Ruthless Gods (ARC)

by Emily A Duncan

  Malachiasz gently kissed her forehead, and went to see who was going to take first watch, yawning.

  Nadya stared up at the black wall.

  Did you know about Velyos and Serefin?

  “Of course I did.”

  Do I stop him, too? What if he can’t break himself free? What if he does what Velyos wants?

  Marzenya wasn’t particularly forthcoming. Nadya hated that if she had a question about something important, she would likely be ignored or receive something vague in return.

  “If you do as I command, you will not have to worry about that boy.”

  Nadya frowned, unable to respond as Malachiasz returned. He grinned at her, loose limbed and sleepy, before collapsing into a boneless pile of boy beside her.

  She laughed. “You’re not sleeping out here, you’ll freeze to death. Come on, into the tent.”

  “Only if you come with me,” he mumbled.

  She tensed. He opened one eye, looking up at her with a wickedly mischievous glint. That would not be keeping her distance. That would be throwing away entirely the haphazard, messy shield she had been attempting to build the whole journey.

  That would be acknowledging they didn’t have much time left.

  Was it this hard for him? she wondered, wavering. What if she told him? Right now, what if she told that the moment that wall dropped he was likely going to die. Gave him some kind of warning so he might see the other side of this. It would be so easy to save him. She was so numb to the idea of his destruction that sometimes she doubted it would actually happen, until she realized she was only lying to herself in order to keep going.

  “You’re a nightmare. I’m exhausted. Come on.”

  He followed her until she had another boy pile at her feet inside the tent. She draped a blanket over him, rolling her eyes. He mumbled something incomprehensible but vaguely thankful. And then he pulled out the backs of her knees and yanked her down next to him. She stifled a surprised yelp as he firmly kissed her forehead before burying his face in her hair.

  “I actually sleep when you’re near,” he murmured. “And I’m so tired.”

  She let the hairline fracture in her heart split as she shifted into a more comfortable position and tugged the blanket and furs over them both.

  Tell him the truth.

  What could he have been if he had never been taken by the Vultures? She wondered, sometimes, if he would have been better, or if it was this trauma that made him so gentle toward the people he cared about. She couldn’t fool herself about the other pieces: the cruelty, the coldness, the calculated plotting. But the exhausted boy with the devastating grin who only wanted the girl he cared about close so he could sleep through the night?

  Nadya was actively damning herself for that boy.

  She twined her fingers in his hair. His eyes were closed and she traced his features, pressing her thumb against his lips.

  “Thank you,” he mumbled.

  “For what?”

  “Coming back. No one’s ever done that.”

  She swallowed down a threatening rush of tears. “This will work out, right, Malachiasz?” she whispered.

  He made a sleepy affirmative noise.

  But he was Tranavian, a blood mage, and the Black Vulture for gods’ sake, and she was Kalyazi, a peasant, the cleric.

  Nothing would work out at all.

  interlude vii

  Tsarevna Yekaterina Vodyanova

  Katya waited until the others had all gone to sleep before she made her move. She had grown frustrated, thinking it impossible to kill the Black Vulture, but seeing the relic in the cleric’s hands had changed everything.

  She knew Svoyatova Aleksandra Mozhayeva’s shin bone. She knew what that blade could do. She just wasn’t sure how to get her hands on it without the cleric knowing.

  Someone sat down beside her. Katya tensed.

  “Frankly, I don’t trust you out here alone,” Kacper said.

  “If I haven’t murdered your dear king yet, why would I do it now?” she said, rifling through her pack. She would need magic to sneak into the tent and get the voryen without the cleric—or worse, that Vulture—waking up.

  “A strategist would know to wait.”

  She grinned. “All my reports say you’re the one to watch.”

  He grunted. “Why is that?”

  “The girl is a noble. Hanging around the king is a rebellion. She’s a powerful mage, but there are a lot of those in Tranavia. You are more complicated.”

  “I assure you, you are definitely overthinking it,” he replied.

  “I’m not so sure I am.”

