Blessed Monsters

by Emily A Duncan

  He had what he wanted but nothing was right. There had to be another step forward. Surely all the pieces could not have fallen so fast.

  The Vultures. He needed to get back to the Vultures. He needed to go home.

  To do what? To what end? He didn’t even know if he could get out of this forest. It was idly chewing at the back of his mind. And he let it, if it wanted his madness, it could have it.

  He blinked, confused. He wasn’t in the church anymore. Like he had been taken apart, scattered, and reformed somewhere … else.

  The clearing.

  He swore softly, spinning in a slow arc to take in his surroundings. It did not look as it had when he had been here with Nadya. There had been forty statues in a ring, each more grotesque and bewildering than the last.

  There hadn’t been an altar in the center. Or bones scattered around the clearing, shattered skulls and broken ribs. No fresh blood scrawled in a pattern along the stones.

  A black decay had begun creeping up the base of the statues. One was completely consumed. The figure had captivated Nadya when she was here. Marzenya, then. Mold dripped out the many eyes and sharp mouths of the statues.

  I wish this didn’t terrify the shit out of me, Malachiasz thought idly. It would be fascinating if he didn’t feel like he was going to tremble himself into an early grave. Although he had already died, he supposed.

  “Many have died, many will die, many are dying as we speak. You are not nearly as special as you think.”

  Special enough that you’re here, Malachiasz shot back petulantly. He moved toward the altar, though he sensed that wasn’t the wisest decision. You clearly need me.

  He picked up a cracked skull, mostly in one piece. The person it belonged to must have died from a pronounced blow to the head.

  Why me? Aside from my cleverness. I’m hardly going to make this easy for you.

  “When the lives of paltry mortals are spread out before me, why would I not choose the one who has consistently altered the course of the world with little regard to life?”

  Malachiasz winced. That was true enough.

  “The one who tells himself that it’s all for a greater cause but relishes fear and chaos and blood.”

  He absently rubbed his thumb over the skull. It was for a greater cause. What would have changed had he not taken the Vultures? Or if he had not … lied to Nadya again?

  Except she had been lying right back.

  Why had he thought coming to this place had only been about her magic? Because if he had been in her situation it would have been the singular force driving him?

  Instead she had wrenched away the only thing that had ever truly mattered to him. All to pull him down and salt the earth behind her. It was fair, ruthless even, and he’d be impressed if he wasn’t so furious.

  “Do you hate her for it?”

  The question caught Malachiasz off guard. Did he?

  Yes. A little, a lot. Too much, not enough. He hated that it had surprised him. He hated that it hurt, that he had allowed himself to be vulnerable to that kind of pain. That he had let himself love her. It was supposed to be a game, an act, a layering of truths over lies so she trusted him enough to do as he wanted, but somewhere it got muddled and he forgot he was pretending.

  He wished for indifference. Hatred burned too hot, too close, and it would be better to forget the Kalyazi girl who had broken so much. Indifference would mean a concrete answer to what he might do if he ever saw her again.

  At the moment, he didn’t know whether it would be better to run her through or …

  He didn’t know what the other option was. Let her kill him? She would try after what he had done. A betrayal for a betrayal. It was fair, rational. This cycle of theirs would burn forever. This was why a war between their peoples had churned for so long; there was nothing else, and there never would be.

  The change he had been fighting for would never happen. His was a doomed quest, hopeless.

  “Yes,” the voice confirmed, gleeful.

  Malachiasz almost rolled his eyes. He set the skull down on the altar, careful, though he wasn’t sure why. Do you think reminding me what I already know will make me turn to a being I have spent my whole life fighting against? You’re supposed to be a god—be better than this. Appealing to his emotions wouldn’t work. He knew when he was being toyed with.

  A tremor before the shift; he closed his eyes so when others opened, it wasn’t as jarring. There was no way to get used to this and still retain some measure of humanity, and it was the latter he’d been so willing to lose, only to discover that it wasn’t the case at all once he’d lost it entirely.

