Blessed Monsters

by Emily A Duncan

  She did kiss him, then. Softly, because they had time now. Because she could kiss him whenever she wanted, and it was a thrilling feeling. To be able to tangle her hands in his hair and not have to prepare for him to be ripped away.

  He sighed. “I never imagined you would leave Kalyazin.”

  The thought hurt, she couldn’t deny that. But the thought of letting him go, even for a little while, hurt so much worse. And she was tired of hurting.

  “There aren’t really churches in Tranavia anymore. Would you—is that a thing you would want?”

  “I don’t know! I gave everything I was to this damn church. All for nothing.”

  He took her hand, kissing her fingers. “Not for nothing. You stopped an old god.”

  “We contained an old god,” she corrected.

  “We killed Nyrokosha.”

  “Oh, are you taking credit for that, too?”

  “It was one of my Vultures,” he said, a little smugly.

  She sighed. Nothing was going to be easy. She had to learn to live with what she was and what that meant. She had to live with all she had done.

  “Come home with me,” he said, cradling her hands in his. “I will harass Pelageya mercilessly until she teaches me how to do that strange transportation magic. This won’t be the last time you’ll see Kalyazin.”

  “She will never teach you that.”

  “I will be so persuasive and charming and nice; she will not know how to refuse. Nadya, there’s so much magic we never knew about! I want to figure it out with you.”

  A different place, a different Malachiasz, the same beseeching question. How long until the study of magic wasn’t enough for him?

  “Someone needs to put a chain around your ankle to keep you on the ground,” Nadya said with a soft laugh. “You’re going to burn up again and start another apocalypse.”

  A flicker in his expression. He thought she was refusing.

  “You fought him off, in the end. I suppose I’m still surprised.”

  “Veceslav took his place,” Malachiasz said in a rush.

  What? She had asked Veceslav to help, but she hadn’t expected that.

  “I accepted.”

  “You?”

  He laughed softly. “I think I’ve been wrong about some things, too. And there really wasn’t any other option.”

  “Who are you and what did you do with Malachiasz Czechowicz?”

  A shiver at the sound of his name. That would never stop. Eyes still flickered open on his skin; his hands still trembled. He might have broken free from Chyrnog, but he would never be free of the damage he had wrought upon himself.

  “I don’t know how to be better. I don’t think I ever will, really, but … I’m tired of death.”

  “You have to go home and literally execute people.”

  “How do you always ruin it when I’m trying to be earnest?”

  “It’s a very special talent of mine.”

  But that they could be here, arguing like this, was a blessing Nadya hadn’t let herself dream of. He gave her a kiss on the cheek, mumbling something about tea, and left the room.

  Maybe she would go to Tranavia with him. Parijahan was going. And with Parijahan would go Rashid. Nadya couldn’t watch as everyone in her life went a world away and left her alone.

  But she wouldn’t be alone. No matter what, she would have Anna. When she’d brought up the possibility of leaving, the priestess had lifted an eyebrow and said, “Of course I’m coming with you.”

  The last ones left from the monastery making their homes in the heart of Tranavia.

  Ostyia was the most torn. Nadya never did find out what Katya said to convince her to go home with Serefin.

  And Serefin, the boy who she had watched from across a courtyard as he burned her home. She watched him now across the room as he read a report by firelight, Kacper asleep beside him with his head on Serefin’s shoulder.

  He glanced up from the report, meeting her eyes. He smiled slightly. May nothing ever put them across a battlefield from each other again.

  The battle was hardly over. She had sat in on some of the meetings between Serefin and Katya—before they devolved into drinking games while Kacper exhaustedly discussed actual matters with Milomir—and they were a long way from peace. They were a long way from understanding.

  She might never have it with her Church. Or understand why the Matriarch hated her so profoundly. If it was more than Nadya’s strange birth and her magic that was so difficult to explain. If she was just a scapegoat for all that was changing in the world.

  Żaneta sat in the corner of the room with Anna. Nadya had noticed the two girls spending more time together, and perhaps it was nothing, but she was secretly delighted that the girl who had tried so hard to pull her away from Malachiasz was drawn to a Vulture.

  Katya and Ostyia were playing some game with elaborate tiles that frequently ended in them yelling incredible insults at each other after every turn.

  Malachiasz returned, using his crutches to almost elegantly lower himself down next to her where she had moved to a fur rug in front of the fire, a blanket tucked around her shoulders.

  “You’ve adapted unnervingly fast,” she said.

  “He’ll have to relearn to walk when we get him a false leg,” Serefin said before Malachiasz could respond.

  Malachiasz shot him a dirty look and Nadya could almost see him contemplate launching one of the crutches at Serefin’s head. He glanced at her. “So, I was going to bring you tea, but…” He shrugged ruefully. “Haven’t really figured out a gait that won’t spill it everywhere.”

