Nadya made a thoughtful noise. It horrified her once, this blackened claw, when the corruption had begun, but now, horror wasn’t the word for it.
“How does one kill a god?” Katya murmured.
“Become one,” Nadya replied, her voice hollow. It haunted her. A god of chaos was a fitting shape for a boy like Malachiasz, but it was a terrible, monstrous, ever shifting, ever churning horror. The madness they had been thrust into since that night in the cathedral, forever ago, made all the more sense. Chaos had gripped the world the night a god of chaos had been born. It was inevitable. All that had happened with her heart, broken and bloodied and pulled to him, was inevitable, too. His gentle hands and careful smiles had not been enough to mask his true horror.
“But that would mean…”
“I don’t know,” Nadya whispered. “He’s dead, too.”
Katya did a bad job of masking her delight. Nadya felt like she’d been punched in the chest.
“I didn’t think the drunkard could do it.”
Rashid tensed, and Nadya nearly reached out to hold him back but remained still. Anything the tsarevna received for her callousness she deserved. But was it even that? Why shouldn’t she celebrate the death of Kalyazin’s deadliest enemy?
Instead, Nadya tucked away the implication that Katya and Serefin had been planning something together. No wonder Katya had been there. A princess masquerading as a Vulture hunter, and what a prize Malachiasz made.
Except Nadya had carried the blade that murdered him. Had Pelageya known who it would be used on when she gave it to her? She had been warned the mountains would destroy him, but she hadn’t realized, not truly, how final the destruction would be.
“Did you not notice that he hasn’t been around?” Rashid asked incredulously.
Katya rolled her eyes. “That wouldn’t mean anything, and you know it. We don’t know where the forest spat out Serefin and Kacper—”
“If the forest spat out Serefin and Kacper,” Nadya muttered.
“—and I wasn’t about to indulge my hope,” Katya continued, ignoring her. “I can’t say I’m particularly sorry. Though, I was promised his teeth and he did have nice teeth.”
“Shut up.”
An eyebrow quirked. “It’s a very bad look, mourning the Black Vulture.”
“I don’t care.”
“You don’t, but you should. I won’t be able to protect you from those who will blame you for what’s happened.”
“Which part? His death, or Marzenya’s, or maybe stripping the blood magic from Tranavia?”
Katya paled. She lowered her feet off the table, a little less cavalier.
“What do you want from me?” Nadya asked.
“That should be obvious. If—if that boy, gods, both those boys, did what you say, you’re the only one who can do anything.”
“I just fell off a mountain after watching the boy I love kill my goddess and then be murdered. Katya, I don’t want to help anyone do anything.”
Katya winced.
“Don’t you dare say anything about Malachiasz’s teeth.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Katya sighed heavily. “I won’t lie to you and say I’m sorry he’s dead. But you’re grieving and I’m sorry for that.”
“Gods, you’re terrible at this.”
Katya shrugged. “He’s killed thousands of Kalyazi on his own, not including what his cult has done in his name.”
“Stop talking about him.”
Katya ran both hands through her hair, standing. She started pacing.
“What do you mean you stripped blood magic from Tranavia?”
Nadya wasn’t sure. Marzenya had implied that they simply would not remember how to cast magic anymore. She didn’t know if that meant they could relearn it, or if it was gone entirely. Malachiasz’s panic implied the latter.
“I don’t know.”
Katya’s gaze went to the window. “We have to leave,” she said, in a whisper so low Nadya almost missed it.
She exchanged a glance with Rashid. Katya didn’t say anything more, grabbing the wine bottle and dashing out the door.
“That was useless,” Nadya said, sipping her tea. “How does the world turn when the gods decide it’s no longer worth their attention?” She frowned. “How do we reconcile the gaze of gods who have gone mad in the dark?”
“I did not sign up for these kinds of conversations,” Rashid replied cheerfully.
She shot him a wan smile. The door to the other room opened. Arms wrapped around her neck, someone resting their chin in her hair from behind. She knew it was Parijahan, but the glimpse of black hair made her heart jolt.
Nadya didn’t know how to survive constantly having the people she loved returned to her, only to lose them again. First Kostya, then Malachiasz. Who else would be ripped away?
“You should both leave,” she said, tilting her head against Parijahan’s arm, twining her fingers between the other girl’s. “Go back to Akola before this gets worse.”
The look on Rashid’s face as he glanced up at Parijahan—hope and a plaintive entreaty—was not lost on Nadya. This wasn’t their fight, their gods. They could walk away unscathed. Nadya desperately wanted them to so she wouldn’t face losing them as well.
Parijahan sighed.
“They want you home,” Rashid said, his voice soft.
A lot made sense in those words. Why Parijahan had been upset on the journey through Kalyazin. But it didn’t explain the private conversations with Malachiasz, their frustration with each other. Parijahan was running from something in Akola, Nadya assumed whatever it was couldn’t possibly be as bad as facing this oncoming storm.
“No, they don’t,” she replied. “Flowery messages singing forgiveness are only ever lies.”
“Your cousins wouldn’t—”
“Rashid, don’t be foolish.”
Nadya frowned.
“It’s die here or die there.”
“You should consider it,” Nadya said softly.
Parijahan’s arms tightened around her. “I’m not leaving you, Nadya. Not after that. Not after losing him.”
“He was already lost,” Nadya murmured. “I knew the forest would kill him, I just didn’t know it would happen like that.”
Parijahan went very still. Rashid eyed her strangely. Why shouldn’t she take the blame? She had known from the beginning that he wouldn’t return from the Tachilvnik Wood. No, she hadn’t expected him to die by Serefin’s hand, but it was the inevitable coming to pass. She had played his game against him and he had lost.
And she ended up all the more broken.
“Even if you intended…” Parijahan trailed off.
“I intended it,” Nadya said. “And I regret it. But there’s no changing it.”
The door flew open. Katya, and one flustered blood mage being dragged by the wrist.
“Sit,” Katya said.
Ostyia glared, not sitting until the tsarevna did. Her black hair, already jagged and uneven at her chin and forehead, looked disastrous, and she hadn’t bothered with an eye patch, leaving the scarred void of her eye socket visible.