“I’d always thought a schism among the Vultures would be impossible,” Malachiasz said. “But I think we’ve stepped into something bigger than just a silly pageant for a queen. If the Salt Mines are involved, definitely so.”
“If we accomplish this, what will happen with the Vultures?”
“Theoretically, nothing. They would step back if Tranavia fell into chaos. Still…”
“Still,” Rashid said, “the king seems to have forsaken his usual retainer of guards in favor of the Vultures.”
“They’re not guards,” Malachiasz said.
“What are they, then, Malachiasz?” Nadya asked. He was becoming increasingly agitated. Nadya wasn’t going to ignore the tremors of doubt she had when he appeared to falter.
He waved a hand. “It would be like your Kalyazi tsar having clerics act as guards. It’s not their purpose, they’re not supposed to be so deeply connected to the secular throne.”
Nadya sighed. “Except religion is interwoven into our government. It’s not a thing to be shoved aside.” She didn’t like comparing monsters with her religion, but it was an apt enough example. “But back to the point, we have to get past the Vultures to get to the king?”
Rashid glanced at Malachiasz, but nodded. Malachiasz leaned back on the chaise, pulling at his lower lip.
“That complicates things,” Nadya said. “We can’t just wait for the opportune moment. I need to know what I’m doing if this is going to work.”
Malachiasz nodded. “You’re going to go to the dinner. Watch the king. Charm the prince. He’ll be your way to get to the king. Tell me exactly what the masks on the Vultures near the king look like.”
He was going to deal with the Vultures. Fine. Good, even, because Nadya didn’t know what to do when they were involved. They were a variable she feared and did not understand.
Rashid stood. “I’ll go find Parijahan; you don’t have much time before dinner.”
That left just Nadya and Malachiasz.
“You should go as well,” she said softly.
She could feel his gaze burning against her face, but she refused to look at him. She saw him stand and move toward the door out of the corner of her eye, but he changed his mind. Instead, he dropped down into a crouch in front of Nadya’s chair so he was looking up at her.
“I acted without trusting your judgment, and for that I apologize,” he said.
It’s not an apology for murdering that girl, she noted. But it was a start. It was something from this boy who obviously had no morals and no regard for anything that didn’t serve his own interests. She just wished she could understand what those interests were.
“Nadya,” he started, then stopped. He let out a frustrated breath.
Inexplicably, she felt herself soften. She reached out and threaded her fingers into his soft black hair, letting her hand settle against the side of his head.
Why—after being so furious with him—did she find herself desperately yearning to kiss him? The heat of anger that he sparked was still fresh in her veins and yet she couldn’t help but gaze at the bow of his lips.
She was feeling too many things in too little time. She wanted it all to stop. She wanted whatever this was she felt for him to stop.
If he was startled by her actions, he didn’t show it. He let another moment pass between them—fraught with a tension still too new to her—before he spoke. “You have to trust me, Nadya,” he said, his voice low. “I know I am everything you have been taught to hate and more. I have done terrible things in my life. If I disgust you, I understand. But—”
“We have to work together,” Nadya whispered. “All four of us, or else this whole mess of a plan will go up in smoke and we’ll all be hanged for it.”
He leaned his head into her hand and she felt herself warm. To have another person react to her touch was a peculiar feeling, a connection she had never really had with anyone. The monastery didn’t encourage relationships; one’s devotion to the gods was more important.
This was a disaster. Anyone, anyone but him. Anyone but the enemy boy who had tormented her people, who was faithless, godless, monstrous. If she tore out her own heart would this stop? If that was the thing betraying her, then she would be rid of it. Anything to stop from being pulled to this terrible boy.
“It could be worse than hanging,” he mused.
She couldn’t help her strained laugh. “You would know.”
“And you and I need to come to an understanding,” he continued. “We can be enemies when all this is over.”
It was fairly clear now that enemies wasn’t quite what they were before, and an understanding probably wasn’t going to be what either of them wanted.
Maybe she had knocked her head during the duel, but she found herself sliding her other hand up his neck to cradle his cheek. He grew very still, as if he truly thought her a little bird and sudden movement might startle her away.
“What if I don’t want to be enemies when all this is over?” she asked softly, her voice betraying her by trembling. Her heart was pounding in her throat.
His expression didn’t falter. “Then we can come to a different understanding.”
“I think that would be best.”
To steady himself, he put his hands on either side of her, one brushing against her thigh. She tensed and he started to pull back, so before the moment slipped away she pulled him closer and kissed him.
Something unspooled within her chest, something she had kept close her whole life. This act—the pressure of his lips against hers, and the heat that flooded her veins—this was heresy.
And she wanted more of it. She twisted her fingers into his hair and felt his hand slip up to her waist. His lips were soft and he kissed her back tentatively.
Sighing, he pulled away again. A flush tinted his pale skin and his hand on her waist tightened a fraction. He pressed his forehead to hers.
“The understanding I had in mind was one that kept you safer than this, towy dżimyka,” he said, voice rueful.
“Oh so boring. I grew up in a monastery, I’ve been safe all my life,” Nadya replied.
