Ruthless Gods (ARC)

by Emily A Duncan

  The scar on her palm had hurt since the conversation in the abandoned sanctuary. It had blackened strangely, like veins were bleeding around it into her palm. She tucked her hand out of sight.

  “We’re leaving,” she announced the moment she was in her rooms.

  Parijahan was on the chaise in the sitting room, Rashid’s head in her lap. She was in the middle of lazily braiding his hair. Her head lifted.

  “What?”

  “They know my paperwork is forged.”

  Rashid sat up, swearing loudly.

  It took them little time to gather the few possessions they had. There was a knock at the door, far too forceful to be Ostyia, and Nadya froze, exchanging a terrified glance with Parijahan.

  Parijahan’s spine straightened. “I have an idea,” she said. “It’ll buy us some time.” She untied her braid, letting her dark hair fall in loose waves around her shoulders, and kicked off her shoes. “Behind the chaise,” she hissed at Nadya. “Stay quiet and out of sight.”

  She ran a hand through her hair, and said something loud in her language, yanking the door open. “You better have a very good reason for bothering me this late at night. No, no, don’t you dare step past this threshold until you tell me who you are and what you want.”

  “Are these Nadzieja Leszczynska’s rooms?” the guard asked.

  “Do I look like my name is Leszczynska?” Parijahan spat. “You’re inching forward and I told you to stay back. Please, push me further, I would love to spark an international incident with Tranavia.”

  Nadya inched around the chaise to see what was going on. The guard was pushed out of the way by a well-dressed slavhka whom Nadya didn’t recognize. He unfolded a piece of paper and shoved it in Parijahan’s face.

  “Can Tranavia outlast a war with Akola?” Parijahan asked evenly.

  The slavhka lowered the paper. “I have a warrant for Leszczynska, she is to come with us at once.”

  “Good for her. You’ve found the wrong rooms.”

  The man stuttered, bewildered. “I—I assure you, these were—”

  “My name is Parijahan Siroosi, Prasīt of House Siroosi of Akola of the Five Suns, and if you don’t step away from my door within the next ten seconds, I will decide the magnanimous relationship that has flourished between our two countries will end this night.”

  Nadya clasped a hand over her mouth. Rashid was casually, impassively perched on the arm of the chaise, long legs stretched out, with an edge to him that reminded Nadya of how potentially dangerous he could be when he truly wanted.

  The slavhka stuttered, sounding incredibly flustered, but Parijahan merely shut the door in his face. She waited a bit before she turned, something in her posture diminished.

  “We need to leave,” she said, voice small.

  Nadya climbed over the back of the chaise. “Parj, what—”

  Parijahan waved her off. She pulled her shoes back on and picked up her pack from where she’d stuffed it in a bookshelf.

  Nadya knew Parijahan was from one of the noble houses but she’d had no idea just how important the Akolan girl was.

  Rashid scratched his jaw. “Your family will know you were here in about three days.”

  “I know,” she replied shortly.

  There was a much softer knock at the door and Ostyia entered.

  “Princess, huh?” was all she said.

  Parijahan’s eyes closed. “Can we go?”

  “Sure, sure, Your Highness.”

  Parijahan had the other girl slammed against the wall with a dagger at her throat in an instant.

  “Do not,” she said through clenched teeth, “call me that. Ever. Again.”

  Ostyia grinned rakishly at her. “Of course.”

  Parijahan stepped back, exhausted. Nadya fumbled for her pack as Ostyia slipped back out the door, beckoning for them to follow.

  The noble girl took them through the same back passages Nadya had found during her midnight wanderings. She could have escaped a long time ago if she’d wished it, but no, she had waited like a little fool.

  Serefin and Kacper met them at the stables at the northern end of the palace.

  “What are you going to do about Ruminski?” Nadya asked.

  “My mother will hold the throne in my absence,” Serefin replied. “Ruminski wouldn’t dare stage a coup against her.”

  Kacper didn’t appear as certain. “So long as you return soon,” he murmured.