  As much as he might hate her—or hate that he didn’t—what Nadya had done for him was something he would never be able to repay her for. Because he had miscalculated the spell—it had driven him farther than he expected, and if she hadn’t gone into the Salt Mines to throttle him back into a bare semblance of human, he would still be down there. He would be gone.

  He remembered what he had done in that state. Leaving the mines for the battlefield, rending apart his enemies, cementing his place in Kalyazi stories of what monsters Tranavians truly were. There was no regret there. One vibrant Kalyazi girl didn’t make up for the rest.

  “Is that what you want? Better? Fine. This game can be played until you realize that fighting what I wish is futile. If you must be broken, I will break you.”

  Malachiasz didn’t have a chance to point out that he was already broken before he shattered.

  It was cold and dark, and he knew this cold, this darkness. He had been here before, a different time, under different circumstances. But he had forgotten this part, forgotten everything, because that was the way the Vultures wanted it. They wanted children to be blank slates, nothing but vessels for the magic that would be embedded in their skin. It was a closely held secret, how Vultures were made, but there were no secrets kept from the Black Vulture. He knew struggling was useless.

  Agony, a searing heat that flashed to cold and back, too fast, too much, a boiling, a flash burn, a block of ice pressed down, down, down against skin. Repeated, unending, until a snapping point. There was always a snapping point. Everyone broke in the end.

  Bones fractured, shattered, melded back together to be stronger than iron, harder than steel, and sharpened, so sharp. One wrong move will part flesh until they adapt, until they learn to control what they have become.

  A baptism of dark magic and cold iron and blood.

  But he wasn’t in that place anymore; he was more, he was greater.

  No, he wasn’t. Not really. He was still that boy, confused and afraid and uncertain. Now he had all this power that could be twisted and formed and turned against him.

  His spine fissured. The weight of heavy wings dragged at his shoulders and he tried to stop the changes—once upon a time he had control over them. Once, he could bend them to his will. When had that changed? His feet shifted and iron punched through his skin as he drew further and further down. Less human, less human, less.

  5

  SEREFIN MELESKI

  Siblings abandoned at a monastery deep in the forests, Svoyatovi Kliment and Svoyatova Frosya Ylechukov grew up to infiltrate the Tranavian ranks where they were eventually martyred by the heretics.

  —Vasiliev’s Book of Saints

  Serefin couldn’t remember traveling this far south. He remembered everything from after the forest—well, mostly, a few days were blurred by his fever—and they couldn’t have walked as far south as they were.

  “The forest spat us out close to its border,” Kacper explained with a shrug that said he wasn’t going to interrogate the weirdness, only be grateful the forest had let them out at all.

  But Serefin wanted to interrogate the weirdness. Because everything and nothing had changed. He felt like he was biding time. If he had shattered anything by tearing out his eye, it had been the connection to the nameless voice, but then, what about Velyos?

  “It’s true. I’ve
been quite put out by it.”

  Serefin was careful not to react to the return of the reedy voice he loathed so much. A shudder ran through him all the same.

  Is there no way to be rid of you? He had done everything, and it wasn’t enough. Still haunted by some know-it-all Kalyazi deity.

  “Oh, no, you succeeded. Claim broken, bonds snapped, all that and more. You’re free, little Tranavian! But once you hear the voices of my kind, well, that doesn’t stop.”

  Serefin took the slightest comfort that the situation could be much worse. Still, less than ideal. No more visions?

  “No more visions. Did you not like them? I thought they were such fun. It had been so long since I was able to play. I’m disappointed that you didn’t enjoy our time together. But the maiming really wasn’t necessary in our situation.”

  Serefin disagreed. He refused to live under the will of a god who could physically control him like Chyrnog or twist his mind and yank him across the continent like Velyos. He refused to live by the whim of any gods. It was worth it.

  “Yes, well, Chyrnog is … like that.”

  Serefin shivered at the name. He didn’t want to remember that feeling of his control being wrenched away.

