Ruthless Gods Read online

  A roiling, churning madness circled her like a predator, making her breath come too fast and her heart beat so rapidly in her chest she thought it might burst.

  The candle flickered where it rested on the pew beside Nadya. The madness shifted. Perched on a pew, watching her intently, but when she turned her head there was nothing there. Only flickers in the corner of her eye.

  She didn’t want this. It was too soon—it had been an eternity—she could not stand to have him so close. She could feel the monster’s mutating incoherence.

  What she wanted was to feel horror, anger, disgust, anything, anything that would push him far away.

  But Nadya was curious, more than anything else.

  Can you speak? Maybe he was nothing but his madness.

  There was an assembly of fragments before a glimmering spark of clarity.

  “Tak,” he replied.

  A single word—one quiet yes—but his voice was a shard of ice.

  “You are always there, little bird,” he continued slowly. “Fluttering outside of everything, but you cannot be caught. I try to cast you out yet you remain, irritating, useless, constantly, constantly fluttering.”

  His voice was low and soft and so very Malachiasz, yet threaded with chaos as it slipped quietly through the back of her head.

  Of course when she was at her lowest he would be here to remind her of how else she had failed. How she hadn’t seen his plan even as he laid it out in front of her—had told her he was not to be trusted.

  The cut on her palm itched and her heart squeezed painfully. None of this should be happening.

  That flickering in his eyes as he had fled the chapel, the draining dregs of his last shreds of humanity. He didn’t know her. She didn’t know him.

  Four months was a long time to live with oblivion. It had been a long time to live with the shadows of everything she had not seen and could not stop. It was a long time to live with silence.

  Nadya sighed. And what solace would catching me bring? Do you enjoy so much your complete and utter solitude?

  “The bones of a bird are light, easily broken.”

  Better, then, to waste away alone in the shadows and crush all that come near. What a fate. Pathetic creature.

  What a fate for the boy who had won her heart with such ardent loyalty toward his friends. It was one of the few things Nadya did not think was a lie. Parijahan and Rashid had not been pawns in this grand game he was playing. Maybe condemnation to isolating madness was what he deserved, but he had been so lonely that this was a truly cruel twist of fate.

  He nudged at the thread between them, searching for a weakness she did not think he would find.

  Surely you can break it. Are you not so very powerful? Are you not a being of dark divinity?

  She was goading him; she wanted to hear his voice, rattled and twisted as it sounded.

  “Who are you?”

  And though she had known this question would come, it hit her like a punch to the gut.

  It doesn’t matter, she managed.

  The pieces reassembled, as his focus sharpened to curiosity. As he casually dismissed her as no one at all. She had no magic for him to wonder about; a peasant acolyte from Kalyazin could not hold his interest.

  She ignored the twinge of pain at this realization.

  Damned boy. Surely you can ignore one irritating little bird.

  She snapped the connection closed. It was imperfect. He would be back. Maybe he wasn’t even gone, but the ominous presence in the air slowly faded, and with it came her ability to breathe again.

  And the crack in her heart deepened further.

  Fleeing the chapel was like admitting defeat. But who was she kidding? She couldn’t help anyone. She rubbed at the scar on her palm as she walked. She wanted it all to end.

  interlude ii

  MALACHIASZ CZECHOWICZ

  “Fool boy, I won’t speak to you like this. Wake up.”

  Malachiasz gasped, the world jolting into clarity as if he’d been doused in ice water.

  “Ah, there you are. That wasn’t so difficult.”

  His mouth tasted of blood as he swallowed, disoriented, his head pounding. He didn’t know where he was—wait. The witch’s tower. How was he here?

  He blinked tears away as Pelageya stood before him, a wry grin on her face.

  “You, Chelvyanik Sterevyani, were expected first. You lost me a bet and I don’t appreciate that.”

  He tried not to panic as his heart sped too fast in his chest, grasping for something to ground him, but there was nothing.

  “I asked you before if this would be worth it,” she said contemplatively. “I’ll ask you again. Then you can tell me why you’re here.”

  Why am I here?

  A flickering fire cast the room in an eerie green light. This place was different than before. It dripped with the skulls of creatures both natural and monstrous. A skull sprouting more antlers than any deer would have hung from the ceiling. He blinked. It had more eye sockets than a deer as well.

  “Did you ask me that?” His voice was weaker than he would have liked. Everything was fuzzy, like he was pressing through a fog. He rubbed his temples. Why couldn’t he remember?

  There were flickers, pieces; he remembered fragments. It was unclear and muddied. He seized onto a whole memory and held tight; Pelageya asking him that very question and Nadya’s brow furrowing as she tried to fit the Vatczinki words into her understanding of Tranavian and came up blank.

  Nadya.

  Hells.

  The witch’s white curls were tied back, throwing the well-worn lines of her face into sharp focus. She wore a necklace of teeth that clacked as she moved through the room. Was this her tower? Or was this somewhere else?

  “I did, dear boy, and I must say, you were very confident in your response, but I sensed a faltering. Was it worth it?”

  “Yes,” he replied steadily.

  She stared at him, unblinking. He forced himself to keep still under the weight of her scrutiny.

