Wicked Saints

by Emily A Duncan

  It’s the bearing, not the symbols, Serefin mused.

  Serefin narrowed his eyes at the sight of the king’s close advisor, Przemysław, hovering near the throne. The slippery old man had been Serefin’s adversary at court for as long as he could remember. Anytime he returned home, Przemysław was there to turn him around and send him back to the front.

  “You took your sweet time returning, I see,” Izak noted as Serefin approached the throne, bowing low before his father.

  “Why, thank you, Father, yes it has been a long time. What’s that? Oh, it’s only been eight months since last I was in Tranavia. Yes, that is a long time to be at the front, but, as you see I am here now mostly unscathed.” He tapped his temple. “Some scars aren’t so visible.”

  His father appeared anything but amused, and while Izak had never been truly appreciative of Serefin’s wit, he could usually at least dredge up a half smile from him. Serefin sobered. This was not a good start.

  “I returned in exactly the amount of time the journey called for,” he said. “I was in the heart of Kalyazin when your missive arrived.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant Kijek informed me of that debacle.”

  “I had it perfectly under control and would have finished the job if not for this summons. And I admit—” Serefin paused, swallowing down the anxiety threatening to choke him. He was suddenly unspeakably nervous. “I’m curious about the necessity of this Rawalyk. It feels rather sudden.”

  “It is tradition, Serefin. Are you arguing against that?” Izak’s voice rose in a way that immediately struck fear deep in Serefin’s bones.

  “I’m arguing against being called away from the war effort seemingly on a whim,” Serefin replied, voice even. He was toeing dangerous territory with his father and he knew it. But if he was just being paranoid, his father would ignore his snark as he usually did and this would end with perfect civility. “We have no need for alliances. Voldoga was a turning point, the Kalyazi won’t be able to hang on much longer, we have no need to go crawling to our neighbors. This is a tradition that hasn’t been acknowledged in years.”

  “And now we’re acknowledging it,” Izak said, his tone chilling.

  Serefin met his father’s cold gaze and shrugged. “It’s a needless waste of resources.”

  “Your concern is noted, yet you’re here.”

  It wasn’t like he was given a choice. He did as he was told, no matter what he was told. It was … exhausting. He rejected the idea of bringing up the Kalyazi spell books he had found on his way home. If the king didn’t ask, why should Serefin tell him? Before he would have brought it up to his father right away, desperate for approval. Now it was painfully clear his father didn’t care. He still wasn’t sure his suspicion was justified, but this was … not the father he knew. He was stern, he was serious, yes, but he was never cold.

  There was movement in the shadows behind the king’s throne. A loose-limbed figure lounging on the steps around the dais. Serefin’s stomach dropped. It was a Vulture, masked and listening in the king’s throne room.

  It was wrong. That was not how things worked in Tranavia. Serefin clenched a fist behind his back.

  “Have the Vultures captured the cleric?” Serefin asked, pulling his gaze away from the one in the corner.

  Izak frowned. A muscle in his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. Serefin raised an eyebrow. Was it because he mentioned the Vultures or something else altogether?

  “Have they not?” Serefin asked innocently.

  “Apparently, there were complications in her retrieval,” Izak said, standing. He was a tall man; Serefin was only the barest inch taller. He folded his hands behind his back and stepped down from the dais. “The Vultures reported she was with a rogue group who were especially cunning.”

  The Vultures had failed? That was rich. Serefin had to stifle the smile threatening to slip through his mask of composure.

  “A rogue Kalyazi group who can stand against the Vultures?”

  “They apparently had a defected Vulture in their midst.”

  Serefin let out an incredulous laugh. “A traitor? Do we know who it was?”

  Izak shook his head. Serefin glanced at Przemysław.

  “The Vultures have been as they always are,” Przemysław said. “Recalcitrant about their dealings. We were informed one of their number had fled. He was a boy who had a difficult transition into their order. His indoctrination was messy. His family are members of the court so extra precautions had to be taken to ensure there were no residual attachments nor capabilities of recognition. From what I understand, they used new methods when indoctrinating him. Painful methods.”

