“Tell me the truth, Malachiasz, why are you here?”
He exhaled deeply, his breath feathering her face. “I’m tired, Nadya. I want to put an end to what I’ve started. I want this war to end without leaving Tranavia in ashes.”
“I want to believe you,” she whispered. “But…”
He opened his mouth, at a loss for words. Finally, he asked, “Will it always be like this?”
Would it? She couldn’t say. Would she ever be comfortable with what he was? Or would it always be this constant hot and cold, friends one second and enemies the next?
“I don’t know.”
He nodded and there was such a deep well of sadness in his pale eyes that Nadya felt her heart splinter to a shattering point. It wasn’t something she had ever felt before, this crack in her chest, this void splitting her ribs open. His sleeve fell back, revealing the ridged mess of scars covering his forearm.
Frowning, she trailed her hand over the scars. “You said the razors to cast magic don’t scar.” She had cut open her arms in the arena and the wounds were already healing—not as quickly as if she were a blood mage herself, but they were healing clean.
“They don’t,” he said. “It was a reminder.” Like the reminders he whispered to himself of his name, always his name.
“Do you still?”
He shook his head. “Not for a long time.”
She let her thumb brush over his, fingers toying with his, before she dropped his hand, taking a step back. She turned away, taking in the sanctuary again. Would he lose all of this if he helped them? Did he even want it in the first place?
“How long have you been … this?”
“Two years,” he said. “I was sixteen when I took the throne.”
“You killed the last Black Vulture?”
She turned in time to see him nod.
“Why?”
“I wanted to know if I could,” he said softly. “If anything would become better if I succeeded.”
“Did it?”
“No.”
They were quiet again. Nadya wandered through the sanctuary and the voice in the back of her head that was still loudly struggling against Malachiasz began to fall silent.
Eventually, Nadya heard his footsteps behind her. Felt his lips press against her neck in a way that made her knees weak.
“I want to talk to the others,” she said, flushing at the way her voice hitched. Her face flushed even hotter when she heard his soft laugh.
When he stepped past her, a smile flickered at the edges of his lips. There was darkness at the corners, something evil just underneath the surface, sinister. He turned and grinned at her, monstrous but beatific, holding out his hand, darkness gone. Maybe she’d just imagined it. She took his hand.
Malachiasz led her out of the sanctuary, up a flight of stairs and down a long hallway. They were stopped midway down the hall by a Vulture clearing her throat.
“I honestly didn’t think you were ever going to come back.”
Malachiasz tensed. He hastily dropped Nadya’s hand and she ducked her head. She had to fight the instinct to flee.
“Rozá,” Malachiasz said flatly. “I would apologize for leaving you in the dark, but it occurs to me that I don’t care and you are not required to know my business. Żywia knew I was back and last I checked she was my second, not you.”
Rozá wasn’t wearing a mask and her bare face was softer than Nadya expected. She was pretty in a luxurious sort of way.
“Any longer and I would have been named Black Vulture,” she sneered.
Malachiasz’s smile had a knife’s blade edge. “We both know that is impossible.”
Her claws snapped out of her hands, but Malachiasz already had one long iron claw tipped underneath her chin.
“Don’t, Rozá,” he said softly.
“I should tell the king what you’re doing,” she said, but she swallowed hard and her voice trembled.
“Well, then, it’s good for all of us that you cannot.” Malachiasz’s voice struck chords of fear in some primal depth of Nadya.
Rozá’s eyes flashed but she nodded. Malachiasz retracted his claw, letting her take a step back.
“But you can tell him that I’ve been watching and I have thoughts about how he has chosen to handle matters,” Malachiasz said. He glanced back at Nadya. “My chambers are at the end of the hall. I’ll be with you soon.”
Nadya frowned. She didn’t want to leave him alone with this Vulture where she couldn’t keep on eye on him. She shot him a warning look as she passed. He smiled faintly at her. It did nothing to make her feel better as she hurried down the hall, overly aware she could be stopped by a Vulture and no longer have Malachiasz’s protection shielding her.
Not that she couldn’t protect herself, but she was in a precarious position as it was. Stirring up suspicion was the last thing she needed.
Rashid was on edge when she entered Malachiasz’s chambers. He jumped to his feet, wincing at the motion, but he relaxed when he saw it was her. She walked in slowly, taking in the lavish quarters. They didn’t appear like they had been lived in for some time.
Paintings covered every open wall space and were stacked in the corners of the room. Mostly landscapes, strangely dark, as if the artist was rendering a grim future. A few portraits that didn’t appear to be of anyone in particular that Nadya could tell. There was a bookcase that was overfull, books beginning to gather in piles around it.
“Oh,” she said. She shot Parijahan and Rashid a reluctant smile before stepping toward a door and opening it. She wanted to know everything about this strange, secretive boy. He was a liar and she wanted his truths.
Inside the room was a study befitting someone with Malachiasz’s title. More books were stacked in the corners. The desk was a mess of papers and razors and sharp tools that Nadya didn’t even want to consider. The room felt wrong, off, and Nadya shut the door quickly, feeling ill. The corridor off to the back led to his bedroom. Nadya hadn’t expected the rooms to all be so cluttered and messy. She moved back into the main sitting room.
“You lied to me,” she said flatly.
Parijahan pursed her lips. Rashid, at least, looked ashamed.
“What did you expect? It was enough that you knew he was one of them—”
“You don’t get to make that decision for me,” Nadya snapped.
Rashid touched Parijahan’s arm. “She’s allowed to be upset,” he said, voice soft.
“How did you find out?” Nadya asked.
“It’s Malachiasz. He hedges. He hedged too far one day and I put the pieces together,” Parijahan said.
“You trust him?”
“I trust him. He has questionable methods, he’s desperate, but he’s trying and that’s more than can be said for most people.”
It didn’t feel like enough to Nadya, but she didn’t know what would ever make it enough. But it didn’t seem to matter. She could wander in mental circles about how she shouldn’t trust him because he lied to her, but she would still follow him.
This was a battle she had lost. No amount of flipping back and forth was going to change how she needed him for this plan to work, that she cared about the anxious boy trying to correct a mistake, the boy she believed was not a lie. Even if he happened to be a monster.