Morokosh needles his fingers like icicles into the minds of mortals, driving them into frenzies so deep that one young girl might slaughter an entire village on her own.
—The Volokhtaznikon
Malachiasz needed to stay away from Nadya.
Nadya clearly had no intention of letting Malachiasz out of her sight.
He was rattled by everything in the library: her nearness, her warmth, the feel of her legs around his hips, the way she posed questions that she knew he wouldn’t want to answer while looking at him so intently—seeing him—the feel of his teeth cutting into her flesh, the taste of her blood, sweet and bitter and disastrous.
He could still taste it.
He had followed Serefin to the kitchens, desperate to wash away the sweetness. Serefin, delighted in an utterly concerning way when Malachiasz had requested alcohol in a desperate bid to forget all the feelings he couldn’t handle, brought out a bottle of vodka with a flourish. Nadya seemed dubious.
“You both have entirely unhealthy coping mechanisms,” she muttered. She touched Malachiasz’s side and he flinched involuntarily. “Oh.” She’d pulled her hand away like he’d burned her. Her dark eyebrows tugged down, expression troubled. “All right,” she said, “I should have taken you literally biting my neck as the bad sign it was.”
He reached for her. The grief at losing her was still close and he couldn’t help it. He gently tugged her hair over one shoulder. The bite wasn’t deep but had an ugly look to it.
“Shit,” Serefin muttered, frowning at spilt vodka. “I can hit you with a pan if need be,” he offered, glancing up.
Malachiasz could feel how close the god had grown, how easy it would be. He was so hungry.
“Does it hurt?” he asked Nadya.
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t have minded if I didn’t know what it meant for you.”
Oh. Well, then. That was distracting.
She took his hand from her neck, gently squeezing his fingers.
Serefin swore again. Malachiasz sighed.
“Let me.” He took the bottle from Serefin, noting that nothing had ended up in the glass and Serefin was moving his hand from the glass to the spill on the table with a deepening frown.
“It’s the eye,” Serefin said. “Depth perception. I—no, that’s not enough, more than that.”
Malachiasz took a sip of vodka while sliding a glass to Serefin. It went down with a satisfying burn. Serefin took the glass—and the bottle—leaving the room. Nadya and Malachiasz exchanged a glance. She shrugged before following. Malachiasz hesitated, uncertain.
He should leave before he hurt them all. He had never had anyone in his life before that he cared enough about not to hurt. It was strange and terrifying. He didn’t like being seen. He liked his masks and lies. They were safe. This wasn’t safe.
Nadya poked her head back in. Her hair was still gathered over one shoulder, creating a pale curtain as she leaned in.
“Malachiasz? If you don’t come, Serefin is going to drink that whole bottle by himself and he really shouldn’t.”
She still had her left sleeve rolled up, revealing the strange inky stain on her skin that tracked up her neck; her fingernails curled into claws. The eye at her forehead had closed. If she was molded by the old gods—and granted an unfathomable power that had knocked the air out of him—why did Chyrnog want her so badly? Or was that not it? Not a vessel, but a creation in her own right. Something that might shove at the world until it crumbled.
He thought of the girl in the snow, shaking as she offered up her arm, her blood, so they could escape the Vultures. The girl who had nearly tossed his spell book in the river. The girl who stood before him now, her hair no longer in a rigid braid crown but loose at her shoulders, darkness staining her skin and soul.
What if they really were looking in the wrong direction?
Chyrnog stirred. “I’ll have her power, too. She was made to set me and my kin free. Made to unlock our chains. It’s only a matter of time.”
Not her.
Her touch startled him as she took his hand. “Come on, sterevyani bolen,” she said, tugging him out of the kitchens. “I knew the vodka was a bad idea.”
She pulled him through the painfully cold halls and into a sitting room. It was in a sadder state than the other rooms. There were tired furs on the floor and a few threadbare chairs paired with one very battered chaise. The walls held more icons, which Nadya took in with a sigh.
“We can turn them,” Serefin said. He’d taken to swigging directly out of the bottle and poking at the oven in the corner, trying to warm the room. Kacper had found him and watched worriedly from a nearby chair. Serefin finally succeeded and immediately flopped onto Kacper.
“I want to see them start crying,” Malachiasz said, peering at one.
Nadya rolled her eyes. She opened a trunk, pulling an old blanket out and wrapping it around her shoulders. “Did you read those books I brought?” she asked, settling on the chaise. The books were on a table. She must have brought them with her, along with his forgotten spell book, which she handed to him.
