Lev returned last night. From Tachilvnik, supposedly. I don’t know. He won’t speak. Can’t. No one there but the gods, he scrawled it on a piece of paper, but then he showed me … They’d cut out his tongue.
—Passage from the personal journals of Sofka Greshneva
Nadya didn’t enjoy riding. She especially didn’t enjoy riding through forest roads with nothing to do but feel the shifting of the world around her. She tried blocking it out, but the trees looked different, in a way that she couldn’t put words to, and the air tasted strange. Everything was broken, wrong. She kept waiting for, what, the end of the world?
“When we get to Komyazalov, we can regroup,” Katya said confidently, when Nadya inquired what she was planning, and it didn’t sound like false confidence this time.
Nadya was quiet in response, gazing up at the trees. The last time she checked, they were doing their best to scrape free from the long harsh winter, a dull green that wanted so desperately to be brighter. Now they were blackened and dead and spiderwebs hung from them, with ribbons of shredded flesh caught in their branches.
She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her fists against them. She breathed out slowly, waiting for a voice that wasn’t hers, for anything. But there was only deafening silence.
When she opened her eyes, the trees were green once more, but she knew that wasn’t true. This was only the beginning. That strange mold on the trees wasn’t an illusion, the spiderwebs weren’t illusions. She was seeing some other realm that existed woven into the edges of hers. And those edges had frayed.
She didn’t want to wait until Komyazalov for answers. She didn’t think she would get answers in Komyazalov, where the Matriarch resided. The woman who’d almost certainly had a hand in keeping Nadya in the dark her whole life wouldn’t help her. Nor would she be safe in a place where what she was could condemn her to death.
But maybe they would be right to sentence her thus. With each passing hour, she could feel herself edging closer to that dark water. Using it in the forest, on that wolf, was unlike anything she had ever known. Good, even. As terrifying as that was, it was inevitable. She was always going to end up here; this was always going to happen.
Maybe that was why the Church had lied to her. Why they had tried so hard to keep her in the dark. They suspected what she was. Something darker than a cleric, worse than a mage. Something else.
The magic from that well of dark water felt, if not the same as the feeling she had around Ljubica, then worse. If that was even possible.
There had been whispers of things worse than the fallen gods. Older beings. The clearing and the statues around it—that was how using this power made her feel. The same dread horror; the same terrible inevitability. She knew, now, who five of those other statues had been, but that left fifteen. Fifteen beings unaccounted for and unknown, and that didn’t sit well with her. Were they dead? Or were they biding their time?
Would the fallen gods unleash something even older and darker?
Was that what she was?
The thought was too much, too far. But she couldn’t deny being connected to that clearing, not anymore.
After a long day of travel, they set up camp for the evening, and Nadya wandered away, watching as the forest shifted around her vision. Growing darker, the normal sounds of the wood turning to screams. She shivered, glancing back at the others, but they didn’t notice. Except Rashid. He flinched every time something in the woods screamed. He caught her gaze and she tilted her head. He got up and followed her into the woods.
“You can sense it, can’t you?” she asked.
Rashid gazed up at the trees in silence before he spoke, the timbre of his voice rough. “It might be time to tell you the truth.”
Her heart dropped. Not him, he couldn’t be lying to her, too. She couldn’t take another betrayal.
Rashid caught the look on her face, something flickering over his that she couldn’t parse. It quickly morphed to careful reassurance. “No, no, don’t worry, those were the wrong words to use. I…” He trailed off, considering his hands, flexing his fingers. “I was taken into the Siroosi Travash when I showed signs of power. It runs in my family, magic, but we tend to ignore it because it’s always been easily ignored.”
“What kind of magic?”
“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? You Northerners have it all laid out so carefully. Magic from the gods or magic from blood and while that’s mostly true—even the mages in Akola draw blood for their power, but you Kalyazi never realized because they don’t venture out from the deep deserts—it doesn’t work the way the north has decided. We knew to keep quiet when Kalyazin turned on Tranavia because any divergence in how our power worked would put a target on us as well.”
Nadya winced.
“But it’s easy to ignore the spark of power, let it grow dormant and disappear, and that’s what my family did. Because my grandfather made a mistake that would cost him my uncle and ultimately, me. And it meant we ended up in a Travash that has poisoned the country for years. Because that Travash wanted mages, as many as possible, before they were taken into the deserts and hidden away as is tradition.”
“But magic is changing,” Nadya whispered, realizing what he was telling her.
He nodded. “The roads have been broken. Katya has magic that doesn’t fit. You have magic that doesn’t fit. So much that has happened just…”
“Doesn’t fit,” she said softly. It was something she was struggling to reconcile. If her entire world had been based on lies, how did magic—something that was supposed to be based in immutable truths that did not change—end up so different and wild and unpredictable? “Do you think it’s because those gods were set free?”
