Ruthless Gods Read online

  “And if not?”

  “If not…” Nadya paused. She eyed the vulture that was still watching them. “Then the Vultures will finally accomplish what they were created for and that will be the end of Kalyazin’s clerics.”

  “I thought you wanted him to rot.”

  “I do,” Nadya said fervently. “He deserves whatever nightmare he’s in. But he’s the only one that can get me where I need to be.”

  They rode in silence for a while until one by one the horses began to balk, firmly planting their hooves and refusing to go any farther. Serefin couldn’t blame them—he certainly didn’t want to go any farther—and begrudgingly made the decision to leave them behind.

  “Out here?” Rashid protested. They were miles from any sign of life, and the surrounding fields were dry and barren.

  “I’m not a monster,” Serefin said.

  “Debatable.”

  Serefin ignored him, cutting his forearm on the razor in his sleeve and flipping through his spell book. He ripped out a page, smearing blood inelegantly on it and blowing the ashes that followed toward the horses. He dabbed his fingers in his blood and touched each horse—lightly, there was no need to be messy—on the flank.

  “They’ll be fine. They’ll make it home.”

  “That’s a drain on you,” Kacper murmured, disapproving. “Just leave them.”

  “You’re the monster!” Rashid exclaimed.

  Kacper rolled his eyes.

  Serefin turned to Nadya. She was gazing out into the horizon in the direction of the Salt Mines. He wished he didn’t have to put so much trust in her—he needed Żaneta, and if she failed he would lose much more in this venture than she would.

  A Kalyazi cleric and the king of Tranavia. Sworn enemies turned exhausted allies. There was no good reason for their alliance outside of sheer desperation at this point.

  Serefin was going to let her try. It took a lot to kill a Vulture. It would take even more to kill Malachiasz, but Serefin had a feeling that it would be harder now than if Nadya succeeded.

  “Don’t make me regret this,” he warned.

  She shot him a wistful smile. “I already regret asking.”

  9

  NADEZHDA LAPTEVA

  The taste of blood through broken teeth and a promise, a reminder that nothing lasts forever. Hunger is eternal.

  —The Volokhtaznikon

  When she snuck away from camp, the barren fields were eerie with the darkness blanketing them. As blithe as she had been about it to Serefin, she didn’t have a plan. She had a hope and a prayer and that was all. With each step she walked closer to her death.

  It was unsettling, how unassuming the entrance to the Salt Mines was. Compared to the extravagance of the cathedral in Grazyk, this was sinister in its quiet. How easy it would be for the unsuspecting to stumble upon the plain shack and enter into something horrific.

  How easy it was for her to walk into something horrific.

  “And so the little bird risks oblivion,” he said, suddenly beside her.

  Nadya tried not to flinch at the sound of his voice. She didn’t manage such restraint. She kept her eyes locked firmly on the door carved with symbols, the bloody markings painted against the wooden walls.

  “I didn’t realize you stepped outside your hallowed halls,” she said.

  Don’t look.

  He snorted softly and stepped past her. She dropped her gaze before it glanced upon him.

  “You will follow,” he said.

  She stepped after him, keeping her eyes dropped low, tracking the bloody feathers of his heavy, black wings as they dragged the ground behind him.

  Don’t look.

  She hesitated at the doorway. The darkness past the threshold was suffocating. This was truly stepping into hell. This was following him somewhere she might never escape.

  “You came far.” Nadya nearly jumped out of her skin at the voice right next to her ear. A hand clasped her arm, nudging her in the right direction as the world plunged black around her.

  Żywia.

  “Where’s the king—wasn’t this whole mad business his idea?” There was a pause. Żywia tucked an errant lock of Nadya’s hair behind her ear, the gentle scratch of her iron claws grazing her cheek. When Nadya didn’t answer, Żywia laughed. “Oh, this is different, is it? This is about him.”

  The Vulture hadn’t been like this at the palace. Was it this place that broke them down to their darkest parts, leaving them more monster than human?

