Blessed Monsters Read online

  Malachiasz flinched.

  “But does it matter? You want a total freedom from the gods, and yet, what are you?”

  “Not a god,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  “No and no and no and yes. Yes, my boy. Both and everything and nothing all at once. How much will you consume before you are done? How much will you destroy?”

  “I only want peace,” he whispered.

  “Do you lie to yourself, too? I’m surprised.”

  He had a name, at least, to tie to the god. It was meaningless to him. He vaguely remembered Katya telling Nadya about Chyrnog, but he hadn’t been paying attention. He had been watching the way the forest light played against the pale strands of Nadya’s hair. Gold and honey and snow.

  “Are you actually here or am I dying, and this is how I’m continually punished?”

  Pelageya laughed. “I’m as real as you.”

  “Just making sure.”

  “Why are you here?” she asked, finally settling herself in a chair across from him. “You’ve never wanted my help before; I hardly believe you’ll start now.”

  He frowned. “I’m here because your hut showed up before me? I don’t understand.”

  “It doesn’t show itself to people who don’t already want it.”

  Did he want it? He wanted help, but not from an antagonistic Kalyazi witch. “I don’t think you’d want to help me, all things considered,” he replied. Chyrnog didn’t exactly seem like the best of news.

  “How have you come this far and not yet realized that my will and my desires are my own and not tied to any fanatical sense of place or purpose? You could stand to think a little less about your country and a little more about the fact that thirteen—no—fifteen eyes just opened on your skin at once.”

  “It’s rude to point that out,” he said primly.

  Pelageya perked up suddenly. “More visitors?” she grumbled. “I need more heads for the fence to keep them away. Can I have yours?”

  “No.” Malachiasz tried not to panic. Who else could be here? He realized that he didn’t know where in the forest he even was, and it was likely that they were close enough to a Kalyazi village that the witch got wanderers all the time. Still, he should probably hide.

  “Oh, stay where you are,” she said, waving a hand at him. “I’ve been wanting to speak to you together for a long time and now I finally can!”

  Malachiasz didn’t like the sound of that at all and he prepared to flee. He almost relaxed when the door opened to the figure of a girl, tall, face weather-worn and exhausted. He couldn’t make out the words that she and the witch exchanged, but she stormed away in a rage. Another figure was shoved inside.

  Shit.

  “Shit,” Serefin said as he stared at Malachiasz over Pelageya’s shoulder.

  Serefin Meleski stood there, tall and pale and looking like he had been dragged through hell and back. His brown hair was messy and too long, his left eye covered with a bandage that wrapped over half his face, the other half raked with painful cuts. A weird jolt struck at the thought that this infuriating idiot prince—king—was his brother. Older brother. He had an older brother.

  He had an older brother who stabbed him in the chest and left him to die on a mountain.

  Pelageya clapped her hands together with glee, suddenly appearing the same age as them. “Well, won’t this be fun!”

  10

  SEREFIN MELESKI

  Something has gone wrong. The gods speak, sometimes, not like before, something has changed. I’m gathering accounts, trying to place the pieces together but … Something is missing. Something was erased.

  —Passage from the personal journals of Innokentiy Tamarkin

  When Serefin died and then was no longer dead, the concept of death never really changed for him. People still died. The particularities of his circumstances didn’t shift the world on its axis for him because it was so entirely bizarre that he didn’t think it could possibly happen to anyone else. Death was death was death.

  But there Malachiasz was, looking as bad as Serefin felt.

  His long black hair was a tangled, wild mess. He was wearing his military jacket over the shredded tatters of the tunic he’d died in—Serefin’s stomach turned at the bloodstain on his chest. If Serefin’s hands hadn’t been tied he might have tried to run in the opposite direction, but they were, and he didn’t particularly want to land face-first in Pelageya’s finger garden, so he remained where he was, frozen in shock.

  When Olya had started talking more about her plans, Serefin had guessed who they were being taken to. She didn’t seem thrilled that Pelageya wanted nothing to do with her and only wanted to speak to the Tranavian she had prisoner.

