She cast him a sidelong glare and then yanked her glove off and thumbed at her necklace until she found Zlatek’s bead.
The god of silence loathed granting Nadya power; he’d once voiced they should revoke her magic completely. It was a shame his power was so damn useful because he was so crotchety that Nadya avoided dealing with him whenever possible.
She sent a tentative plea and, assuming she’d been denied, was shocked when suddenly a string of holy speech swept through her head. She felt the barest surge of irritation.
Thank you, Zlatek.
There was no response. She passed her thumb over Marzenya’s bead. If she needed to kill the Tranavian here, she would be ready. He wasn’t going to catch her unaware.
Her senses grew fuzzy as she whispered Zlatek’s spell, but when she shifted the ice underneath made no sound. She glanced at Malachiasz.
“Fascinating.” His lips moved but there was no sound. His eyebrows shot up in surprise.
Zlatek had spread the spell to Malachiasz as well.
Cheeky. She held a finger to her lips, grinning. Even her breathing was made silent by Zlatek’s spell. The drawback was her senses were dulled as well.
Just below the overhang were the prince and his lieutenants. The girl with one eye was still on her horse while both boys had dismounted. She looked bored, her chin on her hand, elbow resting on the pommel of her saddle.
“If we continue east, we’ll be fine,” she said.
The prince shook his head and rummaged in his saddlebags, pulling out a map. “Unroll that,” he said as he handed it to the boy with dark brown skin. “We’ll ride straight into the front, and I, personally, would rather not deal with the entire Kalyazi army.”
“A detour will take us days, Serefin. We’d end up skirting the lake country.”
Serefin ignored her, moving over to where the other boy had the map laid out against a tree. He faced the ridge where Nadya and Malachiasz were hiding. Nadya would be fine if he glanced up, her hair was practically the same color as the snow. Malachiasz, though …
She tugged her white scarf off her neck, shoving it at him. If he wasn’t going to toss her over the side for the prince to capture, then she didn’t want them caught because his hair looked like ink against paper. He stared at her blankly. She rolled her eyes, setting the scarf over his head. Realization sparked and he tied the scarf over his hair before settling back down in the snow.
Their timing couldn’t have been better as the prince chose then to glance up at the top of the cliff. Her palms were sweating even as they pressed against the snow. She lifted her head again after a few tense seconds passed.
“We have to go farther north,” the prince was saying, his voice a low, musing hum. Nadya, only passably fluent, had to concentrate to keep up with his Tranavian. “I would love to tack on as many weeks to this journey as possible, but I suppose there’s no point.”
“It’s only marriage, Serefin,” the other boy teased.
The prince just sighed. “Tranavia hasn’t had a Rawalyk in generations. The illusion of choice is worse than just being told to marry some random slavhka I’ve only met once in my life.”
Nadya slid her fingers over the hilt of her voryen. Malachiasz’s hand landed over hers. He shook his head at her scowl and she yanked her hand away. Her skin crawled from his touch.
Nadya missed the prince’s next words as Malachiasz moved backwards so he could stand without being seen. She rolled out of sight and to her feet.
Once they were a safe distance away from the prince, he cut a finger over his throat. She broke off the spell and he let out a breath as the magic lifted. Nadya shivered as her senses realigned. Malachiasz untied the scarf from around his head and handed it to her.
“Blood and bone,” he murmured. “Are there other clerics who can do what you can?”
Nadya shrugged. “I’m the only one I know of. That doesn’t mean I’m the only one. And the spell nearly didn’t work; Zlatek isn’t known to be cooperative.”
He crooked his head to one side.
“God of silence? We don’t have many churches dedicated to him. I think there’s one in Tobalsk.”
Malachiasz shook his head.
“Right. You’re Tranavian.”
He smiled slightly. It was the first genuine smile she had seen from him, and he looked younger, less intimidating. He couldn’t be much older than her. He started to walk back to the church.
“That was a perfectly good assassination opportunity you foiled,” she said as she crunched through the snow after him.
“Assassinating the High Prince while he’s on Kalyazi soil will achieve nothing but renewed vigor from Tranavia,” Malachiasz replied.
“Him being dead would be an achievement of its own,” she muttered. “I failed to catch the significance of him going home…” Nadya trailed off as Malachiasz hesitantly pushed open the doors to the church, a frown forming on his face.
The churchyard was utterly silent.
“We weren’t out there for very long,” Nadya said.
“It’s not that…” he murmured. Then he swore under his breath.
Suddenly he was pressing two bloody fingers against the doorframe, his dark eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He reached for the book at his side, tearing out a page and pressing it against the door. Blood seeped into the paper. The lines of blood formed a three-pronged symbol that spread out over the entire door.
“Stay back,” he said.
“Why?”
“Something’s been cast on the church,” he said slowly. “Someone from Tranavia wants to know who’s here.”
Nadya took a wide step back. “The prince?”
“No. Wrong direction. I don’t suppose you have a god for curse breaking?”
Nadya let out a breathless laugh. She couldn’t ignore the significance of his asking, even if he meant it as a joke. “No, sorry.”
“Shame. I’ll have to do it myself.”
He used his wicked-looking dagger to cut a line down his forearm. Nadya winced. His arms were riddled with scars and half-healed cuts, layers of them arranged in a ridged, messy, cross-hatching pattern.
“Hold this, please?” He handed her his spell book.
She took it, bewildered.
When he stepped away from the page on the door it remained stuck to the wood, the symbol glowing faintly around the edges. He swiped two fingers through the bleeding cut on his arm and moved to the wall next to the door. He scrawled a series of symbols onto the wood with his blood. Suddenly he stopped and something akin to horror crossed his face.
“Oh,” he said. “This is very bad.”
He turned to her, flipping open his spell book while it was still in her hands. She held it up, only moderately disgusted he was using her as a book stand.
“It’s a good thing I have practice at this from my acolyte days,” she muttered.
“I was going to say,” he said absently as he flipped through the pages. “You’re very good.”
“I have many talents.”
His lips quirked into a bare smile.
“Are you going to tell me what’s bad, or…?”
He looked up at her, all color draining from his face.
“You’re Kalyazi.”