  “Darling, I’m so glad I got through to you, though this is only going to end in misery. I look forward to your attempt. Come now, and don’t trip. It’s a long way down.”

  Żywia twined her fingers in between Nadya’s, the motion rough.

  “Won’t tell him, I won’t,” she said. “He is so baffled by you. So confused, and I won’t tell him that you know what you know. You try, towy Kalyazi, what is uncertain is whether you will succeed.”

  The Vulture led Nadya down the steps.

  It grew colder the farther down they went and Nadya thought it would never end. She would be trapped on these stairs, in the dark, forever, and that was how she would die. She never would have made it down without Żywia and she hated relying on the Vulture.

  It never got any lighter and so she was never able to see. The air tasted of iron, a metallic tinge clung to it. The darkness was unbearable. Things moved in the depths of the dark and she could not tell if the creatures that crouched in the corners of the labyrinthine passages and slunk in the doorways, with their rows and rows of teeth, that appeared vaguely human, were real, or if her brain was imagining them.

  She had no idea if Malachiasz—not Malachiasz, the Black Vulture—was nearby or if he had left her to her fate.

  Something screamed in the dark and Nadya froze, gasping for air. It hadn’t sounded human, or, it had, but only barely, the last shreds hanging on while nails of iron dragged out everything else.

  Żywia stopped walking, waiting for Nadya to move.

  “What was that?” Nadya hissed.

  “You don’t want me to tell you,” Żywia said. Nadya could hear the smile in her voice.

  She didn’t. She didn’t want to know.

  Her heart was pounding too fast, lodged in her throat, and no matter how hard she swallowed she couldn’t get it to budge. She wasn’t getting any air in her lungs. It was as if there wasn’t any air down here and she was just going to suffocate as the walls closed in around her. Żywia slowed to prevent Nadya from slamming into the rough stone wall as the passage narrowed, leaving only a sliver of space to pass through. Nadya had never thought herself afraid of small spaces before, but wedging herself through that passageway she couldn’t help thinking that she was being led straight into a trap and the walls were going to swallow her alive.

  She focused on Żywia’s hand in hers—real. The breath in her lungs—real. The nearby screams—not real. Even if they very much were.

  She started walking again and finally, finally, the hall opened up into a vast throne room. Torches cast the room in a sickly pale light. Bloody symbols streaked the walls, bones inlaid on the floor—like that of the cathedral yet without any of the elegance. What this spoke of was far more primal. The throne in this foul place was carved of bone, paneled with gold, inlaid with amethyst. It was a beautiful, terrifying construct—a near twin to the one that sat in the cathedral in Grazyk—that gleamed in the flickering light.

  Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.

  But her eyes found him anyway.

  He lounged sideways on the throne in a way that was achingly familiar, his leg kicked up over the arm. Black veins trailed underneath his pale skin. Spikes of iron dripping blood jutted from his body. Heavy black wings were tucked against the other arm of the throne. He was chewing idly at the pointed end of a claw with razor sharp, glittering iron teeth.

  That wasn’t the worst of it. That wasn’t what made her stomach sour and bile rise in her throat. There was something shiveri
ng at his edges that she couldn’t quite place. As if everything he had become had twisted even darker as he lurked in the shadows. There were cracks in his skin, but with a shiver, it would all change. Each time her brain tracked him, his monstrous features altered. A shiver. New eyes dripped down his cheeks and jaw, blinking open at intervals. A shiver. Sharp teeth slicing open the skin of his cheek. Her eyes blurred. Eyes on his forehead, bloody and pale instead of onyx black. An ever shifting, chaotic horror.

  Despair threatened to drown her. This was so much worse than she had imagined.

  His onyx eyes skimmed over her as she desperately avoided meeting them. His inky black hair was long and tangled, threaded with golden beads and pieces of bone. The worst part—the glimmer that shattered the fragile armor she had built around herself—was when the shifting plane of his features rested fleetingly on his utterly human, painfully beautiful face. Transient, quiet, gone in an instant.

  Only a monster.

  A slow smile stretched across his mouth, revealing iron teeth and hints of fangs as he studied her in a careful, cautious way.

