Siblings abandoned at a monastery deep in the forests, Svoyatovi Kliment and Svoyatova Frosya Ylechukov grew up to infiltrate the Tranavian ranks where they were eventually martyred by the heretics.
—Vasiliev’s Book of Saints
Serefin couldn’t remember traveling this far south. He remembered everything from after the forest—well, mostly, a few days were blurred by his fever—and they couldn’t have walked as far south as they were.
“The forest spat us out close to its border,” Kacper explained with a shrug that said he wasn’t going to interrogate the weirdness, only be grateful the forest had let them out at all.
But Serefin wanted to interrogate the weirdness. Because everything and nothing had changed. He felt like he was biding time. If he had shattered anything by tearing out his eye, it had been the connection to the nameless voice, but then, what about Velyos?
“It’s true. I’ve been quite put out by it.”
Serefin was careful not to react to the return of the reedy voice he loathed so much. A shudder ran through him all the same.
Is there no way to be rid of you? He had done everything, and it wasn’t enough. Still haunted by some know-it-all Kalyazi deity.
“Oh, no, you succeeded. Claim broken, bonds snapped, all that and more. You’re free, little Tranavian! But once you hear the voices of my kind, well, that doesn’t stop.”
Serefin took the slightest comfort that the situation could be much worse. Still, less than ideal. No more visions?
“No more visions. Did you not like them? I thought they were such fun. It had been so long since I was able to play. I’m disappointed that you didn’t enjoy our time together. But the maiming really wasn’t necessary in our situation.”
Serefin disagreed. He refused to live under the will of a god who could physically control him like Chyrnog or twist his mind and yank him across the continent like Velyos. He refused to live by the whim of any gods. It was worth it.
“Yes, well, Chyrnog is … like that.”
Serefin shivered at the name. He didn’t want to remember that feeling of his control being wrenched away.
But you can’t do what he did?
“Oh, no, not anymore. Don’t even want to! Isn’t that nice of me?”
He made me kill my brother.
“You were planning on doing that,” Velyos noted.
Serefin struggled not to flinch. That wasn’t the point. Yes, Serefin had been planning it. Malachiasz was volatile, a wild card who couldn’t be trusted and needed to be dealt with. When it came down to it, though, Serefin hadn’t actually wanted to deal with him like that. He had lost so much already. It wasn’t enough that the blood of his father was on his hands, now he was stained with his brother’s blood, too.
How was he supposed to live with himself?
How was he going to face his mother—if he ever made it home?
He didn’t know how he was supposed to go to her and admit that the son she had lost to the Vultures could have returned—Malachiasz had stood before Serefin on that mountain top, terrified and in tears and ready to go home—and Serefin had killed him.
He couldn’t face her. He could barely face himself. Knowing that some kind of order had been returned to the world with Malachiasz’s death wasn’t enough to assuage the guilt. That Malachiasz had literally been the cause of Serefin’s murder wasn’t enough either, somehow.
“Serefin?”
He jolted at Kacper’s voice. “What?”
Kacper was eyeing him, clearly trying to appear nonchalant and failing utterly. He was worried. He shook his head slightly. “I don’t like when you go quiet,” he said.
Serefin glanced around, realizing how silent everything was. The roads were empty. They were exposed and had no magic to defend themselves. The alternative, though, was the forest that hemmed in the road on either side, and Serefin was done traveling through forests for the next ten years at least.
“Sorry,” Serefin said, shooting Kacper a wry smile. “I will endeavor to maintain a constant stream of chatter from here on out.”
“Wait, no—”
“I can start, well, on any topic. I was always told I had an alarming wit at court.”
“I don’t think they meant that as a compliment—”
“I also have an incredible collection of lurid ditties rattling in my brain.”
“Please, never say the words lurid ditties in front of me ever—”
“I can also start in on my unfathomable collection of jokes, with a warning that I picked most of them up from Lieutenant Winarski when I was a very impressionable sixteen years old.”
Kacper paused. “Wasn’t he—?”
“Of a deeply questionable emotional and mental state, yes. They are not good jokes.”
