“You, too,” Katya said to the priestess. “I don’t feel great after that. I wish…” She trailed off, staring at the doorway Malachiasz had disappeared through.
“You wish we could do this without him,” Anna said.
“I wish he was dead,” Katya muttered.
Anna turned to Nadya. “How do you reconcile that?”
Nadya picked up the book Malachiasz had left; he’d taken the rest. He’d have them all read by the time she saw him again.
“I can’t,” she said. “What he’s done … What he’s gone through doesn’t make it acceptable, but it does explain him. He’s profoundly lonely and broken and I don’t think he can be fixed.” She shrugged. “He’s trying to fix this, though.”
“You love him, don’t you?”
Katya rolled her eyes. Nadya fought the impulse to deny it. She wondered if it was possible for her heart to burst from all the strange, complicated, messy feelings she had for this boy.
She loved him. It was terrifying and awful and going to ruin her life. He was stupid and clever and cruel and gentle and such a mess of contradictions that her heart hurt.
So, all she said was one very soft, “Yes.”
“All right, then,” Anna said.
Katya shot Anna an incredulous look. “That’s it?”
Anna shrugged. “That’s it.”
Nadya nearly burst into tears. Anna smiled gently at her and very carefully took her corrupted hand.
“It’s your heart and your decision. After listening to you talk about everything that happened, I can’t say I understand it, but I see how much he means to you. I’m not surprised, you became friends so quickly after meeting.”
Nadya had wanted to put a knife in his heart from the moment she’d met him until the moment she’d first kissed him. She still wanted to put a knife in his heart after most conversations with him. She said as much.
Katya made a thoroughly disgusted sound. “All those eyes,” she muttered. “If this is what we’re doing, how do we even start? How does someone lose their soul? I was hoping those boys would know more than they did.”
Nadya had to agree. She didn’t like how Malachiasz had looked for most of the conversation. His skin too pale and beaded with sweat. His pupils too large.
“Have you ever heard the term bolivgoy used?” Katya asked.
“The forest, maybe?” Nadya asked.
“It’s … wildly heretical,” Anna said with a contemplative frown.
They were walking through the bare hallway of the complex. Occasional icons hung on the walls and Nadya looked away. She didn’t want to see what her presence had wrought.
Katya gestured for Anna to continue as she pushed open the door outside.
“The Church has been calling for the death of such beings. That’s all I know,” Anna paused. “Is Malachiasz truly a god?”
Nadya took her time answering as they left the walls of the complex—it had definitely been a monastery once. It was cold out—maybe it would never be warm again. Snow had fallen during the night, piling heavy on tree branches and the road before them.
“That brings into question what we think of as gods, doesn’t it?” she said. It was all well and good to be told she was made from the same stuff as the old gods, but she didn’t understand what that meant. Was her fate to lose the fragile pieces of her humanity and become like those she spoke with? Would that happen to Malachiasz?
“Malachiasz is some kind of chaos god,” Nadya continued. “But he’s human, still. I do think he was on to something, but there’s a missing piece, something he didn’t consider that kept him tethered.”
Katya made a disgusted noise, kicking a snowbank.
“You, perhaps?” Anna suggested.
Nadya had never considered that. Could she be the reason he never made it to true ascendency?
The entropy at his edges. The eyes and changes that shifted across his skin infected with darkness. Katya was right. The longer he was like this, the more he and Chyrnog melded together. The thought was terrifying.
“And we want to … save Tranavia’s Black Vulture,” Anna said.
“Gods, it sounds even more ridiculous when you say it out loud,” Katya said.
“He has to save himself,” Nadya said.
“You’re putting a lot of faith in a boy who has proven time and again his willingness to commit atrocities in pursuit of power,” Katya pointed out.
“He’s the only thing holding back the end of the world,” Nadya said.
“How do we know he’s not waiting to turn on us? He’s done it before.”
