I don’t understand what’s happening, she prayed. I thought I was doing what I was meant to. I didn’t see his plans.
“Didn’t see them, or didn’t want to?” Marzenya’s voice was severe.
Both, Nadya admitted.
“And how badly, truly, do you want to make this right?”
I’ll do anything.
There was a long silence and Nadya started to panic.
“The boy is inconsequential. A creature to be eradicated, but no more.”
But—
“There is another. Rising from the dark, given power on your mortal realm. You spoke with him. He is waking one by one those we cast aside for the sake of this realm’s safety and the worst begins to stir. You released him.”
Velyos.
“Cast aside, but he is not alone, darkness never works alone.”
But what about—
“The ritual?” Marzenya’s voice was biting. “A maggot trying to become a dragon. Pathetic. He has caused a shiver, a crack, yes, he toys with powers no mortal should possess and you allowed it.”
I didn’t know how to stop him.
“Lying to me is unwise.”
Nadya rolled the bead around in her fingers, thinking.
“You have failed and must be punished.”
Nadya’s hands began to shake. She lowered her head.
“But there is much left to accomplish,” Marzenya continued. “So much left to be done and you are still my vessel on this world.”
Nadya swallowed hard. She pressed her thumb against the scar on her palm. The black veins had grown, swirling about her wrist. She wondered what would happen to her if they continued all the way to her heart.
I was traveling to Bolagvoy. I wanted answers . . . Why did you stop talking to me?
“Continue on that path. We will speak again.”
Marzenya was gone. Nadya tasted copper. She spat out a mouthful of blood onto her hand.
Twenty-Four
Serefin Meleski
Ground underneath the heels of their betters and cast down from the heavens, confined in tombs, under mountains, in waters. They are the silenced. They are the dead. They know the chosen is coming to free them one by one by one.
—The Volokhtaznikon
Being spat out of the jaws of a monster was, unsurprisingly, not a pleasant experience. Serefin had woken up, feeling like every part of his body was bruised down to his bones, and immediately choked on a mouthful of blood.
He’d blinked quickly several times, willing his vision to sharpen, but even blinking hurt. Like daggers had been driven through his eyes, too. He’d felt strange, different, jittery and wrong. He didn’t know what had happened once he had been dragged through those doors. His memory cut off disarmingly in a way that terrified him. He didn’t know what he had given up and was afraid of what would happen when he inevitably found out.
And now he was back in the Kalyazi inn and Kacper was here and he had missed Kacper and Ostyia so much. Katya had taken her leave to figure out with the scar-faced man what she would need to kill the Black Vulture.
Serefin tipped backward on the bed until he was lying down. He closed his eyes, knuckling the bridge of his nose. He ached and his head was pounding. He should be moving west, and he was so tired of fighting.
“Serefin, you look positively disgusting,” Ostyia said, flopping back onto the bed beside him.
“Fitting, because I feel positively disgusting,” he replied. “That girl did not give me enough wine.”
Kacper still hadn’t spoken outside of that initial greeting and Serefin was trying to not worry about it.
Ostyia made a small distressed sound. Her hand, fingers cool, gently touched his neck. He had forgotten about the scar.
“Has that always been there?” she asked, voice small.
He grunted, noncommittal. He sensed that, yes, but there had been some magic keeping it from notice until Velyos had shattered it.
“Your throat was cut.”
“Yes, well, I did die.”
She was quiet. He didn’t open his eyes.
“You didn’t ask but I will get you more wine because I am magnanimous and I missed you,” she said after a long stretch of silence, her voice raw and full of an emotion Serefin wasn’t currently equipped to handle.
Serefin opened his eyes and grabbed Ostyia’s wrist as she was sliding off the bed.
“I’m sorry for what I said.”
She paused. “You haven’t been yourself,” she said. “It’s no excuse—at all—if you talk to me like that again, I’ll cut out one of your eyes. I thought about it, though, and you’re right, I push too hard sometimes.”
“I do deserve it.”
“You absolutely do, but I’ve forgotten that your role has changed and mine has, too, and I can’t exactly rib you in public and expect that nightmare of a court to still respect you after it.”
“It will be so boring without you ribbing me in public.”
“Somehow, I think you’ll survive.”
Kacper was still looking out the window. Serefin wasn’t so certain Kacper agreed with her easy forgiveness. She patted his hand before she left the room.
Serefin sat up with a groan, raking a hand through his hair. He needed a bath. He needed clothes that weren’t these to wear. He needed to feel like he wasn’t about to crumble into dust but unfortunately he didn’t think he would make it to that point.
“Kacper?”
Kacper turned slightly to glance at Serefin, one eyebrow raised. Well, kind of. He wasn’t very good at that.
“I lost my pack and have been in these clothes for far too long,” Serefin said. “Can I borrow some from you?”
The tension at Kacper’s shoulders lowered a notch. Weariness sketched across his face and he nodded.
Serefin stood up as Kacper began digging through his pack. This wasn’t normal—this strain between them. He had been just as cruel to Kacper as he had been to Ostyia and maybe Kacper wasn’t as forgiving. Kacper had a lot of siblings; he liked to hold grudges.