Kacper’s face broke into a weary grin. Serefin was not going to ruin the moment by telling Kacper that he could still hear Velyos. It truly was incredibly unseemly for a Tranavian king to be talking to a Kalyazi god—
“Not a god.”
Oh, shut up.
Serefin would have to figure out how to close himself off so Velyos didn’t chime in on every errant thought. At least he had broken off the greater bond. It was a relief to know his maiming had meant something. That was nice.
“I was thinking,” Serefin said softly. “We need to figure out how to get back to the capital and into Grazyk without Ruminski finding out.” He felt bad lying to Kacper, but, well, he could have been thinking about that, right?
“I wish we had been able to free Żaneta,” Kacper mused.
So did Serefin, but that wasn’t in the cards. He wondered if it even would have fixed anything, if Malachiasz had been telling the truth that she needed time to adapt. He didn’t know how the Vultures were made, but Malachiasz had seemed earnest about that, at least.
Suddenly Serefin tripped on a hole he’d thought was several steps away, Kacper barely catching his arm and keeping him on his feet. His depth perception was shot, and while he would eventually adjust, he couldn’t help feeling useless.
“Careful,” Kacper murmured, but didn’t pull away.
Serefin kept waiting for it, surprised when he slid his hand down Serefin’s arm, twining their fingers together. It was almost as if things were normal—or at least not quite so broken as they truly were.
A snap sounded within the forest, too loud to be an animal. Serefin cursed softly, dropping Kacper’s hand and reaching futilely for his spell book.
They exchanged a glance.
They had gone from two of the deadliest blood mages in Tranavia to two boys trapped in an enemy kingdom. A king and his lieutenant. Easy prey.
And what manner of creatures had awoken in Kalyazin? Malachiasz had torn down the wall separating that damned forest from the hellish place hiding within it. What had escaped? What had they done on that mountain?
He wanted to place the blame on Nadya and Malachiasz but so much of it was his own damn fault.
“You were only doing as I asked,” Velyos said, sounding petulant.
Serefin didn’t deign to respond. He had done what he had been forced to, and he rather thought that was different.
Another snap within the trees. Someone was moving through the underbrush toward the road.
Serefin’s hand fell away from his spell book. He gestured for Kacper to relax. Perhaps they were dealing with mortal foes.
Can’t you, I don’t know, help?
“No—no, you had your chance with me, and you made your stance perfectly clear. I can do nothing and that’s your own fault.”
Serefin sighed. He had worked so hard to get rid of the god’s influence, he supposed he couldn’t very well complain about the god mostly leaving him alone.
Still … it would be nice to know what they were dealing with.
“Drop any weapons you have,” a young voice called from within the trees. Serefin frowned, glancing at Kacper.
Kacper shrugged but relaxed slightly.
Serefin tossed his szitelka into the dirt, gesturing for Kacper to do the same. He did, scowling.
“That can’t possibly be it.”
“I assure you, dear,” Serefin said, not bothering to mask the Tranavian accent from his Kalyazi. “That’s it.”
A girl—Serefin’s age—with pale skin and blond hair cropped close to her scalp slipped out of the forest. Her bow was drawn halfway, arrow pointed at Serefin’s throat. “Coins. Into the dirt with the blade.”
“You’re about to be disappointed,” Kacper muttered, tossing his light purse dramatically beside Serefin’s szitelka.
Nothing more than highway robbers. Losing their coin and blades was less than ideal, but survivable. Those were trivialities.
She nudged the bow at Serefin, and he shrugged.
“I’ve got nothing. Are you alone?”
One eyebrow lifted. She wore a tunic in a neutral gray, the edges frayed, a tear in the neckline. There were holes in her coat and her leggings, and the soles of her boots looked like they were barely hanging on.
“We have nothing else to—”
“Your ring.” She gestured with her bow to Serefin’s little finger.
Kacper tensed. Serefin’s hand curled into a fist. The signet ring was one of the only things he had left—it was all he had of his authority; the hammered iron crown had been lost in the forest. The girl had no idea what she was asking, but thanks to Serefin’s response, she knew it was wanted.
She smiled. “Drop it.”
“I’m afraid we need to reach a different agreement,” Serefin said.
