Nadya snapped back to herself, vision clearing. Her head swam from the effort, eyes blurring until there was nothing but the white of the snow. Swaying unsteadily on her feet, she exhaled, centering herself. The Tranavians weren’t following them. She didn’t know why, but she wouldn’t question it. They would come soon enough.
“We’re safe for now,” she said, exhausted. No more magic. Not until after she’d slept.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Anna murmured.
Nadya shrugged, looking out over the severe mountainside. Snow was piled high, and where they were standing the trees were sparse. There was little to use for cover when the Tranavians finally ventured out from the tunnels.
Anna gasped and Nadya turned. She tried to steel herself, but when her gaze drew up toward the top of the mountains, it still felt like a punch in the stomach.
Black clouds of smoke billowed up from a point high in the summit. It filled the sky as though to swallow it completely. Nadya’s knees gave out from underneath her and she dropped down into the snow.
Kostya was gone.
Everything was gone. It was as if there were a gaping wound where Nadya’s heart should be, a void in her chest that had sucked everything away leaving her with absolutely nothing. She had nothing.
She dug a fingernail into her palm, letting the sharp pain clear her head just long enough to blink away her tears. Tears were useless. There wasn’t time to mourn, even though she wanted to. They couldn’t win this war; the Tranavians were going to take everything and burn Kalyazin to ash. Fighting felt useless.
Why didn’t the gods stop this? She refused to believe this destruction was the will of the gods. They couldn’t have wanted this.
Nadya startled as Anna slipped her hand into hers.
“Iron must be tested,” Anna said, quoting the Codex. “We cannot know the gods’ intentions.”
Intentions were not always kind nor just.
As if conjured, Marzenya’s warm presence slipped over Nadya like a cloak, but the goddess did not speak. Nadya was grateful for the silence. Any words would only ring hollow to her mere mortal ears.
Giving up now would mean everyone in the monastery had died for nothing and Nadya couldn’t allow that. She rummaged in her pocket and pulled out a small pendant on a delicate, silver chain. Drawing it closer, she found numerous spirals all swirling into each other and disappearing in the center of the pendant. She had never seen it before, and she made a study of knowing every symbol of the gods.
What had Kostya given her?
“Do you know what this means?” She held out the chain to Anna, whose eyes narrowed as she took the pendant.
She shook her head slowly, handing it back. Nadya slipped it over her head, letting the cool metal settle against her skin underneath her clothes. It didn’t really matter what it meant. It mattered because it was from Kostya. Because he had looked at her with an expression that could only be described as longing, he had kissed her forehead, and he had died so she could escape.
This wasn’t fair. War wasn’t fair.
Nadya turned away from her burning home. She would escape so Kostya wouldn’t have died for nothing. That had to be enough, for now.
They would have to travel all night to put enough distance between them and the Tranavians.
“We need to head to Tvir,” Anna said.
Nadya frowned, tugging her hat down over her ears. Tvir was to the east. East was Tranavia. East was the front. “Wouldn’t Kazatov be wiser?”
Anna messed with the scarf over her hair, adjusting the headband and temple rings. “We need to get you to the closest camp and Kazatov is too far north. Your safety is my top priority. The king would have our heads if anything happened to you.”
“Well, the Tranavians have the heads of everyone in the monastery already.”
Anna winced, shooting her a wounded look. “General Golovhka can decide what we do from there,” she said slowly.
Nadya didn’t like it. She didn’t want to be tugged around, endlessly shuttled to safety only so others could die in her stead. She should be fighting. But if Tvir was the closest camp, then to Tvir they would go.
Anna glanced at her, sympathy in her long, dark eyes. She looked over her shoulder, expression fracturing. Nadya couldn’t look back. She had seen enough destruction and if she looked back again it would break her completely.
“Let’s worry about finding shelter first, yes? There’s an abandoned chapel nearby. We can reach it within a day or so. We’ll figure out what to do from there.”
Nadya nodded wearily. She was too tired to fight or panic about her seemingly inevitable capture by the single person who should never have access to her power, who never should have known she even existed.
All she could do was put one foot in front of the other, pretend it wasn’t so cold she could feel frost icing her lashes, and pray. At least she was good at prayer.
3
SEREFIN
MELESKI
Svoyatovi Ilya Golubkin: Born a farmer’s son, Ilya was struck with a disease that prevented him from walking. Healed by a cleric of Zbyhneuska, he was imbued with superhuman strength and went on to become a warrior monk. Ilya single-handedly protected the city of Korovgrod against invaders from across the sea.
—Vasiliev’s Book of Saints
Serefin Meleski leaned against the tunnel entrance and squinted out into the snow. The sun had nearly set, but the reflection was blinding against his—admittedly terrible—vision.
“You’re letting them get away,” Ostyia whined at his side.
He ignored her, instead picking up his spell book from where it was strapped to his hip, flipping it open. He riffled through the pages in silence before tearing one out. He dropped the book and held his arm out to Ostyia.
Her eye narrowed and she glanced down at the knife in her hand. She snatched his wrist and dragged the blade over his palm.
“Not his hand,” Kacper protested from where he was leaning against the opposite wall of the tunnel.
Serefin ignored him as well, lifting his hand. He watched the blood quickly well up from the cut and drip in slow rivulets down his palm. It stung, but the surge of magic that would come canceled out any minor pain. He moved the spell book page into his bleeding hand, letting the blood soak into the paper. Magic ignited hot in his veins, and as the page slipped into dusky tendrils of smoke, his vision sharpened. A trail leading straight to the cleric showed vividly as red streaks against the snow.
He smiled. “She can run.”
“Is it wise to tether yourself to her with that spell?” Ostyia asked.
“She won’t be able to feel it. It’s not a tether, just a trail.”
It wouldn’t matter how far she ran; he would be able to keep track of her as long as he fed blood into the spell at occasional intervals. Easily done.
“Confident,” Kacper noted.
Serefin shot him a bland look. “Even if she feels it, she won’t be able to break it.”
“You don’t know anything about the magic she was using. How do you know she won’t feel it?”
Serefin frowned. Kacper was right, but he wasn’t about to admit that.
“Have the men round up those still alive and contain them,” he said to Ostyia.
She nodded and disappeared down the tunnel.