“I will,” he started slowly, each word a sharp arrow piercing through him, “leave you in charge of the company. You are to take the prisoners to Kyętri, am I right?”
A nod from Teodore.
“Right. Lieutenant Neiborski will be coming with me,” he said.
Kacper looked relieved, as if he briefly thought Serefin was going to leave him behind. Ridiculous.
“General Rabalska, as well, obviously. I expect you to have the prisoners outfitted and removed from here by tomorrow morning at latest.”
Teodore was aware he was being dismissed. He bowed and Serefin waved him away. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t have to see the man again for months.
He moved through the cold, unadorned hallways until he reached the vast wooden doors that opened out into the courtyard. While they were plain on the back, the fronts of the doors were covered with ornate carvings and icons of saints. Six of them, three to each door. Serefin gazed at them after the doors closed before turning and jumping down the stairs leading to the courtyard where Ostyia was waiting. She was perched on the wall that led to the seven thousand steps down the mountain.
Serefin dropped his pack on the ground and hopped up onto the wall beside her. Kacper sat on his other side.
“I have to go home and get married.”
Ostyia had the decency to wince. “What about the cleric?”
“The Vultures have gone to fetch her.”
“She’ll be dead within a day.”
Kacper shuddered. “I wouldn’t wish that fate even on a Kalyazi. Can you imagine?” He flashed a hand over his face. “Those masks are terrifying.”
The Vultures were a complicated part of Tranavian society and politics. They were the blood mage elite, a cultic sect of individuals, closed off from the rest of their kingdom, living in the hollowed-out carcass of an ancient cathedral in Grazyk under the leadership of a king of their own, the Black Vulture, who sat on the Carrion Throne.
When Tranavia broke from the gods, the Vultures filled in the gaps left behind by the church. They acted on their own, citing magic as a higher voice of command than any mortal king could ever be. The Vultures could have gone after the cleric without permission from the king, but Tranavia had in place a careful balance of power. The Vultures would act as advisors to the throne, but their authority only extended to the realm of magic—which in Tranavia was a vast reach. They skulked through the palace with their iron claws and torn robes, more monster than human, yet revered nonetheless.
For decades, the image of Tranavian politics was that the king kept the Vultures on a careful leash. They were to train the royal children to harness their magic as well as maintain a certain level of security in Grazyk, but they were not to leave Grazyk or Kyętri, the two cities that housed the cult’s leaders.
They were kept away from the front owing to an unfortunate measure of unpredictability to their actions that made them more liability than asset on the battlefield. That said, Serefin had been through many a battle that would have been turned if they’d had even one Vulture in their midst. But he would never request one. They unsettled him.
Serefin scratched the back of his head as he squinted up at the monastery’s onion domes. The glare from the whitened stone irritated his bad eye. “My father wants the prisoners to be taken to the Kyętri mines.”
“That’s a lot of activity from the Vultures suddenly,” Ostyia said.
“It’s odd, isn’t it?”
A hush fell over them. Contemplating the Salt Mines where the Vultures held their experiments was hardly pleasant.
“I don’t like this,” Serefin said finally.
Ostyia glanced at him.
“The timing, the Vultures, that my father had this”—he waved the missive still in his hand—“sent instead of just having a mage contact me, which gives me less than no time to return home. I don’t understand what he’s doing.”
It was no secret that Serefin’s relationship with his father was strained. He didn’t know if it was fear, distaste, or the simple reality that sending Serefin away to war at such a young age had put a rift in their relationship. Whatever it was, erratic behavior from the king was becoming increasingly normal, so Serefin didn’t know why all these strange things converging at once surprised him.
Ostyia shot him a disbelieving look. “He’s been stepping on you for ages now.”
“Has he?”
Serefin hadn’t had a moment’s respite in years. With the country at war it stood to reason, but anytime he returned to Grazyk to remind the country that they did have a prince, he was turned around and sent right back to the front. He was tired, beginning to fray at the edges, as if the barest touch would shatter him. He didn’t want to play political games as soon as he returned to Tranavia, but that was his fate.
Ostyia was right, the rift was growing deeper. His father had been trying his hardest to gloss over the truth. His son was a talented blood mage, and he was not. If he pushed Serefin out of sight, the slavhki of the court would never recall the son was more powerful than the father.
Serefin jumped down off the wall, sliding on the icy stone of the courtyard before turning around and facing his friends. “Well? We might as well put on a good show.”
“Is that what it will be? A show?” Ostyia asked.
“If it’s a Rawalyk, then yes,” Kacper said.
“Meaningless dramatics for the sake of the nobility,” Serefin said, then shrugged. “There’s something else here. I might as well see what it is. I’m sure it won’t be good.”
Ostyia’s eye narrowed. “I know that look. What are you planning?”
Serefin wasn’t sure he was planning anything yet. He had a feeling, a creeping dread that wouldn’t allow him to run home and play the part of the prince without some misgivings first. Maybe it was a product of being battered alive by this war, of seeing death and destruction every day for years. Maybe he was just growing irrational. Either way, it was there.
“What if my father is using the Rawalyk to install a puppet as his heir? Someone who can be manipulated.” Serefin was too opinionated, too powerful, too much of a threat to Izak Meleski’s sovereignty. “If he ties someone to the throne through me and then I meet an unfortunate accident…” he trailed off.
“Oy,” Ostyia murmured.
“Just how paranoid do I sound?”
“Very.”
He nodded. “I’ve been leading armies for three years,” he said, voice soft. “And you don’t go onto a battlefield without a strategy. But sometimes, reconnaissance is necessary. So I’m going to go home. I’m going to see what this nonsense is about, and then I’m going to deal with it as necessary. That may mean playing the prince and participating in needless dramatics. It could mean something entirely different. We may as well go and find out what this battle is going to look like.” With that, Serefin started down the seven thousand steps.
8
NADEZHDA
LAPTEVA
The goddess of vision, Bozidarka, is a goddess of prophecy. Be warned: for her gifts can break a mortal’s mind and her blessings are not so easily interpreted.
—Codex of the Divine, 7:12
No more was said about plans to kill kings. After Nadya had stuttered through her disbelief that it was even possible, Parijahan had suggested they speak more in the morning.