Her arm pulled back, the bow taut. Her aim needn’t even be good for the arrow to punch through Serefin’s throat, and dying by choking on his own blood wasn’t particularly how he wanted to die.
But this was only one girl. Serefin could take her. The moths around Serefin had been idle, unnoticeable, but when his alarm spiked, so did they, bursting up in a cloud.
The girl jumped back. And more than a dozen arrows visibly trained on Serefin and Kacper as the girl’s companions finally made themselves known. Serefin sighed, lifting his hands.
“I won’t ask again,” she said.
“But I certainly will refuse again!” Serefin said cheerfully, a bead of sweat dripping down his back. He didn’t quite know how to talk his way out of this one. Before the forest—before Kalyazin—he would have been able to. He could’ve charmed the bow out of this girl’s hands and walked away with her coin, but he didn’t know what he could possibly say to make it worth lowering her bow. She had likely spent the better part of the long winter starving.
“Take the coin, take the blades,” he said, more seriously. “Leave the ring, it’s nothing more than iron.”
Her gaze flicked to his hand, unconvinced, but she smiled.
“Take them,” she said. “There’s use for them yet.”
“Wait, no, I don’t—” But before Serefin could finish, something sharp pricked his neck.
He dropped to the ground, unconscious.
Serefin woke to the taste of blood in his mouth and a pounding headache. He was soaked to his skin and freezing. His disorientation lasted only long enough for him to open his eye. He immediately closed it, pretending to be asleep.
All this time in Kalyazin and now they had been captured by highway thieves? It would be funny if it weren’t so damn sad.
The cords that bound his ankles and wrists were too tight and his extremities felt fuzzy from the lack of circulation. Uncomfortable, but not the end of the world. The weight of his signet ring remained on his little finger, a massive relief. Why hadn’t the girl taken it, if she was that desperate?
Of course, if she was that desperate, he would be dead on the road, not tied up and left out in the wet snow to gather water in his ears.
He almost tried to sit up, better to get this over with, but he heard the low murmur of voices and decided to wait this one out.
As he listened, he became increasingly disappointed. The chatter was utterly useless. One of the girls was lamenting about a girl she’d left behind in her village and she was being thoroughly teased for it. Serefin sighed internally. So much for these being Kalyazi agents of war. He had been certain everything they’d been avoiding since the mountain was catching up with them, but maybe not. These were just tired Kalyazi thieves who wanted to make a few quick coins off some boys on the road.
Though that didn’t explain why they had been taken alive.
He opened his eye a slit. It wasn’t yet dark.
“It was all well and good to spend your nights gossiping like babas when we were in Dovribinski,” the girl who’d threatened him said, “but if you keep this up, you’re going to bring the whole wood down on our heads and we’re in kashyvhes country.”
“Kashyvhes country,” one of the men said derisively. “You and your children’s stories, Olya.”
“I won’t pray around your tent tonight, then,” Olya said blandly. “You can go without any blessings. I’m not sure they would hold anyway—blessings aren’t like flies, you know, they don’t stick to shit.”
The whole group erupted into jeers, and Serefin couldn’t help but feel nervous. He knew how dangerous these woods could be, and he didn’t particularly want to be visited by a striczki while he was hog-tied on the damn ground.
“I thought I told Tsezar to put the Tranavians in a tent,” Olya said, sounding tired, annoyed, and disgusted all at once, which Serefin thought was rather impressive.
“Why should they get a dry canvas over their heads?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Because I don’t want them dead,” Olya replied wearily. “And the pale one looks like he’s ready to drop at any second. Put them both in the tent. Baba Zhikovnya can decide if they’re worth anything.”
There was the sound of someone spitting. Then the hard smack of flesh as, presumably, Olya smacked the spitter.
“I didn’t come here to deal in your witch flesh trade,” a man said.
“Go back to your starving village then, Stepan, and see if I care,” Olya snapped. “Get them inside.”
Serefin chewed on the inside of his lip, thinking. He could draw enough blood and—
He sighed. He was thinking like a blood mage and that wouldn’t do him any good. He still had something, could feel some power under his skin, but maybe that was Velyos’ work. He didn’t want to rely on Velyos for anything.