They came upon a small hut in the snow, chickens pecking idly around it. Katya pounded on the door with an authority she clearly never considered anymore.
The door swung open underneath her hand. Katya frowned. “Lavrentiy?” she called. She stepped inside, cautiously.
Nadya followed. The second she was past the threshold, she sighed. She knew the taste of this power.
“Pelageya,” she said, stepping past Katya and into the sitting room.
“Wait,” Katya said, stepping back outside and staring at the hut. “Wait, how?”
The witch laughed, clasping her hands together. “You! How unexpected!”
Nadya flopped down into a chair, exhausted. She frowned and worked a small skull out from underneath her, setting it on a nearby table.
“How do you do this?”
“I come when I’m wanted. It’s simple.”
Katya tentatively entered the room, Anna behind her.
“Was it you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, child,” Pelageya said in a way that only confirmed Nadya’s growing suspicions of where Kostya had gotten Velyos’ pendant. “Tea? You didn’t bring your Tranavian boys? Shame, I’ve grown quite fond of them. They’re so delightfully foolish.”
“Why?” Nadya asked, ignoring Pelageya’s deflection, but taking the tea. Pelageya made very good tea. “Why did you give Kostya that pendant? Why all the nonsense prophecies and spinning us in circles? Who are you?”
Pelageya lifted her eyebrows. “You know who I am.”
“You’re a witch,” Katya said.
“I’m the witch,” Pelageya said, tapping the side of her nose. “And what are you, little eldritch beast playacting at something holy?”
Nadya sighed. “Why couldn’t I just be a cleric?” she said.
“You are! You talk to the gods; the gods talk to you. You’re mortal. You can die.”
“Then why does everyone keep telling me I’m not?”
Pelageya tilted her head. “Ah, how did you enjoy Komyazalov?”
Nadya shifted further down in her chair. “I don’t know who was worse, Nyrokosha or Magdalena.”
Anna snorted softly.
“Magdalena,” Pelageya said thoughtfully. “At least with an old god like Nyrokosha we know their intentions are straightforward.”
“How are you doing all of this, Pelageya?” Nadya asked.
Pelageya glanced at Katya and Anna and back to her. “It’s all magic, child.”
“That’s not how magic works.”
“No, it’s not. Not anymore. Magic has changed and its threads race out throughout the world. It infects, blesses, consumes, destroys, and creates. Would this have been possible without you and your Vulture and that king and prasīt? I think not. You altered the course of the world. It was always going to change, it was merely a matter of who was going to do it.”
“You believe our fates are preordained?” Katya asked.
Pelageya let out a pealing laugh. “Absolutely not. Though,” she regarded Katya, “you might be different.”
Katya flushed.
“And you! Dear child. Daughter of darkness, daughter of death, you who let yourself be taken apart to discover the truth of yourself. Do you understand, yet, what it means? Godstouched, but not like other clerics, no, because there was already divinity in your veins. You had already been touched by something far darker.
”
Nadya frowned. She drew her legs up and hugged them. “But my parents…”
“Human. You’re mortal, dear, or at least, you possess mortality.”
Nadya winced. She didn’t like how that sounded.
“The pieces in this game have been moving for a very long time. There are so many more old gods than the ones you know. Do they all wish to be free? Hardly. Many are content to dwell in the depths of the universe. But there are as many who wish freedom. Chyrnog. Nyrokosha. Valyashreva. Morokosh. And a few have lost their names, and thus their reason. And what if they knew their time was soon approaching? What if they had been trying, again and again, each time a child was godstouched, to press their hands to that child as well?”
Nadya took in a sharp breath.
“Haven’t you ever wondered why the clerics went away, Nadezhda? Why you are the only one left? Why the gods would all speak through one fragile girl when they could be taking clerics of their own? Why vengeful, petty Marzenya would be willing to share?”
“Because they knew what the old gods were doing,” Nadya whispered.
Pelageya nodded. “The anointing ceased because there was no way to know if an old god had swept the child up in their clutches.”