  Malachiasz is alive.

  He kept bouncing off the thought, rejecting it, letting it come back so he could consider it, and throw it away again. He had killed his brother and he had to live with the regret of what he had done. There were no second chances.

  Except Malachiasz was alive.

  If he was alive, he would want revenge. Before Serefin could back away, Pelageya grabbed him, cut the rope on his wrists, and shoved him into the room. The door closed behind him with a resounding thud.

  Serefin swallowed hard. “I have a question,” he said, voice strained.

  Malachiasz was tense as a bowstring and Serefin did not want to consider those claws going through his chest. It would hurt very badly and take him a terribly long time to die.

  How long did it take Malachiasz to die?

  “Yes?” Pelageya asked.

  “How can you be here if you’re in Tranavia?”

  A strange whining hiss of air broke from Malachiasz’s chest. He leaned back in his chair. Serefin was relieved that he didn’t immediately run him through.

  Pelageya laughed. “How did your friend Velyos take you across the continent in a heartbeat? A lot can be done with magic.”

  “My entire body still hurts from that nonsense,” Serefin replied, his eye not breaking from Malachiasz’s gaze. He needed Malachiasz to say something, even if it would destroy Serefin, because he still couldn’t believe that his brother was in front of him and alive and he hadn’t wanted to kill him, he hadn’t wanted to do it.

  “What did you do to your eye?” Pelageya asked.

  Serefin pressed a hand over the bandage, self-conscious. “I took care of the god problem,” he murmured.

  “But did you?”

  Serefin froze, breath catching. How could she know? Yes, Velyos still spoke to him, but the other one didn’t, and that one scared Serefin the most. He tentatively sat down, casting Malachiasz a sidelong glance, waiting for him to … he didn’t know. Stab him, honestly.

  Pelageya closed her eyes, fingers tapping against the deer skull on the side table. The sound bored into his head, tap tap tap. “Not right, not good, not at all as planned.”

  “We can’t follow some divine nonsense plan if we don’t know about it,” Malachiasz pointed out. Serefin relaxed slightly at the sound of his voice.

  “Shut up, stupid boy,” Pelageya snapped.

  Malachiasz’s body tensed, a curtain falling over his expression.

  “The eye,” Pelageya said to Serefin. “The eye! Where is it?”

  “Blood and bone, I don’t know! I ripped it out of my face and left it on top of the mountain where I left him.” He gestured at Malachiasz.

  Pelageya nodded slowly. “That explains why you both stink of death.”

  “People don’t come back from the dead,” Serefin said plaintively.

  “Yet you both have. Two Tranavians taken by gods you rebel against. What irony.”

  “I’m not—” Malachiasz started, but Pelageya interrupted him.

  “And now what? What do you plan to do, sterevyani bolen? Koshto bovilgy? All that power chained up. I know what he wants—do you?”

  Malachiasz scowled petulantly. Serefin wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Malachiasz admit he didn’t know something, and he clearly didn’t want to start for Pela
geya. He shook his head quickly.

  “A god of entropy. Ancient, mad—”

  “Weakened.”

  “Maybe so. But how long until he regains his strength? And you will help him, I think, because you feel the same urge to consume, to devour and destroy. Even before they made you what you are—before you made yourself so much worse, it was always there—the hunger, the desire for chaos.”

  Malachiasz closed his eyes.

  “So many have woken up. Little bovilgy, flocking to the wake left behind by the death of one so old and powerful. Will you consume them?”

  He opened his eyes, frowning at her. “Bòwycz?”

  Serefin was equally confused by the word she was using.

  Pelageya’s gaze flicked between Serefin and Malachiasz. She sighed. “Tell me what you know of magic as it stands now, after the cracks and the crumbling.”

  “No.” Serefin said emphatically as Malachiasz brightened considerably.

  “Well—”

  “No.” Serefin cut him off. “Don’t play this game.”