He’d read two of them and had some ideas, but if it all came down to finding his shattered soul, he was at a loss.
“Do you still have that pendant?” he asked Serefin.
Serefin blinked, bewildered, patting at his chest. “I do,” he said, tugging the necklace out from underneath his shirt. He tossed it to Malachiasz.
Malachiasz turned it over in his hands, sitting on one of the chairs.
“Can I voice my hesitation at making plans with the person the old god currently is possessing?” Kacper said.
“We’re not making plans,” Nadya said. “We’re discussing historical precedence.”
Malachiasz smiled slightly. Nadya leaned on the arm of the chaise, taking one of the books into her lap. He flipped open his spell book. He didn’t know if having it would help, but he hoped so. If not, there was a pencil in his pocket and the light hit the fall of her hair in a way that made his fingers itch.
“Can you read it?” Serefin asked.
Malachiasz flipped a few pages until he found a spell. It was unsettling. He’d written this spell, knew exactly what it was supposed to say, but there was a terrible disconnect and he couldn’t process any of it.
“Can you?” he turned the question on Nadya, who’d sunk down into the chaise.
“I don’t understand the mechanics, but yes.”
Interesting. He returned to the page before and the first few lines of a haphazard sketch of Nadya. He had missed the safety of this book. The knowledge that all he was could be found carefully tucked within the pages.
“Sofka was abandoned by Marzenya,” Nadya said, frowning at the book in her lap. “Lev was chosen by one god, it doesn’t say who, and returned from the mountains but couldn’t speak and supposedly touched by Peloyin—oh, that’s odd.”
“What is?” Serefin asked.
Parijahan wandered into the room, moving to sit next to Nadya on the chaise. Żaneta followed, yawning. She handed Malachiasz half a slab of black bread and a cup of tea before sitting next to him with her own cup. He stared at her.
“Serefin mentioned that eating actual food helps with the…”
“Cosmic hunger?” Malachiasz offered, but he took it gratefully, sipping at the tea. It would do little to sate the discomfort of being so close to Nadya, but it would numb him, for a time. “Where’s Katya?”
“We probably won’t be seeing her or Ostyia,” Kacper said.
Nadya clapped her hands together. “Where’s Rashid, I just won a bet.”
“You didn’t,” Malachiasz said, recalling the many, many bets Parijahan and Rashid made with each other at their expense.
“I absolutely did. Anyway, Peloyin keeps coming up, but he’s the one god I’ve never spoken to. The other gods always avoid talking about him, and information is sparse, for whatever reason.” She flipped a page. “The original four were all clerics who either lost the touch of their patron gods or went somewhere and came back changed.”
“Like, say, dying then not being dead?” Serefin asked.
“Parijahan hasn’t, though,” Nadya said. “I still don’t quite understand how you’re wrapped up in this,” she said to the Akolan girl.
“Ah,” Parijahan said softly.
Malachiasz perked up. He knew that tone. Oh. “It was before you came to Kalyazin.”
“We were kids. I was hungry and didn’t wait for our tester.” She leaned against Nadya’s knees. “The poison moved so fast. I was gone before anyone realized what had happened. Rashid was there, but he didn’t know I’d died. He thought it was a weak poison. If he hadn’t been there … that would have been it.”
Kacper tucked his chin against Serefin’s shoulder. “Is most Akolan magic like this?”
“Akola has a lot of power,” Malachiasz said, “and it’s true, they hide it, but it also might be true that it doesn’t manifest in the ways it does for us or Kalyazin.”
Parijahan nodded. “There’s a lot we don’t know because the mages sequester themselves away in the deserts. And our court mages are more for show.”
Malachiasz desperately wanted to figure out how Rashid and Parijahan’s magic worked. He wished they weren’t here at the end of everything. He chewed at the bread, but it didn’t seem to be helping. He was feeling rather ill.
“You can’t resist. If you don’t take one here, I’ll merely force you somewhere else. There is no stopping me.”
Malachiasz let out a sharp breath. Nadya’s eyes were on him. She got up, downed the last bit of vodka in her glass, and crossed the room, still wrapped in the blanket, taking his hand.
“You need to sleep,” she said.
He did. But he didn’t want to. His head ached from being whacked and it was easier for Chyrnog to take hold of him when his defenses were down. But Nadya pulled him back to her room. They needed to keep their distance. He didn’t know how to say no to her, though, because he didn’t know how much time they had left.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he said.