  “So, we have nothing!” Serefin said cheerfully.

  “Serefin!” Izak snapped, casting him such a dark look that he felt like turning and bolting out of the room.

  This is worse than I feared.

  “The Vultures sent were young,” Przemysław said slowly. “They were bewildered to see one of their own amongst enemy rabble, though that brings up questions of their training—”

  “Their training is fine,” a new voice cut in. The Vulture slunk forward. His mask was a visceral affair; jagged edges cut into the leather made it look like it was dripping blood.

  “Then why isn’t the cleric here now?” Serefin asked.

  The Vulture stepped closer to Serefin. “We do not answer to you,” he said, voice low.

  “No,” Serefin replied, “of course not. You just can’t offer any explanation as to why one of your own was found with a Kalyazi cleric.”

  “When our king realized the extraction had gone badly, he had them return to better decide how to deal with the girl,” the Vulture said. He turned away from Serefin to address the king. “I assure you, everything will be handled as it should.”

  “See that it is,” Izak said. “I cannot spare another visit to your Salt Mines so soon.”

  Serefin stiffened. Why would he go to the Salt Mines at all?

  “I should have gone after her,” Serefin muttered.

  The Vulture turned but the king spoke over him.

  “You should do as you’re told.” Again, a lace of venom. An erratic swing from ice to hot anger.

  “Father?” Something slipped in Serefin and his voice was no longer composed. Less the blood mage general and more the boy who wasn’t sure what was happening and still—after all these years—didn’t understand why he had been shoved aside to fight a war he barely believed in. It was a moment of weakness he immediately regretted.

  He didn’t know what he expected from his father. A second of silent understanding? Something to assuage his fears?

  He received only his father’s cold, dismissive glance. His father continued as if nothing had happened.

  “We are allowing three weeks before the Rawalyk begins for the proper delegates to arrive. Until then, your time is your own.”

  Serefin nodded. “Thank you.” What am I supposed to do for three weeks? Especially under the watch of the entire palace. Serefin knew a dismissal when he heard one, so he turned to go.

  “Serefin,” his father called after him. He turned back, some part of him lifting with hope that perhaps this was when his fear would be dispelled, that his father would smile and welcome him home like a son, not an interloper. But all he said was, “Your mother is in Grazyk. You should speak with her.”

  And something in his tone chilled Serefin utterly. Panic flared in Serefin’s chest. “Of course, Father, right away.”

  There was his reconnaissance. Now it was time for strategy.

  When he stepped out of the throne room, Kacper was waiting by the door. He was leaning against the wall, picking at his fingernails and ignoring the guards, who were studiously ignoring him in turn.

  “How bad was it?”

  Serefin glanced at the guards and inclined his head down the hallway. Kacper trailed along behind him. Where could they go to speak freely?

  Nowhere in this damn palace is safe, Serefin thought.

 
“I have concerns,” Serefin finally replied, pausing in the hallway and looking out the window.

  Kacper paled.

  Serefin considered his mother’s return to Grazyk. She would not have come just for the Rawalyk, he knew that much. He wished he could speak with her about his father, but Izak Meleski would know. She would not tell him, but he would know. Serefin ran an absent thumb down the scar on his face. If his mother was back she would have brought her witch back with her. The witch’s tower might be safe from his father’s informants, but that would mean speaking to Pelageya Borisovna.

  His father gave Pelageya a wide berth. The Kalyazi woman had left her own country after rejecting her gods. While she did not have magic, per se, she was something. A seer. A madwoman.

  “Do you know if Pelageya is in her tower?” Serefin asked mildly.

  Kacper’s eyes widened. “What do you want with her?”

  “Someplace my father won’t think to look.” He reached for his spell book, forgetting he had cleaned it out. He sighed. “We have three weeks until the Rawalyk.”

  Kacper nodded. Hopefully it would be enough time to piece together what was going on. If this Rawalyk was just as it appeared, or if it was … something darker.

