Blessed Monsters

by Emily A Duncan

  Malachiasz was eyeing a patch of light streaming in through the windows. He carefully moved to a corner that almost definitely wouldn’t see any light.

  “Sleep,” Serefin said, not wanting to know. “Our problems will be here in the morning.”

  “That is not the comforting Kalyazi version of that saying,” Malachiasz mumbled as he curled up.

  “Well, no.” It was dawn now.

  “Ugh, Tranavians.”

  Serefin smiled at that.

  * * *

  They were either forgotten the next day or deliberately abandoned to think on what had happened in the eerie sanctuary. Either way, Serefin was hungry and bored. He tipped back until he was lying down, draping an arm over his eye. His head hurt, a pulse right behind his left eye socket. He let out a breath as Kacper rolled on top of him.

  “You’re moping,” he observed.

  “I’m not, though I’d deserve it if I were. My head hurts, is all.”

  Malachiasz let out an irritated huff, getting up and wandering away. Kacper lifted his head, watching him.

  “We’re making your brother uncomfortable,” he observed.

  Serefin tilted back to see where Malachiasz eyed the tree, avoiding the mess but tense all the same.

  “No, it’s not that.”

  Kacper frowned. His one hand was close to Serefin’s head, his fingers twining through Serefin’s hair.

  “I find it difficult to believe that Malachiasz would be so limiting.”

  “Blood and bone,” Malachiasz muttered. “Stop.” He returned and sat down nearby, closing his eyes when shifts rippled through his body, coughing into the crook of his elbow. “I don’t care what you two do.” His mouth twitched. “And, no, I’m not.”

  Kacper rested his chin on Serefin’s sternum, relaxing against him. “Please tell me you have sordid Vulture tales.”

  Serefin lifted his eyebrows at the unexpected shift in Kacper’s attitude toward Malachiasz. Kacper glanced at him, shrugging lightly as if to say, well, we’re stuck with him, might as well make the best of it.

  Malachiasz drew his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. “It’s the Vultures, it’s all sordid.” He also seemed puzzled by the lack of cool disdain from Kacper, who breathed out a laugh. “There was one when I was younger, Łukasz,” Malachiasz continued. “He was brilliant, but things changed when I took the throne.”

  “Thrones’ll do that,” Serefin said.

  Malachiasz snorted softly. “And now…” he trailed off.

  “Did you know what Nadya was planning?”

  He shook his head. “I naively thought she was telling the truth. That she wanted her power back. It was such a Tranavian sentiment, I should have expected that she wanted something else.”

  “You were also baiting her,” Kacper pointed out.

  “I saw an opportunity.”

  “Would you have killed that goddess if Nadya hadn’t…” Serefin trailed off. If she hadn’t stripped them of their power. If they hadn’t gone from three of the most powerful blood mages in Tranavia to three boys, broken and in an enemy country.

  “I don’t know,” Malachiasz said, softly.

  Serefin suspected that, yes, he would have. Very little could stop Malachiasz once he decided on a course of action, and the instant he realized where Nadya was going, he had made his decision.

  Kacper was idly running his fingers along the shell of Serefin’s ear. They caught on the bandage and his expression twisted. He rolled off Serefin and Serefin was sadder for the loss of his warmth.

  “I want to see how your eye is holding up,” he said, straightening. “Does your head still hurt?”

  “Only a little.”

  “Told you. Moping.”

  Serefin chose to ignore that, letting Kacper carefully unwrap the bandages from his head. Malachiasz moved closer, curious, and paled.

  “You’re a mess.”

  “A mouth just opened on your neck so, really, speak for yourself.”

  Kacper shook his head. “I can’t believe we didn’t realize you were brothers,” he muttered. “You’re both insufferable.”

  Serefin met Malachiasz’s gaze over Kacper’s shoulder. There was a world of conflict in the other boy’s expression.

  “I don’t think this needs to be wrapped,” Kacper continued. “The swelling is almost gone, but it’s impressively bruised. I’ll leave the stitch in, but we’ll see how it does without the bandage.”