  “You look different,” she said shortly.

  He didn’t want to know what that meant. The iron claws that tipped his fingers were enough. He lifted a hand. There was fresh blood underneath his fingernails.

  “And what name do you go by now, sterevyani bolen?”

  He shook his head, frowning. “My name is—”

  “It won’t help,” she said softly. “You will have it for only a second, fleeting and trivial.”

  “Malachiasz,” he said firmly. “My name is Malachiasz Czechowicz.”

  Her smile was mournful and that sparked an anger in Malachiasz he didn’t quite understand. How dare she pretend like his choices mattered to her?

  “Fool boy,” she murmured. “Why come to me?”

  He closed his eyes, a shiver of horror rippling through him. He should leave. Take what she had given him and run.

  “It’s not enough,” he said. “I thought … It doesn’t matter. Something is missing. It almost worked but it’s not enough.”

  She snorted. “It won’t ever be enough, will it? They let you taste power too young. That family of yours is a cursed line; you know, you know. Somewhere deep in those parts of yourself you’ve locked away. What will happen when you have nothing left? You’re near the edge, but soon you’ll fall and there will be no more pieces to give away for scraps of power. What will you do with this magic you hoard?”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

  “Oh, no, no, I know, I know, you see. I wait to see if you will succeed where all have failed. Visionary or madman? Such ideals, and such darkness, such cruelty, combined are never good. A clever mind—so very clever—but a hollow heart that pumps blackened blood. But it beats yet, and while it beats it can be broken.”

  He tensed.

  “Unless you break it first…” She tilted her head, spinning and staring into the fire. “Who will stop you? Who indeed?”

  He wouldn’t be stopped. That was the horror; tha
t was the brilliance.

  “The girl, the monster, the prince, and the queen,” she murmured. She passed her hand over the flames. They licked at her skin without burning her flesh. “Except he’s the king and she’s not a queen. Not how I foresaw it—you all broke that quite thoroughly—but it does make for a more interesting song. More wily, more clever, more strong-willed than I expected, but they still fit the notes they were given.

  “And the darkness, the monsters, the shadows in the deep are waking up and they are hungry.” She glanced sidelong at him. “The very thing you claim to lord over will tear you apart, because, yes, you are powerful, but you are also blind to what will destroy you in the end. You should take the power you swallowed and accept its limitations.”

  “A prophecy of doom. How quaint, truly, witch,” he said dryly.

  “No, you wouldn’t listen to that, would you? Arrogant boy, clever, foolish boy. You’ll taste regret one day. You’ll be claimed by the very thing you hate the most. Wait and see. But you’re right. You did not come to me to hear of doom, you came to me for something else. Something I can give that no one else can.”

  “Or take,” he allowed.

  She clapped her hands. “Or take! Oh, the boy steps further and further away from human and molds into the guise of a monster.”

  She was suddenly too close, her fingers clutching at his chin as she lifted his face up.

  “What will your regret taste like, I wonder? Will it be sweet or a bitter, bitter poison? So confident, so clever, so sure of yourself.”

  “I have every reason to be all of those things.” His voice didn’t sound so sure.

  “Of course.” He didn’t notice the shift but the witch looked no older than him. Her black curls spiraled wildly around her pale face; her black eyes unsettlingly sharp. Lines no longer marred her smooth skin, and her lips were full and dark. They pulled into a half smile. “Beautiful and arrogant and powerful.”

  She trailed her fingers over his mouth. “What will you do, sterevyani bolen? Chelvyanik Sterevyani? Cząrnisz Swotep? What have you done?”

  He froze. He had been awake too long and all that had been broken was returning to the surface. Pale hair, rough hands, freckled features, a nose scrunched in thought.

  A Kalyazi girl with blood-drenched hands, reaching for him as he shoved her away. She had given him so much and he had crushed her because it wasn’t enough.

  He hated the witch for waking him, for making him remember.

  He leaned forward. The witch pressed her thumb against his lips, parting them until her index finger grazed the tip of his fangs. He tasted her blood, sparking something deep within him.

  A hiss of air escaped his chest. The witch’s smile grew. She lifted her hand, blood dripping down her fingers. She touched the horns that spiraled back into his hair.

  “What a fascinating paradox you are,” she murmured. “Again I ask, was it worth it?”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper.

  She nodded. “Yes. And when you are rent apart, when the boy and the monster can no longer reconcile, when you realize you have gone too far and reached for too much and have slipped into a crevice in the world where only the darkest of horrors dwell, will it be worth it then? What a thing to ponder. But you do not care for prophecies of doom.”

  She snatched up his wrist, dragging his hand into the light. Had the spiral scar on his palm always been there?

  “Oh,” the witch whispered.

  She touched the center of the spiral before he had a chance to stop her. The line to his heart pulled tight and trembled as though someone was trying to saw straight through it.

  The witch traced the spiral, her touch feather light. “Marked ahead of your time. How fascinating. How unexpected. How did this happen?”

  There had been a voryen. Warm breath at his ear. Lips in a fast kiss against his temple. Stealing his power in a way no mage should be able. He shook his head.

