So close, so close. All it would take is a few more bites, a few steps closer to ascension, I can feel it, I can taste it.
—Fragment of a journal entry from an anonymous worshipper of Chyrnog
“You think it will be as easy as that?”
Malachiasz faltered, tripping and landing hard in the dirt. He hadn’t been walking long; he needed to be careful this far into Kalyazin.
He spat out a mouthful of dirt and dragged himself up, smiling through the grit. Chyrnog was anxious because Malachiasz had something. It was impossible, too big too much too hard to put the pieces back together, but he had something. The four, the book, what he would need to bind Chyrnog back into the earth.
It was dark. It had to be, he couldn’t stand the light. Destroy the sun and the pain will end. The thought was sly and insidious and very much his. Or not? He and Chyrnog would be the same, one day. Shape the world instead of changing for it. How many times had this world beaten him into an image that fit its shape better? Why should he submit again when this was his chance to finally take everything he had been working toward for himself? Why save a world that deserved to burn? Or, in this case, fade painfully into cold dark nothingness.
He was at the edges of a forest, a frozen river at his side. His breath ghosted out before him in the freezing air, his fingers stiff beneath thin gloves. His hunger had him in an iron grip, tugging in a direction he did not wish to go.
“You think I can do nothing without you? Boy, do not overestimate your importance. I am not the god you ended. Do not think I have not already started what will cause your downfall if you fight.”
Anything can be killed, Malachiasz returned. I killed death.
“Marzenya wished to have what I have.”
Panic fluttered in Malachiasz’s chest.
“How long can you ignore your hunger, child? How long can you pretend it’s not eating you from the inside out?”
Malachiasz swallowed, mouth flooding with saliva. No. Not this again.
“You make it so easy. Your fighting is a game. You yearn to know what would happen if you kept going, pushed farther, let go.”
No.
“You lie so easily. A lie all the same.”
Malachiasz coughed, choking on blood. He spat. Wiped it from his eyes and nose. There was nothing he could do as his control slipped away and chaos took over.
He wasn’t always conscious when this happened. Usually he hid until it was over and then investigated the damage he had wrought. This time was different. Chyrnog wanted him to bear witness, to see what he was, what he would do underneath the god’s sway.
He couldn’t close his eyes against it. He couldn’t stop it.
There was a village nearby, someone awakened. Not a soldier, not a cultist, not someone who had chosen this life of horrors. Someone who had simply woken up at the end of the world and discovered something had changed. Someone who had never touched magic, and only ever heard the fables of saints.
Once upon a time, Svoyatovi Igor slew a dragon with three heads and stole its scales to make armor that could not be broken by spear or sword.
Delizvik dela Svoyatova Kataryn threaded the stars through her hair and danced in the woods and kissed a god.
Delizvik dela.
Once upon a time, magic was a thing nestled under the roots of trees and in the sky and it could be taken so easily as whispering a prayer.
How did he know this?
He shouldn’t know this.
Nadya leaning her head against his shoulder and reading fanciful stories of the saints aloud to keep the darkness of the forest at bay. Her voice gentle and rhythmic, the ice in it melted in the warmth of the fire. Somehow, the stories had remained.
Once upon a time, there was a boy who had helped break magic free from its prison. But with it, entropy had escaped. And one would devour the other until only darkness was left.
The end.
That was why the Kalyazi had hidden their magic away, kept it sacred, safe. Worried so deeply when their neighbors pressed too far. Let worry turn fear to hatred to war. They knew what could happen. Would Tranavia have pressed so far without the war? He didn’t know. But Malachiasz had seen the way the war dictated the use of magic. In the darkness of the Salt Mines. In the salt poured down his throat, the iron in his bones, the blood, the blood, the blood.
It was too late to stop.
And here, there was a woman, alone. She lived apart from her village. There had always been whispers of witchcraft, but nothing that required an inquisition. Malachiasz tried to stop himself, so desperately, but he had no control, he had nothing.
“You fight as if you care,” Chyrnog noted. “You fight as if you haven’t slaughtered thousands of innocents.”
Malachiasz couldn’t argue. He knew what he had done. But that was different, this was different.
No, it wasn’t.
But he didn’t have a choice and he couldn’t look away. As much as he wanted quiet oblivion and to forget the promise of her blood in his mouth, the screams and the thrill of power, in the end what got him was the singing. It was constant and needling, burrowing deep into his bones until he wanted to scratch off his skin to dig it out. And so, he gave in.
There was something in their blood that thrummed against Malachiasz’s skin and he wanted more, so much more than would ever sate him. What could he do if he let go? Where would this end?
In darkness at the end of everything. He knew those answers.
How long would Chyrnog only set him on random innocents? How long until he was set on …
Serefin, godstouched and powerful. How long until Chyrnog decided he wanted that strange power of stars and moths and forests that Serefin quietly maintained? Serefin had fought the god off in a way Malachiasz could not. How long until Chyrnog wanted revenge?
At least Nadya was gone. That was one particular horror he would never have to face.
He still couldn’t wake up. He couldn’t come back. He sat in a pool of blood on the dirt floor of the woman’s tiny hut and he listened to the voices in the distance as the village was awoken by the sound of her screaming.
Serefin caught Nadya as she fell. She was too light, like her bones were made of air. He let out a breath, casting another glance up at the darkening sky.
“Well, tsarevna?” he asked.
Katya’s face was pale. “I—I know this feeling.”
Serefin did, too. He spat a mouthful of blood over his shoulder. It was like the air was pressurized. There was so much magic in the air, he could taste it.