She tapped him resolutely on the chest. “I don’t want to be alone, and neither do you.”
“I hurt you—”
“You really don’t need to act like that bothers you.”
He reared back, stung. She glared up at him.
“I—of course it does.”
“But you like it, too.”
He flushed and looked away. “You know what I am.” He paused, adding, “If I’m going to bite you, I would much rather it be something you enjoy.”
She laughed. The sound made his heart trip over itself. She sat at the edge of the bed and drew her knees up to her chest.
“We could always … not sleep,” she said.
He had been halfway through tugging his tunic over his head and he froze. The tunic slid back down, his brain going fuzzy.
“Come again?”
Her head tilted. “We are very likely going to die.”
“Yes?”
She flushed. “I … I don’t want to die not having known what it feels like. Being with you.”
“Being with me?” he asked, his voice cracking. He knew what she was talking about. She frowned, hugging herself.
“You’re making fun of me. Poor, sheltered, repressed Nadezhda.”
“I’m not making fun of you!” he said, quite firmly, before conceding. “You are absolutely repressed.”
“Shut up,” she groaned, falling back on the bed. “I just…” she trailed off. She let out a breath.
He closed his eyes because every nerve was on fire and his traitorous body was betraying him, damn it.
“Nadya,” he said, strained. “I almost tore your throat out not three hours ago.”
She made a thoughtful hum. Blood and bone, she was going to kill him.
“I can’t believe you’re being reasonable,” she said.
“I’m being reasonable because I don’t want you to die.”
“I’m not going to die from sleeping with you.”
He dragged both hands down his face before allowing a partial defeat and kneeling next to her. She held out a hand, languid in a way that she had to know what it was doing to him. He slid his fingers between hers.
“If you’re worried about repercussions—”
“What if we live,” he whispered.
“Kacper has a tea for that.”
That gave Malachiasz pause. “Why the hell would Kacper have that?”
“It’s a poison in greater doses.”
“I don’t want to know how you know this.” He blinked. “Did you talk about this with Kacper?”
“No!” Her nose scrunched. “I talked about it with Parj,” she mumbled. “Who talked about it with Kacper.”
“Nadya.”
“As if they aren’t assuming this is what we’re doing in here anyway! Also, it was possibly the worst five minutes of my life. Ranked above your death because it was that mortifying.”
He couldn’t help laughing.
She tugged on their clasped hands, forcing him to lean over her. “Malachiasz.”
“I mean, you have been trying to take my clothes off since the Salt Mines,” he said, dipping down to brush his lips against her forehead.
She laughed again. It was such a good sound. He wanted to spend the rest of his life hearing it, even if his life didn’t last much longer. She so rarely laughed and when she did it was like being doused in sunlight.
“Which, really, Nadya, troubling. All these eyes.” But he was grinning.
“It’s not that bad,” she said.
He lifted his eyebrows.
“Fine, it is. It’s truly revolting. Malachiasz, you’re a horror.” She arched up and kissed him. He closed his eyes, pressing into the kiss.
“Did that hurt your ribs?” he murmured against the side of her mouth.
“Shut up, Malachiasz,” she said. Her hands were under his tunic, warm against his skin. “No more ‘maybe if we survive.’ We’re here, alive, now.”
She grazed her teeth against his throat, and he shuddered, accepting defeat.
Nadya woke long before the sun. Malachiasz was asleep, body curled toward her. Her eyes fluttered closed, briefly holding onto the memory of Malachiasz’s heat and gentle touch, before she carefully tucked it away. She was allowed to have these things she yearned for, this boy. But it was time to move forward.
The room was bathed in soft moonlight and Nadya risked a glancing touch of her fingertips against Malachiasz’s lips. He didn’t stir. That had been her worry, ultimately. She knew how badly he slept, and she needed to do this without him knowing.
Before she was really awake enough to be aware of it, she had dressed and was knocking on Serefin’s door. After some noise from the other side, the door was flung open.
Serefin’s expression wearied when he saw her. “Nadya,” he said, his voice scratchy with sleep. “Do you have any idea what cursed time it is?”
He wasn’t wearing a shirt, which Nadya noted without much more consideration, and nothing covered his left eye. It was closed, but the eyelid had an odd shape to it, flat without any eye to cover.
