Blessed Monsters

by Emily A Duncan

  “It’s too quiet,” Katya grumbled.

  They should have been able to hear frogs, bugs, birds, anything. But everything was silent.

  “What are we looking for?” Viktor asked.

  Nadya had been surprised he’d wanted to go with them, but he had offered not only to join, but to give a particularly good excuse to the boyar they were staying with as to what they were doing during the night.

  She didn’t know how to explain what it was they were about to do, however. She wasn’t entirely sure herself.

  “What do you know about the goddess Zlatana?” she asked.

  Katya frowned, shrugging. “I only know the name. She’s one of the fallen, but that’s all.”

  Unfortunate. Nadya could have used more information. “What about Zvezdan?”

  Viktor’s eyes widened and he shot a rather accusatory look at Katya. “You said she was a cleric.”

  “She is.”

  “I am,” Nadya said.

  “Those aren’t our gods.”

  They were once, Nadya thought. What had happened to cast them out, truly? Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Zlatana was doing something detrimental here and she was proof that all the fallen gods would act in kind.

  “That seems a tad judgmental. We don’t all want the same things.” Nadya immediately recognized the thin, reedy voice.

  Velyos.

  “Hello, little bird.”

  Don’t call me that.

  She moved a few steps away from the others, sensing an involved conversation.

  If you don’t all want the same things, what do you want?

  “Oh, I got what I wanted.”

  Why is this the first I’ve heard from you?

  “I have my own little mortal to watch over.”

  Serefin.

  “The charming Tranavian boy, yes!”

  Nadya clambered over a fallen log, making sure she didn’t trample any snakes on the other side.

  Is he alive?

  “Yes.”

  Velyos offered no extra information about Serefin and Nadya didn’t ask. That was enough. She could tell Ostyia, and it would make her feel better.

  Nadya could ask the obvious question—what was Velyos doing here? But that didn’t particularly interest her. What she wanted to know was something vastly more specific.

  If you’re free now, does that mean the other gods are accessible to you?

  Velyos paused. A hesitation that meant she was going to be let down very gently with her next question.

  You all exist in the same realm, no?

  “What are you asking, child?”

  I’m only curious about the others, that’s all. It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to answer my questions. I don’t expect you to.

  “You are curious because they do not speak to you.”

  Obviously. Where was Serefin, why wasn’t he with him? Did she truly care? He had killed Malachiasz so easily.

  Like you killed Malachiasz so easily, she reminded herself.

  If you’re here, you may as well help, she said to Velyos.

  “Well, I certainly don’t need to give you power. You have enough of that of your own.”

  Where is Zlatana? Nearby?

  “Near enough. Are you going to stop her?”

  She simply wanted to know what Zlatana was planning; what they needed to be ready for in the city. Was she going to unleash those corpses on the world? Was she collecting them for a specific purpose? Nadya wanted answers. She couldn’t say what Viktor and Katya were hoping to get from this excursion.

  Parijahan had declined to come, and after thoughtful consideration Rashid had elected to stay with her. Ostyia had also stayed behind. Something about too much divine nonsense. Nadya couldn’t help but agree.

  “You have the scent of salt and power on you,” Velyos observed. “What have you been up to?”

  That’s none of your business.

  “The world has grown so much larger without Marzenya, yes?”

  Don’t speak her name.

  “Why do you mourn, daughter of death? She is a goddess of cycles.” Nadya gasped, her chest fluttering uncomfortably as Velyos left. Her steps faltered. Katya grabbed her arm, holding her steady.

  “What happened?” she asked, voice low.

  “Divine nonsense,” Nadya said.

  Katya fingered her necklace of teeth. Nadya’s eyes narrowed. Katya had a bracelet with the icons of saints carved into it, and countless other minor relics. The girl could cast magic through drugs and dreaming, but what kind of power was that next to what Nadya could do even without the gods?

  Or with them. She thought of the power she’d stolen, from Zvezdan, from Malachiasz. Was that all she did? Use the power of others because she didn’t truly have her own? But that wasn’t true; she almost wished it was. It would be an easier truth to deal with.