She had been the child touched by darkness. She hugged herself tighter. “Do you know which one, Pelageya?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Pelageya replied. “They are all terror and rage. Their hands have shaped you as the gods’ have. You are a creature of darkness and chaos and starlight and I have watched you so valiantly try to keep this world from plunging into madness and I do not know if you will succeed or fail. Because it grows harder, doesn’t it, child? To ignore their whispers. To not hunger for the magic and power that sustains them.”
Nadya thought of stealing Zvezdan’s power. “Why not tell me this a year ago?”
Pelageya tilted her head. “Child, a year ago you wouldn’t have believed me. You were held in the grip of the Church and the belief that magic should only come from the gods. This is why I don’t give prophecies; I merely give you what I see because I don’t know in what directions you will move.”
“And was my direction expected?” Nadya, who, over a year ago, was barely able to touch Malachiasz’s spell book without feeling unclean. Nadya, now, who cut her arms and cast from that same book and kissed a boy so much worse than everything she was taught to hate.
“I never know what to expect!” Pelageya said cheerfully.
Nadya couldn’t look at Katya or Anna. This conversation wasn’t finished, but she couldn’t take any more.
“If I come back, will you be here?”
“Of course, child. Bring your Tranavians! Delightful boys. Absolutely wretched.”
Nadya fled.
* * *
Nadya didn’t wait for Anna and Katya. She wanted to see Malachiasz. To fight, to talk. She was rattled and doomed and they were out of time and she wanted whatever stolen moments together they could get.
She yanked his spell book out of her pack, holding it against her chest as she went in search of him. She was still wearing his jacket and she tugged the overlong sleeves down over her hands.
“Exactly who I was looking for!”
Nadya stopped, turning to Parijahan with lifted eyebrows. “I was going to find Malachiasz, but I guess it can wait?” She wasn’t anticipating revisiting their argument. Half of what she’d said to him had only been because he’d looked so infuriatingly self-assured.
“He’s in the library.”
“Of course he is.”
“And he’s who I wanted to talk to you about.” Parijahan hooked her arm through Nadya’s, tugging her in the opposite direction.
“We’re a little beyond the ‘he’s bad for you’ speech.”
“Have you been getting a lot of those?” Parijahan asked amiably.
“It’s been deeply implied in anything said to me now that he isn’t dead.”
“I’m fairly certain you’re allowed to make your own bad decisions.”
Nadya snorted.
Parijahan glanced sidelong at her. “To warn you … what I’m about to ask will potentially make you want to sink into the floor.”
“Ominous! Wait, I’m getting a cup of tea.” She disentangled herself as they reached the kitchens, pouring them both tea from the samovar. The coals had recently been stoked underneath it.
“I worry about you! I can’t help it! Your education was…”
“Specialized?” Nadya offered.
“To put it nicely. And you and Malachiasz are sharing a room and I…”
Oh.
Nadya froze halfway to the table. “Parj,” she said, her voice strangled.
“Melting into the floor?”
“I’m at least seven feet under.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Nadya was quite certain her face had never felt hotter. She set the mugs of tea down so she could bury her face in her hands. Parijahan laughed softly.
“We haven’t,” Nadya mumbled.
“No?”
She shook her head quickly. And as if she wasn’t living the most mortifying moment of her life already, Kacper came in.
“Sorry, am I interrupting something?” he asked, one eyebrow lifted.
“No,” Nadya squeaked, sitting down and hiding her face in the steam from her tea.
“What kind of poisons do you have on you?” Parijahan asked him. This was the worst day of Nadya’s life.
Kacper paused in pouring his own tea, glancing over his shoulder. “Are you planning on poisoning someone? I object to Serefin or Ostyia, but anyone else is fair game.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Parijahan, darling, I always have a variety of poisons on my person.”
“Any thistlerot?”
He frowned slightly, topped off his tea and turned around. “Yes.”