  Serefin looked like he was going to say something sharp, but sighed. “So long as I return soon,” he repeated.

  Swiftly they readied the horses and rode southwest. The city fell away and the outlying villages became nothing but a road that was crowded in on either side with dark, dense forest. Ostyia kept complaining that it had been too easy to get out of the city; Serefin just looked grim. And Nadya was going to fall asleep on her horse and fall right off; she had never been particularly good at riding.

  Her hand hurt and she resisted pulling her glove off to study the scar. It was bitingly cold, unseasonably so, as if winter had fallen on the land and fought off both spring and summer.

  She was relieved when Serefin finally moved off the road so they could catch a few hours of sleep before setting off again. She thought the breakneck pace they moved at was unnecessary until Rashid pointed out that Serefin had no idea if Ruminski would honor his mother’s regency.

  “You’ve effectively left the throne to those vultures,” Rashid said.

  “The alternative would be to leave it to the actual Vultures,” Serefin said. “And I find I am deeply curious if Malachiasz would make a decent king?” he directed the question at Nadya, a thorny barb.

  She ignored him, finally pulling her glove off and rubbing her palm. Was Malachiasz’s power infecting the scar? Was he what festered beneath the surface?

  Nadya had made a terrible mistake in letting him live.

  Serefin pulled a silver flask out of his coat pocket and took a swig. “If I deal with this as quickly as possible, there’s nothing to worry about,” he said, a touch too cavalierly.

  Maybe Nadya had made a mistake letting Serefin live as well.

  Rashid nodded slowly, also clearly questioning Serefin’s intelligence. “Well, then, we better get this finished quickly.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Will they come after us, do you think?” Nadya asked.

  “You? Probably. Me? Unlikely.”

  “No, they’ll merely hire assassins to go after you,” Kacper muttered, but he looked worried.

  Serefin glared at Kacper and jerked the tent out of his hands, moving to the other side of the clearing to set it up.

  Nadya went over to Serefin as the others set up the rest of camp. He was working with the practiced ease of someone who had done this a thousand times before. She was surprised, she had known he was a soldier—had witnessed that first hand—but she had figured the army treated him like a prince all the same and waited on him hand and foot.

  After a long silence, he spoke. “I can’t exactly let you go on your way.”

  “Can you, exactly, stop me from leaving?” she asked, sitting near him as he made a pile of the wooden tent poles and began assembling the tent. “Why didn’t you hand me over to that slavhka?”

  He shrugged. “It would be wrong to let you hang for something that was hardly your fault.”

  “I infiltrated the Rawalyk with the sole intent of killing the king,” she reminded him. “And I succeeded.”

  He leaned back on his heels. “You did.”

  “I was going to kill you, too.”

  He laughed softly as he rolled his sleeves back. His forearms were dusted with scars. Serefin’s forearms spoke of haphazard swipes from an untreated blade in the middle of battle, careless cuts for magic without thought of the damage that might be left behind. Different from the dedicated, careful crosshatch of self-inflicted pain that had been painted against Malachiasz’s pale forearms.

  “I’m glad you didn’t, though my
entire court apparently stands to disagree.” Serefin finished up the tent and sat next to her. “I don’t play their games the way they want me to,” he said. He ran a hand through his hair, fingers catching on the hammered iron crown that still rested on his brow. He tugged it off with a sigh. “I had hoped the court—at least the majority—wanted the war to end. I’m ashamed of my slavhki to find that is not the case.” He rubbed at his jaw, clearly uncomfortable. “And the rumors were not ones easily brushed away.”

  “And you think bringing Żaneta to her father will appease them?”

  “I don’t have any other options.”

  “Why does it feel like you’re running away?”

  He shot her a half-smile. “Because I think I might be.” He sobered. “I have other reasons for leaving Grazyk. The magic residue in the air wasn’t good for me. I was having—” He waved a dismissive hand. “—hallucinations.”

  Nadya froze. “You what?”