  Kacper kissed Serefin’s cheek and shifted away, and Serefin leaned back on his hands. Malachiasz was mercilessly picking at his cuticles to avoid looking at him.

  “How long have you known?” Malachiasz asked.

  “I thought we were cousins, though I hadn’t seen you in a long time—that I realized, anyway. I learned that wasn’t quite the case a few months after that night in the cathedral.”

  Malachiasz frowned. “Do we keep this a secret?”

  “There’ll be rumors enough in Grazyk if we’re ever seen in the same place,” Serefin said.

  Kacper nodded, gaze shifting between them. “You definitely appear related in a way that even the denser slavhki will eventually notice.”

  “But I’m so handsome,” Serefin whined.

  “I am so sorry to be the one to tell you this, truly the words are acid on my tongue, but he is, too,” Kacper replied solemnly.

  Serefin clutched his chest. Malachiasz grinned.

  * * *

  They had fallen into an uneasy sleep when Olya was shoved inside. She did not enter quietly, and the cultists did not stay to listen to her stream of curses. The door slammed shut behind her.

  Olya stared at the tree in the center of the room, her eyes wide. Serefin watched her. He was the only one who had woken, surprisingly.

  The girl took a tentative step into the light. There was a significant amount of blood on her arms, like she had been bled a great deal by the cultists. She was gazing at the tree with something close to reverence. Her face went ashen as she noticed the blood on the white bark.

  “You don’t want to know what happened here,” Serefin said.

  She whirled on him. He got up, carefully extricating himself from Kacper, and crossed the room. He caught the tension in the Vulture’s shoulders as he passed. He was awake, then, listening.

  “You,” she said flatly.

  He waved. “Your twitchy friend is involved in a cult. I’ve been there.” Serefin gestured at Malachiasz. “So, in a way, this is all your fault.”

  A flicker of fear passed over her face before she shuttered it away. A slight tremor remained in her lower lip. She was younger than he thought—maybe Nadya’s age, or younger.

  “As if you would have left a pair of defenseless Kalyazi alone in Tranavia.”

  “A fair point,” he allowed. “I’ve killed my share of wandering Kalyazi.”

  Her hand reached for a voryen that she did not have. She winced, blood trickling down her arm. It was such a normal sight for Serefin, he almost didn’t register the deep alarm on her face. She looked to the tree again.

  “It’s Svoyatova Varvara Brezhneva’s tree. A sacred, sacrifical space.”

  Serefin lifted his eyebrows but said nothing.

  “Not her tree, of course, but an ancient rite. Where are we?”

  Serefin wished he knew. “Guests of a cult of a very old god.”

  Olya flinched. “And the desecration?”

  “Better you not ask. What did they do?” He nodded to the cuts.

  She hesitated, distrust in her gaze. But she was in the same mess as the rest of them, so he wasn’t going to be particularly uncharitable about the whole kidnapping thing.

  “In case you haven’t noticed,” he continued, “the cultists are Kalyazi, so it’s not like you have a better option with them. Worshipping an old god makes them heretics too, no? But why would you care about that? Aren’t you a witch?”

  She lifted her chin defiantly. He lifted his hands.

  “I have nothing against
witches.”

  “You can be a witch and hold to the faith,” she said.

  “Literally everything in my understanding of your Kalyazi religion says that you can’t, actually.”

  “Not if you listen to the church,” Olya replied.

  “Apostasy, all right, I don’t care one way or the other, frankly.”

  “They said they were testing me,” she said, words rapid. “I don’t know for what.”

  Malachiasz shifted. Of course that got his attention.

  “You’re predictable,” he said to Malachiasz when the other boy stood and stepped past him, stopping just shy of the patch of light Olya was standing in.

  “And you’re useless,” he replied, but he faltered when he turned to the girl. “I—I’d like to see the cuts. I have a sense of what they might be looking for, but could you step out of the light?”

  “Why?”

  Malachiasz appraised her. She was tall. Not quite so tall as him, but enough that she only had to tilt her head slightly to meet his gaze with fire in her dark eyes.

