“You’re a blood mage with a godstouched eye,” Olya replied, her voice flat.
Serefin froze, stomach clenching. His fingers twitched uselessly, wanting to cover his eye.
“Untie my hands,” he said.
“You think me a fool?” Olya replied evenly.
He didn’t. In fact, he was beginning to think she was much more than a simple thief. Serefin was infinitely tired of bossy, magic-touched Kalyazi girls.
“How do you expect me to—” He was interrupted when a choir of screams rang through the trees. A cacophonous echo, surrounding them. A thousand terrified screeches.
A bird, large and black, thudded to the ground at their feet, a scream tearing through it before it cut off, silenced and dead.
Serefin swallowed hard, dread coiling through him as he lifted his gaze to where hundreds of birds perched in the tree branches.
All of them screaming.
* * *
The group lost three quarters of their members that night. They argued for hours about acrid mold and screaming, dying birds. Olya wearily attempted to explain that they were nowhere near Tachilvnik; the horrors of the deep wood could not travel this far.
Serefin kept the truth to himself. The rush of old power, dark magic, ravenous and mad, sweeping past them. Clawing and biting and so very, very hungry.
Instead, he leaned against Kacper, resting his head on his shoulder, and listened to them argue. Most left, complaining of cursed magic and muttering how nothing good could ever come from treating with Tranavian demons, even if they were tied up. Only the girl, an old man, and a boy about Serefin’s age—twitchy in a shadowy way that reminded Serefin of Malachiasz—stayed.
The boy was excited about the horror, in an unsettling, morbid way. Olya took his enthusiasm with weary patience, as if used to it.
“The witches will have an explanation,” was all she said.
“It’s not witch magic,” the boy insisted. He had the look of the people from the very north of Kalyazin. Straight black hair tied back but still managing to hang in his face, and narrow dark eyes.
Serefin tilted his head slightly to glance up at Kacper, who was frowning.
Olya crouched down, poking a dead bird with a stick.
“It’s not blood magic either,” she replied, casting a look at Serefin and Kacper.
Serefin shrugged. He was trying his best not to think about the screams still ringing in his head.
Chyrnog was gone. Serefin wanted to be relieved, but he didn’t know where he had ended up, and so long as his dreams were tainted by a massive doorway and arms and hands, grasping, clawing at him, he would worry.
“The witches will know,” Olya said. “The witches have to know.”
“When did it become witches, plural?” Kacper asked, voice soft.
Serefin shook his head. “This might not be the worst situation for us to be in.”
He could feel Kacper’s incredulity and he didn’t particularly want to explain with the Kalyazi in earshot. He sighed.
“Magic,” he whispered.
Kacper rolled his eyes. “Magic is what got us into this mess.”
“And magic will get us out.”
6
NADEZHDA LAPTEVA
Marzenya has gone silent. I cut my palms, I bleed over her altars, I weep. There is nothing. She does not care. She will let this world burn.
—Passage from the personal journals of Sofka Greshneva
Nadya was startled by how cold it was when she left the farmhouse. But of course it was cold. Nothing had changed.
What happened when a god died—was murdered? Would Marzenya’s domains—magic and winter and death—change anywhere else, or only Kalyazin? How much power did the gods have over the world, truly?
Nadya had no answers, and she was beginning to wonder if she should stop looking for them. That was what had gotten her in this mess to begin with. If she had gone with Anna to Komyazalov instead of Grazyk, how much would be different? She wouldn’t be dreading the capital; she knew that much. She wouldn’t feel the icy chill of fear grasping at her spine at the mere thought of the seat of the church and the Matriarch.
She had never met the Matriarch. Magdalena Fedoseyeva, the head of the Church, the mouthpiece through which the gods touched the world now that the world had no clerics. Or maybe she had—she had been to Komyazalov once, when she was so young she could barely remember it. She didn’t think that really counted. But the Church was hiding things from her. They were afraid of her. It wasn’t a difficult leap to realize all signs pointed to the Matriarch.
Would she know what Nadya had done? That Marzenya was dead? That Nadya had failed so utterly as Kalyazin’s cleric?
She didn’t want to find out.
Nadya wasn’t running away—though she did consider it—when she wandered out of the small village and into the woods. A part of her never wanted to step into thickly wooded terrain again, but she wanted someplace where peace was a guarantee. Where no one would stare at her hand and ask questions. She wanted … to test a theory.
She didn’t know for certain how many fallen gods were free. Katya—while knowledgeable—gave vague responses when asked, making it clear she didn’t know, either. Fine with Nadya. The tsarevna already had too much power over her and she didn’t want to give her anything more that could be used against her. She knew the mistakes she had made; she knew her list of crimes had grown since fleeing the monastery.
She didn’t trust Katya. Maybe it was uncharitable, but the tsarevna had spent her life hunting Vultures and studying the occult only to meet Nadya—a girl, who was supposed to be divine, dabbling in darkness and leading the worst of the Vultures, the boy she loved, to the seat of the gods. Nadya’s intentions didn’t matter, to Katya it was her fault Marzenya was dead, because Nadya had given Malachiasz the chance to strike.
But not going to Katya meant Nadya had no idea how many gods existed outside the twenty she had devoted her life to. It was an uncomfortable thought. A frozen bite of wind raced around her, spinning dead leaves through the air, as she ran her hand down her prayer beads. Useless. Nothing but a wooden necklace with sentimental value. Her grief slammed into her, and she considered not going back.
What if she kept walking? Past Komyazalov, past the far western border, to Česke Zin or Rumenovać. Somewhere no one would know her name or her story. Somewhere her gods had different faces and names and it wouldn’t matter, so much, that she had once been able to talk to them and still failed.
“Ah, there you are.”
She jumped at the nearby voice. Perched on a rotten tree stump was a figure cloaked in black, with hair like the depths of an acrid swamp. Their skin was sallow, lips thin, eyes large and dark and impossibly sad.
“Ljubica,” Nadya said.
“Hello, little cleric.” The fallen god grinned, revealing sharp teeth—like those of a poisonous fish.
“Not a cleric.”
“Not a cleric, not a witch, not divine, not mortal.” Ljubica rolled their eyes. “What are you?”
“Not interested in playing these games.”
“Not fun!”
Nadya pressed her lips together. She had come here to try to commune with one of the fallen gods, but she was realizing this was another impulsive mistake to add to her tidy collection. This would only pull her further into this nightmare. All she wanted was to escape. To wake up.