Ruthless Gods (ARC)

by Emily A Duncan

  “We cannot see the threads the gods have used to weave this world together,” Ivan said. “Not even you, Nadezhda. Could that battle have gone differently? How many Vultures have you killed, child?”

  He was changing the subject to avoid her questions. Why was he lying? Could she trust anyone?

  “We have always been fighting a war against a people who have gone so far against the gods that they have reached for power we do not have,” Ivan said. “And those abominations are proof. I trust when the time comes you will do what is best for Kalyazin.”

  Nadya closed her eyes. It was so much worse to hear from someone else than when she told herself what she needed to do.

  “However,” Ivan continued, “no battles are easy. And this is war. Lives are lost during war. You, Nadezhda, you are the one who will stop this war.”

  “But what if I can’t?” she asked, despairing.

  Ivan shrugged. “It continues. And more good souls like Kostya will die.” She heard what he did not say aloud. And more evil souls like Malachiasz will live.

  “Marzenya wants me to go west. To the seat of the gods.”

  “And from there?”

  “Touch divinity and make the Tranavians finally see,” Nadya said.

  Ivan was quiet.

  “I don’t know if I will survive this,” Nadya said softly.

  “If you don’t, you doom Kalyazin,” Ivan said.

  Comforting.

  He left her sitting alone in the cemetery, feeling all the more lost and confused. It had long puzzled the priests that she was able to commune with the entire pantheon. But now she realized the Church did not trust her.

  Why were they afraid of her?

  A sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. There was only one person she could talk to about magic who wouldn’t hold back the truth. He might lie about literally everything else, but he wouldn’t lie about magic. She needed to talk to Malachiasz.

  Nadya stopped Malachiasz in the hallway, shoving him back against the wall harder than she meant to, hearing his hiss of pain and hardly believing it. She braced an arm across his chest—easy enough to slam her forearm back against his throat—and leveled her bone voryen at him.

  “He would be alive if not for you.”

  Malachiasz, tired and wrecked, flinched.

  “Can you speak?” She didn’t know how badly she had broken his jaw.

  He nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “Good. We need to talk. But first, give me the name of the Vulture who killed him.” She needed to have some other point of vengeance to rest herself upon.

  Malachiasz’s pale gaze darkened. His posture shifted underneath her arm as he slid away from the boy and into the monster. He said nothing.

  “I see.” She adjusted her grip on the blade, letting it nick his throat. Black veins spread out from the point of contact, and she watched the thin trickle of blood against his pale skin. “You’ve made what you care about profoundly clear, Malachiasz.” She said his name with as much venom as she could muster. “Tranavia. The Vultures. But not me. I guess this was inevitable.”

  He tilted his head back against the wall, closing his eyes. An ugly bruise bloomed against his jaw, made only more sickening as decay crept along it. It would be so easy to finish him. He would not stop her like he had in the forest a lifetime ago.

  “Why did you warn them?” she asked. Tears burned at her eyes but she refused to cry.

  He didn’t answer.

  “You don’t care,” she said flatly. “I don’t know why I made the effort, going back for you, it’s clear you don’t deserve it. You don’t want it.”

  He trembled underneath her forearm, brow furrowed, but silent. She wanted to grab his jaw and yank him down to her level, make him see how much pain he had caused her. Cause him equal pain.

  There was a moment of disconnect, and then she heard his sharp whimper, his jaw shifting under her tightening fingers.

  “You told me you didn’t want to cause me pain,” she said slowly, trying valiantly to keep her voice from shaking. “But you’re the only thing that hurts me, again and again. How am I to ever know if your pain is more than an act to keep me near enough to hurt?”

  His knees gave out and he fell. Nadya didn’t bother loosening her hold or dropping the blade from his neck.

  He knelt before her, forced supplication, breath rattling through his chest. The sun through the window lined his edges, jagged and corrupt, but in the light, becoming something beautiful.