“It’s a contraceptive in small doses.”
“I’m aware,” he said. “I can get you some, but blood and bone, don’t tell me any more.”
“Wait, Kacper,” Nadya said. She had an idea now of how to get information without Malachiasz knowing. “Do you…” she trailed off, frowning. “Do you have anything to put someone to sleep?”
His mouth twisted slightly. “Well, I have something, but it’s slow acting. It’ll knock you out, but it takes a few hours to really work.”
“That would be perfect. How good are you at drugging someone’s tea?”
“I’m offended you have to ask,” Kacper said.
“Could you drug Malachiasz’s tea tonight?”
A slow smile stretched across his face. “I would love nothing more.”
“Worrying but deserved, I suppose.”
He grinned. “And I’ll get you that thistlerot.”
“Oh, thank you—wait—” She dropped her face into her hands as Kacper laughed.
“No one here needs to worry about that sort of problem,” he said.
She groaned softly. “Let’s go back to all politely pretending we’re not very aware of the states of each other’s relationships.”
“You are not a particularly private person when it comes to you and that Vulture, sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”
“Let me live in ignorance.”
He grinned before wandering out of the room. Nadya decided she would die right there with her face in her hands.
Parijahan gently squeezed her shoulder. “Personally, I think you should hold onto whatever happiness you can.”
“I don’t know if I’ll use the tea,” Nadya said softly. It was a terrifying step. She knew it was mostly her upbringing coloring everything, and it was something she wanted, but she was scared of the actual act of wanting. As if she wasn’t allowed.
“I will never know! Unless you want to tell me. I was merely worried about you. The two of you are so … intense.”
Nadya took a long sip of tea. “Worried about me?”
“Nadya, you’re my friend.”
She blinked, confused. Parijahan tilted her head, eyeing her.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m not used to people caring about me. The cleric, sure, yes, absolutely, but not me.”
“Maybe you tell yourself that people only care about the cleric when they’re caring for you.”
Nadya made an unconvinced noise. Sure, maybe, but that was undercut by most of them going out of their way to betray her. Malachiasz had wanted her power. Serefin kept her around because she was politically useful. She said as much to Parijahan, who scowled.
“Malachiasz is a lovestruck idiot over you. Serefin ignores people he doesn’t care about and he does not ignore you. I admit I struggle with understanding Katya’s motivations, but you would be ashes under a pyre if she didn’t. Nadya.” Parijahan took her hands. “We’re your friends.”
Nadya bit her lower lip to keep from crying.
“Great, then! Now that I’ve assuaged my fears and utterly embarrassed you, I’ll let you be on your way,” Parijahan said brightly, standing. She kissed Nadya’s head.
“I’m asking Kacper for some mild poison to put in your tea,” Nadya muttered.
“I would expect nothing less!”
Nadya left the kitchens not long after her, face still burning. Made all the worse by Kacper finding her in the hallway and handing her a small pouch with the most insufferable grin on his face.
“If you say anything to Serefin—”
“I can be discreet!” he exclaimed, turning smartly on his heels and disappearing down an adjacent hallway.
“This is a nightmare,” Nadya muttered. She needed to not let the previous conversation ruin everything she had to discuss with Malachiasz.
She wondered if she should be concerned that he was off by himself, wandering through the small library at the top of the tower. He didn’t acknowledge her as she approached, but his shoulders visibly tensed.
“Can we talk?” she asked, holding out his spell book. She had read every page, looked at every sketch. She knew what this meant to him. His eyes widened, and he made a jerky motion toward her, like he wanted to snatch it away. She gently put it in his hands, taking his dagger and handing him that, too.
He was quiet, fingers tracking over the worn leather, glancing around the icons still pressed into it. It was stained with blood and some of the pages were loose from the number of times he had unbound and rebound it, adding more. He flipped through, a light frown tugging at his tattoos. Could he read the spells he had written? She was afraid to ask.
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