  The ache in her chest that was the missing and the guilt and the absence and the absolute wrong that was Marzenya’s death was still too real and too raw and it clashed too horribly with the agony of losing Malachiasz and—

  Nadya slammed face-first into something hard. Katya bumped into her from behind.

  “Why did you stop?” Viktor asked, a few paces back.

  Nadya pressed her hands against a solid slab of magic. She frowned, tugging the glove off her hand. It was too dark for anyone to see what was wrong with her skin, the eye in her palm. She tapped her fingers against raw power.

  “It’s like the wall in Dozvlatovya,” Katya observed.

  “Similar,” Nadya said. She pressed at it with power. Dark well. Dark water. Daughter of death. “Not so old, not by far. This was placed recently, and not by the divine.”

  “Blood magic?” Viktor asked.

  Nadya probed a little deeper. No. This wasn’t blood magic. She didn’t want to spark an inquisition, but she knew this magic. She felt it each time Pelageya took her into her home. Earth, deep and heavy.

  “Witch magic,” she said softly.

  Viktor tensed. He was standing a little too close to Nadya. She could smell the incense on his clothes. She shifted away slightly, fingering her prayer beads.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you have swamp witches, moy gorlovky,” she replied dryly.

  He cast her a sidelong glance. She scratched her fingernails against the magic, tugging on the threads of power she had taken from Zvezdan. It would be easy to pull this apart.

  “Hold on,” Katya said, her hand gripping Nadya’s wrist. “Will you be letting anything out if you do this?”

  Nadya frowned. “I don’t know,” she replied. “Sometimes you have to act.”

  “I won’t have you setting off another event,” Katya warned. Her tone bit at Nadya.

  So much had gone wrong and for what, because Nadya had lost her connection to the gods and wanted it back. She had been selfish. Leading Malachiasz to his doom with the promise of forgiveness. Sending Serefin into the dark instead of helping him, when she was one of the only people who could.

  Who would still be alive if not for her?

  “Katya, I cannot promise nothing will happen. But this wall was made to keep people out, not hold people in.”

  “I thought we were here because of a goddess.”

  “All gods have their acolytes,” Nadya replied. “Even ones who have been lost to us for centuries.” The fallen gods probably had the most zealous followers. Who else would so fervently believe that a god who had not spoken in centuries would come back?

  What did Velyos mean? A goddess of cycles? Marzenya was the goddess of winter. In the spring, her statues were burned to end the season and bring on the next. At the end of fall those statues would return as Marzenya’s domain returned to the land. Those were natural cycles; what had happened to her was not natural.

  Nadya shook it from her mind as Katya let go and took a step back.

  “Do what you must,” she said.

  Nadya tugged at the threads of power holding t
he wall in place and pulled. There was a rush of stagnant air as the wall fell.

  “Should we be getting a priest?” Viktor asked amiably as they stepped past a body half submerged in the muck.

  “We have Nadya,” Katya said.

  “I don’t think that’s the same.”

  Nadya stooped to inspect the closest body. It had been well preserved by the swamp. This wasn’t one of the corpses from the city. These had been here much longer. She frowned. There were a lot of bodies scattered around them.

  “Katyusha, melunishna, I forgot you threw the absolute best parties in Komyazalov.”

  “Shut up, Viktor,” Katya said.

  “Well, kovoishka?” he asked, completely undeterred.

  “I’m thinking…” Nadya said, leaning back on her heels. “I don’t like this.”

  “What were you saying about acolytes?”

  “That’s what I’m worried about.”

  They could go farther and run straight into whatever it was that had decided it needed all these bodies. But they would have to go into the water, and that would risk alerting an utopnik. She had seen the glint of one’s eyes earlier. They were nearby and watching.

  “I wish I knew how this magic worked,” Nadya said softly. She thumbed one of the beads on her necklace, not really expecting any responses from Omunitsa.

