She patted out the flames on her sleeve, breathing hard. It was foolish to leave the wolf alive. Stupid. It was too close to the village. But old things had woken, were set free, and she didn’t know if the right move was eradicating them. And if it was, she was afraid of how using that power made her feel. Like she was someone else, something else, and cruelty was nothing but a pleasantry for her. She had done enough cruel things that maybe it was. The echoes of Malachiasz’s voice telling her how well she wore cruelty were too near. She didn’t want to force herself further down that path than she had already gone.
She winced at the raw, seeping wound on her right palm. Using her magic had obliterated the bandages on her hands. With a start she realized the left had healed, spiral scar punctuated by the place where Malachiasz had pierced her.
A sense of wrong came over her. Warily, she moved toward a copse of trees that seemed darker than the rest. Like shadows were eating at their bases and slowly chewing their way up.
She brushed a hand against one. The bark fell away, crumbling at her touch and revealing pale white underneath. Sap the color of dark blood oozed down the tree.
Oh, this is bad. Her first instinct was to clutch at her necklace. Vaclav would know what was going on. With a sinking feeling it hit her fully that she had no one. She was completely alone.
No gods, no goddess, no obnoxious, anxious Tranavian boy with too many answers.
Just Nadya.
Just a girl and the eldritch well of magic that had made its home inside her at the end of the world.
interlude i
PARIJAHAN SIROOSI
Parijahan could not think of a single time when Rashid had been as upset with her as he was now.
“It’s not that you told Malachiasz,” he said, rigid with anger. “I understand that. It’s that you didn’t tell me.”
She had withheld everything from him. The missives, the letters, the reports that kept finding their way to her. All begging for her return. All whispering that her particular transgression would be forgiven, her status secure, and everything would go back to the way it was before she had run.
Nadya had left the house without a word, unreadable. Ostyia left not long after, Katya following. Parijahan sat down across from Rashid. She had been avoiding him—avoiding this—since the forest.
The notes from her Travash were spread out on the table before him, and she couldn’t stop watching the way he was rubbing at his forearms, at the strange markings and terrible gashes scattered across his brown skin that didn’t seem to be healing.
“Did you tell him everything?” Rashid asked.
Parijahan shook her head. “He would have made it obvious if I had.”
He tilted his head in agreement. Cold fury was pouring off him in waves. She refused to let him see how rattled she was by his response. She deserved it, but they would get nowhere if they sat here and fought.
“What were you planning with him?” Rashid asked. “Don’t tell me it was nothing.”
She eyed him warily. He looked exhausted. His black hair, kept long, was tied back, which only made the shadows under his dark eyes more pronounced. She had known Rashid most of her life. He’d been by her side the entire time. She hadn’t intended to keep him in the dark.
“Do you remember your home before you came to Paalmidesh?” she asked.
He frowned at her for turning a question back on him. He gave a hesitant nod. It was not the answer she wanted, but she waited, watching as he decided whether to speak. He had told her what little he could recall of his family, but she wanted something deeper. When the tension in Akola finally came to a head, she needed to know: Would he be with her, or would he be with Yanzin Zadar?
“It’s only pieces. There’s little to remember,” he replied. “Why didn’t you trust me, Parj? What did I do?”
It had nothing to do with him. If anything, it had everything to do with what she and her country had done.
His rich, warm eyes were wounded as they searched her face. “Oh,” he said, some measure of disgust in his voice.
“Malachiasz was a neutral party,” she said softly. “I never want to put you in a position where you have to make that kind of choice.”
“I was never given that choice,” he pointed out.
She winced.
“Now I make that choice every day. I stay here, with you, instead of going home. Could I even do that? You’re the prasīt, I suppose you could have me hunted down for running.”
“Rashid.”
“You chose not to trust me,” he snapped. “What were you planning?”
“A way to save Akola from the civil war that is on the horizon,” she said, lifting her chin, daring him to tell her what she wanted was wrong.
There was a gulf between them, and it was made from the fractures threatening to shatter Akola back into the five countries that had formed it. A faulty bridge—made from the backs of the people of Yanzin Zadar, broken under the weight of Paalmideshi rule—between them.
He blinked at her, faltering slightly.
“Yes, the unification is failing, and my father is dying,” she murmured, aware it had never really been successful. “I thought there would be a way to save it. That maybe Malachiasz could help. And, yes, I was worried that if given the choice to go home to your people, you would take it, and I couldn’t bear to lose you. It was selfish.”
Rashid rubbed his hands over his face and was silent. Parijahan looked away, gaze darting around the farmhouse, the soft golden light of the setting sun casting it in unearthly shadows. She looked anywhere but at him.
“Parj … I don’t think there’s a way to save it.”
“That is exactly what Malachiasz said. But that means a civil war.”
“A civil war that you could stop if you returned home?”
That was … also what Malachiasz had suggested. She shook her head. They were past the point of no return. Paalmidesh had been sucking the other countries dry and her Travash was at fault. If she went home, she would be assassinated long before she could fix her family’s mistakes.
“Malachiasz had a lot of convoluted suggestions that required poisoning choice nobility at very specific times to create a rather impressive domino effect that would eventually leave the Siroosi Travash standing.”
Rashid snorted.
“And I would lead the Travash,” she said, her voice growing quiet. “And I don’t want that.”
“What about—”
The door opened, and he broke off. Parijahan looked up, hoping for Nadya, but found the tsarevna instead. She moved to hastily gather the papers on the table, but Katya had already seen them. The tsarevna sat down with them, eyeing the ephemera before leaning back.
“You’re a long way from home,” she observed. “And you’re not who you say you are.”
“I’m exactly who I say I am,” Parijahan replied.
“An Akolan prasīt in a known kingdom of chaos and you can talk to the cleric when no one else can.”
“Nadya needs time,” Parijahan said. “Give it to her.” Parijahan had lost one of her closest friends on that mountain, but Nadya had lost much more. It would be a long time before she came back from that, if she ever did.
“We don’t have time.” Katya sighed, tying her dark curls back. “I need to know why you’re here so when we reach the Silver Court I can explain to my father why I’ve dragged a prasīt into the heart of our country. I would like to keep your Travash from claiming I’ve kidnapped you and declaring war.”