“Extremely late. Or early. Put your clothes on, we need to talk to Pelageya, alone.”
He looked at her suspiciously. There was rustling in the bed and Kacper sat up.
“Where’s Malachiasz?” Serefin asked.
“Asleep. We need to talk to her about him.”
Serefin’s eye narrowed. “There’s no way he didn’t wake up when you left.”
Kacper mumbled something, slowly sinking back down in the bed.
“What?”
“Drugged his tea.”
Serefin turned. “You what?”
“I asked him to,” Nadya said. “Do you have the relic?”
Serefin’s expression shuttered. No longer the boy she had come to consider a friend. Here was the royal, the general, the blood mage.
“Why would you want that? I thought we were working together.”
“Yes, I—”
“He deserves a hell of a lot of misery, but I’m not entirely sure he deserves another betrayal from you.”
Nadya shook her head. It was so hard to explain. “I’m not…” she paused. “We can’t let him know this part of the plan. Chyrnog will stop it.”
Understanding dawned on Serefin’s face. He nodded briskly, turning and haphazardly throwing on clothes. She watched as he leaned over to where Kacper had burrowed back under the blankets, touching his head.
“I heard,” Kacper mumbled. “Just let me sleep.”
Serefin returned to Nadya, moving to hand her the relic.
“No, keep it. He’ll know something is wrong if I have it.”
He didn’t appear to want to slide it onto his belt, but he did anyway. He waved an imperious hand at her. It was too early to be truly irritated with him.
They made their way outside, into the frigid morning air. When they reached the small hut, Nadya went to knock, but Serefin pushed passed her and opened it.
“How is she always around?” he muttered.
Nadya contemplated that. “I think she is more than a witch. Where would we be without her, though?”
He made a grumpy noise that she interpreted as agreement as he stepped inside.
“Well,” Pelageya called, “this feels like sneaking around.”
Nadya sighed and followed Serefin.
“It’s her idea,” Serefin muttered, throwing himself into a chair.
Nadya held her hand out to Serefin, who frowned before tugging the relic from his belt and handing it to her.
“Why did you give me this?” she asked Pelageya. “What did you intend for me to do with it, if not kill Malachiasz?”
The witch lifted an eyebrow. “What if that was my intent?”
“I was in no state to go through with something like that when we spoke.”
“But you were willing to take him to a place you knew would destroy him.”
Nadya felt Serefin’s gaze fix on her face. She briefly closed her eyes, letting out a breath.
“It was easier to pretend he would survive,” Nadya said.
Pelageya snorted. “Well, you’re right, I didn’t give it to you for him. I didn’t know what you would do with it, if you would see how your goddess was stifling you.”
Nadya sat down slowly. She had done her best not to think about Marzenya’s death. She didn’t know how to categorize her complicated feelings, so she’d shoved them aside.
“She was going to kill me,” she whispered. “If Malachiasz hadn’t killed her.”
“You were a divine experiment that failed spectacularly.”
Nadya swallowed, turning the relic in her hands, her fingers tightened over the hilt. “Is there any way to free Malachiasz?”
Pelageya sat down. “What is the magic between the two of you?”
“When I set Velyos free, I stole Malachiasz’s power—”
“Is his the only power you’ve stolen?”
Nadya shook her head. “Zvezdan’s, too.”
Pelageya made a thoughtful noise, motioning for Nadya to continue.
“With Malachiasz, it was like I … I sewed his power into mine, but the seams are gone. I couldn’t break it if I tried. Death couldn’t break it.”
“What came from that?”
“I am also deeply curious about this,” Serefin said.
Nadya smiled weakly. “It’s, well, I can talk to him through it. If I tried, I could read his thoughts. I can feel his emotions if they’re strong, and it’s Malachiasz, so they’re all strong. For someone so soft spoken, he is very loud. And if I needed to, I could take more of his power, a rather unnerving prospect.”
“Is there a way to free him from Chyrnog?” Serefin asked. “Or are we out of luck?”
Pelageya looked between them. An odd smile flickered over her lips. “He is one of the most destructive forces this world has seen in a very long time. And you two want to save him.”
Nadya and Serefin exchanged a glance. He nodded firmly.
“Ultimately, it’s up to him, but it is possible to excise the hold Chyrnog has over him. Weaken it. It will require that blade. And you run the risk of setting Chyrnog free, totally.”
Serefin frowned.
“He’s currently bound within that boy. You free the boy, you risk freeing Chyrnog. Death must touch him twice.”