Rashid shrugged. “I couldn’t feel it until now. My power had gone dormant because I forced it to, and that forest…” He shivered. “I was barely trained, and I don’t really know what would happen were I to use my magic. Parijahan knew—she’s always known—but when I was taken into her Travash, she convinced her grandmother that she needed a guard and who better than the fresh mage from Yanzin Zadar? I didn’t want to use my power—didn’t want it trained—and so I didn’t, and it wasn’t, and I think I have made a terrible mistake.”
Nadya thought of the way Parijahan had been for the past year. Closed and anxious, constantly tugging Malachiasz away from the group like she was planning something.
“They wanted mages but were fine with not training you?”
“It’s not about the magic,” Rashid replied. “It’s about being able to claim to the other Travasha that they had an army of mages in their employ. If asked for proof there were enough that could do something flashy and be convincing, they never needed me.”
“I never should have asked any of you to come with me into that forest,” Nadya murmured.
“Probably not,” Rashid agreed. “Malachiasz would’ve followed you anyway.”
“Not if I had told him the truth.”
Rashid cast her a long look. “Even then.”
“Don’t. Don’t try to make out like there was something between us more than constant betrayal now that he’s gone. This isn’t about him anymore. What’s going on with Parijahan?”
Rashid sighed, and in it was far more than he was willing to say. “Her family is after her.”
“I gathered that.”
“I don’t know how much longer she can keep running without her family sparking something drastic.”
“Right.”
“The least of your concerns,” Rashid said wryly.
“No, it’s not that, it’s just … another problem I don’t know how to solve.”
“Nadya, have you ever considered that maybe you don’t have to fix the world all by yourself?”
She groaned.
“You’re, what, eighteen? Why should you be responsible for the entire world?”
“Because I’m the one who broke it.”
“No, you weren’t. It’s been broken and it will continue to be broken because people are broken, mad creatures who will always do terrible things.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It’s not, you’re right, because people are infuriatingly complicated and capable of doing wonderful things all the same.”
Tears flooded her eyes. “I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do,” she whispered. “I lost my goddess and I lost Malachiasz and I think the thing worse than being pulled in two different directions is having both suddenly vanish. There’s nothing left.” She rubbed furiously at her eyes. She wasn’t going to cry.
Rashid’s hands circled her wrists. “You’re allowed to grieve,” he said. “I am.”
“He doesn’t deserve it.” Marzenya didn’t, either, but that wasn’t really a conversation to be had with Rashid.
“Maybe not. But I loved that boy so damn much and he didn’t deserve that, either. It’s not really about that, I don’t think. You can’t ever deserve love.”
“Stop trying to make things better. Nothing is ever going to get better.”
“That’s not true, Nadya.”
She shot him a dry look, but she appreciated his relentless optimism here at the end of everything.
Another scream tore through the forest and Rashid flinched, shuddering hard.
“You get used to it,” Nadya said.
“I’m not sure I want to.”
“Did Malachiasz know?”
He frowned, anger flickering over his features. “Parijahan says she never told him, but I think she was lying.” Rashid paused, smiling sadly. “I still don’t know a damned thing about what I can do and there’s not really anyone who can help me.”
“What about Ostyia?”
“Would she want to?”
Nadya considered this. Ostyia had never been particularly hostile to her—or Parijahan from what she could recall—and she didn’t seem to mind Rashid’s company.
“Hard to say, but I think so. It would mean Katya would find out, though.”
“How did that happen?”
“I don’t think anything has happened yet, but if you’re making bets on it with Parj, my money says Katya would love nothing more than a scandal from involving herself with a Tranavian general.”
“Listen—”
“I will never let you live those bets down.” A thoughtful pause passed between them. “I’ll help if I can, but I doubt your magic works anything like mine.”
“The girl I met on the mountains would have killed me for daring to have power different from hers.”
“The girl on the mountains got everything wrong,” Nadya replied, trying to keep the acute melancholy out of her voice and failing. “And she died a long time ago.”
Nadya couldn’t sleep. She let one watch run into the next, not bothering to wake anyone. The forest was mostly calm except for the screams—but nothing seemed to be coming of those.
Suddenly the taste of magic grew thick in the air, and she was slammed into the ground before she could get to her feet.
“There you are.” Iron claws clamped around her neck, a heavy weight against her chest, and a voice hissed, chaotic and wrong, in her ear. “What have you done, little cleric?”
A fall of black hair against pale skin and Nadya’s heart lurched even though she knew it was not him.
“Żywia.”
“Where is he?” Żywia perched on Nadya’s chest, her eyes pitch black, her teeth iron needles in her mouth.
