin wanted to end the war.

  His attempts thus far had been fruitless. Kalyazin refused to hear talks of a truce and any envoys Serefin sent returned half out of their minds or never came back at all.

  Serefin’s left eye blurred—worse than usual—his vision going so fuzzy that he stopped walking, momentarily blinded. His eyesight was never good; he went through life with his surroundings perpetually blurry, but this was different.

  “You could have handled that better.”

  A whimper escaped Serefin and he squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them a hazy vision had superimposed itself in front of Serefin’s sight. Like one eye was seeing something different than the other.

  There was a forest, dark and deep and primeval. Ominous. A place where the trees were monstrous and large, almost impassable. It was the domain of something ancient, something that had slept for a long time and was waking up.

  “There are a number of things waking up, you’ll find.” And that voice, that voice. Serefin shook. He was going insane, that’s all. These hallucinations were the first sign.

  “Your continued obstinacy is growing wearisome. I wanted the girl, but she is, unfortunately, too deeply wound around the fingers of the others.”

  Serefin dragged in an uneasy breath. It had never spoken this coherently before. This was too real.

  The forest was growing darker, blood seeping from between the roots of the trees. Panic gripped him and he covered his bad eye, hoping the forest would go away, and was relieved to find it had disappeared into the halls of the palace.

  “It’s not so easy as that,” the voice said. “Do you think you can live with one eye closed?”

  Serefin finally cracked. You only have the one. You don’t have both.

  “Yet.”

  He did his best to remain calm and continue through the halls like nothing had happened, one hand clamped over his eye. But something had shifted. All the things he had been ignoring and hoping would go away would not be ignored. They were getting louder.

  “Kowesz Tawość?”

  Serefin stopped in his tracks, nearly careening into a slavhka who stood before him in the hallway, watching him with some concern.

  “Are you all right?”

  He held a hand out. The boy was about his age and vaguely familiar. The name came to him a few seconds later: Paweł Moraczewski. A slavhka who was most likely aligned with Ruminski and not someone he wanted to know that he was having hallucinations.

  “I’m fine,” he said shortly.

  He swept past the boy knowing rumors would spread like wildfire in a matter of hours. He staggered into his rooms, lowering his hand and letting his eye open. Then he moved to his liquor cabinet.

  When his door slammed open a second later, he nearly flung the bottle in his hand against the wall.

  It was only Kacper. “The Vulture wants to speak with you.” He shot a rather pointed look at the bottle in Serefin’s hand. Serefin wordlessly offered it to him. He sighed heavily. “I’ll abstain.”

  “Well, don’t act all high and mighty about it,” Serefin replied.

  Kacper laughed. “Come on, I left her with Nadya and I’m worried they’re going to kill each other before we get there.”

  Serefin stared at him.

  “Blood and bone, you’re drunk. Sit down, Serefin.”

  Serefin frowned, but let Kacper sit him on the chaise. “I saw . . .” He trailed off.

  Kacper moved closer. “What?” He crouched in front of Serefin, the warmth of his hand resting where Serefin’s shook.

  Serefin became very suddenly enamored with the deep, dark brown of Kacper’s eyes and the scar that nicked his eyebrow.

  But Kacper’s attention was on Serefin’s bad eye and Serefin had to fight the urge to hide it. He knew it was different. His left eye had turned the dark blue of midnight, pupil gone, only a glimmer of stars remaining. Constellations that swirled and shifted, ever changing.

  What had he seen? What was that horrid place? Kacper reached out and gently touched the skin underneath Serefin’s left eye. His fingers came away wet with blood.

  “That’s new,” Serefin said, voice cracking. He was strangely warm, the spot Kacper touched almost burning. He must be drunker than he thought.

  Kacper nodded slowly. He wiped his hand off and folded a handkerchief into Serefin’s palm. “Don’t let anyone know.” Serefin snorted. If only he knew the half of it.

  “They all think I’m losing my mind anyway,” Serefin muttered. “They’re going to know soon enough.” He told Kacper about Paweł.

  Kacper looked pained.

  Serefin carefully massaged his eye socket. The vision—and the voice—were bad news. Kacper was right, no one could know. Even Kacper and Ostyia. No one.

  Maybe if he got out of the palace—away from this place where he had been murdered—it would go away. He had been too frightened to tell his mother, but she might have similar advice. The air in Grazyk was sour—the smog that hung over the city rank and heavy. Maybe he needed to get away. He would be fine.

  He wouldn’t be running. He was doing what was best for the kingdom. Ruminski was right on one point, Serefin was as unwell as he appeared and it wouldn’t do. But it would be a dangerous pivot to make, leaving the throne unguarded.

  He didn’t think he had much choice.

  “Who are the nobles working with Ruminski?”

  “Kostek, Bogusławski, Tuszynska, Moraczewska, Maslówski and Fijalkowski,” Kacper rattled off the top of his head.