  Serefin turned to Kacper, opened his mouth, and closed it again. He glanced down the hall. “Come with me,” he said.

  He wove through the labyrinthine halls of the palace, passing servants wearing dull, gray masks, aware of their lingering glances. They reached one of the three spires. Serefin opened the door, ducking into the entranceway.

  A voice formed of ancient promises and death called down: “His Highness has decided to grace me with his presence? We are in dire times.”

  Serefin smiled at Kacper, who looked distressed.

  There was no way to see the top of the tower, but Serefin knew Pelageya was up there, leaning her head down over the railway, looking like a sixteen-year-old dolzena when in truth she was nearly ninety years old. He wondered how she would look when they reached her, if they would get the young woman or the old. Frankly, the young one terrified him.

  “Serefin…” Kacper groaned as Serefin started up the spiral stairs, taking them two at a time. “This is madness. You hate her.”

  “She terrifies me. As she terrifies everyone.” Serefin paused, pulling on the railing as he leaned back. “Like she terrifies my father.”

  Kacper frowned. “She’s Kalyazi. Your father probably has a hundred spells on this tower to know what she gets up to.”

  If Serefin had his spell book, he would have cast a perception spell. Even still, he sliced a finger on the razor inside his sleeve and pressed it against the window.

  “Get your bloody hands off my glass!” Pelageya called.

  The spell wasn’t as strong as it would have been if Serefin had his spell book, but it was sufficient. The witch’s tower was void of his father’s magic, but choked with something ancient and dreadful.

  “There’s nothing of my father’s here.”

  “Blood and bone, of course not. Your mother made sure of that, princeling.”

  Serefin reached the landing only slightly winded—being back at the palace was already getting to him; he had climbed all those ridiculous stairs in Kalyazin and had been fine. He found the young Pelageya at the top. She stood in the doorway to her chambers with her hands propped on her hips. Her black hair was wild and tangled against her pale skin, her sharp eyes dark. Whatever magic she had, whatever it was that allowed her to shift from young to old and back at a whim, it showed in her eyes.

  “My mother?” he asked. Of course his mother. Izak and Klarysa only outwardly tolerated each other. Bringing the witch back to Grazyk was just another way for Klarysa to get under Izak’s skin.

  “Aye. Come in, princeling, I can see you want somewhere to speak without your father’s snooping rats hearing you.” She turned, stepping into her rooms.

  Kacper shot a desperate look at Serefin. “Come on, there are better places for this,” he murmured. “Places that don’t involve being around a crazy Kalyazi witch.”

  “Don’t try so hard to compliment me, Zyweci,” she called.

  Serefin entered Pelageya’s rooms. Black rugs overlapped on the floor and deer skulls hung from the walls, tied up by their antlers. The witch sat in a plush ivory chair, her legs crossed underneath her, twisting a lock of black hair in between her fingers, eyeing Serefin with her head cocked to one side.

  “You’ve realized your father isn’t so good a father to you, eh?” she asked.

  “What is he planning?”

  “No one but he knows. Klarysa has her suspicions, but of course she could do little from her seclusion in the lake country. She can do a bit more in Grazyk, now, but…” She waved a hand to the ragged chair across from her. Serefin sat cautiously.

  “Your people put little stock in prophecy and foretelling,” she said, gazing off into the middle distance. “So odd, for a people so entrenched in blood magic, that the Kalyazi are a more superstitious lot. You have your monsters; they have their demons.” She fell silent.

  “But?” Serefin prompted.

  “Your father has become quite interested in prophecies made by a Tranavian mage named Piotr. Apparently he killed himself right after the foretelling. Threw himself into a lake with a brick tied around his neck. That’s a death you read about in the Kalyazi book of martyrs.”

  “What kind of foretelling?”

  “Damned if I know.” She grinned.

  Kacper shot him a pointed look. Serefin leaned back in his chair.