“I can’t do it again,” Serefin whispered. “I’m sorry.”
She held the hilt of the blade close to her chest. “There’s no other way?”
Pelageya shrugged. “There are other ways, but not with what you have on hand, and not with the time left.”
“He and Chyrnog are … melding,” Nadya said softly.
“Chyrnog doesn’t merely want a hand on the world. He wants to be present. If he can weld himself into the Vulture’s bones until he no longer realizes his thoughts aren’t his own … well…”
Nadya cast a despairing look Serefin’s way.
“We’ll do what we can, Nadya,” Serefin said.
She squeezed her eyes shut as they welled with tears, nodding. A hand on hers forced her gaze up. The witch stood before her.
“It must be you; it cannot be the king. You have stolen his magic and know the shape of it. You must cut only the pieces that are not the Vulture. It will be dangerous. His second death might be permanent. But if you wish to save him, you must try.”
It had been so fast, the fall. He had been so focused on his magic, on Nadya, that he hadn’t noticed the hunger as it clawed through him, as Chyrnog used it to remind him, so vividly, that taking Nadya’s power would be enough to finish everything. It would set Chyrnog free. It would stop all of this.
“I would leave you, you know. You could go on with your violent ways. It would be so easy. One life given for the rest of eternity. I have shown you true power and still you resist. Still you fight. Is it worth it?”
Chyrnog stripped Malachiasz’s will away, taking it apart, laying out the bones of his spine and selecting the ones he found most agreeable. There was no escaping him in this place. Malachiasz knew not to fight.
“You are ready to align with me.”
I won’t kill her. I have few limits, but that is one.
“She won’t truly die,” Chyrnog said. “She’s beyond that. She’s practically immortal.”
Maybe the god was telling the truth. He didn’t know. But he was tired of fighting and it was very easy to consider doing what he knew best—turning on everyone. Maybe he could only be as he had always been.
“Exactly. You want to be noble? I am giving you noble cause. That girl will destroy the world. The others of my kind, they call to her, and their songs are so very sweet. She has spent her whole life listening to the voices of gods. She’s known nothing else and will comply with what they wish. I want one thing. To cloud the world in darkness, nothing more. Is that so much to ask?”
Malachiasz couldn’t even go out in the sunlight anymore. He hated how compelled he was by Chyrnog’s words. Of course Nadya would fall. She had fallen before. What if he had to stop her?
“There is always another choice. Let me have her power and she will be the thing that survives.”
Malachiasz could do nothing without his fragmented soul. Nadya acted like it could be found. Serefin, though dubious, seemed to agree. She dragged Malachiasz, Serefin, and Parijahan out of the safe house the next day and to a nearby hut in the woods. Malachiasz caught sight of the benign building and planted his heels.
“No.”
“Malachiasz—”
“I’m not going through this again.”
“She’s asked for us. We should hear her out.”
“I can’t shake the feeling that this is all her fault,” Malachiasz replied acidly.
“Probably,” Parijahan muttered, going inside anyway.
Serefin glanced at Malachiasz and shrugged, following the Akolan girl. Nadya looked plaintively at him in a way that made it very hard to argue with her.
“Did you sleep all right?” she asked.
“I slept,” he replied. Seeing her dissatisfaction, he sighed. “Not particularly, but I never do. That I slept at all is nothing short of a miracle.”
He tried to remember what had happened with Chyrnog, but it was fuzzy in the daylight. It had been hard to convince him to even go out, but Nadya had thrown a cloak at his face. He was uncomfortable, but his skin wasn’t burning off, so that was good at least.
“Nadya, I—”
She shot him a look, taking his hand. He ignored the churning hunger that came every time her skin touched his. The desire to take that ocean of power. She had so much, and he couldn’t help imagining what he could do with it.
He followed her into the hut.
This one was cleaner than the last. Odd, because he was fairly certain they were all the same. Parijahan was sitting in an armchair with a cup of tea, looking delightfully pleased.
“You have Akolan tea,” he said flatly.
“She has Akolan tea!” Parijahan chirped brightly.
“Bribes are beneath you, Pelageya,” he said, perching on the arm of the chair Nadya chose.
The witch shrugged. “Have you admitted you were wrong yet?”
“You cannot tell me that the balance of the world hangs on me saying that I made a few mistakes.”
She bared her teeth at him. He hated her so much. She looked young, her hair jet-black but for a shock of white, out of place with her smooth features.