  Malachiasz shot him a withering look. “What broke?” he asked Pelageya. “It’s connected, yes?”

  The witch nodded slightly. Her eyes fluttered shut. “Fractured, yes. A boundary snapped—you snapped it—and now we see how each crack breaks another piece. How magic sparks to life in those who never should have touched it. What will the world look like when you cannot box such power into two neat little avenues? How much will atrophy when power spreads?”

  Malachiasz’s eyes were bright with almost manic delight, but he had the decency to appear mildly concerned.

  “So much magic with such little control. What will that spell? You, a new creature, bovilgy of chaos. That Kalyazi girl, a nightmare waiting to happen.” She waved a hand at Serefin. “And you have not escaped unscathed, though total divinity, I think, does not suit you.”

  “Great,” Serefin muttered.

  He glanced at Malachiasz. The Black Vulture curtain had fallen fast; he sat curled in on himself, small. A pale, young boy who had been shown how truly monstrous he was. Serefin wasn’t sure if pity was the correct emotion, but he felt it in that moment.

  “You took care of the god problem, so you say, but he still speaks to you, does he not?” she said to Serefin.

  He nodded.

  “Do you know what you did?” Pelageya asked. “In the forest that takes and takes and takes? The same forest we are in, in fact, but it fed so fully that it rests, temporarily, waiting for when it will hunger again.”

  “I—I set Velyos free,” Serefin replied. He didn’t understand what that meant. Or know anything about these Kalyazi gods. He hadn’t wanted to see it into reality, but he hadn’t been strong enough to fight them off. He wasn’t strong enough for much of anything. Maybe it would be better if he never went back to Tranavia. If he let the throne go to whoever fought for it the hardest because he would never be good enough for it.

  “Yes, the little Kalyazi nightmare started it, and you finished it.”

  “I don’t understand what that means.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. Tranavian boys, you prod and you bite, and you lash out at the world, but you don’t know, you don’t know anything at all.”

  “But you do. What about those fractured prophecies you kept spouting at us?”

  “Oh, you’ve long past broken those. Foretelling or prophecies are never set in stone. They are mere suggestions of how the world might turn if each piece lines up properly, they never account for a boy willing to murder his brother, or a boy willing to murder a god.”

  Serefin flinched. Malachiasz didn’t.

  “It wasn’t me,” Serefin whispered.

  “I’m not the one you need to convince of that, little king,” Pelageya replied.

  Serefin did not look at Malachiasz. How is he alive?

  Dealing with Pelageya always left him more rattled and confused than before, and without any answers. He just wanted to understand what he had done.

  “What happens now?”

  “It depends what you want this world to be when it all comes crashing down. If you are willing to put down your vendettas for the sake of something different, or if you are dead set upon the path you walk. If you are willing to work with the Kalyazi, or insist on destroying them.”

  Malachiasz’s expression was carefully blank in a way Serefin knew was dangerous.

  What did Serefin want? To disappear back to Tranavia and leave the Kalyazi to whatever became of them from the fallen gods, really. He wanted to do what he did best and run away from his problems. He was very good at it.

  But it was time for Serefin Meleski to stop running. It was time for him to be the king that he absolutely wasn’t good enough to be.

  “And if I wanted to stop these gods I set free?”

  Pelageya smiled slightly, her gaze moving to Malachiasz. His chin rested in his hands and he looked thoughtful.

  “I don’t think I have a choice,” he said, a tremor in his voice. This was Malachiasz when truly terrified, not pretending to be scared for the sake of an image he couldn’t uphold any longer.

  “No, you don’t. But will you interfere with your brother’s goal, or will your plans align?”

  “What about—” Serefin started.

  “I don’t know,” Pelageya said. “I don’t know where she fits in this any longer. I thought her a witch waiting to happen, but not a witch, not a cleric, not a, well, who knows. I can no longer see her threads. I only see yours.”

  Serefin couldn’t help his gaze trailing to Malachiasz, who had paled considerably before his expression hardened.

