When Serefin died and then was no longer dead, the concept of death never really changed for him. People still died. The particularities of his circumstances didn’t shift the world on its axis for him because it was so entirely bizarre that he didn’t think it could possibly happen to anyone else. Death was death was death.
But there Malachiasz was, looking as bad as Serefin felt.
His long black hair was a tangled, wild mess. He was wearing his military jacket over the shredded tatters of the tunic he’d died in—Serefin’s stomach turned at the bloodstain on his chest. If Serefin’s hands hadn’t been tied he might have tried to run in the opposite direction, but they were, and he didn’t particularly want to land face-first in Pelageya’s finger garden, so he remained where he was, frozen in shock.
When Olya had started talking more about her plans, Serefin had guessed who they were being taken to. She didn’t seem thrilled that Pelageya wanted nothing to do with her and only wanted to speak to the Tranavian she had prisoner.
Malachiasz is alive.
He kept bouncing off the thought, rejecting it, letting it come back so he could consider it, and throw it away again. He had killed his brother and he had to live with the regret of what he had done. There were no second chances.
Except Malachiasz was alive.
If he was alive, he would want revenge. Before Serefin could back away, Pelageya grabbed him, cut the rope on his wrists, and shoved him into the room. The door closed behind him with a resounding thud.
Serefin swallowed hard. “I have a question,” he said, voice strained.
Malachiasz was tense as a bowstring and Serefin did not want to consider those claws going through his chest. It would hurt very badly and take him a terribly long time to die.
How long did it take Malachiasz to die?
“Yes?” Pelageya asked.
“How can you be here if you’re in Tranavia?”
A strange whining hiss of air broke from Malachiasz’s chest. He leaned back in his chair. Serefin was relieved that he didn’t immediately run him through.
Pelageya laughed. “How did your friend Velyos take you across the continent in a heartbeat? A lot can be done with magic.”
“My entire body still hurts from that nonsense,” Serefin replied, his eye not breaking from Malachiasz’s gaze. He needed Malachiasz to say something, even if it would destroy Serefin, because he still couldn’t believe that his brother was in front of him and alive and he hadn’t wanted to kill him, he hadn’t wanted to do it.
“What did you do to your eye?” Pelageya asked.
Serefin pressed a hand over the bandage, self-conscious. “I took care of the god problem,” he murmured.
“But did you?”
Serefin froze, breath catching. How could she know? Yes, Velyos still spoke to him, but the other one didn’t, and that one scared Serefin the most. He tentatively sat down, casting Malachiasz a sidelong glance, waiting for him to … he didn’t know. Stab him, honestly.
Pelageya closed her eyes, fingers tapping against the deer skull on the side table. The sound bored into his head, tap tap tap. “Not right, not good, not at all as planned.”
“We can’t follow some divine nonsense plan if we don’t know about it,” Malachiasz pointed out. Serefin relaxed slightly at the sound of his voice.
“Shut up, stupid boy,” Pelageya snapped.
Malachiasz’s body tensed, a curtain falling over his expression.
“The eye,” Pelageya said to Serefin. “The eye! Where is it?”
“Blood and bone, I don’t know! I ripped it out of my face and left it on top of the mountain where I left him.” He gestured at Malachiasz.
Pelageya nodded slowly. “That explains why you both stink of death.”
“People don’t come back from the dead,” Serefin said plaintively.
“Yet you both have. Two Tranavians taken by gods you rebel against. What irony.”
“I’m not—” Malachiasz started, but Pelageya interrupted him.
“And now what? What do you plan to do, sterevyani bolen? Koshto bovilgy? All that power chained up. I know what he wants—do you?”
Malachiasz scowled petulantly. Serefin wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Malachiasz admit he didn’t know something, and he clearly didn’t want to start for Pelageya. He shook his head quickly.
“A god of entropy. Ancient, mad—”
“Weakened.”
“Maybe so. But how long until he regains his strength? And you will help him, I think, because you feel the same urge to consume, to devour and destroy. Even before they made you what you are—before you made yourself so much worse, it was always there—the hunger, the desire for chaos.”
Malachiasz closed his eyes.
“So many have woken up. Little bovilgy, flocking to the wake left behind by the death of one so old and powerful. Will you consume them?”
He opened his eyes, frowning at her. “Bòwycz?”
Serefin was equally confused by the word she was using.
Pelageya’s gaze flicked between Serefin and Malachiasz. She sighed. “Tell me what you know of magic as it stands now, after the cracks and the crumbling.”
“No.” Serefin said emphatically as Malachiasz brightened considerably.
“Well—”
“No.” Serefin cut him off. “Don’t play this game.”
Malachiasz shot him a withering look. “What broke?” he asked Pelageya. “It’s connected, yes?”
The witch nodded slightly. Her eyes fluttered shut. “Fractured, yes. A boundary snapped—you snapped it—and now we see how each crack breaks another piece. How magic sparks to life in those who never should have touched it. What will the world look like when you cannot box such power into two neat little avenues? How much will atrophy when power spreads?”
Malachiasz’s eyes were bright with almost manic delight, but he had the decency to appear mildly concerned.
“So much magic with such little control. What will that spell? You, a new creature, bovilgy of chaos. That Kalyazi girl, a nightmare waiting to happen.” She waved a hand at Serefin. “And you have not escaped unscathed, though total divinity, I think, does not suit you.”
“Great,” Serefin muttered.
He glanced at Malachiasz. The Black Vulture curtain had fallen fast; he sat curled in on himself, small. A pale, young boy who had been shown how truly monstrous he was. Serefin wasn’t sure if pity was the correct emotion, but he felt it in that moment.
“You took care of the god problem, so you say, but he still speaks to you, does he not?” she said to Serefin.
He nodded.
“Do you know what you did?” Pelageya asked. “In the forest that takes and takes and takes? The same forest we are in, in fact, but it fed so fully that it rests, temporarily, waiting for when it will hunger again.”
“I—I set Velyos free,” Serefin replied. He didn’t understand what that meant. Or know anything about these Kalyazi gods. He hadn’t wanted to see it into reality, but he hadn’t been strong enough to fight them off. He wasn’t strong enough for much of anything. Maybe it would be better if he never went back to Tranavia. If he let the throne go to whoever fought for it the hardest because he would never be good enough for it.