  “Is that what this is about? Reconnaissance to take back to Kalyazin?”

  “That would only be useful if they listened to me,” Katya said. “They do not.”

  Kacper made a thoughtful, if vaguely disbelieving grunt. “They’re all just plotting on how best to destroy the others,” he said. “The cleric, the Vulture, Serefin, that Akolan girl.”

  “But not Rashid?”

  “Rashid does whatever Parijahan wishes him to,” Kacper said. “Which, she’s close with the Vulture, so that could be dangerous.”

  She hadn’t noticed any of this. He was the one to keep an eye on.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  Suddenly a wailing pierced the air. Kacper’s hand moved for his spell book. Katya remained seated. She held out a hand, keeping the Tranavian boy still.

  “Wait,” she whispered.

  The wails were fevered, panicked, morphing into screams so terrified they rattled down to Katya’s bones. She hated this place, regretted ever coming here.

  “Deravich,” she murmured.

  “What?”

  “A monster borne of the dead. Of those who have died in trauma. Keep quiet. If it doesn’t notice us, we’ll be fine.”

  She had been in that clearing with the Lichni’voda. She had seen the inhuman monster the Black Vulture truly was and the kind of power the cleric held within her. She had been marked along with them. It didn’t do her any good to worry about it, but she wished she hadn’t been so curious.

  The wails quieted. Katya sighed.

  “We aren’t welcome here,” Kacper said.

  “Not even a little bit.”

  She took a small vial from her bag. She only needed a bit of magic—and to go into a light stupor to contact a saint. Hopefully this would do the job.

  “Can you keep watch for me for a few minutes?” she asked Kacper.

  She didn’t wait for him to respond before she downed the acidic liquid and moved to slip into the tent.

  The next moment she was aware of, she was back outside with the bone voryen in her hands, breathing hard. She couldn’t shake the feeling that—while she had succeeded—the Vulture knew. She didn’t think he had woken up but everything was always so fuzzy when she used magic. The world’s edges dimmed and colors were wrong. It was a dangerous state to be in, because she was never entirely sure of just what she was doing.

  But she had what she needed. Hopefully the cleric would be too distracted to ever realize it was missing.

  Thirty-Six

  Nadezhda Lapteva

  She dances in the swamp, Zlatana does, waiting for wanderers to hear her merriment. Waiting to pull them to Dziwożona for her bargain with the hag feeds her well.

  —The Books of Innokentiy

  Nadya woke to screaming.

  Malachiasz was out of the tent before Nadya even had time to register what had woken her. She stumbled after him, bleary-eyed and still feeling his warmth against her skin before the blistering cold shocked her awake.

  The second she was outside of the tent Nadya felt it.

  They already had the attention of the fallen gods. She had thought Velyos was something else at first—he’d told her he wasn’t a god, and stupidly she had taken that at face value. Serefin had been dealing with Velyos’ touch upon him and Nadya could feel that. But here there was something else, dark, deep, harder to place, h
arder for her to pinpoint—and this newfound power of hers was tapped into a thread of divinity that meant she was always feeling something. This was different. This was another god.

  Malachiasz held an arm out, stopping Nadya from coming any further. She clutched her hand over her mouth.

  “We are dealing with powers far outside our comprehension,” he murmured. “Is this Velyos?”

  It didn’t feel like Velyos. “I think so.”

  Serefin’s body wracked with seizures and blood fell from his eyes. Nadya grasped for her necklace, catching Marzenya’s bead.

  I have to help him, she prayed.

  “He is far past our help, child,” Marzenya replied.

  Nadya didn’t want to take no for an answer. She slid to the ground where Kacper was holding Serefin down to keep him from clawing at his eyes.

  “I need cloth,” she said. Malachiasz blinked at her before going for his coat and returning with a cloth he used to clean blood off his hands—it was clean, thankfully.

  Nadya moved closer, careful to avoid Serefin’s thrashing, remembering the incident on the boat, his bleeding eyes. She moved behind him, catching the back of his head before it slammed into the ground.

