* * *
“Your timing is impeccable, though we weren’t expecting anyone from your part of Tranavia to participate.” The attendant hadn’t stopped talking since they stepped into the palace.
Nadya kept up with the chattering man, only shooting the occasional panicked glance Parijahan’s way. A masked servant had taken Rashid to the servants’ wing, and Malachiasz had disappeared when Nadya wasn’t looking—he had warned her that he would probably be shunted off to the guard’s barracks so she wasn’t worried yet.
“Łaszczów is admittedly a bit out of touch with the rest of Tranavia,” Nadya agreed. “But this opportunity was not to be missed.”
The attendant smiled. “Quite right.” The man wore a mask that looked like birds’ wings on either side of his face.
Nadya had only been wearing her mask for a day and already she was fantasizing about ripping it off. It was hot and uncomfortable and she didn’t want it on anymore.
The exterior of the palace was striking, with golden columns lining the entrance. Aged oak doors opened into the massive foyer. Marble floors were checkered in pale violets and blacks. Paintings of women in flowing gowns and soldiers in crisp military uniforms stretched across the vaulted ceilings.
As they wound their way through the palace, the paintings became darker in tone. The hallways closed in as the colors grew increasingly oppressive. Vultures—the birds and their human counterparts—their claws, and blood magic symbols scrawled by an artist whose frenzy could be felt.
Altogether opulent and terrifying, it was like a nightmare had bled its way into a nobleman’s dreams.
“Feeling left out happens when someone goes drinking without you, Ostyia, not when someone visits a mad—oh.” The droll voice that echoed down the hallway stopped.
A spike of adrenaline raced through Nadya. This was the defining moment, where this plan could succeed or burn to the ground and leave them all at the end of a noose.
The High Prince cut a completely different figure than he had that day at the monastery. His brown hair was shorter now, swept carefully back from his forehead. In this light, his pale eyes were less eerie, though the scar that cut across his face was still intimidating. But in the gilded halls of his palace he looked more like a prince than a monster.
He was trailed by the short one-eyed girl. She had been in the middle of pulling on his sleeve and cajoling him when he’d stopped abruptly.
“Who is this?” he asked the attendant. His lips quirked into a crooked smile.
Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like her entire body was shaking, but she forced herself to move past the attendant anyway.
“Józefina Zelenska, Your Highness,” she said, executing a flourished bow that not even Malachiasz could complain about.
“Zelenska,” the prince mused. “Do I know the name?” he asked the short girl.
She shook her head slowly, appearing puzzled.
“I’m not surprised. Łaszczów is a bit out of the way for royalty,” Nadya said.
Something flickered over his expression and he took a step closer. His eyes narrowed on her face and she felt her pulse speed.
“Remove the mask,” he said, then, as an afterthought, “please.”
He’s going to see straight through Malachiasz’s spell, she thought, horrified, as she undid the catch and slowly pulled the mask away from her face.
With each beat of her heart she felt closer to death. He reached out and took her chin in his hand, lifting her face up to his.
“I’ve been to Łaszczów,” he said softly. “I feel like I would remember such a face.”
She resisted the urge to swallow. “I spend the better part of the year traveling,” she said. “I was in Akola for the past few years, perhaps your visit overlapped?”
He glanced at Parijahan. She must have been confirmation enough that Nadya was telling the truth, because he dropped his hand, smiling in a way that was almost apologetic.
“Perhaps. A shame our paths did not cross. Good luck to you, Józefina.”
She hastily put the mask back on. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
It wasn’t until Nadya had been led to her chambers that she felt like she could breathe again.
She tore the mask off her face and tossed it onto a chair. Taking in the room, she was met with the same level of splendor and intimidation she witnessed while walking through the palace halls. There was a lush chaise and a set of chairs in the sitting room, along with an end table and mahogany desk to one side. There were bookshelves that looked like they had never been touched except when cleaned. Oil paintings hung on the walls—portraits of Tranavian slavhki, probably.
Nadya looked up at the ceiling, and the sight chilled her bones. A massive mural of birds stretched over the entire surface—Vultures shown most prominently—surrounded by dripping, acidic flowers. She felt a stab of disdain that she knew came from the gods. Distant but still present.
Parijahan scanned the room, quickly pulling open the desk drawer, removing a pad of paper and pencil and scrawling a quick message.
This place is probably crawling with spells, she wrote.
Nadya nodded, reaching up for her prayer beads before remembering they were in her pocket. She had spent the better part of the journey carving the gods’ symbols into thin circles of wood, which she attached to the cover of Malachiasz’s spell book. It would work, in a roundabout way, and appear as though she was casting like a blood mage.
Can you clear the spells from these rooms, please? She sent the prayer to Veceslav, but it was Marzenya who answered.
“Can you feel it?”
Nadya paused. She leaned back against a chair and closed her eyes, letting herself feel the invisible wall separating gods from men. She felt it the moment they had stepped into Tranavia, the weight of the veil pressing down against her, choking off her only access to the divine.
She was strong enough to fight through it, but this was manmade magic created to fight against the gods. This was greater than anything Nadya expected and would make her task all the more impossible.
I feel it.
“You came here to kill a king; I wonder if you won’t uncover something even more terrible.”
Nadya shivered. Can’t you give some warning as to what that might be?
“I can barely see through the fog this country has cast, child. You have plunged yourself into the dark where the monsters dwell; now you must fight them off before you’re consumed.”
Holy speech whispered through her head and she moved to disassemble the spells woven through the walls. She couldn’t take them apart completely—someone would notice, precautions in place—she was just making them fuzzy, bleeding them out. She dulled them so any information imparted back to the mages who set them would appear mundane.
Nadya liked taking spells apart, casting magic that wasn’t flashy or dangerous. She had been trained for destructive magic—for spells that would turn the tide of battle—but she liked doing smaller things most.
She looked up at the ceiling. “I didn’t realize how much they idolized the Vultures.” I didn’t realize just what Malachiasz had run from.
Parijahan sat down on the chaise, letting her calm spread into the room and wear down Nadya’s frazzled nerves. The Akolan girl had a knack for commanding attention then slipping away without notice. She was so closed and careful, from the way she bound her hair back into a tight braid to how she kept her sleeves always down to her wrists, her skirt hems brushing the ground. Nadya wondered if she had always been this way, or if this was a product of losing her sister and turning her back on her home.