“Mistakes seem a light word for what he’s done,” Parijahan said.
“Catastrophic screw ups,” Serefin offered.
“Atrocities,” Nadya said simply.
“Succinct, thank you,” Malachiasz said, kissing the side of her head.
“Tell me where to find the pieces of his soul,” Nadya said to Pelageya, the switch in her focus scarily intent. “That’s what we need, right? That’s what leads us to Chyrnog. They’re in the same place.”
“You’re not thinking abstractly enough. It’s in a stone, in an egg, in a duck, in a hare, in a tree, on an island, in a forest, on a mountain.”
Nadya flushed. “Children’s stories aren’t going to get us anywhere.”
“Child, do you think I treat in children’s stories?” Pelageya asked dryly. She lifted a teacup and an eyebrow at Serefin.
He was nodding when Pelageya snapped her fingers. “Wait, you need this.” She tossed him a bottle.
“This is still bribery,” Malachiasz said.
“Malachiasz, please, this is a bribe I will accept,” Serefin said.
“I am strangely not comforted with the knowledge that foreign powers can bribe you with a bit of hard liquor.”
“Hold on,” Serefin said, sliding a signet ring off his finger and tucking it away. “Just Serefin now.”
“You’re an idiot.”
Serefin winked at him, an effect somewhat diminished by his single eye. “I’ve lost my throne to Żaneta’s father, a warmonger. You’ve lost your Vultures to, well, more warmongers, actually. Tranavia is terrible, I miss it so much. Please, let me have this.”
“Is that a problem you wish to fix now?” Pelageya asked.
“We’re in the middle of Kalyazin,” Serefin replied.
Pelageya rolled her eyes. “Open the door.”
Serefin groaned but did as she asked. The door opened to a balcony Malachiasz recognized immediately.
What?
He got up and followed Serefin out. The balcony led to a staircase that spiraled down to the floor level of the palace in Grazyk.
Malachiasz and Serefin exchanged a glance.
“Are you entertaining the idea of shutting the door and forgetting all this divine nonsense?” Serefin asked softly.
“Exactly that,” Malachiasz replied. But he also deeply wanted to know how Pelageya was able to do this.
“All right,” Serefin said, taking a step back. “It’s becoming more enticing the longer I stand here.” He fled into the hut.
Malachiasz hesitated. But Chyrnog would still have him, even in Tranavia. He sighed and followed Serefin inside. The door shut behind him. When he opened it again, he found Kalyazi snow and forest.
“How do you do that?” Malachiasz asked.
“Magic,” Pelageya said, helpfully.
“Could I do that?”
“Only people who admit to their mistakes can do big magic like that.”
“Pelageya, I detest you.”
She grinned at him, handed Nadya a cup of tea, and stood. Nadya offered it to Malachiasz.
“She won’t make you one,” she said softly.
He almost laughed.
“Children! You’re all children! And yet here you are at the end of the world. An end you have managed to bring about faster yet also kept from consuming us.”
“We’re wildly talented,” Malachiasz said dryly, returning to his perch by Nadya.
“You did ask for help,” Pelageya said, equally dry. “I’ll give you that. There might be hope for you yet.”
“Is there somewhere we need to go?” Nadya asked.
“Why? The battle is all around you. You can see it now, can’t you? The flow of your power has changed.”
Nadya’s face went bright red.
“You don’t have much time, though,” Pelageya said. “There’s someone else vying for those pieces and while I hid them well, perhaps I did not hide them well enough.”
“What?” Parijahan asked. “Did you tell someone?”
“Me? No. But Chyrnog isn’t only speaking to him, he has others trained to survive the sound of his voice.”
Malachiasz felt the blood drain from his face. “Ruslan.”
Nadya frowned. “How did I never know of Chyrnog?”
“The average Kalyazi wouldn’t,” Pelageya said with a shrug. “But a Kalyazi disgruntled with the church? Who thinks the gods have abandoned us because there are no clerics and an unceasing, ruinous war? Well, they might go searching. They might learn about old gods who ruled with a very different kind of iron fist.”
“This is the whole problem with a religion that blankets the entire country,” Malachiasz muttered.
“Shut up, Malachiasz,” Nadya and Parijahan said. They smiled at one another and he frowned, lightly offended.
“You’ll have to run to make it there first. They built Komyazalov so close to the place where dead gods are buried, to the end of eternity. Could be worse, eh? You could be halfway across the continent with a kingdom falling around your ears.”