“Kacper.”
No response. Kacper pulled a shirt and breeches from the pack and set them on the bed. “Kacper, I’m sorry—”
“Blood and bone, Serefin,” Kacper said, straightening and sounding exasperated. “You’re hopeless.”
And then Serefin was knocked back against the closed door and Kacper had his face between his hands and was kissing him.
Oh.
Oh.
Serefin’s hands worked without his brain—his brain was still thirty seconds behind and static with shock—grabbing the lapels of Kacper’s jacket and tugging him closer. A single, piercing instant and everything made sense. Every time Kacper had stayed behind to pick drunk and incoherent Serefin back up and drag him back into camp without anyone knowing the High Prince wasn’t dealing well with the war. Every time Kacper had sat in his tent and listened to him panic ceaselessly about his father and never once been anything but attentive.
He’d thought Kacper was just a distressingly kind person who had no business being around someone as delightfully wretched as Serefin.
But Kacper kissed him with a kind of reckless, passionate abandon borne of desperation.
Maybe I missed a vast number of signals.
Kacper broke away. His expression was soft and he was close enough for Serefin to see the scar that nicked his eyebrow. He pushed back a lock of Serefin’s hair from where it had flopped over his forehead. “You are so bleeding dense, Serefin.”
He had definitely missed some signals. “I am?” Serefin asked breathlessly. “Do that again.”
Kacper grinned and shifted closer, hips pressing against Serefin’s in a way that made an odd sound leave Serefin’s throat. He kissed him again, gentler, softer. His hands tangling in Serefin’s hair, his mouth moving to kiss a line down his jaw.
“You are,” he said when he’d pulled away and left Serefin feeling unbalanced against the door. “Also you are very filthy and your eye
s are ghastly.”
“I’m afraid to ask,” Serefin said. He tilted his head back and leaned it against the door. “So, er, how long, then?”
“How long, what?” Kacper asked.
“Please.”
Kacper grinned sheepishly and it took everything in Serefin to not yank him back and kiss him again. His heart was rattling in his chest in a most distressing way as he contemplated all of the lost time that could have been spent doing this.
“I’m going to get a bath drawn for you,” Kacper said, sounding flustered. He went to move Serefin away from where he was in front of the door, but Serefin held his ground.
“Kacper, how long?” he repeated, voice low.
“Blood and bone,” Kacper murmured, lifting his eyes to the ceiling. “A long time, Serefin.”
“Then why . . . now?”
Kacper sighed. “Because you were gone. Because Ostyia and I couldn’t find you and none of our tracking spells would work and it was like you had just disappeared. And then you were in Kalyazin and it was so far away and I was going to lose you and you would never know how I felt.” He smiled wryly. “Because I kept having girls shoved at me when we got to Grazyk and I want it to stop.”
“That wasn’t nice?” Serefin asked innocently.
“I don’t like girls, Serefin,” Kacper said, exasperated, but that was rather his default tone with Serefin. “You know that.”
“I do?” Serefin didn’t, in fact, know that.
Kacper frowned. “I thought you did. You know Ostyia doesn’t like boys.”
“Ostyia makes sure everyone knows she doesn’t like boys,” Serefin said. He peered at Kacper, who was making every effort to avoid eye contact. “Ostyia,” he continued carefully, “flirts with any girl that crosses her path. It’s hard not to notice. She is almost definitely down there flirting with Katya. It’s not like I’ve ever seen you flirting with any particularly pretty boys.”
“Because I spend all my time trying to get the attention of one particular boy,” Kacper said. He winced. “Please don’t panic about this.”
“I’m panicking a little, but in a good way, I think,” Serefin said. “Maybe? I don’t know.”
Kacper groaned. “I just thought—with you and Żaneta—I thought—I never said anything because I never saw you with anyone and because of Żaneta I didn’t think it was possible.”
Kacper is the one panicking, Serefin thought idly.
“I liked Żaneta before the whole treason business,” Serefin said with a shrug. “I’ve never cared one way or the other about anything like that.”
Kacper’s dark complexion was strangely sickly. “I shouldn’t have done that. You’re not supposed to kiss the king.”
“If I take the signet ring off, will that help?”
“I’m going to hit you.”
“You’re not supposed to hit the king! I still have my ring on!” Serefin lifted his hand.
“Take the ring off and just be Serefin,” Kacper said.
Serefin did and tucked the ring in a pocket of his jacket. “I’m always just Serefin,” he said. “I think that’s the whole problem.”
“It’s never a problem,” Kacper replied.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere Kalyazin and the tsarevna is downstairs and I think we just became allies with her? I cannot see how my being me and taking the throne hasn’t been a massive problem.”
“You were going to have problems with Ruminski and the rest no matter when or how you took the throne. How many slavhki did your father have to execute when he took the throne?”
Serefin leaned back against the door. “Half the court,” he said softly.
“Keep going,” Kacper urged.
“My grandfather was lenient but only because he sent most of the court to the lake country. Before that at least a quarter of the court was executed.”
“How many slavhki did you reprimand or execute when you took the throne?”
None. Serefin was quiet.