  There were no warring pieces with this boy. He had made a choice to sink into the darkness and there would be no pulling him from it. She couldn’t save him, and continually trying was only going to end in more misery.

  “I would have a god on his knees before me,” she whispered, her dispassionate tone strange in her ears. “I told you I would have you like this.”

  A tear glistened on his cheek. He was shaking. She pulled her hands away, horrified with her own cruelty. He wasn’t a god—as much as he wanted to be. He was a monster, a horror, a nightmare. He was only a boy.

  He dropped his head, hand going to his jaw, shudders wracking his thin shoulders.

  “I—” She took a step back.

  His hand snapped out and caught the edge of her skirt, his fist curling into the fabric. A shiver of fear trailed through her. He slowly straightened, one hand cradling his jaw, pain sketched across his face. He pulled her closer, and carefully worked his way to his feet.

  But he only rested his forehead against hers. A heartbeat passed, the crack in Nadya’s armor grew wider, and the tears she had been holding back fell.

  “So you did,” he rasped. “You wear cruelty well, towy dżimyka.”

  She took a step back, looking up at him. It was as much his fault Kostya was dead as it was hers and it only added to the aching rift between them. Another reminder she could not give in to her heart’s demands.

  Yet she was finding it harder and harder to fight.

  She took his hand. It was cold where usually he was warm. She twined their fingers together. “Come with me,” she said quietly, rattled. “I want to talk.”

  The sanctuary was blessedly empty. Nadya pulled him inside, ignoring his reluctance. She sat down on the first pew, pulling her feet up and sitting to the side so she could face him. He studied the vast iconostasis before them, gilded and shining in the fading light of the high windows. His hair was loose and tangled around his shoulders and he hadn’t bothered with a spell to cover up the shifting chaos of his features.

  A cluster of eyes opened on his cheek. They were a sickly white and oozed blood. His hand immediately went to the spot.

  “Everyone is lying to me—”

  “Ksawery Opalki,” he said at the same time. He glanced at her before lowering his pale eyes. “The Vulture’s name. Nadya, I am so sorry.”

  Her armor shattered. She closed her eyes, tried to cobble it back together. She needed a barrier between her heart and him.

  “Did you know the whole time that Kostya was in the mines?”

  “I’m not omniscient. I have a thread of control over the Vultures. Well, I had that. No, I didn’t know.”

  “You were the reason he was still alive, though, weren’t you?”

  He laughed softly. “You know I’m not so noble as that. His was a senseless death and you deserve to take your revenge.”

  It left a lot unsaid between them. He had chosen his country and his order over her, and she would choose her country over him, and what would happen when the time came for that choice to be the final one? What they had was not made to last.

  “Why did you warn them?”

  “I didn’t. I tried to give an order to spare the monastery. It didn’t go over well.”

  Nadya masked her surprise carefully. “I’m not sure I believe that,” she said.

  He nodded.

  “I’m sorry I broke your jaw,” she said.

  “Are we just going to trade apologies, because we’ll be here lit
erally all night,” he said, picking up her badly bruised hand.

  “How did I break it?”

  “If we’re prepared for the blow, we can work around it.”

  “So, if you’re caught off guard . . .”

  “It would not kill me,” he replied cheerily. “It’s much more difficult than that, Nadya.”

  “But you’re not unbreakable.” Though he could talk, so he healed remarkably fast, but she already knew that.

  “I am not. Are you planning on breaking me?” he asked, voice rough.

  She shivered at his tone.

  “I should’ve chained you up in the monastery’s cellars.”

  He considered that. “That would have certainly been effective.”

  “Next time, maybe,” she said, seriously.

  Malachiasz made a thoughtful sound.

  Nadya sighed; this was getting her nowhere. She tugged at her core and tiny points of white flame lit along her fingertips. But that was all. Magic ached in her palm but she didn’t know how to get to it. Magic borne of desperation wasn’t so easy to recall.