  Serefin sighed. The Maslówski family were spell book binders. The Kosteks were merchants with a trade river that half the country used. They were all nobles with a vested interest in the ongoing war. Ruminski turned a profit because of the war, and while Serefin wished, desperately, that the nobles in his court weren’t petty and greedy, he knew without a doubt that they were. It was why he hated court so much.

  He stood, wavering slightly on his feet. “Let’s hear what the Vulture has to say, then.”

  Żywia sat with her legs kicked up onto the table, her iron mask by her feet. Nadya was pacing, strangely rattled. Neither of them acknowledged Serefin when he entered the room.

  This was going to be a long night.

  “Ruminski knows your paperwork is forged,” he said to Nadya as he sat down.

  She looked like she might faint for a moment, before her expression hardened.

  “Told you,” Żywia said, sing-song.

  “Shut up,” Nadya snapped.

  “He doesn’t know for certain you’re Kalyazi—I don’t think—but he will. He suspects it,” Serefin said. “And when you fall it remains to be seen whether I will go next, or whether it will spare me.”

  The silence in the room was so tense that when the door opened both girls jumped. Ostyia quietly slipped into the chair next to Serefin.

  “Of course,” Serefin continued, “I could always pin all of this on Malachiasz.”

  “And risk civil war?” Żywia asked pleasantly.

  “That’s the issue, isn’t it?”

  “And you can’t afford that, I’
m afraid.”

  He gestured wearily. “I’m not going to like what you have to tell me, am I?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Is this coming from Malachiasz?”

  Nadya flinched.

  Żywia shook her head. “He has other matters to attend to.”

  “That’s what you said last time, and those ‘other matters’ were planning to murder me,” Serefin pointed out. “A fact I have not forgotten and will be dealing with in due time.”

  Żywia leveled an unsympathetic look at him. “The Kalyazi have discovered a way of using magic that we know very little about,” she said. “It’s incredibly effective, though its scope seems limited. We are not talking about a resurgence of clerics, but something else. The magic has the same—” She waved a hand, searching for the right word. “—taste as divine magic, but it’s slightly different.”

  Nadya was frowning and rubbing the scar on her palm. It looked strangely, newly infected.

  “Troubling,” Serefin murmured. “But it explains the rally from Kalyazin.”

  “The what?” Nadya asked.

  He had been keeping a lot from her and he wasn’t sure what she had figured out on her own. Apparently that Kalyazin was pushing back hard and Tranavia was struggling to hold them off was not something she had sussed out yet.

  He couldn’t figure out how Tranavia had gone from nearly finishing this war for good in their favor to struggling to keep the Kalyazi from moving across their borders. None of the reports made sense and some days he was half tempted to return to the front himself.

  He ignored Nadya. “When you say the magic is effective . . . ?”

  “It hasn’t killed a Vulture yet but it’s gotten close,” Żywia said. She glanced at Nadya. “Should we be discussing this in front of her?”

  “What can I do about it?” Nadya asked. She sat and dramatically leaned her chin on her hand.

  “You’re the enemy.”

  “I’m exhausted.”

  Żywia cast Nadya another long look before she leaned forward and dropped a handful of bones onto the table. Nadya made a low sound in the back of her throat. Serefin squinted at them, trying to parse their genesis.

  “Those are relics,” Nadya whispered. Her hand stretched out, reaching for them, eyes oddly glassy before Żywia pinned her arm to the table with a cage of iron claws.

  Oh. Human, then.

  Żywia didn’t break eye contact with Serefin, her face difficult to read.

  “Keep going,” Serefin said.

  “The Voldah Gorovni have resurfaced,” Żywia said, still pinning Nadya to the table. “Whether because of this magic or because the Vultures have been more active, I can’t say.”

  “Active because your king has completely lost control,” Serefin pointed out.

  Żywia looked like she wanted to argue but nodded.

  “How much control does he have?” Nadya asked softly.

  “It’s limited. His crisis of conscience effectively fractured the order and even with him as he is now—”

  A flicker of disgust passed over Nadya’s face.

  “—it’s not been quite enough to reforge the broken bonds.”

  “There have been slavhki who have recruited Vultures onto the battlefield,” Serefin said. Those reports had been baffling. There was a reason they did not allow the Vultures at the front. They were unpredictable and the casualties on the Tranavian sides of those battles could have been easily avoided had Vultures not been present.

  “And the Kalyazi are, surprisingly, reacting in kind to the threat. We’ve nearly lost a few to the Vulture hunters.”

  “Is this all you came for?” Serefin asked. “This is valid information and I thank you for it, but I’m surprised I’m receiving it at all.”

  Żywia hesitated, finally releasing Nadya and leaning back. Nadya’s fingers creeped out toward the relics again before she shook herself and squeezed both hands into fists. Żywia rubbed the line of tattoos along her chin with her thumb.

  “Why haven’t we seen these before?” he asked Nadya.

  “They didn’t work,” Żywia replied before Nadya could. “Not like this.”

  “Magic is changing,” Nadya murmured.

  Serefin frowned.

  “Tranavia will not survive with my order divided,” Żywia said cautiously.