  But you can’t do what he did?

  “Oh, no, not anymore. Don’t even want to! Isn’t that nice of me?”

  He made me kill my brother.

  “You were planning on doing that,” Velyos noted.

  Serefin struggled not to flinch. That wasn’t the point. Yes, Serefin had been planning it. Malachiasz was volatile, a wild card who couldn’t be trusted and needed to be dealt with. When it came down to it, though, Serefin hadn’t actually wanted to deal with him like that. He had lost so much already. It wasn’t enough that the blood of his father was on his hands, now he was stained with his brother’s blood, too.

  How was he supposed to live with himself?

  How was he going to face his mother—if he ever made it home?

  He didn’t know how he was supposed to go to her and admit that the son she had lost to the Vultures could have returned—Malachiasz had stood before Serefin on that mountain top, terrified and in tears and ready to go home—and Serefin had killed him.

  He couldn’t face her. He could barely face himself. Knowing that some kind of order had been returned to the world with Malachiasz’s death wasn’t enough to assuage the guilt. That Malachiasz had literally been the cause of Serefin’s murder wasn’t enough either, somehow.

  “Serefin?”

  He jolted at Kacper’s voice. “What?”

  Kacper was eyeing him, clearly trying to appear nonchalant and failing utterly. He was worried. He shook his head slightly. “I don’t like when you go quiet,” he said.

  Serefin glanced around, realizing how silent everything was. The roads were empty. They were exposed and had no magic to defend themselves. The alternative, though, was the forest that hemmed in the road on either side, and Serefin was done traveling through forests for the next ten years at least.

  “Sorry,” Serefin said, shooting Kacper a wry smile. “I will endeavor to maintain a constant stream of chatter from here on out.”

  “Wait, no—”

  “I can start, well, on any topic. I was always told I had an alarming wit at court.”

  “I don’t think they meant that as a compliment—”

  “I also have an incredible collection of lurid ditties rattling in my brain.”

  “Please, never say the words lurid ditties in front of me ever—”

  “I can also start in on my unfathomable collection of jokes, with a warning that I picked most of them up from Lieutenant Winarski when I was a very impressionable sixteen years old.”

  Kacper paused. “Wasn’t he—?”

  “Of a deeply questionable emotional and mental state, yes. They are not good jokes.”

  Kacper’s face broke into a weary grin. Serefin was not going to ruin the moment by telling Kacper that he could still hear Velyos. It truly was incredibly unseemly for a Tranavian king to be talking to a Kalyazi god—

  “Not a god.”

  Oh, shut up.

  Serefin would have to figure out how to close himself off so Velyos didn’t chime in on every errant thought. At least he had broken off the greater bond. It was a relief to know his maiming had meant something. That was nice.

  “I was thinking,” Serefin said softly. “We need to figure out how to get back to the capital and into Grazyk without Ruminski finding out.” He felt bad lying to Kacper, but, well, he could have been thinking about that, right?

  “I wish we had been able to free Żaneta,” Kacper mused.

  So did Serefin, but that wasn’t in the cards. He wondered if it even would have fixed anything, if Malachiasz had been telling the truth that she needed time to adapt. He didn’t know how the Vultures were made, but Malachiasz had seemed earnest about that, at least.

  Suddenly Serefin tripped on a hole he’d thought was several steps away, Kacper barely catching his arm and keeping him on his feet. His depth perception was shot, and while he would eventually adjust, he couldn’t help feeling useless.

  “Careful,” Kacper murmured, but didn’t pull away.

  Serefin kept waiting for it, surprised when he slid his hand down Serefin’s arm, twining their fingers together. It was almost as if things were normal—or at least not quite so broken as they truly were.

  A snap sounded within the forest, too loud to be an animal. Serefin cursed softly, dropping Kacper’s hand and reaching futilely for his spell book.

  They exchanged a glance.

  They had gone from two of the deadliest blood mages in Tranavia to two boys trapped in an enemy kingdom. A king and his lieutenant. Easy prey.