  “I wonder what this changes,” she mused. “Will this claw at you faster or save you? Though,” she laughed, “there is no saving you. Damned boy, creature of darkness, what horrors will you unleash on the world under the guise of benevolent protection? What destruction under the lie of salvation? How many will you lead down your terrible path?”

  He stood up, anxious tremors wracking his body. He had thought that would stop, was disappointed to find it hadn’t. Damned boy. But the voice was different and a sigh had followed, wistful. He did not know what he was remembering.

  “It would be so easy,” Pelageya said, watching him pace. “The door is right there. You could stop all of this. You could go back to the little cleric, be a good monster king, and stop trying to change the stars. She is so very, very close.”

  He stopped in his tracks, heart in his throat. He let out a long, ragged breath as he stared at the door.

  He could stop this. Open the door and beg forgiveness for the thousands of lies. Turn back. She would forgive him. And if she didn’t, her dagger in his heart might be even sweeter.

  But it wouldn’t be enough. He stepped away from the door.

  Pelageya gave a small, feral smile. And she asked one last time.

  “Was it worth it?”

  This time he hesitated. One single heartbeat where he didn’t know, he didn’t know, he didn’t know.

  What had he done to Nadya?

  There was so much missing, but what wasn’t was the Kalyazi cleric, bloodied fists relaxing in shock when he’d taken her hand and brought it to his lips. The girl who rested her blade at his neck over and over and let it fall each time, finding something in him worth saving. The beautiful, infuriating nightmare of a girl he couldn’t keep away from even as each twist of her string around his finger drove a dagger deeper into his heart.

  He didn’t know when his plans for manipulation had turned into real feelings.

  He hated the witch for waking him up.

  “Yes,” he growled.

  She grinned. “Then I will take that heavy, mortal burden from you. I will give you what you desire. But, oh, know this, Chelvyanik Sterevyani, there is no going back once you walk down this path. I can take and hold this from you, but if you ever want it back the pain will be greater than anything you have yet suffered.”

  She dropped a handful of bones into his hand.

  “This will only be the start. There will be more to come.”

  She did not give him any more chances to change his mind. She kissed him.

  And he shattered.

  5

  SEREFIN MELESKI

  Svoyatovy Aleksandr and Polina Rozovsky: Twins born under the double moons of Myesta but not taken by her as clerics. When they were torn apart for sport by Tranavian blood mages, their mirrored souls split the ground in two and swallowed the mages alive.

  —Vasiliev’s Book of Saints

  Ksęszi Ruminski was perfectly civil until Nadya left the hall. His eyes followed her, dark and hooded. Żywia met Serefin’s gaze across the table, smiling wryly and standing up to follow Nadya.

  “Is that the one?” Ruminski asked, gesturing to the doorway where Nadya had disappeared.

  “Sorry?” Serefin waved for a servant to refill his wine glass. He wasn’t drunk enough for this.

  “The one you chose after that Rawalyk went to shit.” Ruminski was far past drunk and bordering on belligerent.

  “That puts what happened far more delicately than I would,” Serefin replied cheerfully. “And, no. Did you want me to say yes? I don’t think assassinating her will help me find your daughter any faster.”

  Ruminski frowned. “Assassination would be too simple, Kowesz Tawość.”

  Serefin tensed. He turned the glass underneath his finger. He had expected them to go after him, but Nadya? If things turned in that direction he did not know how far he would go to save a Kalyazi girl, even her.

  “Oh?”

  “Your Majesty, you realize she is not who she says, don’t you?”

  Serefin l
ifted an eyebrow. “Are you saying I have an imposter in my court?”

  “I’m saying you have something far worse.”

  Ruminski believed Serefin had no idea. That was good, at least.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “We are at war, Kowesz Tawość.”

  Serefin would never get used to being called that. He gritted his teeth. He would also never get used to being reminded of the war as if he hadn’t spent most of his short life in the worst of it. As if he hadn’t failed to sleep a full night for years because, if the horrors of the battlefield didn’t keep him awake, the things he had seen in the aftermath would. He had lost so many people he considered friends to the Kalyazi, had seen the war stripping Tranavia raw as it pulled away its resources year after year.

  “We are,” he replied, with an edge that clearly took Ruminski by surprise. “Which is why I need my court behind me and my actions. My father ran this country into the ground over this war; I intend to build us back up. We must return Tranavia to its former glory, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Ruminski nodded his head graciously. “Of course,” he said, “but it would be unwise of you to get too comfortable. Isn’t that what happened to your father, after all?”

  “It wasn’t complacency that killed my father, I assure you.”

  “No, that was you.”

  Serefin took a long drink of his wine before grinning at Ruminski. “Are you ready to level that accusation?”

  “More ready than you know.”

  I doubt that. Serefin leaned back in his chair, resting his elbow on the arm. “My father died of an experiment of magic that he took too far. He is not the first to die in such a way.”

  “The lies you have been feeding the court are not going to satisfy much longer.”

  “Is that a threat, myj ksęszi?” Serefin asked blandly.

  “Simple truth, Kowesz Tawość. I am not the only person who feels this way.”

  “What way are you referring to? You forget that when my father took the throne he did it by killing—quite publicly, I might add—his father.”