  He shook off her concern. “Nothing more than old magic. I’m not used to being in Grazyk for so long. The air got to me, that’s all. I’ll be fine now that we’re out of the city. Anyway, I know you don’t wish to go to the mines, but I need your help.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking,” she said quietly. Her mouth filled with moisture like she was going to throw up. What did he mean, hallucinations? She had felt a little strange when she’d first gotten to Grazyk, but the bad air hadn’t bothered her after a while.

  “Tell me,” he said gently.

  She shook her head.

  He frowned. “Nadya . . .”

  “Come with me,” Parijahan said, walking up beside them. “I will tell you what you need to know.”

  Nadya let Parijahan pull Serefin away. He didn’t need to know the depths of Malachiasz’s betrayal. Not from her.

  The sounds of Parijahan’s soft voice explaining what had happened and Ostyia and Kacper arguing over whether they should light a fire drifted through the clearing. Rashid sat down next to Nadya.

  She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Is it terrible that I miss him?”

  “No,” Rashid said. “I miss him, too. We don’t have to go with them, you know.”

  “I have nowhere else to go, Rashid,” she said, voice soft.

  “Go back to Kalyazin. Find the army. Find Anna.”

  Her heart twisted. She was no use to the army. And she didn’t know what she would say to Anna if she ever found her again.

  “I’m just tired. I keep thinking maybe enough time has passed that I can get on with my life, but . . .” She shook her head. She couldn’t exactly mention that she could feel Malachiasz’s presence constantly but the sentiment was the same.

  “Why are you and Parijahan still here?” She changed the subject. The thought of them leaving made her so desperate and anxious that she had never dared ask before.

  Rashid’s dark gaze cut to where Parijahan was talking to Serefin. She was tense, her hand resting near the dagger she kept at her hip.

  “I don’t think she’s done here,” he said. “She’s not ready to go home, either. So I stay, too.”

  Nadya followed his eye-line, slightly puzzled. “Are you and she . . .” She trailed off, unsure what she was asking.

  He laughed. “No. I don’t really go for that. Besides, I’m not Parj’s type. My family was indebted to hers, but I worked off the debt long ago. She’s a cold star we all orbit around, but I love her all the same.”

  Serefin cut a sharp glance toward Nadya and she wondered what Parijahan had told him.

  “Did she not get her revenge?”

  Rashid shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. I would hope so. For this blasted, monstrous country, I sure hope so.”

  Nadya pulled the first watch, tamping down the fire to embers and sitting with her back to it, the jacket she wore pulled close around her.

  She shouldn’t have his damn coat. Nadya tucked her face against the collar where it smelled like him and wondered how long before his scent faded. She shouldn’t think of him, it would only call him back to her, it would . . . She sighed.

  And here you are.

  “You’re somewhere different.” He sounded curious. It hadn’t taken quite so long for coherence this time. She wondered what that meant. What was Malachiasz and what was the monster?

  And you are in exactly the same place. How boring. An easy guess. Żywia had said he didn’t leave the mines; it was heartbreaking. One of the few truths he had shared was his absolute fear of that dark and terrible place.

  A shimmer of irritation.

  I wasn’t expecting you to return, she said. After all, I had been thoroughly weighed, measured, and found wanting. Gods, it must be frustrating. For a being of some divine power to find yourself linked to a mortal with no magic.

  The thing she hated the most about this connection—aside from everything—was the feeling he was so close to her. That he sat nearby, his lean, scrawny frame folded with his long legs stretched out.

  But he wasn’t. It was only her, alone in the dark with her back to a dying fire.

  “No magic?” He was puzzled.

  Didn’t you say I was of no consequence?

  “A miscalculation.”

  Do you make those?

  That little flicker of irritation burst into a flame. She grew silent. She shouldn’t goad him. But it was so easy. It took this corrupted, nightmarish thing between them and turned it into something almost familiar. Except she shouldn’t want that. She had to find a line within herself she would not cross.

  The clearing they were camping in wasn’t far from the road, but suddenly it felt like it was miles away. The trees too tall, spindly branches reaching fingers that would become a cage and trap them inside. The darkness no longer natural, but thick, cloying, and deadly cold.