“You may have to,” Velyos said pointedly.
Why couldn’t the god have gone away when he’d torn out his eye?
“Because that was you breaking the connection with Chyrnog, mostly. And with me, but I had you in a different way than he did. It’s fine, I’m not offended. I got what I wanted.”
And what did you want? Serefin’s curiosity won out.
Velyos had wanted to wake other fallen gods who had been banished like him, for vengeance, but what did that mean?
Was the death of that goddess part of your plan?
“I am not saddened to see her go. I expected to take a more direct route for her death, I was not expecting the Vulture to do it for me.”
You feel sadness?
“No.”
Serefin shifted his shoulders, attempting to relieve some of the tension in them.
“What I want is simple, and you have essentially given it to me. Me and my ilk were banished, and I wanted that undone. I wanted my revenge on Marzenya for the banishment, and she is dead.”
What about Chyrnog?
“Well, I can’t say that his goals and mine align.”
Serefin felt a chill. What does he want?
“The death of the sun, of the world, renewal.”
Serefin pressed his head down into the dirt a little more. What had he done?
But … couldn’t the gods not work without mortal intervention? Maybe all was not lost. Maybe the god hadn’t found a human to claim. Serefin would have to hold to that.
He wanted to go home but running was useless. Everything would catch up to him. These problems wouldn’t stay localized in Kalyazin, and it would fall on Tranavia all the faster because his was the country of heretics.
“I’m so proud. You’re finally catching on!”
This is all your fault, Serefin thought morosely.
“I wanted freedom and Marzenya to pay. I have those things and I am now content to watch.”
Serefin frowned. But what about the vision? What about the ash and blood and … and …
“The burning?”
It seemed then like you were giving me a warning.
“A warning of the inevitable, perhaps.”
Serefin withdrew, building a wall between himself and the god. Velyos wanted this chaos, and there was no trusting this god to point him in a direction that wouldn’t be catastrophic. Surely something could be done, but Serefin wasn’t going to figure out what from a god.
He didn’t know the havoc the fallen gods were wreaking, but it couldn’t be good, and he would hear about it soon enough.
If he survived this, of course.
But if gods could be set free, that meant they could be bound. What if they could be bound again? The Kalyazi would have thoughts about that, but their precious gods would turn on them soon, and they’d see it was the only way.
Though he supposed he shouldn’t expect them all to be as rational as Nadya.
Olya finally wandered over, loosening the ropes on Serefin’s wrists.
“You’re already out an eye,” she said. “You don’t need to be out both your hands as well.”
“Oh, all the better for me to hold the hilt of the blade you’ll kill me with?” Serefin replied cheerfully.
“If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead,” she said dryly as she moved back to the others.
But he was able to work his way into a sitting position and inch over to Kacper, who eyed him with some bemusement.
“You have a type,” Kacper noted.
“I’m not going to like where this is going, am I?”
“Your type is girls who could very easily kill you and definitely want to.”
“And pretty boys who are nice to me,” Serefin finished for him. “And would also like to kill me.”
Kacper made a thoughtful, vaguely disbelieving sound, but grinned. “My life would be much easier with you dead.”
“Are you allowed to say that about your ki—?”
Kacper elbowed him hard. He wheezed.
“Are you allowed to do that?”
“I better be,” Kacper muttered. A flicker of worry crossed his face. “Am I?”
“Obviously.” He slumped against Kacper’s shoulder, tilting his head to kiss his neck. “You can do whatever you want. Within reason.”
“Oh.”
“No coups, please.”
“I’ll try to restrain myself, but no promises.”
Serefin laughed softly.
“You’ll be a good king,” Kacper said softly, so softly Serefin wasn’t sure he was supposed to hear it.
Serefin’s face heated. He didn’t know if Kacper was right. It was something Serefin had never thought he was allowed to want, never mind that he was the prince. He was supposed to die on a battlefield in Kalyazin.
“I hope so,” Serefin whispered, because that was all he had. A fragile thread of hope that he wouldn’t die in the kingdom of his enemies and could pull his country out of the mess they had found themselves in—so much of it his fault.
