Blessed Monsters

by Emily A Duncan

  “Mother Fedoseyeva, please,” Katya said, softer than normal. “Let me.” She stepped closer to Malachiasz, shoving her fingers into his hair and wrenching his head back, ignoring the spear point that dug into his spine and his whimper of pain. “I’ve been waiting for the chance to pry his teeth out myself.”

  There was silence as the Matriarch deliberated. “Your father will return after hearing what has happened. You may keep them in your prisons until then.” She considered further. “Take those Tranavians and the king as well. I don’t want them causing any more trouble.”

  Distantly, Nadya heard Serefin’s exasperated huff. She went cold as Malachiasz was torn away. Her eyes fluttered closed. Too much magic had swirled through her. He was alive and she was going to lose him again and there was nothing she could do.

  35

  SEREFIN MELESKI

  The gods are greedy, they take and they fight and what is left but for those in the world to suffer their mistakes.

  —The Books of Innokentiy

  “We went from ‘things could be worse, but we’re managing’ to ‘things literally could not be worse’ in, what, four hours? Five? Is that a new record for us?”

  Serefin tipped over until his head was in Kacper’s lap. Kacper did not let that deter him from telling Serefin quite concisely how screwed they were.

  “Who was the terrifying church lady? It sounded like she knew Nadya and her mother, which, I didn’t realize we even knew who Nadya’s mother was.”

  “We don’t,” Ostyia said quietly.

  “We don’t! Great! Do we know anything?”

  “Kacper,” Serefin said.

  “Because it seems to me like we’ve been thrown in the Komyazalov prisons and the tsar is coming back and we’re all going to get our heads cut off!”

  “Kacper, shut up!” Nadya groaned from somewhere nearby.

  Well, at least they were in the same cell block. Easier to round them up for execution, he supposed. He sighed, fiddling with the patch over his eye. His head hurt.

  “Don’t mess with that,” Ostyia said, gently pulling his hand away. “It’s going to act up and you have to push through until you don’t notice it.”

  He looked up at her. She smiled sadly at him.

  “Sorry that we have this in common, now,” she said.

  “We match!” Serefin replied.

  “Blood and bone, I missed you.”

  At least Kacper had calmed down enough to bide his time by rubbing his thumb in slow circles against the spot just behind Serefin’s ear. The tiniest comfort. He sat up, sliding his hand behind Kacper’s head, tugging him closer until their foreheads pressed together.

  “I’m not letting us be executed in Komyazalov,” he said, voice soft. “We can die literally anywhere else.”

  Kacper wheezed out an anxious laugh. Serefin kissed him, a gentle press of his mouth. It was hard to not keep going. To not kiss him harder, to let his desperation take over. He had to stay calm.

  The longer they let Malachiasz rot in a cell with Chyrnog churning inside him, the more danger they were in. Serefin hoped Katya understood that. He trusted the tsarevna about as far as he could throw her—and she was very tall so he couldn’t imagine it was far, honestly—but things would have been worse if that church leader had taken them. Katya had been manipulating the situation back into her control.

  But Katya had killed Żywia, which was wildly unnecessary as she had been helping them. And—fuck.

  Serefin stood up so fast that Kacper jumped. “Where’s Żaneta?” he asked, trying to keep the panic from his voice and failing.

  Kacper shot him a wounded look. Oh, no, he wasn’t—he couldn’t be—was he jealous? Did he think Serefin wanted the girl who had betrayed him? Who did he think he was, Nadya?

  “Don’t be silly,” he murmured. “If the tsarevna got her hands on Żaneta, she’s dead, and Ruminski would—”

  “Don’t you dare speak of my father.”

  Relief spread through Serefin.

  “You’re so bloody loud, shut up. Let me sleep until my execution, please.”

  “No one is getting executed,” Serefin muttered.

  Nadya and Ostyia made near identical noises of disbelief. He’d forgotten for a fleeting second that Ostyia had spent the past few months with Nadya. This was a nightmare.