Serefin grimaced. He glanced at the door. “Pelageya…” he trailed off.
The witch seemed to know what he could not ask. “I won’t lie to you. You who have come to me for so much. You are your mother’s son, more than that one.” She waved dismissively at Malachiasz. “The situation is dire. The old gods are waking up, and the old gods in Tranavia may yet rise if you do not stop this.”
Nadya let out a long breath. “Oh,” she whispered. “That makes sense.”
“They were everywhere once,” Pelageya continued. “Everywhere and nowhere and they lived and they died and they salted the earth and made it fertile. This world has turned for so very long. You fight powers that have seen eternity, and you cannot possibly succeed. But you must, or everything falls. This one will take the sun and crush it.”
“Honestly, I’ll probably eat it considering how things have been going,” Malachiasz mused.
Pelageya barked out a startled laugh. Malachiasz was a little alarmed.
“How many has he forced you to consume? How have you enjoyed it?”
Malachiasz shifted. Nadya reached up, touching his hand where it rested behind her.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It does, sterevyani bolen. In you, he has found his match. The one mortal who is a little less and a little more, who hungers, has always hungered, reached for more, farther, higher, and with a little prodding, will fall. You must not, for we will all perish.”
“I know that,” Malachiasz snapped.
“I have a question,” Parijahan said delicately. “You may not be able to answer, but…”
“Why you? Why a girl from the southern lands who has never dabbled in magic, never dabbled in the divine?” Pelageya asked.
“I wouldn’t say never.” Parijahan shrugged. “I knew what I was doing when I chose the clever boy from Yanzin Zadar to be my guard, when I took him out of the palace on days when the mages wanted to test him. I knew what I was doing when we fled.”
“But you didn’t, truly, because you never knew what the boy could do. What you could do.”
“I keep him in check.” Parijahan said, sounding unsure, looking at Malachiasz.
He could feel it, his own frantic power quieted by Parijahan’s sheer presence.
“And you didn’t even realize it. You could, though. You will never see outward manifestation like these mages do, but you could hone the numbers and the formulas into chance and providence.”
“We don’t have time for that,” Parijahan said, a touch mournfully.
If they survived this, he so desperately wanted to help Parijahan harness her magic. Nadya’s hand went to his wrist.
“That is not the puzzle to solve right now,” she said.
“It may never be,” Parijahan said resolutely, but her gaze met Malachiasz’s. She wanted to. If they survived—such a weighty if—they had to try. “What about Rashid?”
“He should be here for that conversation, no?” Malachiasz asked.
“Why isn’t he here?” Pelageya asked. “And I’ve never seen you without your little entourage,” she said to Serefin.
“I can survive without them for an hour,” Serefin replied defensively.
“You can’t.”
He hunched down in his chair and took a sulky sip of vodka.
“The Akolan boy’s role is different,” Pelageya mused, a finger winding one curl around another. “Nevertheless, you are correct. Your country knows what it has lost in you and the boy.”
Parijahan looked ill. “I can’t go back,” she whispered.
“You may not have to. We’re probably going to die,” Serefin said cheerfully. Parijahan glared at him.
“If you continue to make silly jokes, almost certainly,” Pelageya said, narrowing her eyes.
Serefin’s fingers tightened on the neck of the vodka bottle. Malachiasz hated feeling powerless. All he had done for Tranavia, and there was nothing he could do to save it.
Nadya’s thumb gently worked a circle at the base of his wrist. He felt a pang of hunger.
Pelageya’s eyes went to him. “Careful.”
“I’m fine,” he replied, voice strained.
Parijahan stood, a light frown creasing between her dark eyebrows. She crossed the room and took Malachiasz’s face between her hands.
“You’re like a storm and you are driving me insane,” she said, her eyes closing. “Let me try this.”
Her fingers light against his temples, the metal rings on her fingers cold against his cheek. Even when blood magic was all he had, there had always been an element of chaos to it, his power too great. Everything was always too loud and too complicated and too much.
This was a careful string, fragile but without breaks, without tangles, strung from her to him. Was she … counting?
But the hunger slowly eased. Chyrnog snappish but abating.
“What did you just do?” he whispered.
“I have no idea!” She smiled, the cool gray of her eyes meeting his.
“Take this moment of peace and run,” Pelageya said. “Go to the graveyard of gods.”