Nadya saw Żaneta’s lips form the word no, her terror silent. Malachiasz straightened, towering over the girl as he waved a languid hand to the masked Vultures who grabbed her.
“We are so selective in those we welcome into the order,” he said. “Congratulations. You’ve been selected. I do look forward to your next inevitable betrayal,” he called as Żaneta was dragged screaming from the room.
Nadya shut her eyes.
“He wouldn’t,” she heard Rashid murmur.
But that was just the thing—he would. He had never been a tortured victim of his cult; any such implications had been a carefully painted falsehood to gain her trust. He was their ultimate success. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to get what he wanted.
And that was what Nadya didn’t understand. What did he want?
33
SEREFIN
MELESKI
Svoyatovi Nikita Lisov: A cleric of the god Krsnik who chose to abandon the life of a holy man and instead use the god-given power bestowed upon him to entertain. While the Church fought against his canonization, the use of one of his finger bones turned the tide of a battle in 625 when it burst into flames and wiped out a full Tranavian company.
—Vasiliev’s Book of Saints
Serefin was trapped in darkness.
If I’m in a coffin, there’s going to be hell to pay, he thought irritably.
He felt strange, oddly jittery and feverish. He pressed his hands up, prepared to feel the blank slab of a coffin lid.
His hands met nothing but air.
He let out a long sigh of relief. Now he had to get out of here, wherever here was. He struggled to his feet, swaying as he stood. Blood and bone, he felt awful.
He considered casting a light and reached for his spell book.
Idiot, of course you don’t have that. But he paused. Stars and moths and music. He wondered …
He had nothing to use to draw blood. There were no razors in the hems of his clothes. He had no knife. All he had was himself and the dark around him.
He rubbed his index finger over his thumbnail. He kept his nails trimmed short, so that wouldn’t work.
This is going to hurt, he thought with resignation as he pushed his sleeve off his forearm and bit down hard.
Blood flooded his mouth and with it came an intoxicating rush of power. He had no spell book, no conduit. It wasn’t possible to cast blood magic without either, yet Serefin channeled the jittery trembling in his muscles, the heady rush of power from the blood.
He cast out a handful of stars. They glittered in the darkness, lighting enough for him to see he was still in the catacombs. At least he knew the way out.
He crashed his way out of the catacombs, disturbing the guards standing outside.
“Your Highness,” one said, his tone oddly grave as he drew his sword on Serefin.
“Oh, is this how it goes? I’m murdered and everyone has orders to kill me on sight? Just to rub it in?”
He didn’t know if he had actually died but damn if it didn’t sound significantly more poetic.
He wondered if he could kill with the stars still floating lazily around his head. There was only one way to find out. The bite wound was still sluggishly bleeding, and he used it to coat his hands. Before he had a chance to use the magic, though, the point of a blade was sticking out of one guard’s eye. The other fell beside him, revealing a one-eyed sorry sight.
“Serefin,” Ostyia gasped. Her single eye was rimmed red, as if she had been crying. Serefin had never seen Ostyia cry. The closest she had ever been was the day her dog had been killed on a hunt when they were children. Even then, she took the news with a stony face.
She fumbled with the dead guards, and handed Serefin a dagger. She winced at the bite mark on his arm. “We have to go,” she said. Pausing, she turned back and threw her arms around him. “You’re not allowed to die,” she said fiercely, her voice catching.
“Too late for that,” Serefin said, a little shocked at her embrace. “I think. Perhaps not. What’s happening?” He realized she was alone and felt a stab of panic. “Where’s Kacper?”
A crash of lightning and thunder lit the hallway for an instant, before they were plunged back into the torchlit dim.
“We have to go,” she repeated. “I don’t know where Kacper is, I’m sorry, Serefin.” She still hadn’t let him go. If anything, she clutched him tighter. “Your father announced your death this morning. He’s using it as leverage, saying it was assassins. He’s at the chapel now … and Serefin?” She finally pulled back, her face pale. “Whatever he was trying to do, he succeeded. And you were supposed to stay dead.”
“Well,” Serefin said brightly, masking his horror as Ostyia stepped away. He strapped the dagger onto his belt. He didn’t bother wrapping the bite wound. Let everyone see his desperation. “If my father wants to become a god, I’ll have to show him what I saw on the other side.”
Ostyia’s one eye was wide. “What did you see?”
“Stars,” Serefin said. He waved a hand at the stars still hanging in constellations around his head as he stepped over the corpses and started down the hall in the direction of the courtyard. “There was music. And…” he trailed off.
“Moths.”
And thousands of glittering, dusty wings exploded around him.
34
NADEZHDA
LAPTEVA
Svoyatova Raya Astafyeva: It was said that stars trailed Svoyatova Raya Astafyeva wherever she went. A path of flickering light amidst the darkness of war.
—Vasiliev’s Book of Saints
Nadya watched as the rain spattering the windows of the cathedral became thick and red. Blood. It was blood.
There was blood raining from the sky.
Parijahan followed Nadya’s gaze and her lips tightened. This was all happening in the wrong order.
Nadya let her magic trickle out from where she stood, hidden in the shadows of a marble pillar. No one would notice her there. A pale slip of a girl wouldn’t be seen while the king of Tranavia turned the skies to blood and toyed with more power than any mortal should ever possess.
All that power could bring Kalyazin to its knees in moments. All they had by way of magic was one seventeen-year-old cleric. And while her power was significant, it was nothing compared to this. Not while the gods were out of her reach.
But not all of the gods, not quite. She rubbed her thumb over the pendant in her hand. Some gods require blood.
She was already so far past what she had thought was truth. There was nothing stopping her from going further, not if it was going to save them all. She might live to regret this but she also might not live at all and that was enough to make her decision for her. She had power now, power of her own, and while she couldn’t press against that veil of magic before, perhaps that too had changed.
She let one of her blades fall into her hand. Praying under her breath, she tugged the mask off her face and dropped it. She cut a careful spiral into her palm, the same pattern that was on the pendant, then pressed the cold metal into her fist.
Blood it is, then, if that’s what it takes.
She could feel the oppressive weight of the veil cast over Tranavia bearing down on her. She pushed her power against it, a single point of light against an expanse of darkness. There was the smallest splinter. The king’s head snapped up as he felt it too. Malachiasz stiffened, fingers fluttering in an odd way as his hand moved to press over his heart. He looked up at the ceiling, a puzzled frown passing over his features.