  Malachiasz lifted an eyebrow, a small smile pulling at his mouth as he recognized what she wanted. He unhooked his spell book from his hip and dumped it unceremoniously in her lap.

  “I do not want this,” she said dubiously.

  He ignored her. He tugged his dagger free from its sheath and offered that to her as well after a wry glance toward the iconostasis.

  “I don’t need that.”

  “No?”

  She shook her head. She chewed on her lower lip, contemplating the spell book. He hadn’t pulled off the icons she had put on the cover when she had borrowed it in Grazyk. She trailed her fingertips over Marzenya’s icon.

  “Malachiasz . . .” Why had he kept these?

  He misinterpreted her intent, eyes widening a fraction. “You don’t have to,” he said quickly.

  She laughed and he relaxed. “I’m not going to.” She started to pick at one of the icons and startled when his hand landed over hers.

  “You don’t have to do that, either,” he said, voice unbearably gentle.

  She jerked, surprised, studying his face. He carefully avoided touching the icons as he drew his hand back. He offered nothing more by way of explanation and as much as Nadya wanted to know why, she didn’t ask.

  “The Church is keeping something from me,” she said. “And I think it has something to do with how I use magic.”

  He idly chewed on a thumbnail, looking up at the iconostasis again. Nadya could name every symbol and painting of every saint. Her faith was the only thing she knew without question, yet here she was with a boy who had profaned everything her faith stood for. The knowledge useless when confronted with so much so unlike everything she had been taught.

  “You’ve used my spell book before, if unintentionally, and forged a bizarrely inexplicable magic link through stolen power,” Malachiasz finally said. There was an underlying thread in his voice she could not decipher but it made the back of her neck grow warm.

  “And?”

  He flipped the book open. “Magic is magic,” he said slowly, as if expecting her to argue.

  She turned the pages of his spell book, passing over dozens of meticulously constructed spells, his messy scrawl edge to edge. She paused, landing on a page covered with charcoal sketches, smudged and imperfect.

  They were sketches of her. There were canvases stacked in every corner of his chambers in the cathedral. She had thought he simply collected beautiful things when the whole time he had been the one creating them. Her face heated, the gentleness with which he had captured her all too visible.

  “How about a different approach,” he said, the words rushed.

  He shut the book with a snap and set it aside. He was blushing and slightly mortified.

  Oh, hells. I’m in danger, she thought hopelessly.

  “You’re very good,” she said.

  His hand moved to hover over the book. He adamantly did not look at her. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  Such absolute and irreversible danger.

  “Kostya said the Church is afraid of me discovering old gods outside the pantheon. That they were afraid of my corruption.” She lifted her hand wryly.

  Malachiasz took her hand, curling it into his. “Because they’re afraid you might commune with those beings?”

  It was certainly plausible. “I wasn’t supposed to free Velyos, and I did. I can’t help but feel like it’s connected.”

  He hesitated. “If—if we figure out how to reach your power, will you even need to continue west?”

  “Yes,” she said. Yes, because she needed to put an end to Tranavia’s terrors. Yes, because this was doomed between them. Yes, because she was going to destroy him and it was much too late to stop it. The pieces were already in place. There was no turning back.

  He nodded. “Well, you’ve talked it up so much that I’m curious anyway!” He pushed back her sleeve so the dark stain was visible to her elbow. “I don’t think you’re going to like the answer we find for this,” he said, meeting her eyes from underneath his long, dark eyelashes.

  He shifted, drawing his legs up so he was rather precariously perched, cross-legged, on the pew. “So, we know about Velyos,” he said, “and he’s not a part of your pantheon, yes?” He waited for confirmation.

  She nodded.

  “All right. A fallen god, then, whatever that means. Your power is your own, regardless of where it was initially drawn from. You used Velyos’ power in the cathedral, did that feel similar?”

  “No. Just like any of the gods’ might.”

  He tilted his head, eyeing a stained glass window behind her. She smiled as she watched the curious, inquisitive boy who loved a puzzle.

