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 lifted 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.