  The cell they were locked in was cramped. A heavy wooden door, one lone window cut into the center with bars over it. He could see another door across the hall. Nadya must be there. Żaneta’s voice had carried from the same general direction. Where was Malachiasz?

  “I doubt we’re going to have useful conversation like this,” Nadya said, sounding weary. “We have about ten minutes before the next guard rotation comes through and they tell us to shut up.”

  “That will sound familiar,” Kacper said.

  “Do we know where Malachiasz ended up?” he asked amiably.

  “Oh, he’s here,” Nadya said, her voice gentle. “He’s unconscious.”

  Serefin considered the space of the cells. “Be careful if he starts having seizures.”

  “Of course he does that now,” Nadya muttered.

  “Why didn’t they separate us?” Kacper asked.

  “Ostyia’s dramatic paramour is trying to be helpful while she also betrays us,” Nadya said.

  “Nadya, I’m going to kill you,” Ostyia said.

  Ah, he’d wondered if that had progressed in his absence. He glanced at Ostyia and she shrugged.

  “Please.”

  Nadya was right, though. Katya knew they couldn’t remain trapped; they would run out of time.

  “Everyone shut up.” Katya threw open both cell doors in one impressively fluid motion. “No, you can’t go anywhere. Yes, the Church wants the executions of, well, all of you. I am holding onto the situation by the barest tips of my fingers and my father will return in a matter of days.”

  Katya peered into the cell where Malachiasz was, his head in Nadya’s lap where she sat with her back to the wall.

  “Would this end if we killed him?” she asked Nadya.

  “Chyrnog would find another vessel. We didn’t try killing Serefin when Velyos had him, did we?”

  “Velyos is harmless by comparison.”

  “That’s rude.”

  Where have you been?

  “You had the situation in hand. Cvjetko was never going to last long in this bold new world anyway.”

  Serefin moved into the doorway. Nadya’s edges looked shivery and strange, like she wasn’t totally in the same realm of reality.

  “Are you all right?” he asked her.

  She closed her eyes. “No. I want to know what the Matriarch was talking about.”

  “Magdalena’s told everyone you’re a heretic and a witch and going to be burned,” Katya said. “And considering the display earlier, public opinion was easily swayed.”

  Nadya sighed.

  “I have questions myself. What are you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Katya tilted her head.

  “I don’t know,” Nadya repeated.

  “I can’t shake the feeling that we need to be stopping you as well.”

  “Well, we’re going to be executed,” Serefin pointed out.

  “Do you truly think I’m going to allow that?”

  “Katya, it’s very hard to tell if you want to help us or not. You didn’t have to kill that Vulture.”

  Katya lifted her chin. “Yes. I did. I would kill him too at the first chance.”

  He sighed. There would be no cracking that layer of zealotry.

  She rubbed a hand over her face. “I only have a few more minutes; I’m not supposed to be down here. Ugh, you all are the worst things that ever happened to me.”

  “Going to take that as a compliment.” Ostyia smiled.

  Katya shot her a very dry look.

  “Stay calm. There must be a way out of this.”

  Serefin exchanged a glance with Nadya. What did she know that he didn
’t? Did she know about the awakened ones? About what Chyrnog wanted Malachiasz to do?

  He straightened with alarm. “Move Malachiasz out of that cell.”

  Katya frowned. Nadya made a small noise, curling around Malachiasz protectively.

  “No, Nadya, you don’t want to be in that space with him if he wakes, he’s not—” Footsteps echoed in the distance. “I can’t explain, there’s no time. Katya—”

  “Already doing it,” Katya said.

  Kacper ducked out to help her haul one lanky blood mage farther down, Nadya protesting the whole way.

  “Shut up and get back in your cells, I’ll return soon.” Katya slammed the doors closed and disappeared down the hall. A guard patrol came through moments later.

  “What the hell, Serefin?” Nadya cried when they were gone.

  “I don’t know how to put it more elegantly than he’d eat you, Nadya.”

  There was a beat of silence.

  “What?”