  And what manner of creatures had awoken in Kalyazin? Malachiasz had torn down the wall separating that damned forest from the hellish place hiding within it. What had escaped? What had they done on that mountain?

  He wanted to place the blame on Nadya and Malachiasz but so much of it was his own damn fault.

  “You were only doing as I asked,” Velyos said, sounding petulant.

  Serefin didn’t deign to respond. He had done what he had been forced to, and he rather thought that was different.

  Another snap within the trees. Someone was moving through the underbrush toward the road.

  Serefin’s hand fell away from his spell book. He gestured for Kacper to relax. Perhaps they were dealing with mortal foes.

  Can’t you, I don’t know, help?

  “No—no, you had your chance with me, and you made your stance perfectly clear. I can do nothing and that’s your own fault.”

  Serefin sighed. He had worked so hard to get rid of the god’s influence, he supposed he couldn’t very well complain about the god mostly leaving him alone.

  Still … it would be nice to know what they were dealing with.

  “Drop any weapons you have,” a young voice called from within the trees. Serefin frowned, glancing at Kacper.

  Kacper shrugged but relaxed slightly.

  Serefin tossed his szitelka into the dirt, gesturing for Kacper to do the same. He did, scowling.

  “That can’t possibly be it.”

  “I assure you, dear,” Serefin said, not bothering to mask the Tranavian accent from his Kalyazi. “That’s it.”

  A girl—Serefin’s age—with pale skin and blond hair cropped close to her scalp slipped out of the forest. Her bow was drawn halfway, arrow pointed at Serefin’s throat. “Coins. Into the dirt with the blade.”

  “You’re about to be disappointed,” Kacper muttered, tossing his light purse dramatically beside Serefin’s szitelka.

  Nothing more than highway robbers. Losing their coin and blades was less than ideal, but survivable. Those were trivialities.

  She nudged the bow at Serefin, and he shrugged.

  “I’ve got nothing. Are you alone?”

  One eyebrow lifted. She wore a tunic in a neutral gray, the edges frayed, a tear in the ne
ckline. There were holes in her coat and her leggings, and the soles of her boots looked like they were barely hanging on.

  “We have nothing else to—”

  “Your ring.” She gestured with her bow to Serefin’s little finger.

  Kacper tensed. Serefin’s hand curled into a fist. The signet ring was one of the only things he had left—it was all he had of his authority; the hammered iron crown had been lost in the forest. The girl had no idea what she was asking, but thanks to Serefin’s response, she knew it was wanted.

  She smiled. “Drop it.”

  “I’m afraid we need to reach a different agreement,” Serefin said.

  Her arm pulled back, the bow taut. Her aim needn’t even be good for the arrow to punch through Serefin’s throat, and dying by choking on his own blood wasn’t particularly how he wanted to die.

  But this was only one girl. Serefin could take her. The moths around Serefin had been idle, unnoticeable, but when his alarm spiked, so did they, bursting up in a cloud.

  The girl jumped back. And more than a dozen arrows visibly trained on Serefin and Kacper as the girl’s companions finally made themselves known. Serefin sighed, lifting his hands.

  “I won’t ask again,” she said.

  “But I certainly will refuse again!” Serefin said cheerfully, a bead of sweat dripping down his back. He didn’t quite know how to talk his way out of this one. Before the forest—before Kalyazin—he would have been able to. He could’ve charmed the bow out of this girl’s hands and walked away with her coin, but he didn’t know what he could possibly say to make it worth lowering her bow. She had likely spent the better part of the long winter starving.

  “Take the coin, take the blades,” he said, more seriously. “Leave the ring, it’s nothing more than iron.”

  Her gaze flicked to his hand, unconvinced, but she smiled.

  “Take them,” she said. “There’s use for them yet.”

  “Wait, no, I don’t—” But before Serefin could finish, something sharp pricked his neck.

  He dropped to the ground, unconscious.

  * * *