  “He’s going to milk acting helpless for years if we let him,” Rashid said as he entered the room, carrying the abandoned cups of tea. He handed them to Nadya and Malachiasz, dropped a bottle of wine in Serefin’s hand, and gave a cup to Parijahan as she settled down at Nadya’s other side.

  “Did you get tea from Akola?” Nadya asked, sniffing the air.

  Parijahan made a happy sound as she stuck her face in the steam wafting from the cup. Rashid flopped down alongside them.

  “What are you going to do about Akola?” Malachiasz asked.

  “Stop running,” Parijahan replied. “We’ll see what they say when they finally come for me.”

  They may not have achieved peace for their fragile countries yet, but they had achieved some kind of peace here, and for now, that was all Nadya needed.

  epilogue

  THE BOY WHO WAS A MONSTER

  It whispered, the book that had once been soaked in his blood. It always whispered.

  He had taken it to the Salt Mines, left it in a vault. But the girl who walked without fear in the mines said that it was probably not the best place, that there was too much magic in the air it could feed upon. Reluctantly, he’d taken it into Grazyk. He’d had a vault built in the corner of his study, and even though the girl would wrinkle her nose at it each time she entered the room, there it remained.

  But he could always hear it. The insidious whispers were constant. Even when he shut the door and went to bed, it bled into his dreams.

  They needed to destroy it, he said.

  To destroy it would be to release him, she would reply.

  And they would argue for hours, eventually leaving it to its corner with its locks and chains.

  He spent most of his time trying to hold together the fragile shreds of magic left in Tranavia. Long days locked in his study, some alone with the whispers, but most with the girl. Her blond hair like snow and honey. A glove shielding her left hand even though she was told time and again that no one would look twice in Grazyk. Who read his notes and pointed out inconsistencies, finding all the places that he could not with her strange, incomprehensible magic. Sometimes his brother would perch on the back of a chair, his boots on the seat, and frown deeply at the notes Malachiasz had gathered, moths fluttering in his neatly trimmed hair, only to be pulled away by the quick smile of his general. Or he would tug the prasīt into his study to find
a pattern in the numbers, the tension in him diminishing, just slightly. Or the healer would work with him to discover what was possible in this mortal life, leaving flowers in his wake.

  The god he had agreed to let in never spoke.

  Only the whispers, constantly.

  But that was all they were. Whispers could do no harm. There were greater things to worry about. Tranavia and Kalyazin needed to be rebuilt. The time between war and peace was dangerous and tense.

  But magic was everywhere, and what was locked away was simply waiting for the door to be opened.

  The girl tapped him on the temple, stealing him from his thoughts. She smiled, taking his hand in hers—no glove, only stained skin and curled claws next to his tattooed fingers.

  Today, everything was quiet.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  In 2015 I started a book about a girl with the weight of divinity on her shoulders, a prince traumatized by war, and a monster who makes all the wrong choices. It is completely unfathomable to me that I’ve managed to pull this off not once but three times. Reaching the end of a trilogy is truly incredible and I wouldn’t have made it here without the help and support of so many wonderful people.

  Absolute first and foremost, thank you so much to Vicki Lame, for taking all my weird ideas and making them weirder and so much better, for embracing my odd cast of monster kids and my desire to throw genre conventions into a blender and see what happens.

  Thank you to Thao Le, for suggesting this book that I never thought I would get to write in the first place, at the start of it all.

  Thank you to the rest of the SDLA team, Andrea Cavallaro, and Jennifer Kim.

  Thank you to DJ DeSmyter—every day I feel so lucky to get to work with you! Thank you as well to Alexis Neuville and Brant Janeway. Thank you to Meghan Harrington, publicist rock star (sorry about all the eye clusters).

  Thank you so much to the Wednesday Books team: Sara Goodman, Eileen Rothschild, Melanie Sanders, Anna Gorovoy, Janna Dokos, and Olga Grlic. And thank you to Mark McCoy for all the deeply black metal cover art.

  And to everyone behind the scenes who worked on these weird books: Creative Services (and Michael Criscitelli who so totally understands what it means for something to be Extremely Metal), School and Library Marketing, Sales, and Audio.

  Thank you to everyone who listened to me and provided such needed help as I agonized over this book, specifically Jessica Cooper, R. J. Anderson, and Hannah Whitten.

  Thank you to one specific frog-themed discord, Marina & Hannah, and the literal all-hours encouragement. Also Hannah, please, write your book. And A. Clarke, who suffered my unhinged descent during the last stages of this book.

  And to another, knife-themed group chat, you all remain the best. Claire, please, your book.