Nadya wheezed. “Get off me,” she whispered fiercely. “And shut up before you wake everyone.” Katya would kill her on sight.
Żywia stilled, eyes returning to Nadya’s face. She tried not to think about how the Vulture looked like she could be Malachiasz’s sibling. Though that honor was, apparently, Serefin’s.
And Nadya had said nothing. She had put the pieces together long before the forest picked Malachiasz apart. She could have told him; she should have told him. She knew it ate at him, not knowing who his family was. But he didn’t like Serefin and wouldn’t have reacted well to her suspicions. So, she kept it to herself until it became far too late.
Fear shot through Żywia’s expression. “Where is he?” she asked. Her confidence had drained away, and she sounded lost and scared.
Nadya let her head fall back against the ground. Żywia scrambled off and she sat up.
“Not here,” Nadya said, standing.
The Vulture eyed her warily as she held out her hand. Nadya didn’t know what she was doing anymore, but she had done enough to Tranavia, anything more was baseless cruelty. Malachiasz was Żywia’s friend and she had to tell her that he was gone. Just punishment.
The Vulture took her hand, iron claws slowly receding. Nadya hauled her to her feet and turned her in the direction of the forest. “Go,” she whispered. “I’ll meet you shortly.” After she disappeared into the trees, Nadya woke Rashid to take watch and slipped away when he wasn’t looking. She didn’t doubt that he was aware of her leaving.
The forest around her was a terrifying, suffocating darkness that pressed down at her chest. She wasn’t entirely sure how far Żywia had gone until something rustled in branches above her.
“Taking high ground really isn’t necessary,” Nadya said. “I’m not going to harm you.”
Żywia slid on the branch she was perched on until she was hanging upside down in front of Nadya. “I don’t trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.”
A trickle of blood dripped down the Vulture’s face, starting from the corner of her mouth. Could she use magic still? What did wrenching blood magic away from Tranavia mean for the Vultures, who were made of magic?
“Something broke in the air,” Żywia said, her voice holding the chaotic note of wrongness that came whenever the Vultures were closer to monster than person. “Something broke and our Black Vulture is gone. You’d better talk fast, little cleric, because I’m not feeling particularly kind and I would very much like to kill you.”
Nadya lifted her chin. She couldn’t crumble at every mention of him. “Your Tranavian king killed his brother,” she said.
Żywia frowned, head tilting, before understanding sparked in her eyes. She closed them for a heartbeat. “Of course they are.”
“They had the same eyes,” Nadya mused, unable to hide the tremor of fear in her voice as she waited for the Vulture to react fully.
Żywia pressed her hands to her temples, still hanging. “How did it happen?”
“He was stabbed in the heart with a relic.”
The Vulture frowned. Her eyes opened and she stared at Nadya for a long time. She carefully cut a line down the back of her hand with an iron claw. Nadya tried not to wince.
“That is impossible,” Żywia said.
I wish. But did she? There had been no other way for this to end. No matter how strongly her heart was pulled to him; he had been everything she was born to destroy, and so she had.
“I know you Vultures are functionally immortal—”
Żywia scoffed. Nadya ignored her.
She could still feel the warmth of his bloody fingers against her lips. “He’s dead, Żywia.” Her voice cracked. The Vulture’s eyes flew open at the sound.
Nadya only had seconds to react as the Vulture struck. She moved fast, shooting to her feet and away right as the Vulture snapped. Żywia whirled, crouched, baring her rows and rows of iron teeth. Nadya swallowed hard. She wasn’t so lucky a second time, Żywia slamming into her and throwing her to the ground.
She raked her corrupted hand against Żywia, and the Vulture hissed, immediately scrambling back, a pained whimper escaping her. Nadya watched in horror as her torn flesh rippled. Eyes flickered open and closed along her arm. She slammed a hand over the cuts, staring at Nadya wide-eyed.
“What are you?”
Nadya shook her head slowly. She clenched her hand into a fist, her claws digging into her palm, blood trickling between her fingers.
A series of sluggishly bleeding cuts raked down Żywia’s arm from her shoulder, but no more eyes. What had that been?
“It doesn’t make sense,” she murmured. “That’s not how we die.”
Nadya didn’t know how to kill a Vulture, but dying from a relic wound made sense to her. “What’s happening with the Vultures?”
Żywia glared, a shiver of anxiety cracking through her. For all the Vultures had been twisted into monsters they were still painfully human. Żywia shook her head. “Why should I tell you?”
“Because we’re past this war deciding our fates,” Nadya replied, wishing she could say she had tried to save Malachiasz. Wishing she had.
Żywia lifted her chin and Nadya recognized something in her expression that cut down to her bones. A girl, grieving. What had he done to trap so many under his spell that their lives were so altered by his death? It seemed wrong, that so terrible a boy could leave behind so much hurt.
