Likely it was something that didn’t matter. Nadya pushed open the door to find Serefin whispering fiercely with Ostyia. They both stopped when she entered.
“Where did Malachiasz go?” Serefin asked.
“We came here with companions who haven’t been seen since I was kidnapped.”
Serefin flinched. Nadya let some of her ice cool. He was fighting for the same thing they were, albeit in a roundabout way. She didn’t know how he felt about the war, but the way he had spoken of it at dinner the night before had been weary.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I didn’t know you all would be in danger from him as well.”
“But you knew there was something going on?”
“I thought his focus was entirely on me.”
She nodded. “Is that why you’re willing to kill him? Because it’s you or him?”
“That and you’ve seen Tranavia, you see what his obsession with power and this war have done to the country.”
She had. She’d seen poverty and suffering, just as there was in Kalyazin. This couldn’t continue, they couldn’t sustain it for much longer.
“Do you trust him?” Serefin asked. “The Black Vulture?”
I didn’t know that was who he was, she thought, so the answer is too complicated for words.
“I think it’s safe to keep him at arm’s length,” Nadya said—a thing she clearly wasn’t doing; her lips still felt bruised from his kisses. “But I also believe he will help us.”
“It doesn’t make sense to me,” Ostyia muttered.
Nadya shrugged. “This is his fault—” Just saying that ached. “—it would stand to reason he would want to atone for it.”
“Will it be enough, though?” Kacper mused.
Serefin frowned. He looked dreadful, dark circles bruising underneath pale eyes, his brown hair looking unwashed.
“What if we bring in a different variable?” Nadya said softly, a plan formulating. “What if we make your father come to us?”
Serefin lifted his head, meeting her gaze. So desperate, so utterly without hope. He didn’t truly think his father could be stopped, that much was clear. A pang struck her like a knife to the side. She was lying to him, too. She had learned that the prince wasn’t a monster as she had always believed him to be and the boy she was falling for was worse than she could have possibly imagined. And she was lying to them both to see her own goals to fruition.
But she couldn’t tell Serefin the truth. She couldn’t risk him turning on her before this was finished.
“Draw him into the cathedral—he’ll think it’s because Malachiasz is ready for this ceremony or whatever it is—get him to a position where he thinks he’s going to be given everything—”
“And then take it away,” Serefin murmured.
She nodded.
Hope flickered in his eyes and he smiled.
He sent Kacper and Ostyia off to prepare and offered to see Nadya back to her chambers. She was supposed to go to the cathedral, but she suspected Serefin would be less willing to go there, so she accepted. If only to get a little more from this prince before she made her decision on what to do about him.
Marzenya would tell her to kill him, to hell with the whole royal family, and to start Tranavia over with a new line of blood. Marzenya would also tell Nadya to slaughter Malachiasz immediately. Neither of those were things she particularly wanted to do. She didn’t know what that meant about what she was. She had never wavered in her faith like this, going so willingly against what her gods decreed.
Malachiasz had hidden what he was from her, but she would be dead if not for him and she couldn’t deny any longer that her fascination had turned to a fondness that even the lies hadn’t managed to soil.
Serefin was clever and surprisingly caring. She had listened to the conversation of the slavhki at court; none of them thought of the war as anything more than an inconvenience. They didn’t care about what it was doing to their people, they only cared if it got in the way of their dramatics. She wondered if the Kalyazi Silver Court was the same, if maybe they weren’t so different after all.
“You’ll have the crown if we succeed,” she said. “What will you do?”
He was so blithely unaware that his answer would determine whether she spared him or killed him. He looked thoughtful, but she noticed how he tensed whenever they passed servants with their flat, gray masks as they walked through the palace halls. Spies of his father?
“It’s never seemed real to me,” he said, his voice soft. “I’ve been at war for…” He trailed into silence and there was more in that silence than words could fill. He was broken, she realized, a boy who had seen horrors too young. “I just want to be better than my father.”
“Admirable, as your father is currently involved in planning filicide.”
He laughed. It was strained.
“What about the war?”
He cast her a sidelong glance that made a jolt of fear run through her. She wondered if he suspected, though she didn’t know how he possibly could.
“We don’t know anything else,” he said. “And that needs to change. And we’re out of time. The Kalyazi are moving on Tranavia and I don’t know if we’re in a position to properly defend ourselves.”
Nadya’s breath caught. “Anna,” she whispered.
“What?”
She shook her head, hoping he didn’t press further. “And Tranavia’s irreconcilable differences with Kalyazin?”
“What about them?”
“Would you let priests back into Tranavia? Rebuild the churches?”
His jaw tensed. Alarms rang in her head; she had stepped too far, but it was too late to backtrack.
“I’m not sure Kalyazin’s gods have any place in Tranavia,” he said.
She nodded as if it was a perfectly reasonable answer. Inside she was left fumbling. Serefin would be better than his father and the war did need to end. Was she willing to compromise? She was here to give Tranavia back to the gods, but she was here to stop the war as well. Was one more important than the other? She was only one girl; she didn’t want the fate of nations resting on her decisions.
They were nearing Nadya’s chambers. She wasn’t entirely certain how to reach the cathedral from here and she asked Serefin for directions.
He frowned.
“Be … careful, Józefina,” he said. “He is not one to trifle with.”
Nadya almost laughed. It was touching that he seemed so concerned with her welfare. “Could you do me another favor, Serefin?”
“You’re aiding me in patricide, I figure I owe you a lifetime of favors.”
“Oh, I’ll remember that.”
He grinned. She couldn’t help but smile back.
“Someone has surely noticed that I’m not languishing in a dungeon by now. I would like to be confident in my knowledge that no one is going to come looking for me because I’m not where I’m supposed to be.”
Especially as I’ll be with the Vultures.
Serefin nodded. “I can do that.”
“Thank you.”
“I still don’t understand why you’re doing this.”