  Serefin didn’t know why they were still fighting these people. Yes, their religious intolerance, and the so-called heresy of the Tranavians and their blood magic, but … when he thought of Nadya—zealous and sharp and so very tired—or Katya—bossy and irreverent—he thought there might be a chance between these two kingdoms.

  Except Nadya had taken away Tranavia’s foundation. Kalyazin would always see his magic as horrific, and he would never be willing to give it up, not even if forced.

  Malachiasz opened his mouth and hesitated. “It’s too difficult to explain,” he eventually said, shoving his hand into the light. His flesh began to sizzle.

  Olya let out a horrified gasp. Serefin reacted fast, grabbing Malachiasz’s wrist and pulling his hand back into the shadows. The commotion finally woke Kacper. Malachiasz’s hand was an angry, scalded red and Serefin dropped his wrist, staring at him in horror. He only shrugged.

  “Chyrnog,” he said, as if it were simple.

  Malachiasz was hiding something. Fear or anxiety or desperation, whatever it was, he was trying to force it away. Serefin understood Malachiasz well enough to know that there was no way he was handling this well. He was merely putting on a damn good show. That’s what he did. He lied. He pretended. He made everyone believe everything was perfectly fine. And when people lowered their guards—he stabbed them in the back.

  Though Serefin supposed he was the one who had stabbed Malachiasz, so he wasn’t much better.

  “Please, step out of the light,” Malachiasz said, intent on Olya.

  Serefin watched her eyes track over the Vulture. A ripple of eyes opened on his skin and horror flickered across her face. But she stepped into the shadows.

  Malachiasz quietly asked for permission before taking the girl’s arm and inspecting the cuts that were scattered across her flesh. He spoke softly, his questions disarming as he asked about the methods the cultists had used to draw her blood.

  “There are a lot of people trying to discover new avenues for magic,” Malachiasz said, after she had finally answered. “It’s changing, spreading out like the roots of a tree.” He nodded to the pale, bloody tree and Olya grimaced. “Were you trained?”

  She shook her head. “I taught myself what I know.”

  “Hedge witch?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you use blood in your magic?”

  She shifted on her feet. “Sometimes,” she said softly.

  “Was that how it started?”

  She hesitated, before nodding.

  “Interesting,” he said. The door opened. He immediately tensed, curling in on himself, as if he had been struck.

  “Well,” Ruslan said, “you survived! It seems we have a great deal to discuss.”

  19

  NADEZHDA LAPTEVA

  Out beyond the safety of village walls dwell the witches of the swamps whose magic can confound and corrupt.

  —The Letters of Włodzimierz

  Her footsteps were bloody against the fallen snow. It was too bright, and shielding her eyes did no good. She wasn’t alone, but all she could see was a blinding white.

  “Hello, child,” someone said. Nadya had never heard this voice, yet she recognized it. “It has taken a long time to get you to a point where you could hear me.”

  She closed her eyes, searching. “Am I dead?”

  “Yes.”

  She blinked rapidly, a sudden onslaught of tears forcing her eyes open. Her knees went watery, but she remained standing. This fate had been waiting to catch up to her for so long. No clerics surpassed what they were meant for; all ended in an early death. Nadya was no different; why should she escape something no one else ever had? But she wasn’t ready. There was so much that could be saved still.

  And what she’d felt as she’d fallen … Maybe it was fitting. He had lived and she had died. A particular twist of irony. They had squandered any chance at happiness by spending their short time alive trying their hardest to tear each other down.

  “That’s it, then?”

  Whoever she was speaking to laughed. Nadya’s vision grew sharper, like she was seeing more. Something itched at her forehead.

  There were two of them. Similar, yet different, and impossible to look at for more than a second at a time. Light and dark and the agony of eternity twisting them beyond reason, beyond coherence. Were horns sprouting from the one’s head? Antlers from the other? Neither or both? She couldn’t tell. And while she saw them, the instant their features changed she forgot what they had been before. Transience in continuity.