An achingly mournful half smile caught at his lips and it took all of Nadya’s willpower not to kiss him again. He was struggling with the same pull. He lifted a hand and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear, his touch burning down her cheek. His gaze tracked over her face, searching for something, but she wasn’t sure what.
Anyone but him, she thought again desperately, but she was still drowning from the touch of his lips.
She thought of the echoes of power she had drawn on during the duel. Her expression must have changed because Malachiasz’s eyes narrowed.
“Nadya?”
His spell book was still at her side and her hand moved to shift it onto her lap. She trailed her fingers over the cover. How did she put to words that she had tasted the darkness he harnessed and she was terrified? How best to let him know there was still a part of him that she found viscerally unsettling? She flipped it open, landing on a spell scrawled page.
“Did you feel it?” she asked.
He paled and leaned back on his heels, swallowing hard. He nodded.
“You knew this could happen.”
“I … did not. I thought nothing at all would happen if there was … no…”
“Blood,” she finished for him. “Except this is all a grand performance, no? So, of course there was.”
He seemed troubled for exactly seven seconds before the feral gleam returned to his eyes. “And? What was it like?”
“Horrible.”
He hesitated, then lifted his hand and gently pressed his fingers over hers. She wanted to move away, she wanted to pull him closer.
They stared at each other. He smiled slightly. “It helped, right? You never would have gotten out of that duel alive if not for my magic.”
The tension broke. She whacked his shoulder. He laughed.
“I have to go,” he said, straightening up. There was so much of him to straighten; h
e was so tall. “We’ll talk about this later? I’ll be honest, I have no idea what it means.”
“If we have a later,” Nadya muttered.
He softly ran a hand through her hair. “Even so. Dazzle the monsters, Nadya. You’ve already charmed the worst of the lot; the rest should be easy.”
She looked up at him, startled. He winked at her.
“I’m still mad at you,” she said, but the words felt flat.
“I know.” He grinned as he slipped his mask back over his face. He was gone before she could say anything more.
She pressed a hand to her lips, wrenching her eyes shut. There would be hell to pay for this.
22
SEREFIN
MELESKI
Svoyatovi Leonid Barentsev: A cleric of Horz, he lived in Komyazalov as an academic who taught the Codex of the Divine. It is believed Tranavian assassins poisoned him, but his body was never recovered nor found.
—Vasiliev’s Book of Saints
Serefin’s stomach dropped when he opened his door and Kacper staggered in. He looked haggard, like he hadn’t slept in days. Serefin steadied him, pulling him into his rooms and shutting the door.
It wasn’t safe for them to speak here and he had to be at dinner in an hour.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Kacper leaned back against the door and slowly slid to the floor. “I was stopped in the hall by one of the Vultures that’s been shadowing your father.”
Serefin felt dizzy all of a sudden. He hadn’t even had anything to drink in hours. He glanced cautiously at the seam where the wall met the ceiling.
“And?”
Kacper shook his head. “Nothing. A warning? I don’t know.” He sighed. “I’m supposed to attend to you this evening,” he said, his eyes flickering shut.
“Ostyia will be fine on her own.”
Kacper raised an eyebrow, eyes opening. “Historically speaking, multiple people will die tonight.”
“Historically speaking, it probably won’t be me. Besides, you look terrible.” He pulled on his coat, black with red epaulets and gold buttons down the front. He checked to make sure his razors were still sewn into the sleeves. “All right, tell me what you’ve found.”
“You know how I mentioned I was going to look into the list of participating nobles?”
Serefin nodded.
“A number of them haven’t backed out due to nerves, but are missing entirely.” Kacper reached into his pocket and handed Serefin a stack of crumpled papers. “Also, my agent returned from the Salt Mines. It’s not good, Serefin.”
“When is anything?” Serefin asked as he unfolded the paper. His hands were shaking, he noted absently, an afterthought.
He read through the report, his heart sinking.
“Is this real?” His voice came out weak.
Kacper nodded.
The Vultures and the king were working together—though Serefin knew that wasn’t quite true. Puppet strings. They had nearly succeeded in their goal with a new experiment, so said the papers. But their last was too strong-willed and difficult to control. They were moving to a new step in their gruesome process and placing his father at the center of it.
It felt like a sick joke. As if everything had been in front of his face the whole time but he had been too focused on the wrong things to see it. The Tranavians’ flight from the gods hadn’t been so simple and easy as magic and atheism.
“My father is a weak mage,” Serefin rasped, his voice strained.
Kacper nodded.
If he was reading this correctly—and he wasn’t sure he was—the Vultures had found a way to more power than any mortal should ever be able to reach, and they were going to give it to Izak Meleski. For a price. A sacrifice. That little anecdote from Pelageya about a mortal becoming divine now felt sickeningly ironic. It would only cost Izak his son, a paltry trade in the grand scheme of things. What was Serefin’s life in comparison to unlimited power?
This was his father’s chance to finally prove to his kingdom and his people that he wasn’t just a weak king and weak blood mage. He would be more; he would be greater. He would become a god.
“He’s … gone mad,” Serefin said. It was the only explanation. The Vultures, his mother’s skittishness, Pelageya’s warnings. His father had lost his mind.
