Killing the Tranavian king could end the war, but better still—at least for her—it would be some small justice for Kostya’s death. She would take the risk for that. She didn’t know if it would be possible—doubted it immensely—but the conversation made her warm to the Akolans. Even if she was still waiting for the right moment to put one of her voryens in the Tranavian’s heart.
Nadya passed a restless night in a chilly room with hard beds and thin blankets stolen from Tranavian soldiers. She was up before dawn breached the horizon, slipping out of the room and down the hall. She was used to waking before the sun to pray and wanted to be somewhere suitable to do so.
Anna was still asleep when she stepped out into the hallway. She found Parijahan in the gutted sanctuary, sitting at the table with ragged maps spread out in front of her.
“You were serious, weren’t you?” Nadya asked. She sat down across from the Akolan girl.
“Why would I joke about something like this?” Parijahan replied, without looking up. She wore her dark hair in a loose braid that curled over her shoulder. “There were more of us, once. A boy who lost everything when the Tranavians burned down the forest he and his family used as their livelihood, a girl who grew up in a refugee camp, Kalyazi siblings from Novirkrya who were conscripted into the army when they were children but then defected.”
Novirkrya was a village just on the southern border, near Lidnado, a small country that hated both its neighbors in equal measure and had remained miraculously apart from the war for the near century it had been raging, likely out of spite alone.
“There are so very few faithful left in that country,” Marzenya noted.
“What happened to them?” Nadya asked.
“This country, this war. The siblings had to flee north to avoid the army catching them, but it was like that for most.”
But the two Akolans and the Tranavian remained?
The others trickled into the room. Anna sat down next to Nadya, leaning her head against Nadya’s shoulder.
“Well,” Anna said, “we’re still here.”
“No High Prince,” Parijahan said.
Rashid brought food into the room; bowls of kasha—a thin gruel Nadya knew well—and loaves of hard, black bread which he set on the table before he curled up on the pile of pillows in the corner. He was dressed in layered, golden brown Akolan robes with long, slit sleeves.
“Nobody warned me that Kalyazi assassins rise before dawn.” He yawned.
Malachiasz entered the room clutching half a loaf of black bread and looking like he hadn’t slept at all. His long hair was tangled and there were dark smudges of shadow underneath his pale eyes. He flopped onto the pillows beside Rashid and put an arm over his face.
“They don’t, but acolytes who have to answer the call to prayer at three in the morning do,” Nadya said.
“And they call us barbarians,” Malachiasz mused.
“We call you heretics. It’s different. And accurate,” Nadya snapped.
He sat up and rolled his eyes, then stuck most of the bread in his mouth. He opened his spell book and dropped a quill in the crease between the pages.
“Don’t you dare start bleeding all over that while we’re eating,” Parijahan said.
Malachiasz looked up, a knife already in his hand, the blade poised on his forearm, bread still half in his mouth. Parijahan stared him down. After a long silence he meekly lowered the blade.
Nadya looked down at the map, Parijahan passing her a bowl of kasha. “I need to get to the military camp in Tvir,” she said. She couldn’t truly entertain their wild plans about assassinating kings. There were things expected of her, she couldn’t just abandon those duties at the first obstacle. She was the vessel that would flood the world with the gods’ touch once more.
“Tvir? Are you planning to waltz straight into the hands of Tranavia, towy dżimyka?” Malachiasz asked.
She wracked her basic understanding of Tranavian for what he’d called her. Little bird? Confused by both his meaning and the vaguely condescending way he’d said it, she elected to ignore him completely.
“Clearly, you had a protocol to follow, yes?” he continued. “An important mage like you?”
Nadya found it difficult to ignore his continued condescension.
“But if you go to Tvir, you’re going to die. It fell to Tranavia two months ago.”
Anna paled. Nadya tried to ignore the despair that hit her in the chest. It settled right between her ribs, hammering at her with each beat of her heart. This was hopeless; she was going to die before she had a chance to do anything for her country.
“Everything was destroyed,” Parijahan said softly, cutting through some of the tension between Nadya and Malachiasz. “The military camp, the nearby village. We were close by when it happened. We got lucky and escaped. Others were not so lucky.”
Anna rubbed her forehead. When Nadya looked to her for some kind of direction, or something, she just shrugged. “That was all I ever was told to do,” she said. “The next outpost is…”
“Not close,” Rashid said.
A door slammed shut before Nadya. “So I should listen to the plans of two foreigners who have welcomed my enemy with open arms?”
Malachiasz smiled.
Parijahan pursed her lips. “When I was thirteen, my older sister was to be married to a Tranavian slavhka. There was no love, it was a political marriage, but Taraneh was hopeful. They had met once before the marriage and he seemed…” she trailed off, shaking her head. Her gaze was firmly locked on a corner of the room. “Normal. A blood mage, but what Tranavian isn’t? Regardless, the wedding went fine—”
“The wedding was not fine,” Rashid interrupted.
Parijahan’s face twisted. “We thought nothing of it, it stood to reason there might be some tension.”
Foreboding weighed heavy in the Akolan’s words and Nadya shifted uncomfortably. She glanced at Malachiasz, but he was watching Parijahan with a careful expression on his face, not hostile or mocking, just gently attentive.
“My family is well off—”
“Be honest, Parj,” Rashid said softly.
She sighed. “My family is one of the three high Travasha of Akola. My sister was murdered a month after her wedding, in a foreign land, for her dowry.”
“And Akola didn’t go to war over that?” Anna asked.
“There was never any proof the Tranavian did it. It looked like an accident, my sister drowned in one of Tranavia’s hundreds of lakes.” Parijahan laughed bitterly. “Of course, because Akola is a land of deserts, why would a prasīt know how to swim? But Taraneh was a fine swimmer; her favorite place in the world was the oasis near our family home.”
“So what are you doing here?” Nadya asked. And what are you doing with a Tranavian blood mage?
“There were some rash decisions made,” Rashid said.
“I took revenge,” Parijahan said matter-of-factly. “And now there is one less slavhka in the Tranavian court.”
“Why not return to Akola after? Why stay here?”
“I don’t want anything to do with a family that will not avenge the death of their daughter. Tranavia cannot win this war,” she said fiercely. “Let them live with their blood magic and their corrupt politicians in their own country, but they cannot be allowed to spread beyond their borders.”