  Why are you back? she asked, after the silence between them had grown dangerously comfortable, even as the world around her grew more menacing.

  She was aware of him watching her, or whatever it could be called through this scrap of magic tying them together.

  “I don’t know,” he said, and she hated herself for letting her resolve weaken.

  There was chaos and darkness in that voice but also the lonely boy who had isolated himself further for a fruitless cause. She wanted to feel the thrill of justice. He had what he wanted and he was miserable for it. But instead she wanted to give him some measure of comfort he did not deserve.

  It was too easy to pretend, like this—unable to see him, hearing only his voice—that he hadn’t turned into something horrific. She would have to keep searching for the place where she would finally be revolted by what he was.

  Well, we can’t exactly keep doing this, can we? she said. Surely you have far more important things to attend to.

  Silence. It was as if he was content simply watching. Nadya found it unsettling. She didn’t know how much he was seeing, how much of her he was seeing.

  Suddenly he tensed, a predator poised to strike. “You’re not alone.”

  Nadya rolled her eyes. Of course I’m not—

  “She’s here.”

  She? Nadya didn’t like the hope that lit inside her. He had a tie to the divine that she did not, as twisted and horrific as it was.

  “There are witches, and there is her. I will not suffer her again,” he said.

  In a blink, he was gone. Nadya frowned, puzzled, and looked up, right into Pelageya’s young, pale face.

  She stifled a yelp. Pelageya held a finger to her lips, grinning impishly.

  “Hello, child,” she said. She held out her hand. “Come with me, there’s something I must show you. You’re the last, you see, and it’s time. It’s past time. It’s due time.”

  Nadya glanced to where the others slept. She wasn’t about to leave them unprotected, not when the air had gone so wrong around them as they slept. And Parijahan had agreed to take the next watch. She would notice if Nadya didn’t come to wake her.

  “Oh, no, there’s no choice h
ere.” Pelageya seized Nadya’s wrist.

  And they were somewhere else.

  Nadya staggered to her feet, taking in the dimly lit room. It was the tower in the palace, except the view through the windows was of a dark forest.

  The room shook. Nadya pressed a hand to the wall to keep her balance.

  “Oh, don’t mind that. Gets restless, the house does,” Pelageya said.

  “I have to go back,” Nadya said.

  “Why? Go back to pining after the pathetic boy who broke your heart, to a wasteland of your own creation?” Pelageya tapped a finger against her nose. “You haven’t felt it, have you? What he’s been doing?”

  Nadya hadn’t felt much of anything, recently. She shook her head. Nadya wasn’t certain she wanted to know where this conversation would lead.

  The witch looked at Nadya with a pity that made her furious.

  “Stop it. Take me back. I don’t want this.”

  “Oh, child. I have saved you for last because your road will be hard and long. Fervent and zealous and abandoned in the end. Or maybe not? Or maybe so. It is so hard to say with those divine monsters we call gods. It is so hard to see what it is they are doing to you.”

  Nadya gripped her prayer beads, tears pricking at her eyes.

  “What has he done?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

  It was troubling how much more coherent the witch was than the last time Nadya had seen her. She didn’t know where Pelageya’s power came from; this force of wind and nature and strange magic. She didn’t know if it was a magic she could access herself. She had used power outside her gods’ will, but when she reached for it now, there was nothing there.

  “Things are waking up. Old things, dark things. The old ones who have slept for so very very long. You set it into motion. You and that Vulture.”

  Nadya opened her mouth to argue, but Pelageya clapped her hands in front of her face.

  “Your intentions do not matter. You and the boy—though something tells me he was not involved so willingly—freed Velyos from his prison. Velyos has found a new mortal to claim. He will wake those who were allied with him in his long fight against your pantheon’s leader.”

  Nadya frowned. Her pantheon didn’t have a leader. They didn’t have a single god above all others. It was more varied than that, wider than that. And what did she mean about Velyos claiming someone? Who?