  “Oh, so we’re not talking like in a fun—”

  “Żaneta, thank you for your contribution, but I’m going to have to ask you to not.” Serefin rested his forehead against the wall. “He doesn’t have control. Chyrnog has him, well, consuming beings with a lot of magic and you’re almost definitely included.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ve been informed I am ‘something else’ and thus not yet on the menu.”

  Nadya sighed.

  There was nothing more to do. Time passed. One day, less, more, who knew. Malachiasz woke up but only gave Serefin a few terse words before descending into silence. Serefin didn’t press. He was allowed to mourn. He heard Nadya whispering to him, but he mostly ignored her, too.

  “Is Katya waiting for her father?” Kacper muttered at one point, and the thought terrified Serefin.

  But when soldiers came and took Nadya, Serefin realized something might have gone very wrong with Katya’s plans.

  interlude v

  TSAREVNA YEKATERINA VODYANOVA

  “You can’t just lock me in my room and tell me I’m being a bad tsarevna,” Katya said, frustrated.

  “The Matriarch warned you not to go into the dungeons,” Iryna said with the same calm indifference she did everything else.

  There was no time for this. An entire city sector had been razed and they were still trying to determine how many lives had been lost. Throwing the king of Tranavia in a jail cell and planning his execution wasn’t the thing to be doing.

  “They were all helping,” Katya argued.

  “They brought the Vultures into our city,” a low prince, Kirill Balakin, said. “That’s an act of war.”

  Katya was surrounded by boyar and low nobility. She was going to scream. She whirled on Kirill. “We’re at war with them already,” she snapped. “What are we supposed to do? Continued retaliation? Don’t you think it’s a little weird that the Vultures came to assassinate the Tranavian king?”

  Made all the weirder by the Black Vulture showing up. Katya thought of the propaganda crumpled in her pocket and was so overwhelmed she was going to crumble into dust right there. She had to get her friends out before the Matriarch made her next move. And they were her friends, damn them. She didn’t trust Nadya, and she had to be careful with Serefin because of who he was, and, well, Malachiasz didn’t count because she hated him and wished he had remained dead, but she was aware that the truly pressing problems wouldn’t remotely be fixed unless she had all three.

  Her life had been so much easier when she had no friends.

  A soft-spoken nize’ravta tayzhirefta, Zinaida Nekrasova, approached Katya. The general handed Katya a folded missive, her dark eyebrows arched. Judging by the seal, this was a military note. Katya scanned it quickly before pocketing, giving Zinaida a brief nod.

  How had the Tranavians moved an army into Kalyazin when they had no blood magic? Something must have gone wrong at the front. Someone had become complacent. But Katya had no time to worry about it because there was talk of a pyre and she knew exactly who it was for.

  She extricated herself from the group as elegantly as she could, fleeing the room. She found Anna in the halls.

  “You,” she said, grabbing the girl’s arm. “Are you ready to commit grand disobedience against the Church?”

  “No,” Anna said. “Wait. Is Nadya all right?”

  “She is not.”

  “Oh, then yes.”

  Katya couldn’t help but laugh. She needed to find the Akolans. She could only hope they were still with Viktor.

  “What was that? What happened?”

  “We were attacked by a fallen god,” Katya replied, “who was using Tranavia’s Vultures to a dubious end. It rather seems as if they were trying to assassinate Serefin. It’s all deeply convoluted. Nadya was a bit too forward, and now the Matriarch knows our dear friend is more monster than anything else. Adding insult to injury, the damn Black Vulture is back.”

  “Wait—Malachiasz?”

  “You know him, too?”

  Katya ducked around servants and boyar, never letting go of the priestess’s arm.

  “He gets around.”

  “Apparently.”

  She pushed through the guards at the palace gates, ignoring their protests. She wasn’t supposed to leave. Did they think another fallen god was going to drop out of the sky? Hardly.