  She had to do something. She bowed. “Kowej Eczkanję, I am here to make your life miserable.”

  She didn’t have time to straighten up from her false deference. He was across the room, hand clutching the back of her head, wrenching it back.

  “Easier to kill you now,” he said thoughtfully. “Here.”

  “As opposed to across a magic thread? I suppose so. Easier for me to fight back,” she pointed out.

  His iron claws scratched against her scalp. It would be so easy. Press a little more and she would be dead. She had to make the idea of her death not quite so compelling.

  “But…” she said, mocking his thoughtful tone, “that would be a sour end to your curiosity.”

  He allowed her to straighten, shifting his hand to tip her chin up with one iron claw, forcing her face up to his. She had forgotten how tall he was. “I suppose we’ll see, pet.”

  And in the shifting hellscape that he was, she caught a glimpse of the scared, lonely boy who had been torn into pieces and was searching for something, anything, that might salvage the wreckage.

  A crack in the armor.

  A weakness for Nadya to exploit.

  The Black Vulture let her go. She took a step back. He watched her as a predator might, sharp-eyed, head angled to the side.

  “Why have you come here?” he asked.

  “There’s a slavhka that was inducted into your ranks several months ago,” Nadya said. “I want her back.”

  Żywia looked curiously at the Black Vulture, as if she had no idea why Nadya was there. Nadya couldn’t trust the girl, but she did wonder why the Vulture hadn’t told him who she was. He frowned slightly, returning Żywia’s glance. Something sparked in his onyx eyes.

  “Oh, the mistake, of course. Fetch her, Żywia. Careful, though, it’s been a long time since she’s seen any light.”

  Horror settled deep in Nadya’s core. She hadn’t really known Żaneta, but the slavhka had treated her kindly enough when she was pretending to be competition for Serefin’s hand in marriage.

  Which, Nadya considered, she was glad the Rawalyk had ended in disaster. Now that she knew Serefin she couldn’t think of a single worse fate than being married to him and she had been on the road to winning that whole nightmare.

  “What is it you need with my Vulture?” he asked.

  “If she’s a mistake, it doesn’t sound like you have much use for her,” Nadya replied.

  He was close, lifting her prayer beads with his claw. Time was a circle and Nadya had to relive her past in a new twisted reality. A boy in the snow, too curious for his own good. A monster in the darkness, contemplating a puzzle. His onyx eyes flicked over the symbols on the beads, a slight frown tugging at his mouth.

  “Witch magic and divinity,” he murmured. “You still haven’t told me who you are, towy dżimyka.”

  Hearing the nickname without any of the warmth Malachiasz put into it hurt more than Nadya wanted to admit.

  “Neither have you. I suppose we’re even,” she replied.

  A flicker. “Kalyazi, clearly.”

  “Oh? I thought my Tranavian was rather flawless.” It wasn’t, Nadya knew, but her grasp of the language had improved greatly since he had first worked with her on it.

  “Brave of you, to think you would leave this place unharmed. Or foolish. We’re at war, little Kalyazi.”

  Nadya shrugged. “I thought the Vultures weren’t involved in the war. What do you have to fight? There are no more clerics.”

  “There’s one,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Yes,” Nadya said softly, “there is.”

  He knew what she was. Even in his scattered, barely coherent, soulless state. His mind was shattered but not dulled.

  “Will you kill me?”

  He frowned at her, thinking. No. Not yet.

  Not yet. “Nothing to fear from me, Nadya,” he’d said, ‘not yet’ lacing his words, she thought miserably. And I ignored it.

  Nadya tensed as he stepped behind her. The darkness of his presence brushed past her, and her fear arced so high she dizzied.

  I should not have come here alone. Blank horror crept up her spine.

  “Will you tell me your name?” he asked.

  “Will you tell me yours?”

  His laugh was low and grating, a painful sound.

  “I have no name.” He spoke softly, face close to hers. “I am more than that. More than everything. The darkness to be worshipped, the poison in the hearts of men, heresy, shadow.”