And Serefin would pay the price.
Kacper glanced at the ceiling. Serefin growled, pulled his dagger from its sheath and sliced open his hand. He slammed it down onto the table nearby and the smell of smoke filled the room as he snapped all the spells placed by his father. Damn the consequences.
“Do you know who this former success is?” Serefin pointed at a line in the report.
“The Black Vulture is likely, but, no, I have no idea.”
Serefin rubbed his forehead. The Black Vulture wasn’t important right now.
When had his father’s mind snapped? He tried to think back further—he had been so out of touch with what happened in Tranavia while he was at the front; were there signs all along? He thought of the Tranavian villages he’d ridden through, destitute and close to fading away entirely. His father seemed indifferent about the plight of the country as a whole, the plight this war was spurring forward. It hadn’t always been like that. He remembered when his father cared, even if it was years ago.
He might never know when things had changed.
Serefin leaned back against the table, suddenly weary. “How much blood would be needed to set this into motion?”
Kacper didn’t respond.
The pieces were beginning to align, and the picture they were forming was too horrifying to comprehend.
“Perhaps the blood of the finest mages in Tranavia, brought into one place under the guise of the Rawalyk,” Serefin whispered. “Common blood would do no good, it has to be blood with power. The girls disappearing, have any of them been from families that don’t use magic?”
Kacper shook his head. “All blood mages. What if—” Kacper paused, unsure of what he was saying. “If this has never been done before, we don’t know what will truly happen to your father.”
“I’ll be dead, so I don’t really care what will happen to my father,” Serefin countered. “But, what if … what if it has been done before?” he muttered, mind racing. “The answer is here.”
Kacper lifted his head. “What?”
“The witch. The witch’s words, blood and bone. ‘Gut the Kalyazi churches, melt their gold, grind their bones.’ What else did she say?”
“‘What if those gods the Kalyazi worship aren’t gods at all?’” Kacper asked, horror lacing his voice.
Serefin nodded slowly. He didn’t care about the Kalyazi gods, but if they were something else entirely, what would that mean for Tranavia?
“So, what do we do?”
Serefin tried to think but came up blank. What could they do? What could they do when his mad father was steps away from godlike powers?
What could they do when the very girl who communed with these creatures had slipped from their grasp and was out in the world to wreak havoc?
“Do we truly have no way to find the cleric?”
Kacper’s dark gaze met Serefin’s pale eyes knowingly. “Is going back to the witch wise? Your father will suspect you’re up to something.”
Serefin waved to the blood smeared on the table behind him. His father already suspected. “I am up to something.”
There was a sharp knock at the door and Serefin and Kacper both jumped. Serefin hastily wrapped his still-bleeding hand with cloth while Kacper got the door. Ostyia blinked her single eye at the sight of both of them.
“Are you boys all right?”
“Not at all, but I suppose that doesn’t matter right now,” Serefin replied as Kacper moved to a chair.
She held out a hand and Serefin gave her the report. Her face grew withdrawn as she scanned the pages.
“I see,” was all she said. “Dinner is soon.”
Serefin nodded.
&nbs
p; “I’m going to burn this,” Ostyia said, holding up the report. “This is bad, Serefin.”
“I’m well aware.”
“It’s not just you who is in danger either, it’s every blood mage here. Every noble, the entire Tranavian ruling class.”
“I’m just in the most danger,” he said, smiling thinly.
She nicked a finger against a hidden razor in her sleeve and the report went up in flames. Her solemn frown deepened at the effort of casting an elemental spell, but it faded as she brushed the ash from her hands.
“You have somewhere you need to be. We can figure out what to do about this later,” she said.
Kacper stood. Serefin wanted to tell him to stay behind, but he knew Ostyia—as a slavhka—would be required to attend the dinner as nobility and not as Serefin’s sometime body guard.
“You really look dreadful,” Serefin told him, stepping closer and attempting to rake Kacper’s hair back into the semblance of neatness. He tugged on his crumpled jacket, but nothing he did would straighten the wrinkles.
Kacper shot him a lopsided smile. “It’s not every day I get to deliver news that the king is trying to turn himself into a god, eh?”
Serefin grimaced. A god. Hearing it aloud made it feel all the more real and all the more terrifying. There was a reason Tranavia had broken from the hold of the gods. There was a reason they had rejected the rules and the customs, the constant oppression of having a being greater than you rule over you by their own idea of morality. What his father was doing wasn’t going to change anything; it was just going against the entire essence of being Tranavian.
If Serefin had to cut him down to restore the throne to what it should be, so be it. His father had lost his right to the throne by reaching for this kind of ideal. Reaching for more power was one thing—that was admirable—but this? This was too far. It would crumble Tranavia’s already delicate government.
But there was no time for panicking. Serefin had to pretend he was just a petulant prince home from the war and nothing more than that. He used to be so good at pretending.
* * *
The banquet hall was lit by crystal chandeliers that flickered golden light over the long table. Serefin found his place was beside Józefina, with Żaneta across from him. It was unusual, he was used to sitting at the high table, but apparently protocol had been shifted.
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