  “All right, you glorious fool,” she murmured as she tied the cloth tight over his eyes. “You’re going to be all right. Fight it if you must but there’s no shame in giving up,” she whispered, her mouth close to his ear. She stroked his hair back from his forehead. “Let me see what we’re dealing with.” She slid her palm over his forehead, closing her eyes.

  She took one horrifying glimpse. Something old and foul had grasped onto Serefin’s soul and was holding on tight. Nadya could do nothing, frozen in place at the foot of an immense stone temple as a massive hand crept through the door. Another hand followed until dozens of hands were all clawing to escape.

  Her eyes flew open, her hand moving away from Serefin’s forehead. This was not a connection she could break. She looked up to where Malachiasz was standing nearby and shook her head.

  “What is it?” Kacper asked, desperation filling his voice.

  “Something ancient.” She shifted off her heels, sitting down with Serefin’s head in her lap. “If he doesn’t break this thing with Velyos, it’s going to devour him.” But even as she spoke, she was certain this wasn’t Velyos. But she didn’t know who it was, and that terrified her.

  What has happened to him?

  “What do we do?” Ostyia asked, panicked.

  Malachiasz rubbed at his jaw, the dark look on his face uncomfortable.

  “Has he given the impression at he knows how to break this?” he asked Kacper.

  “Barely.”

  What does he want? she asked Marzenya.

  “What do you think, child? We banished him a long time ago. What else could he possibly want?”

  Revenge.

  “Even so.”

  “The ruins—” Katya started.

  “He wants Serefin here,” Nadya snapped, cutting her off. “How do we know that pushing him closer isn’t going to set off exactly what he wants?”

  Nadya shivered. She hadn’t grabbed her coat in her dash outside. Malachiasz shrugged out of his and draped it over her shoulders, crouching next to her.

  “There’s nothing to do but keep moving,” he said. “We can only hope our current trajectory is the right one.”

  Nadya nodded, frowning. Acting off of myths and hope. It was flimsy at best and the only thing they had. It was too late to turn around. She got to her feet and Kacper took her spot, placing Serefin’s head in his lap with gentle hands. “Don’t wake him,” she said. “We can wait.”

  “This never would have happened if you hadn’t interfered with Tranavia,” Ostyia snapped.

  “This happened because your last king and he—” She pointed at Malachiasz, who had the decency to look miserable. “—toyed with powers they did not understand. I had nothing to do with this. I want to help him. We help him by continuing forward.”

  It took more blood than Nadya thought Malachiasz could physically spill. She kept waiting for him to pass out but he just kept feeding blood into the spell, his features roiling, the mask crumbling and falling away as he stood at the feet of divinity and it stripped him raw and showed the world what, exactly, he had become.

  He ended up on his knees, head bowed and shaking, and Nadya briefly worried this was the end of him before that terrible, brilliant, monstrous boy struggled back to his feet and slammed his hand against the black wall.

  And the entire thing shattered like a pane of glass.

  He wavered on his feet as the magic fell away and ancient power rushed past them in a torrent that even those who did not touch magic regularly would feel burn into their skin.

  Malachiasz’s mask did not return, and his head twitched, talon tipped fingers fluttering at his side.

  Oh. The forest was already gnawing at his mind. That was it, then. He was gone. So easy, ultimately. So much easier than twisting the knife herself.

  No less painful, she considered, her chest tight.

  She waved the rest of them back and away as she stepped toward Malachiasz, reaching for her well of power. His head snapped up as she approached and he stared at her with black, unfathomable eyes.

  “Dozleyena, sterevyani bolen,” she said, holding a hand out. “You’re going to come back down from that, right, Malachiasz?”

  A shudder at the sound of his name on her tongue. A sharp breath hissed between iron teeth. Fear settled deep in Nadya’s core, different than when she was in the Salt Mines. She could no longer feel the scraps of his coherency.

  That thread that tied them together was tied to something animalistic and harsh. Something powerful and basely cruel.