“I wanted to be better,” he said. All he wanted was to be a better king than his father, but what if that was impossible?
“Ser, you’re not a particularly nice person. I know you don’t want to make these hard and messy decisions, but you can.”
No one had called Serefin by that nickname in a very long time and his heart gave a jolty kick at hearing it.
“You’re so much less nervous when advising me about murder,” Serefin noted.
Kacper laughed. “I’m fairly good at advising about murder.”
“You’re fairly good at the other thing, too.”
Kacper smoothed a hand over his tight black curls, supremely flustered. Serefin grinned at him.
“Does this mean . . . What does this mean? I never expected to get this far. Everything always gets murky from here on out because I’ve always assumed you would rebuff me.”
“Kacper,” Serefin groaned. He thought about how Kacper had been in the midst of the Rawalyk, how Serefin was always putting himself as close to Kacper as possible as if a part of him knew, even if the rest of him didn’t.
He took Kacper’s face between his hands. Kacper was tense, as though he thought Serefin was going to outright reject him after all this.
“I have an ancient Kalyazi god rattling in my head and you have chosen the absolute worst time to do this,” Serefin said. “And blood and bone, I’m glad you did.”
Kacper nearly collapsed with a helpless wheeze of a laugh. Serefin kissed the side of his head. “We’ve never been good with timing,” he said, thinking how when they’d met, Kacper had just had his arm broken by Ostyia.
“I’m going to go see about that bath,” Kacper said, reluctantly tugging away.
“You’re not my servant. You’ve never been.”
“See, I knew this would happen. You’re mistaking someone who is forced to do things for you to earn a wage for what Ostyia and I do, which is thankless work because we care about you.”
Serefin frowned. “I’m not that bad, am I?”
“I haven’t made a habit of merely telling you what you want to hear—contrary to what you might think in light of the accusations leveled against me—”
Serefin scowled. Kacper smiled.
“I’m not about to start now. You’re an absolute menace, Serefin.”
“Ah.”
“Wouldn’t have you any other way,” Kacper continued as he finally got past Serefin and opened the door.
“Well, a bath does sound nice.”
“You should probably . . .” He frowned, brushing his thumb across Serefin’s cheek. “Your eyes.”
Serefin cringed and moved to the mirror as Kacper slipped out of the room. His right eye now matched the left, a deep midnight blue with no pupil. Instead, points of light like stars swirled in the impossible depths.
It was unsettling. Ghastly was definitely a word for it. Serefin sighed. This was just one of many terrible things to look forward to from his devil’s deal.
Twenty-Five
Nadezhda Lapteva
Peloyin is a god of great benevolence, of great anger, of great storms. He can send the waters of life or the fires of destruction.
—Codex of the Divine 355:23
Nadya slid onto a bench beside Malachiasz in the refectory. He studiously ignored her, tension coiled across his thin shoulders. She stole a piece of warm black bread off his plate and chewed on it while inspecting her hand in the bright, natural light streaming in through the windows.
He eyed her and slid his plate over. She wasted no time in drawing her voryen and carving out a hunk of tvorog and slicing a withered radish into bite-sized slivers. It had been so long since she had eaten anything that wasn’t stale bread and thin cabbage soup and admittedly had gotten a little spoiled with Grazyk’s finer fare before they left. But she had missed the simple food of the monastery all the same.
He leaned his cheek in his palm and watched her. “You didn’t have to say anything to the monk,” he finally said.
“He deserved to know what he was allowing inside the walls,” she replied evenly. She poured herself a cup of kvass. After a thoughtful pause, she poured one for Malachiasz.
“Fair enough,” he said. She heard a calculation in his tone.
“Upset your act at the gates didn’t work?”
“You think so little of me,” he said.
“That is entirely your fault.”
“Blood and bone, Nadya, just tell me to leave. You don’t want me here, fine, I understand. Let me go if you want me to go.”
Nadya picked at the table with a fingernail on her corrupted hand. It was sharper than before.
“I finally spoke with Marzenya,” she said, and felt his little jolt of surprise beside her. Because gods even though she was supposed to be keeping her distance they were still sitting close enough for their shoulders to brush. “She was so dismissive of you.” She reached past him to pick up a withered apple and cut into it. “A maggot trying to become a dragon, she said.”
Malachiasz frowned.
“You don’t understand how relentless her orders were. How frequently I was told the very many ways I could—and should—kill you. Everything I ignored, because for some reason, I wanted you alive.”
“For some reason,” he repeated, voice flat.
He wasn’t looking at her anymore and she flipped her voryen around and used the hilt to turn his face toward hers.
“I don’t want you to go. But you betrayed me,” she reminded him. “You are the leader of a cult that has been tormenting my people for generations and I cannot be so foolish as to overlook that a second time.”
He studied her face, then pushed her knife away and turned on the bench, putting his foot up on it as a barrier between them.
“If I had killed a god don’t you think you would know by now?” he snapped, voice low. “If I had done anything that would save my country from your peoples’ fanatic torches, don’t you think it would have happened?”
“No,” she said simply.
He shot her an incredulous look.
“You played a long game that led me on a string for months.”
Ruthless Gods (ARC) Page 24