  Alena and Myesta. Goddesses who did not speak to mortals, ever. So why were they talking to Nadya?

  “You can hear the rest, but you couldn’t hear us. Not yet,” Myesta said. “Your mortal mind is not attuned to the particular torment of our voices. Too old, you see. But it could be.”

  “You brought me here?” Nadya asked.

  “That blade did not have to meet your flesh. Veceslav watches still, and this all makes him so upset. He’s soft.”

  “Iron must be tested,” Nadya said.

  “Your iron was tested a long time ago.”

  “And its measure found wanting.”

  “Was that the conclusion?” Alena asked. She had granted power to Nadya in the past, unlike Myesta, but Nadya had never heard her voice. It wasn’t what she expected. It was lighter, musical, yet with a dangerous sharpness.

  Nadya shrugged hopelessly. “That was Marzenya’s conclusion.”

  If the goddesses had faces to track, she would’ve sworn they exchanged the equivalent of a dry glance.

  “I thought that was what everyone else thought, too,” Nadya continued. “Because no one talks to me anymore.”

  “You don’t want to listen.” Myesta shrugged. “And, for a time, you were unable. That Vulture is trouble. But Marzenya was afraid of you. I think we have a lot to talk about, don’t you?”

  Nadya frowned and sat at the feet of the goddesses. “Why tell me now?”

  “You weren’t ready before. You would have balked at the well of magic, at what you are, at what you could be. You may still, but things have changed. Your enemy is so much greater than a country of heretics,” Myesta said. “Marzenya wanted to keep you quiet, small, and that worked for her, for a time. She knew what you were capable of and how it could shake the world to its very foundation if you decided to go against her.”

  “But I did what she asked. I chose her.”

  “Did you?”

  Did she?

  “You don’t seem particularly troubled by her death,” Nadya noted.

  “We die. Sometimes our deaths are quiet; sometimes not,” Alena said. “Marzenya is a goddess of rebirth. She’ll find her way back to us in time.”

  A terrifying thought.

  “Sometimes those of us we thought were dead come rising to the surface. The oldest of us, long since turned away from the world, deciding they want a piece of it once more.”
<
br />   Nadya frowned. “The fallen gods?”

  “An annoyance. Peloyin and Marzenya cast them out for a reason,” Myesta said, waving a hand.

  “I never knew about Peloyin,” Nadya said. He had never spoken to her.

  Again, that weird feeling of the goddesses exchanging a glance. Sometimes they had limbs—almost human—but mostly not. Nadya saw every animal in creation shifting within their depths.

  “No, we speak of older than even them.”

  “Chyrnog?”

  “The world eater,” Myesta said, a musing hum. “He’s not the only one, but he is the one who has claimed a mortal and thus can move against your world.”

  “Why are you telling me if I’m dead?”

  Alena laughed. “I forgot how dense mortals are.”

  Nadya had forgotten how circuitous talking to gods could be.

  “Marzenya was afraid of you because you and the world eater are made from the same stuff,” Myesta said blandly, as if giving Nadya a benign piece of information she already knew.

  Nadya suspected that if she wasn’t already dead, she would feel like the world was falling out from underneath her.

  “A mortal child born with the blood of the gods. Her power twisted down and carefully molded so that it was only used when Marzenya would allow it.”

  “What am I?”

  Alena shrugged—if it were possible for her to shrug. “You are an enigma. A problem. A child. You are not the first to be born this way, there have been other clerics like you, but those never set their power free. The others never spilled their divine blood for magic.”

  There was no distaste in her words. Like the goddess cared little for the heresies of the Tranavians. Nadya had thought all the gods cared so much about blood magic and it being an abomination. Even here, dead, her hand was monstrous.

  “Why are you telling me this?” Nadya whispered.

  “Because if entropy is not stopped, there will be nothing left. We can fight him in our realm, but he will merely call upon his siblings, as old and terrible as he, and we will be lost. If our world falls, so too will yours. If your world falls, we will not last long after.”