  He shifted on his feet and Nadya jolted, almost bolting in fear. He took one step closer to her. Blinked onyx eyes—so many of them, sliding across his features in a way that made her stomach turn. It was the horror of the Salt Mines taken further as the little pieces of Malachiasz still holding on were swept away.

  Then he vanished into the forest.

  “Fuck,” Nadya muttered, staring at the spot within the trees where he had disappeared.

  She had shoved him right over the edge to ruin.

  Serefin Meleski

  Serefin only lasted for a few seconds without the cloth tied over his eyes. He had lost the left one entirely, and the right wavered so badly that he could only go a few steps toward Nadya without wanting to vomit from the horrors clawing at his vision. His head pounded with nearly blinding pain as he slowly moved to where the wall of magic had fallen.

  “Do you think we’ve unleashed something by doing that?” he asked amiably, peering at what little he could see through the thin fabric.

  Nadya swallowed hard. “I didn’t even think of that,” she whispered.

  Malachiasz was gone, not much of a surprise to Serefin, but Nadya had paled considerably. Did she really think he was whole enough to help them?

  “He . . .” She started and stopped, her voice wavering dangerously. “He was so normal before. I didn’t think . . .”

  Serefin very carefully put a hand on her shoulder—carefully, since he really couldn’t see where it was—and squeezed gently. She reached up and put her hand over his.

  “You’re in bad shape, too,” she said.

  He shrugged, mostly to mask his sheer terror. He was decidedly not well, but what could he really do about it?

  “You’re going to let the rest out,” Velyos hissed. “Leave everything else to me. Those two will tear each other apart and finish our jobs for us.”

  I’m going to drive you out.

  “I will very much enjoy seeing you try. Help me and you’ll get your chance to kill that creature.”

  Can he be killed?

  “Dear boy, anything can be killed. Even gods.”

  He glanced at Katya, whose features had stayed smooth and oddly unworried.

  It wouldn’t be a long journey to the temple at the base of
the mountains. Nadya had estimated at most a week. But a lot could happen once they stepped past the border keeping all that divine madness in check.

  Kacper moved closer to Serefin and gingerly wrapped his arm around Serefin’s waist.

  “You need help,” he murmured in his ear. He skimmed his nose against Serefin’s cheek. “Let me help.”

  He leaned into Kacper, nodding wearily. “They’re—he’s taking me over,” he said. Nadya tensed at his other side. “If I start sounding odd, or if I . . . do something and it’s clear it’s not . . . well, not me, then—knock me out. It’s horrible when I’m asleep, but it might be easier to handle me.”

  “Serefin . . .” Nadya murmured.

  “Nothing to be done,” Serefin said, falsely cheerful. “Should we be off?”

  Nadya tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. She hadn’t braided it and it hung loose around her shoulders. She picked up Malachiasz’s spell book from where it was lying on the ground, staring at it before handing it to Parijahan. Rashid pulled her into an embrace.

  “It broke him,” Serefin heard her say. “I wouldn’t have asked if I’d really thought . . .”

  Rashid kissed the side of her head. “He was already broken. He wanted to help. He gave us that.”

  She nodded, stepping back and wiping quickly at her eyes. She turned to Serefin. “Let’s go.”

  Kacper took his hand. “Just trust me,” Kacper murmured. “We’ll get to the other side of this like we have everything else.”

  Kacper nudged his forehead against Serefin’s temple and their lips met in a whisper of a kiss. Serefin reached back and made sure the blindfold was firmly tied against his head, and Kacper tugged him forward.

  Thirty-Seven

  Nadezhda Lapteva

  A knife twisted in the gut of the divine as he waits and he watches and he knows that they will fall, they always fall, nothing is eternal except for the darkness.

  —The Volokhtaznikon

  One second, Nadya was with the others, picking their way through a forest that had not been trespassed in hundreds of years. The next, she was completely alone.

  Panic seared through her as the silence suddenly became unbearably loud in her ears. It was hard not to notice the absence of Serefin’s awkward steps as he struggled with only Kacper’s hand to guide him. She turned slowly, afraid of what she might find behind her.