  “We can rule out that this is a fallen gods’ power, then, because it would feel like that.”

  “That doesn’t really leave anything else, though. I’m not a witch, like Pelageya. She said I was drawing from somewhere else.” But was it someone else? Or something else? Or if it truly was her magic alone, what was it that made it feel so dark and out of reach? Why couldn’t she get to it herself? “Pelageya said that witch magic and cleric magic is no different, so why can’t I do anything with this? And why is it changing me?”

  The tattooed lines on his forehead wrinkled as he frowned. “Divinity tastes like copper and ashes,” he murmured. He held her corrupted hand gently, looking down at it for a long time before his gaze lifted past Nadya’s, as if just over her shoulder.

  Nadya stilled. She slid her other hand over his.

  “And a fractured halo . . .” He slashed open her palm.

  She flinched, biting her lip. “Couldn’t you ask before you do that?”

  He didn’t answer, dipping an index finger in her blood. He stuck his finger in his mouth.

  “Gods, Malachiasz, what are you doing?”

  She reared back as he waved vague, bloody fingers in front of her face, shushing her absently. “I have a theory.”

  “Is it that you’re disgusting?”

  “No, there’s enough evidence of that to conclude it’s true,” he said distantly, staring right past her. He paused, and with an odd note in his voice, whispered, “Divinity,” his eyes unfocused.

  Nadya went cold, watching him in horror as he turned whatever pieces he was putting together in his mind. She couldn’t tell what it was he had figured out and was not telling her.

  “Not of your gods, not of those fallen, something further, something older. Ancient, hungry, mad.”

  “Malachiasz?”

  He twitched, blinking back to himself and down at the blood pooling in her palm, paling. “Sorry,” he said, pulling a cloth from his jacket pocket and carefully wrapping her hand.

  She waited, dread coiling inside her. He took her face between his hands, something in his eyes she had never seen before; it frightened her.

  “It won’t harm you if you claim it,” he said, hushed and almost reverent in a wa
y that didn’t make sense from this heretic boy. “You’ll merely become magnificent.”

  “What—”

  He kissed her. He was a storm and she was going to drown. He broke away too soon, leaving her feeling unmoored and shaky. Malachiasz very softly kissed the backs of the fingers on her corrupted hand.

  “Everything will be fine, I promise,” he said. “But you have to take the next step yourself. It’s you, Nadya, it’s all you.” He got up to leave, pressing a hand lightly against her hair before he slipped out of the room.

  “What?” she whispered, pressing a hand to her mouth.

  As long as they walked on opposite sides of this conflict, they would be cruel to each other even if they wanted to be tender. And when they were tender, her heart would beat too full. There was no escaping it.

  The moment he was gone Marzenya’s presence swept over her.

  What does it mean? What does he mean? What do you mean for me to do?

  The goddess did not answer right away. Nadya got up from her seat and almost fell over before she made it to the altar and lit another stick of incense. And will the other gods ever speak to me again?

  “They cannot,” Marzenya said simply, not deigning to answer her other questions.

  Nadya’s heart faltered. Oh. But the veil?

  “Another veil, a different magic,” Marzenya said. “Different in creation, a similar end. More focused, more defined. Stronger. The Tranavians have crafted something that will crack Kalyazin in half if they are given the opportunity. That is why you must change their minds.”

  Change their minds? Nadya questioned. The war had gone on for nearly a century. Tranavians like Malachiasz and Serefin wanted the war to end. But Tranavia itself? Kalyazin? Did they want the war to end? Serefin had mentioned how lucrative it was for the Tranavian nobles and Nadya wondered if it was the same for Kalyazin.

  It made her so tired.

  “We will change their minds,” Marzenya repeated. “Permanently. There is a well from which you must drink. We will fix this. We will bring balance back. We will bring Tranavia back into our graces.”

  Nadya swallowed. This was a very different song than Marzenya usually sang for her.