“They wouldn’t dare,” she whispered.
Serefin adjusted Nadya in his arms. Her eyes fluttered wildly underneath thin lids. Suddenly her whole body stiffened.
“Shit,” Serefin said, dropping to one knee and gently resting Nadya on the stones of the courtyard. Kacper was fast at his side.
“This is not unlike what happened with you,” Kacper said.
“Yes, but Nadya’s supposed to be able to handle all this divine nonsense,” Serefin replied.
The Kalyazi girl knelt down by Nadya, looking distraught. Parijahan whispered something to Katya before taking off out of the courtyard.
“Call Eugeni,” Katya barked to Milomir. “I have no idea how many soldiers we have in the city, but I want them ready. Is Danulka around, or any of my order? I need them, all of them.”
Serefin rested Nadya’s head in his lap so she wouldn’t hurt herself.
“Serefin?” Katya snapped.
“I’m busy,” he replied. Katya wrenched his head to the side and crouched next to him.
“Can I trust you?”
He stared at her for a heartbeat before looking to the sky. “Katya, darling, I’m not going to use your distraction by our impending demise as a chance to take over your capital, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s exactly what I’m asking. Did you order this?”
“I didn’t. I don’t think he did either, but I—I don’t know.”
“You trust him that much?”
Serefin hesitated. He shouldn’t trust him at all. But he genuinely believed this was not Malachiasz. “I do.”
Katya glanced at Nadya, her face paling. “What is she?”
The strange stain on Nadya’s hand had spread, swirling across her collarbone and up the side of her face. An eye opened at her forehead, then her eyes popped open, milky white and unseeing. Her spine arched as her body convulsed.
“I have no idea,” he murmured. “But she’s the best chance we have.”
Her and Malachiasz, he added silently.
Katya hesitated for another moment before she ran off.
Serefin exchanged a glance with Kacper. Once, this would have been the opportunity of a lifetime. The Kalyazi had left the three most powerful Tranavians in the courtyard of their palace, unguarded.
But they no longer had magic, and all Serefin wanted to do was keep Nadya safe and survive the disaster about to strike.
“It’s the Vultures, isn’t it?” Ostyia asked, sounding uncertain.
Serefin grimaced, nodding.
“But…” Ostyia trailed off.
“Malachiasz said he could get control back, but he had to be in Tranavia to do it,” Kacper said, voice low. “And he’s not here. That means this is about something else.”
Serefin looked over at him. “Ruminski.” He hesitated. Ruslan was still staring at the sky, rapturous. Serefin jerked his chin toward him.
Kacper scowled.
Nadya’s skin was hot to the touch. The moths around Serefin fluttered in a panicked frenzy, feeding off his anxiety. He hated feeling useless.
“Why?” Ostyia asked.
Serefin closed his eye. “Take one throne, then the other. Also, who’s to say they don’t know where I am? Two birds. One stone.”
Ostyia swore.
“It could be simpler than that, but—” Serefin cut off as a choked scream broke through Nadya’s clenched teeth.
“Has this been happening to her?” he asked Ostyia, who knelt across from him.
She shook her head. “Everything has been weird, off. She’s been acting strange, but nothing like this.”
He didn’t know what being on that mountain would have done to someone like her. He glanced at Ostyia.
“Should I help her?”
Ostyia tilted her head. Anna let out a sharp breath. Serefin ignored the Kalyazi girl.
“You’ve been with them for months. I’m asking you.”
“Serefin, yes, obviously. What kind of question is that?”
It was the kind that needed to be asked. No, he wasn’t going to do something drastic while Katya wasn’t there, and yes, he had been relieved to see Nadya, but she had still stripped Tranavia of blood magic, made them weak—he couldn’t simply forget it.
But Ostyia had always been a little more bloodthirsty, and slower to forgive, than him. If Kacper was his voice of reason, Ostyia was the one who pushed him. That she didn’t think Nadya deserved this fate was a relief.
Serefin only had one idea and it wasn’t a very good one. He cast out a handful of stars, plucking one out of the air. In one swift movement he pressed the white-hot light between her lips and hoped he wasn’t making a mistake.
A crash sounded, terrifyingly close. Ostyia tensed, ready to fight.
“I’ll be back,” Kacper said, his lips brushing against Serefin’s cheek.
“Wait.” Serefin caught Kacper’s sleeve, tugging him back and kissing him hard. “Where are you going?”
“I’ll be useless against Vultures. I’m going to find Katya; I can help there.”
Serefin nodded. “Be careful.”
“Always am!” Kacper replied cheerfully before he took off.
Blood trickled from Nadya’s eyes, but she’d stopped shaking. Serefin couldn’t tell if that was a good sign. The fingers of her corrupted hand fluttered uselessly at her side.
Suddenly she coughed. Ostyia shot to her feet and away as Nadya rolled off Serefin’s lap and retched. She sat up and leaned back on her heels, wiping blood off her face.
“Welcome back,” Serefin said. “We’re about to be slaughtered by Vultures.”
Nadya laughed so hard she looked like she was going to have another fit. Ostyia exchanged a glance with Serefin. Nadya spat out a mouthful of blood and swore.
“There’s an old god underneath the church,” she said simply.
It took Serefin a moment to process that. “You, what—how do you know?”
The eye on her forehead had closed, but the strange, inky black was still swirled up her neck and jaw. “I spoke to her. Some things make sense now.”
Serefin waited. Anna cleared her throat.
“The darkness in the old gods is in me, too.”