  “You’re persistent.”

  Nadya froze. She choked on her next breath. Katya moved toward her, alarmed, but she waved her off.

  It’s you.

  “It’s me,” Omunitsa said flatly. “You want something.”

  Why are you talking to me?

  “It doesn’t matter. Mortal surprise and whatever human emotion you want to charge into this. Tell me what you want.”

  Nadya reeled. Had something happened? What had taken them from forced, deliberate silence to talking to her? Or was Omunitsa breaking the rules? She was like that. Nadya didn’t interact with her much, but she knew what the goddess of the waters was like. She was protective of her territory.

  Zlatana is making you nervous, isn’t she?

  “I don’t appreciate your assumptions, child.”

  But Nadya knew her gods were threatened by the fallen, and Zlatana’s domain was the swamps, one Omunitsa had taken for herself.

  Are there witches nearby?

  “Swamp hags, yes.”

  Nadya shuddered. She relayed that to Katya, who paled and fingered the hilt of her sword.

  Would asking for power be a step too far?

  “You don’t need power from me.” Omunitsa sounded snide.

  What did that mean?

  Stay close, please, Nadya said instead of arguing.

  There was grumpy acknowledgment. She would be thrilled by this turn of events if it didn’t also terrify her.

  “What are we dealing with?” Viktor asked.

  Nadya prodded Omunitsa for a little more information, which she conceded reluctantly. “They’ve been feeding off these corpses for a while, but found it wasn’t enough when their goddess started speaking again.”

  “And they turned to the city,” Katya said.

  Nadya nodded. “Pulled corpses from the graveyard to feed.”

  “What do they plan to do?” Viktor asked. He sounded nervous. But Nadya expected that of anyone rational when suddenly confronted with corpse-stealing witches.

  Nadya stood slowly. “We need to go back.” She couldn’t fight the witches from within their domain, she wasn’t strong enough. “We should barricade the city.”

  Katya lifted her eyebrows. “You think they’re going to attack?”

  “I told you the war is the least of our concerns,” Nadya said, her voice hushed. “For Voczi Dovorik that’s even more true. Zlatana isn’t content with the size of her domain. She wants more. Her acolytes will be all too willing to comply with her demands.”

  “And she wants to reach past the swamp’s borders?” Viktor asked.

  “She wants the swamp to swallow the city alive.”

  17

  SEREFIN MELESKI

  The curls of his tentacles within the dark ocean creep ever closer to the surface and when Zvezdan finally breaks, the world will drown in saltwater.

  —The Books of Innokentiy

  The silence was unnerving.

  The cult left them in the odd chapel room, unlocking Kacper and Serefin’s chains, but not Malachiasz’s, and locking the door behind them. Malachiasz immediately darted to the shadows. His skin was ashen and sweat beaded at his temples.

  Kacper looked ill. “Where is this going?” he asked sotto voce.

  “I don’t know,” Serefin replied. The man on—in?—the tree hadn’t moved, but Serefin could feel power radiating off him in cool waves.

  Kacper glanced to where Malachiasz was curled in the corner, his eyes locked on the man. “And what’s wrong with him?”

  “Everything. I’m going to try to help him.”

  “Bad idea,” Kacper said.

  “I know.”

  “He tried to have you killed.” Kacper’s gaze fell to the scar along Serefin’s neck. “Not tried,” he muttered.

  “And I murdered him for it. We’re even.”

  “That’s not how this works at all.”

  “We’re pretty far outside the realm of knowing how this works, I’d say.”

  Kacper scowled. Serefin kissed his cheek.

  “We’re here because of him,” he grumbled. “He doesn’t deserve your help.”

  Serefin let out a breath of a laugh. “He absolutely doesn’t. But who does?”

  Kacper rolled his eyes.

  Serefin moved over to Malachiasz, who did not stir as he sat down next to him.

  “Can you hear it?” Malachiasz asked in a toneless drone.

  Serefin tensed. “No.”

  “The singing. He’s singing.”