  Tranavia relied on blood magic for everything, and the Vultures were the highest authority on magic. Serefin had been avoiding thinking about the possible repercussions from their lack of leadership.

  “What do you want me to do? Intercede? Something tells me Malachiasz considers himself far above my mortal rule.”

  “No, there’s no reasoning with him,” she said.

  “Then what?”

  She gestured to Nadya.

  There was a beat of silence before Nadya, still eyeing the relics, said, “Absolutely not.”

  Serefin frowned.

  “He spoke so highly of you,” she said, something different in her tone. She was growing desperate.

  Nadya leaned over the table. “I. Don’t. Care,” she said, jaw clenched. “He built that hell for himself, let him rot in it.”

  “Then why do you remain here? What’s the point of hanging around the capital of your enemies?”

  “I’m rotting, too,” Nadya said flatly.

  The Vulture paused for a beat, before smiling slightly. “So you are. Well, it was an attempt. I suppose, then, I came to warn you.”

  “Of?”

  “He’s going to move soon.”

  Nadya tensed, her hand going to a necklace of wooden beads.

  “I can’t tell you his exact plans—”

  “Incredibly helpful,” Kacper said dryly.

  Żywia smiled, all sharp teeth. “I literally can’t tell you because he has my allegiance and thus my obedience.”

  “Why the warning?” Serefin asked. “You lot aren’t particularly magnanimous when it comes to the greater welfare of the country.”

  “He used to care,” Żywia said. “Somewhere inside he still does. I didn’t—I don’t—but you deserve a chance before he strikes.”

  Nadya paled. Serefin nodded.

  “You can’t tell us who he’s moving on first?”

  Żywia opened her mouth and closed it, shaking her head.

  “Pity.” Serefin was going to have to make a choice, and quickly.

  “Isn’t telling us this a betrayal of your allegiance?” Nadya asked. “Besides, he hasn’t acted against us in the last four months, why would he wait so long?”

  Żywia lifted an eyebrow, clearly waiting for Serefin to respond.

  Nadya’s expression wearied as they both hesitated. “Don’t tell me what he’s done. I don’t want to know.”

  “No. You don’t,” Żywia said flatly.

  “I don’t think you have to worry about him striking against you, Serefin,” Nadya said softly.

  Serefin couldn’t pin the stability of his kingdom on her guess that Malachiasz would go after her people—her gods—before he tried to take Serefin’s throne a second time. Even if Malachiasz’s next move was against the Kalyazi, it wouldn’t end the war, it would only make things worse.

  Kacper suddenly shifted, distant, sensing something. He leaned in close to Serefin. “Someone snapped the spells outside your rooms.”

  Shit.

  “How quickly can you pack your things?” he asked Nadya.

  Her face went gray. “Why?”

  “I would say we have a handful of minutes—at most—before a contingent of guards that, frankly, Ruminski should not have any control over, burst in to arrest you. You will not get a trial; you will be immediately hanged. From there it is likely he will lower accusations upon me for harboring an enemy spy—are you a spy?”

  Nadya, eyes wide, shook her head.

  “Well, that’s good at least. Regardless, this will be used to remove power from me.” He brushed at a moth. “He wants Żaneta and he wants this war to continue churning. And you”—he
leveled his eyes at Żywia—“have her.”

  “We do not let our own go without reason,” Żywia said.

  “Helpful.” Serefin stood, gesturing for Nadya to follow. “Thank you, again, for your information and your warning. But if you can’t hand over the single thing that will actually help, I suppose our conversation is finished.”

  He yanked the door open.

  “I don’t have that power,” Żywia said quickly. “You have to petition Mal—the Black Vulture.”

  Serefin paused. “Is he in Grazyk?”

  “No. He does not leave the mines.”

  Serefin closed his eyes. “And it’s from the mines that he’ll strike?”

  Żywia nodded.

  There was something not being said that chilled Serefin. What, exactly, was he up against with his brother?

  But there was no longer a choice before him; he was being shoved. “Of course. Well, I suppose I’ll be paying him a visit.”

  This would be for the good of the kingdom. This would be to keep his throne.

  Six

  Nadezhda Lapteva

  What of Milyena Shishova? What of the girl touched by the goddess of magic and toiled under her thumb until one day she woke and her goddess was gone? The only thing the gods ever leave behind is heartbreak.

  —The Books of Innokentiy

  Nadya had to run to catch up to Serefin. “You’re not serious!” she called.

  “Keep your voice down,” he hissed, pausing only a handful of seconds to let her catch up. “This is what we’re going to do,” he said, voice a low hum. “I have to speak to my mother. Return to your rooms and prepare to leave. I’ll send Ostyia for you, she’ll get you out of the palace.”

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But you’re coming with me to the Salt Mines.”

  “Serefin—”

  “We don’t have time,” he snapped. “Go.”

  She didn’t want to find out what might happen if that noble got his hands on her. Being Kalyazi was one thing—if it was discovered she was a cleric, that was a whole different mess. She was glad to be leaving, to be forced out of the place she had let cage her and her guilt, but there was no way in hell she was going to the Salt Mines.