  “Sounds exhausting.”

  “Why are you here?” he continued, dragging a claw down her cheek, the graze just light enough that her flesh did not part underneath the razor sharp iron. His breath was hot at her ear. “Why have you come reeking of witch magic and holiness? What purpose do you serve if not for me to ruin? What are your bones worth if not to be crushed?”

  “Oh, please, ask the question you actually want the answer to.” She was nothing but a little bird and he was the beastly vulture that chewed bones to dust and swallowed the sun. To fear him was natural, it was what he expected, and she didn’t want to give him that satisfaction.

  He turned her to face him, hands rough against her shoulders. She had to drop her eyes, the shifting horror of his face was too much.

  “Is the magic yours?” he asked.

  She lifted his right hand from her shoulder, turning his palm face up. She frowned; his scar was clean. Wordlessly, she tugged off her glove and turned her own palm. Her scar was blackened, veins of darkness trailing out over her palm. One vein had started to lace up her ring finger.

  Why was his clean, yet hers corrupted like this?

  He looked puzzled. He closed his fingers around his own scar, his other hand tracing hers with an almost gentle touch.

  “The magic is not mine,” she said.

  His eyes bore down on her. “But you know what it is.”

  She had assumed it was Velyos’ power, but what if it wasn’t? What did he know? “I don’t know how to break it.” She touched a piece of bone that threaded through his dark, wild, tangled locks of hair. It was too far, but he didn’t flinch away.

  She needed to dig her fingers into the crack in his armor and wrench it open. She had his name—knew how much of himself he had tied to it—but would it be enough? He had to want it to be an anchor. He had to want to be Malachiasz Czechowicz.

  Somehow, she had to find him. She had to find the boy all while convincing the monster to let her take Żaneta. It was an impossible task.

  Tension lay suspended between them. It was an unsettling discovery, to find that she didn’t feel a desire to take her voryen and put it through his heart.

  “Here she is!” Żywia sang, breaking the silence as she shoved a hunched, frail form into the throne room.

  Nadya hissed out a breath. The Black Vulture moved away, back to his throne, the moment between them broken.

 
; Żywia skipped up to the dais, settling herself at the foot of the throne. “What do you want with her?” she asked. As if Serefin hadn’t told her.

  Nadya shot her a glare. Żywia shook her head, ever so slightly.

  Was she helping her or not?

  Nadya moved closer to the crumpled form that was Żaneta. She was terrified of what she would find under the curtain of limp curls.

  “I’ve been told she committed treason,” the Black Vulture said.

  “You’ve been told?” Nadya asked. “You were there.”

  Żywia shot her a wide-eyed look as the Black Vulture’s expression grew distant and confused.

  “What?” His voice cracked over the single word, a lost boy, bewildered in the dark until he was pulled back under.

  Stop it. She shouldn’t be separating the two like this. It was all Malachiasz.

  Nadya shrugged. He clearly wanted to ask her more, but instead he slouched back on his throne, frowning almost petulantly. Nadya turned away.

  “Żaneta?” she whispered, scared to reach for her.

  “Her grasp of her name is questionable,” the Black Vulture said. He leaned his chin on his hand as he watched. “Her grasp on … reality is questionable.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Nadya muttered.

  She caught the Black Vulture’s quirked eyebrow and Żywia’s narrowed eyes. She was being too familiar.

  Nadya reached her hand out, jumping when gnarled fingers with jagged, broken fingernails snapped over her wrist. The curtain of hair parted.

  “Oh, darling, what have they done to you?” she whispered.

  10

  SEREFIN MELESKI

  Part back the flesh, shatter the bone, and see what shapes the beating heart of a being that once was and is not anymore. Velyos is tricks. Velyos is patience.

  —The Letters of Włodzimierz

  Serefin had learned very early in life that making Ostyia mad would only result in his suffering, so he tended to avoid it at all cost. The more they dealt with Malachiasz, the more unavoidable it was.

  “What do you mean you let her go?” Ostyia said, voice level.