  There was no singing. There was nothing but the soft sound of chains as Kacper carefully shed his and sat down, leaning against the opposite wall.

  What’s wrong with him? Serefin asked Velyos.

  “The awakened one will drive him mad.”

  What? What does that mean?

  “The need, the call. Chyrnog is entropy; he consumes. Power, flesh, it’s all the same.”

  “I’m going to hurt him,” Malachiasz said, his voice small. His pale eyes were glassy with tears.

  “That doesn’t seem like something that would particularly bother you,” Serefin replied.

  Malachiasz swallowed hard. “You’d think not, huh?”

  Serefin’s eye narrowed. What did this cult really want with Malachiasz?

  “It’s so loud, how do you not hear it?”

  “I can’t hear anything.”

  What is he going to do? he asked Velyos frantically. What is about to break?

  “I shouldn’t be here,” Malachiasz whispered. “I’m not strong enough to stop this. I thought I could fight him, but I can’t. I’m—I’m so hungry.”

  “Everything,” Velyos said simply.

  NADEZHDA LAPTEVA

  A drop of rain fell against Nadya’s cheek and a part of her was surprised to find only water, not blood.

  The city rallied quickly, thanks to the tsarevna. The boyar couldn’t exactly tell her no, especially when she had the cleric to wave around as proof of something wrong. But Nadya couldn’t shake the feeling this was all a distraction from something bigger.

  Nadya kept her concerns to herself. For once, she wanted to leave this battle to the soldiers who were trained for it, even if it wouldn’t be that easy. She knew what was expected of her. She was the good little soldier to be used for mass destruction whenever Kalyazin wished it. That was her fate.

  It took everything in her not to turn and walk away.

  Darkness fell quickly, blanketing the world, smothering. How clear it was that this was magic-borne and unnatural. Even as torches were lit along the wall, facing the swamps, it wasn’t enough. Nothing would be enough.

  “Tell me what’s abou
t to happen,” Katya said as she came up beside Nadya on the wall.

  “Zlatana was banished and she wants her domain returned,” Nadya said.

  “Using swamp witches.”

  Nadya nodded.

  “They should be easily dealt with.”

  “Possibly, if we didn’t also have an army of corpses to contend with,” Nadya pointed out.

  Rashid arrived in time to hear this and made a small noise of distress. “I had been so hoping the corpses weren’t going to be involved.”

  “No such luck,” Nadya said. “What happens if they can’t be cut down without magic?”

  Katya shot her a sidelong look. “Then it will be good we have you.”

  Zvezdan’s power still hot within her, Nadya wondered what would come of her spilling her own blood—how much power could she gather? It wasn’t worth the risk, not in Kalyazin, but the idea was tempting.

  Deep in the swamps something screamed.

  Rashid shifted on his feet next to Nadya.

  “Where’s Parj?” she asked.

  “On the other side of the wall with Ostyia.”

  Another scream. Soul-wrenching and wailing, it tore jagged edges into the night. There was a movement at the border of the swamps. She caught power in her palms, hot light spilling through her fingers.

  “Why are we here, Nadya?” Rashid asked, his voice pitched low.

  She gazed into his terror-stricken eyes, and whispered, “I don’t know.”

  MALACHIASZ CZECHOWICZ

  It was beautiful, eternal, transient, unending unending unending and if he did not stop the singing, he would die.

  It was flipping itself back and starting over and it was driving him mad. Or maybe when he had woken up in the snow, careful, quiet, the life slowly returning to his limbs, his mind had not come with the rest. Maybe this was normal. So cold. So hungry.

  And the singing, the singing, it was taking him apart. He knew this feeling. It was the forest as it had shredded Malachiasz’s mind and tried its hardest to consume the parts that remained. But he hadn’t been consumed—he had been consumed. He would consume.

  It was distant. Everything was distant. He was on his feet and halfway across the room. Very far off he heard Serefin trying to get him to come back. But all that mattered was the person in the tree. All that mattered was tasting the power tearing them apart.