The evening twilight cast the wood in a strange, dim light, and Serefin had a terrible feeling they were being dragged into the forest they had already escaped. He could feel it gnawing at his edges, the awareness of a greater force that wanted to take him apart again.
“Olya, look at this,” one of the thieves called across the camp. She was inspecting a tree, holding a torch close to the bark, a frown on her face.
Olya got up with exaggerated exasperation, but her expression changed as she inspected the tree.
“Keep away from it,” she warned. “I don’t like it.”
“What is it?” the girl asked.
Olya shook her head.
“If you dragged us all the way out here to be eaten by witch magic…” One of the other thieves grumbled.
“Shut up, Stepan,” Olya snapped, but she sounded rattled.
Serefin and Kacper exchanged a glance.
Olya turned, her gaze lighting on the two Tranavian boys. Her eyes narrowed. She gestured to a nearby Kalyazi, who hauled Serefin to his feet and shoved him in the direction of the tree.
“You don’t have to be so handsy,” Serefin protested. “Buy me a drink first.” But his heart fell when he saw what they’d discovered in the eerie dim.
Something was eating the trees alive. Like mold, a black infection creeping along the bark and worming its way deeper. After peering too long, Serefin was overwhelmed with the sudden desire to plunge his hand in. He was oddly grateful his wrists were tied.
“Were any of the trees we passed on the way like this?” Olya asked the girl.
She shook her head, eyeing Serefin.
“I’m not sure why you’ve brought me over,” he said serenely.
“You’re a blood mage with a godstouched eye,” Olya replied, her voice flat.
Serefin froze, stomach clenching. His fingers twitched uselessly, wanting to cover his eye.
“Untie my hands,” he said.
“You think me a fool?” Olya replied evenly.
He didn’t. In fact, he was beginning to think she was much more than a simple thief. Serefin was infinitely tired of bossy, magic-touched Kalyazi girls.
“How do you expect me to—” He was interrupted when a choir of screams rang through the trees. A cacophonous echo, surrounding them. A thousand terrified screeches.
A bird, large and black, thudded to the ground at their feet, a scream tearing through it before it cut off, silenced and dead.
Serefin swallowed hard, dread coiling through him as he lifted his gaze to where hundreds of birds perched in the tree branches.
All of them screaming.
The group lost three quarters of their members that night. They argued for hours about acrid mold and screaming, dying birds. Olya wearily attempted to explain that they were nowhere near Tachilvnik; the horrors of the deep wood could not travel this far.
Serefin kept the truth to himself. The rush of old power, dark magic, ravenous and mad, sweeping past them. Clawing and biting and so very, very hungry.
Instead, he leaned against Kacper, resting his head on his shoulder, and listened to them argue. Most left, complaining of cursed magic and muttering how nothing good could ever come from treating with Tranavian demons, even if they were tied up. Only the girl, an old man, and a boy about Serefin’s age—twitchy in a shadowy way that reminded Serefin of Malachiasz—stayed.
The boy was excited about the horror, in an unsettling, morbid way. Olya took his enthusiasm with weary patience, as if used to it.
“The witches will have an explanation,” was all she said.
“It’s not witch magic,” the boy insisted. He had the look of the people from the very north of Kalyazin. Straight black hair tied back but still managing to hang in his face, and narrow dark eyes.
Serefin tilted his head slightly to glance up at Kacper, who was frowning.
Olya crouched down, poking a dead bird with a stick.
“It’s not blood magic either,” she replied, casting a look at Serefin and Kacper.
Serefin shrugged. He was trying his best not to think about the screams still ringing in his head.
Chyrnog was gone. Serefin wanted to be relieved, but he didn’t know where he had ended up, and so long as his dreams were tainted by a massive doorway and arms and hands, grasping, clawing at him, he would worry.
“The witches will know,” Olya said. “The witches have to know.”
“When did it become witches, plural?” Kacper asked, voice soft.
Serefin shook his head. “This might not be the worst situation for us to be in.”
He could feel Kacper’s incredulity and he didn’t particularly want to explain with the Kalyazi in earshot. He sighed.
“Magic,” he whispered.
Kacper rolled his eyes. “Magic is what got us into this mess.”
“And magic will get us out.”