“Where were you two?”
“Languishing in dungeons, trying to convince a rather keen guard that ‘No, Parijahan doesn’t look familiar, you just think all Akolans look the same.’”
Nadya’s eyes widened. “What?”
Parijahan waved a dismissive hand. “Could you see to his broken ribs?”
“Your what?”
Rashid smiled sheepishly, stretching out on the chaise with a pained groan.
“I think I’m dying.”
“He’s not dying,” Parijahan said.
Nadya drew her magic forth, hating every second she used it without contact from the gods. She whispered holy speech she didn’t understand under her breath as her fingertips heated. She carefully worked out which of Rashid’s ribs were broken and set to mending them.
Rashid squirmed underneath her hands like a child who refused to sit for the healer. Nadya had to restrain from smacking him. “Sit still.”
“Your hands are freezing.”
The door opened and closed with a slam. Malachiasz flopped face-first onto the remaining chaise. He let out a long, dramatic sigh and sat up.
“Rashid got his chest knocked in for trying to charm the guards?” he asked.
“You know me so well, Malachiasz,” Rashid said, his face wrenching as Nadya worked.
It took her an hour to heal him. When she finished she leaned back on her heels, staring at her hands. She was dimly aware of the others talking, finalizing plans, but all she could think about was how she had healed Rashid herself. It hadn’t been Zbyhneuska’s power, it had been her own.
Maybe Malachiasz had been right all along.
What did that mean for her? When all this ended—if she even survived—would the gods turn away because she had discovered her power wasn’t dependent on their whims? Was this true of every cleric in history or was this a flaw within herself?
She was jarred by Malachiasz moving to kneel on the floor beside her. He gently took her wrists and folded her hands between his. Tears burned at her eyes.
“We can’t always understand how magic chooses to flow,” he said softly. He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “This is freedom, Nadya, you don’t have to shy away from it.”
She didn’t have the words to explain that he could never understand, even if he was right. The gods were the reason she lived, the air in her lungs. If they were stifling, it was because it was necessary.
Except now she was living without the fear of them hovering, digging in her thoughts. Whatever she would have to do to see this plan to its end would be entirely on herself; there would be no danger of a god denying a spell or ignoring her prayers.
She made a final, tentative reach for the gods and when she was met with a stone wall of silence, she made up her mind.
This was about survival, about something bigger than Nadya’s magic. She wasn’t going to let herself be riddled with doubt and guilt. This wasn’t something she should run from; it was something she should embrace.
“Thank you, Malachiasz,” she whispered.
He smiled. “Are you all right?” He reached out a hesitant hand, brushing his thumb over a long cut that ran down her neck. “I wish I could help, but…” he trailed off. Blood mages couldn’t heal.
“I like to know you have a weakness,” she replied. She tugged on a lock of his hair. She wondered if that was what she had become, the thing that would cause this monster king to stumble away from his throne. Another weakness. “Explain to me what’s going on—without lying, which I think is a perfectly novel idea—and I might consider forgiving you.”
Parijahan snorted. Malachiasz’s smile fell.
“You owe me forty kopecks,” Parijahan said to Rashid.
He sighed. “In my defense the odds were against it from the beginning.”
Nadya and Malachiasz exchanged a glance. She could feel the tops of her ears burning. They both pretended they had no idea what the Akolans were talking about.
Nadya climbed into the empty chair. Malachiasz shoved Rashid’s legs off the chaise and sat down. Rashid protested and kicked Malachiasz in the head as retaliation.
Malachiasz liked the plan Nadya had formed with Serefin, though he worried it would cause the king to act against the prince early.
“You want to bring him here?”
She nodded.
He looked thoughtful. “It would be less public than acting in front of the entire court. And I do know which of the Vultures are acting as the king’s guards now.”
“Can you do this? With your order split the way it is?” Parijahan asked.
“I don’t have a choice,” he said.
Nadya’s eyelids were heavy and she curled up in the chair, yawning. “Wouldn’t your fleeing Tranavia be seen as treason?”
“It was directly in retaliation for something the king asked me to do, so, yes. But for the ritual to work, he can’t do this without me. If what Serefin said about his father is true, then he’s so desperate he’ll look past my transgression.”
Nadya pressed her face against the chair cushion. She could dimly hear them discussing whether they should wait any longer—no—and when they should act—tomorrow.
Nadya was next aware of being lifted out of the chair, of smelling a pleasant mix of earth and iron and feeling the gentle brush of Malachiasz’s hair against her cheek.
“I’m going to go speak with the king. I’ll be back. You and Nadya can use my bedroom,” she heard him say to Parijahan, his voice a low rumble in his chest. She shifted into the warmth of his arms.
“Is she asleep?”
“No.”
She shook her head, but buried her face into his chest.
“She has had her worldview rocked far too many times for any one person in the past twelve hours, on top of being tortured and siphoned. All things considered, she’s doing remarkably well,” Malachiasz continued. “Especially as we expect her to assassinate a man tomorrow.”
“All part of the job,” Nadya mumbled. “We shouldn’t kill Serefin.”
“What?”
“Serefin. He’s good.” She nuzzled his chest. “I like him. He should live.” She forced her eyes open. “Be careful, Malachiasz.”
His eyes flashed sadness at her, but he blinked and it was gone. He smiled.
“What have you been told about worrying about me?”
“It’s useless.” She yawned. “Too late for that.”
29
SEREFIN
MELESKI
Svoyatovi Milan Khalturin: Svoyatovi Milan Khalturin was a holy man, blessed by no god yet a worshiper of them all, who wandered across Kalyazin. There are miracles attributed not to his life, but to his death, as his bones have been said to have healing properties.
—Vasiliev’s Book of Saints
Serefin was too anxious to sleep. He was mostly finished with the necessary preparations for tomorrow, but his mind wouldn’t let him rest.
As he sat down at his desk with spells sprawled out in front of him, blood still drying on the pages, he couldn’t shake the feeling there was something he still wasn’t understanding.
What would they do to the kingdom when they started this coup? Tranavia was his kingdom. His land of swamps and lakes and mountains and marshlands. Of blood magic and monsters. A kingdom with two kings. He didn’t want to see it swallowed in the fires of war, and he didn’t want to see it starve to death, either. Both were dangerously close on the horizon. But he also didn’t want to die.