“Another turning of the war is on the horizon,” Żywia finally said. “I won’t be able to stop it. I don’t know if I want to. The Vultures have always rested tenuously at the edge of chaos and now—”
There was noise from the direction of the camp. Nadya stood.
“Get out of here. There’s Voldah Gorovni in our group.”
Żywia gave her a dirty look. “Of course there are.”
Nadya sighed. It was useless explaining that she had nothing to do with Katya’s presence. None of it mattered.
Żywia eyed the cuts on her arm dubiously. Then she glanced from Nadya to her corrupted hand before disappearing into the darkness.
Nadya tugged at the end of her braid, chewing on her lower lip. Divinity twisted mortal flesh—but Vultures weren’t entirely mortal, so what was that?
She was no better than the Vultures she had spent her life thinking were abominations.
Katya stepped through the trees, her hand on the hilt of her sword. “You shouldn’t be out here,” she said.
“I can handle whatever these woods spit out,” Nadya replied wearily.
“Even so,” Katya said softly. She was looking at Nadya’s hand with narrowed eyes.
Maybe Malachiasz was right and her hand was a product of corrupted divinity, an allowance of a taste when she had freed Velyos. That night she had set free a part of herself she never would have known had she not bled for power and treated in heresy. She’d found the dark water in a place where she never should have trespassed. When she considered all the pieces of herself that were different, wrong, they all came from pushing back at the structures of her life that had been presented as immutable truth.
If only she knew what to do with those revelations.
“If I go to Komyazalov, can you guarantee me your protection?” Nadya asked. She was too cautious to think she would have another Brother Ivan in her future. The Matriarch and the capital city would not be so kind toward her transgressions.
“Why would you need that?” Katya asked.
Nadya shot her a dry look. “Don’t pretend. I’m not the cleric that was promised to Kalyazin. I’m not the one to stop this chaos.”
If anything, I’ve made it so much worse.
Katya scoffed. “You’ve stripped heretic magic from the world—”
“And caused the death of a god.”
“—and the death of the worst Black Vulture we’ve ever known.”
Nadya flinched.
Katya was oblivious. “The Vulture killed Marzenya and he’s dead.”
But he killed her with my help. She was sick of being lied to, controlled. She’d wanted out from underneath Marzenya’s thumb.
Thunder rippled through the sky. Katya lifted her head. “Can you still feel them?”
“The gods?”
Katya nodded.
“Yes and no. They’ve turned away. They won’t talk to me. I think they’re … preparing for something. It’s not like when my access to them was blocked off, this is willful. Are the fallen gods truly that deadly?”
“I wish I knew,” Katya said. “I wish we had more than some apocryphal texts that are vague at best and meaningless at worst. I don’t know, Nadya. I don’t know what’s to come.” A strange expression flickered over her face. “Were you talking to someone out here?”
“No.”
It was clear Katya didn’t believe her.
“What is the Matriarch like?” she asked.
Katya lifted an eyebrow. She eyed Nadya in silence, deciding whether she wanted to discuss this with her. Whether Nadya was worthy. It stung to know the tsarevna didn’t trust her, but she hadn’t exactly earned it.
“Is she why you’re asking for protection?” Katya finally asked.
Nadya hesitated, then gave a small nod.
“I see.” The tsarevna leaned back against the same tree Żywia had been hanging from. “She and I do not get along.”
A knot formed in the pit of Nadya’s stomach. This was not what she wanted to hear.
“She can be … draconic. She’s the high mouthpiece of the gods, her words are law within the Church.” Katya’s eyes studied Nadya’s face. “She has been quite gleeful in eradicating all magic not divinely appointed from Kalyazin.”
And there it was. The confirmation Nadya needed. Katya’s gaze strayed to Nadya’s hand.
“You think she’ll go after you,” she said.
“Katya … I don’t…” Nadya sighed. “Yes. I do.”
Katya took that with a carefully neutral expression. Nadya had no idea where she stood with her.
“Is it because of the Black Vulture?” she asked. “Is he why you’ve strayed so far that you think the Matriarch would hang you?”
“I think I’d be put on a pyre, actually,” Nadya said. “No. He helped. I’ll grant him that. He asked some very pointed questions that I had no answers for, but … I would have ended up here without him.”
Nadya had no idea if that was true but had to believe it. Otherwise it gave far too much power to a boy who had too much to begin with. But she would have posed those same questions for herself eventually. She was too damn curious, and it was her downfall.
“I’ll do my best, Nadya,” Katya said, after a long pause between them stretched out into the cold air.
Katya turned back toward camp as glimmers of dawn began to break through the trees, and Nadya touched the ink-stained skin of her left hand, fearing what was to come.