  This trilogy was embraced by so many incredible artists that I can’t even name them all here, but I am so extremely grateful for the exchange of art that has happened with this series. I treasure every single piece of fan art that I see.

  It would be remiss of me to not mention all the truly wonderful Reylos I met online in the wake of the last Star Wars movie who turned to my books as a balm. Sorry we had to meet under those circumstances, but I’m glad my weird villain romance brought some joy, and you all have been so wonderful!

  Thank you to the team at Owlcrate for all the support; you guys rock!

  Thank you to all the incredible booksellers who supported these books, but especially my local indie, The Learned Owl. And thank you to my coworkers at the library and all the rad librarians I’ve met through this avenue of the book world.

  The past year was a rough one for me, and so inevitably I’ll have forgotten someone in this list, so if it was you, I do apologize, but know that your support has been so extremely appreciated. To all the readers, everywhere, who embraced my eldritch horror fantasy kids, thank you so so much; I couldn’t do this without you all. And thank you, as ever, to my family for their support. Again, as ever and even more important now, let’s keep making weird art.

  ALSO BY EMILY A. DUNCAN

  WICKED SAINTS

  (SOMETHING DARK AND HOLY: BOOK 1)

  RUTHLESS GODS

  (SOMETHING DARK AND HOLY: BOOK 2)

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  EMILY A. DUNCAN is the New York Times bestselling author of Wicked Saints and Ruthless Gods. They work as a youth services librarian and received a master’s degree in library science from Kent State University, which mostly taught them how to find obscure Slavic folklore texts through interlibrary loan systems. When not reading or writing, they enjoy playing copious amounts of video games and Dungeons & Dragons. They live in Ohio. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue. The Boy Eaten by the Wood

  1. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  2. Nadezhda Lapteva

  3. Serefin Meleski

  4. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  5. Serefin Meleski

  6. Nadezhda Lapteva

  Interlude I. Parijahan Siroosi

  7. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  8. Nadezhda Lapteva

  9. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  10. Serefin Meleski

  11. Nadezhda Lapteva

  12. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  13. Nadezhda Lapteva

  14. Serefin Meleski

  15. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  16. Nadezhda Lapteva

  17. Serefin Meleski

  18. Serefin Meleski

  19. Nadezhda Lapteva

  Interlude II. Parijahan Siroosi

  20. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  21. Nadezhda Lapteva

  22. Serefin Meleski

  23. Nadezhda Lapteva

  24. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  25. Serefin Meleski

  26. Nadezhda Lapteva

  27. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  28. Serefin Meleski

  Interlude III. Rashid Khajouti

  29. Nadezhda Lapteva

  Interlude IV. Rashid Khajouti

  30. Nadezhda Lapteva

  31. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  32. Nadezhda Lapteva

  33. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  34. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  35. Serefin Meleski

  Interlude V. Tsarevna Yekaterina Vodyanova

  36. Nadezhda Lapteva

  37. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  38. Serefin Meleski

  39. Nadezhda Lapteva

  40. Nadezhda Lapteva

  41. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  42. Serefin Meleski

  43. Serefin Meleski

  44. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  45. Nadezhda Lapteva

  46. Serefin Meleski

  Interlude VI. Tsarevna Yekaterina Vodyanova

  47. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  48. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  49. Serefin Meleski

  Interlude VII. Parijahan Siroosi

  50. Nadezhda Lapteva

  Interlude VIII. Rashid Khajouti

  51. Nadezhda Lapteva

  52. Serefin Meleski

  53. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  54. Nadezhda Lapteva

  55. Malachiasz Czechowicz

  56. Serefin Meleski

  57. Nadezhda Lapteva

  Epilogue. The Boy Who Was a Monster

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Emily A . Duncan

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in th
is novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  First published in the United States by Wednesday Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group

  BLESSED MONSTERS. Copyright © 2021 by Emily A. Duncan. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.

  www.wednesdaybooks.com

  Cover design by Olga Grlic

  Cover illustration by Mark McCoy

  Map illustration by Rhys Davies

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Names: Duncan, Emily A., author.

  Title: Blessed monsters / Emily A. Duncan.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Wednesday Books, 2021. | Series: Something dark and holy; book 3 | Audience: Ages 13–18.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020048571 | ISBN 9781250195722 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250195746 (ebook) | ISBN 978-1-250-81967-3 (international edition, sold outside the U.S., subject to rights availability)

  Subjects: CYAC: Fairy tales. | Magic—Fiction. | Monsters—Fiction. | Princes—Fiction. | Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ8.D917 Ble 2021 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048571

  eISBN 9781250195746

  Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

  First U.S. Edition: 2021

  First International Edition: 2021