Blessed Monsters (Something Dark and Holy #3) - Emily A. Duncan Page 0,26
with me into that forest,” Nadya murmured.
“Probably not,” Rashid agreed. “Malachiasz would’ve followed you anyway.”
“Not if I had told him the truth.”
Rashid cast her a long look. “Even then.”
“Don’t. Don’t try to make out like there was something between us more than constant betrayal now that he’s gone. This isn’t about him anymore. What’s going on with Parijahan?”
Rashid sighed, and in it was far more than he was willing to say. “Her family is after her.”
“I gathered that.”
“I don’t know how much longer she can keep running without her family sparking something drastic.”
“Right.”
“The least of your concerns,” Rashid said wryly.
“No, it’s not that, it’s just … another problem I don’t know how to solve.”
“Nadya, have you ever considered that maybe you don’t have to fix the world all by yourself?”
She groaned.
“You’re, what, eighteen? Why should you be responsible for the entire world?”
“Because I’m the one who broke it.”
“No, you weren’t. It’s been broken and it will continue to be broken because people are broken, mad creatures who will always do terrible things.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It’s not, you’re right, because people are infuriatingly complicated and capable of doing wonderful things all the same.”
Tears flooded her eyes. “I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do,” she whispered. “I lost my goddess and I lost Malachiasz and I think the thing worse than being pulled in two different directions is having both suddenly vanish. There’s nothing left.” She rubbed furiously at her eyes. She wasn’t going to cry.
Rashid’s hands circled her wrists. “You’re allowed to grieve,” he said. “I am.”
“He doesn’t deserve it.” Marzenya didn’t, either, but that wasn’t really a conversation to be had with Rashid.
“Maybe not. But I loved that boy so damn much and he didn’t deserve that, either. It’s not really about that, I don’t think. You can’t ever deserve love.”
“Stop trying to make things better. Nothing is ever going to get better.”
“That’s not true, Nadya.”
She shot him a dry look, but she appreciated his relentless optimism here at the end of everything.
Another scream tore through the forest and Rashid flinched, shuddering hard.
“You get used to it,” Nadya said.
“I’m not sure I want to.”
“Did Malachiasz know?”
He frowned, anger flickering over his features. “Parijahan says she never told him, but I think she was lying.” Rashid paused, smiling sadly. “I still don’t know a damned thing about what I can do and there’s not really anyone who can help me.”
“What about Ostyia?”
“Would she want to?”
Nadya considered this. Ostyia had never been particularly hostile to her—or Parijahan from what she could recall—and she didn’t seem to mind Rashid’s company.
“Hard to say, but I think so. It would mean Katya would find out, though.”
“How did that happen?”
“I don’t think anything has happened yet, but if you’re making bets on it with Parj, my money says Katya would love nothing more than a scandal from involving herself with a Tranavian general.”
“Listen—”
“I will never let you live those bets down.” A thoughtful pause passed between them. “I’ll help if I can, but I doubt your magic works anything like mine.”
“The girl I met on the mountains would have killed me for daring to have power different from hers.”
“The girl on the mountains got everything wrong,” Nadya replied, trying to keep the acute melancholy out of her voice and failing. “And she died a long time ago.”
* * *
Nadya couldn’t sleep. She let one watch run into the next, not bothering to wake anyone. The forest was mostly calm except for the screams—but nothing seemed to be coming of those.
Suddenly the taste of magic grew thick in the air, and she was slammed into the ground before she could get to her feet.
“There you are.” Iron claws clamped around her neck, a heavy weight against her chest, and a voice hissed, chaotic and wrong, in her ear. “What have you done, little cleric?”
A fall of black hair against pale skin and Nadya’s heart lurched even though she knew it was not him.
“Żywia.”
“Where is he?” Żywia perched on Nadya’s chest, her eyes pitch black, her teeth iron needles in her mouth.
Nadya wheezed. “Get off me,” she whispered fiercely. “And shut up before you wake everyone.” Katya would kill her on sight.
Żywia stilled, eyes returning to Nadya’s face. She tried not to think about how the Vulture looked like she could be Malachiasz’s sibling. Though that honor was, apparently, Serefin’s.
And Nadya had said nothing. She had put the pieces together long before the forest picked Malachiasz apart. She could have told him; she should have told