  “She’s done enough,” he muttered.

  Pelageya tilted her head. “Yes, she has, hasn’t she? But haven’t you, as well?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Nothing rests on the edge of a knife any longer. You’ve tipped the balance. Velyos remains, but where have the rest gone? Where do you suppose Zvezdan is? Why would he remain in Kalyazin when the shallows run deep in Tranavia?”

  Serefin swallowed. “Nothing will stay here.”

  “I have tried to tell you. Again and again and again. The girl, the monster, the prince, the queen. There were four then and four now and you’ve destroyed your roles so utterly but there must still be four, always four. The world has scattered into chaos after the birth of a god of chaos and there is no way to pick up the pieces, but you can try, oh, you can try. Fail, succeed, what will become of us all?”

  “God?” Malachiasz asked.

  “Are you a boy or a monster or a god?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said, voice soft.

  “No. Of course not. As if it isn’t all the same thing.”

  He rubbed at the scars on his forearms absently. “I’m so hungry,” he whispered.

  Pelageya regarded him almost sadly. “He’s going to grow stronger. He’s going to consume them all. You’ll get your wish. You’ll topple that divine empire. Will you help him?” she asked Serefin suddenly.

  “H-help Malachiasz?” Serefin asked, startled.

  She nodded blithely. “Is your enemy not Kalyazin and their gods? Did they not rip magic away from you? Will you not respond to the affront with vengeance?”

  Yes and yes and yes. This would never end.

  He hadn’t wanted to kill Malachiasz. He deserved any kind of vengeance that Malachiasz might exact upon him, expected it, even. There was no way he would let what had happened go without retaliation. That was all they were. That was all they would ever do to each other. That was the cycle they belonged in.

  “Yes,” he finally answered. He would help Malachiasz. Whatever that meant.

  Pelageya blinked as if that wasn’t the answer she was expecting. Malachiasz said nothing, only frowned at the floor for a long moment.

  “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said at last.

  Serefin didn’t. But he had lost his power and his kingdom and working with the Black Vulture would be the only
way for them to pull through.

  “What are the gods going to do?” Serefin asked. He needed that question answered before he could push forward. “I thought they couldn’t directly interact with the world. That’s why Velyos acted the way he did.”

  Pelageya wordlessly gestured to Malachiasz, who was looking rather ill. “You don’t think about them the right way. Is he aware of the chaos that trails his wake? Does he know, actively, what he does to the world by mere existence? Of course not. Such is the way of divinity and gods. You have been in that forest. You know it is moving outside its borders. The world will flood with the horrors of Tachilvnik. The gods of the depths will bring out what lies beneath the dark water. Is this what you want? Do you want to face a war against things so much older than you? This is what the world hurtles toward with each passing day.”

  “The birds,” Serefin murmured.

  “Hm?”

  “On our journey … The birds were screaming. The trees chewed up with decay. It was horrible.”

  “The horrors did not have far to go. But they will stretch, reaching until they overtake everything. Your country will not be spared because your country already faces horrors of its own.”

  “Oh,” Malachiasz breathed.

  “The Vultures have not rested in the absence of their Black Vulture. And absent you have been. When was the last they heard from you? Did the ripples of your death spread like dark water? Who would claim your mantle?”

  Malachiasz seemed to recede in on himself, a deep frown on his face. Absently he sliced his forearm on the edge of an iron claw. Blood welled up, trickling down his pale skin. Could he still use blood magic? He had no spell book that Serefin could see, so this was something else. Were the Vultures above what had happened? That would be fitting, in line with everything else he knew about them.

  “I can pull their threads in my hands still,” Malachiasz said, his voice distant. “So, no, no new leader, not in any rightful capacity. A new Black Vulture is chosen by killing the old. It’s a cycle.”

  “Rebirth,” Pelageya said. “A cycle you have broken. You retain your power, but your cult is left to scramble in your wake, and where will they look next?”