  Gods, this was a mess. She hadn’t anticipated things to go smoothly when she brought her pack of miserable disasters to Komyazalov, but this was worse than she’d expected. Before she had been confident that she could convince her father to hear Serefin out. Now she knew that would not be the case. Her father was too devout and trusted Magdalena far too much. While Katya had expected the Matriarch to be a slight point of difficulty, she hadn’t expected an enemy. She should have. How many conversations had she had with Nadya about the things the Church had withheld? She had been honest about her worries and Katya had brushed her off.

  Had they known this whole time what Nadya was? Magdalena certainly made it sound like they had. But how? She’d grown up a world away in a monastery.

  Katya pounded on Viktor’s door, pushing past a servant. Viktor stepped into the main hall, looking flustered.

  “I don’t have time,” she said, holding up a hand. “Are the Akolans here?”

  “Of course. Katya, love, what’s going on?”

  “A mess. Parj! I need your help!”

  Parijahan poked her head out of the sitting room, followed by Rashid. Katya explained as quickly as she could. Parijahan had been in a different part of the city during the attack, she hadn’t seen the hatred in the Matriarch’s eyes. They must beat her to Nadya.

  Parijahan’s expression was wan. “I thought you had it handled!”

  “Yes, well, not this time.”

  Noticing Anna hovering at a distance, Rashid waved. Anna’s face broke out in a grin. Katya did not have time to consider that, either.

  “We need to get them out and fast.”

  Parijahan glanced at Rashid, a slow smile flickering on her face. “Well,” she said. “Ostyia and Rashid spent some time recently figuring out just what good Akolan magic can do.”

  What? Katya frowned.

  “They’re all together?” Rashid asked.

  “In the same block, not the same room. We had to isolate the Black Vulture at the king’s request.”

  “Malachiasz is here?”

  “Why are we surprised?” Katya said wearily. “More importantly, you have magic? Do you want to be the distraction, then?” she asked Parijahan.

  The Akolan girl grinned. “I would love to.”

  “I’ll help,” Anna said.

  Katya looked to Rashid. “Let me raid Viktor’s cabinets for the ingredients I’ll need. I’m going with you.”

  He nodded, flipping a dagger between long brown fingers. He was entirely relaxed for someone who had unlocked his own magic that day.

  “Well, then, time to make ourselves enemies of the Church.”

&nb
sp; 36

  NADEZHDA LAPTEVA

  Blood pooled at every point her hands touched.

  —Anonymous account written about Celestyna Privalova

  Every part of Nadya was in agony and all she wanted was to hear Malachiasz’s voice. Żaneta was in the other corner, eyes closed. Tentatively, Nadya tugged on the fragile thread of magic that bound her to him.

  She felt him jolt.

  You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to, she said. I understand. I just …

  “Are you all right?”

  Me? She almost laughed. I have some broken ribs, I think. And apparently I’m mad and have never heard the gods. I’ve been better.

  “Nadezhda…”

  She wished she could see him, touch him. She wished he was closer.

  I’m sorry. About everything. I never got the chance to tell you. It was a mistake.

  He was quiet. It wasn’t hard to picture him sitting against the wall, head tilted back, cuticles picked at and bleeding.

  “When I woke up, I thought it would be better if you never knew I was alive. Better to let it have ended on the mountain.”

  She hugged herself tightly. His words dug into her heart. She deserved it.

  “And you’re not mad, towy dżimyka. Any more than I am.”

  Not a comforting metric.

  “What we’ve done to each other isn’t as simple as words can fix.”

  No, it’s not.

  It didn’t feel real, talking to him. He was going to be ripped away again and she would return to that cold unfathomable blank of living past his death.

  “Nadya?”

  I’m here.

  “Don’t go,” he said, his voice sounding so very small. “I’m scared. I don’t think there’s any way out of this. We’ve used up all our chances.”

  Her heart broke anew for the monster boy who had been beaten down by so much.

  I’ve missed you.

  “Honestly, once I got past the frustration of being betrayed so thoroughly, I had to admit, I liked your style. It was very well done.”

  She couldn’t tell if she was going to laugh or cry. I learned from the best.