  “But, topically,” Pelageya continued. “Piotr himself was quite fascinated with an apocryphal Kalyazi story about a woman named Alyona Vyacheslavovna. She was just another Kalyazi martyr and yet the story goes that she ascended to godhood. Wouldn’t that be a fate?”

  Serefin raised an eyebrow. Apocryphal Kalyazi stories weren’t going to do him any good right now.

  He still felt too unsafe to say the words aloud. To say he suspected his father was going to kill him in the midst of the Rawalyk. He didn’t have any proof, just a foreboding shadowing his every thought. “I think my father wants to put the winner of the Rawalyk on the throne,” he said.

  “Of course he does. It’s all a test to find our next royal consort, is it not?” Pelageya said, but her black eyes returned to Serefin’s face. She knew what he was suggesting.

  “I think he wants me out of the picture.”

  Kacper shook his head. “The people would riot. The low princes would—”

  “The low princes would see it as an unfortunate death, but be thankful the Rawalyk had decided a new line now that the High Prince is gone,” Serefin said, interrupting him.

  Kacper blinked. “It still doesn’t make sense. You’re his only heir.”

  Serefin lifted his eyebrows. He was the only heir, yes, but he was also the stronger mage, the one shifting the war to Tranavia’s favor, the one history would remember. Kacper’s expression darkened.

  Pelageya nodded. “Blood and blood and bone. Magic and monsters and tragic power.”

  Serefin heard Kacper’s irritated huff of breath and shot him a warning look.

  “This whole world is going mad,” Pelageya said. “The war is eating at us all. Can it continue? Will it continue forever? Will someone finally break the cycle or will we be plunged into a new century of death? The Kalyazi have their hope; what do the Tranavians have, eh? Their king. Their prince. The knowledge that their king and their prince are undeniably mortal. Their Vultures? That terrible cult.”

  Serefin’s eyes narrowed. Kacper stiffened.

  “What if the prince were a harder one to kill? Blood and blood and bone. What if those gods the Kalyazi worship aren’t gods at all? Demons of superstition, monsters and magic.”

  “This is getting us nowhere,” Kacper grumbled. He put a hand on Serefin’s shoulder, trying to get him to leave.

  Pelageya stared past Serefin’s shoulder. “You drive a spike into their neck. You wait u
ntil the wailing stops, you give them a draught of blood. Drink it! Drink it all, never mind whose it is for you will be dead in—ah, three, two, one. Again. Another. That one failed. That did not work. Mortals are so fragile, so easy to break, but blood … Blood and blood and bone. The Salt Mines work so hard, the Vultures so meticulous in their specific brand of torture. The answer is here. The answer has always been here. Gut the Kalyazi churches, melt their gold, grind their bones. Divinity and blood and blood and bone.”

  Kacper’s hand tightened. Serefin could feel his speeding pulse through his fingertips.

  Pelageya twitched. Her hand reached out, long fingers stretched into the air. “The girl. The girl and the monster and the prince … and…” She twitched again, waving her hand by her ear against some imaginary irritant. “And the … queen? Not a queen but a queen. The queen of the wraith or the dark. But no. Power and blood and this pageantry is just a facade and there is more, there is more. The signs will come as they do and they will be ignored or heeded but they are signs, only signs.”

  “Serefin!” Kacper tugged on Serefin’s arm. He pulled away.

  “You have time! Time is slipping but it’s there, it’s there, it remains to be captured. You take it, you hold it. The girl and the monster and the prince and the last one is wrong, the last one hides in the darkness, in the shadows. And maybe the boy made of gold and the boy made of darkness are mirrors. And maybe all will be swallowed by the things you hide from; maybe, maybe you will be consumed.” Pelageya abruptly stopped.

  A heavy silence fell over the room, the only sound coming from the crackling fire. Serefin glanced at Kacper, who was staring at Pelageya with barely concealed horror on his face.

  “Thank you, Pelageya,” Serefin murmured, his voice strained as he stood up.

  “You are always welcome to return here, princeling,” she said sweetly. “But be warned, your father will notice, and you don’t want that.”