Blessed Monsters (Something Dark and Holy #3) - Emily A. Duncan Page 0,51
question.
You all exist in the same realm, no?
“What are you asking, child?”
I’m only curious about the others, that’s all. It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to answer my questions. I don’t expect you to.
“You are curious because they do not speak to you.”
Obviously. Where was Serefin, why wasn’t he with him? Did she truly care? He had killed Malachiasz so easily.
Like you killed Malachiasz so easily, she reminded herself.
If you’re here, you may as well help, she said to Velyos.
“Well, I certainly don’t need to give you power. You have enough of that of your own.”
Where is Zlatana? Nearby?
“Near enough. Are you going to stop her?”
She simply wanted to know what Zlatana was planning; what they needed to be ready for in the city. Was she going to unleash those corpses on the world? Was she collecting them for a specific purpose? Nadya wanted answers. She couldn’t say what Viktor and Katya were hoping to get from this excursion.
Parijahan had declined to come, and after thoughtful consideration Rashid had elected to stay with her. Ostyia had also stayed behind. Something about too much divine nonsense. Nadya couldn’t help but agree.
“You have the scent of salt and power on you,” Velyos observed. “What have you been up to?”
That’s none of your business.
“The world has grown so much larger without Marzenya, yes?”
Don’t speak her name.
“Why do you mourn, daughter of death? She is a goddess of cycles.” Nadya gasped, her chest fluttering uncomfortably as Velyos left. Her steps faltered. Katya grabbed her arm, holding her steady.
“What happened?” she asked, voice low.
“Divine nonsense,” Nadya said.
Katya fingered her necklace of teeth. Nadya’s eyes narrowed. Katya had a bracelet with the icons of saints carved into it, and countless other minor relics. The girl could cast magic through drugs and dreaming, but what kind of power was that next to what Nadya could do even without the gods?
Or with them. She thought of the power she’d stolen, from Zvezdan, from Malachiasz. Was that all she did? Use the power of others because she didn’t truly have her own? But that wasn’t true; she almost wished it was. It would be an easier truth to deal with.
The ache in her chest that was the missing and the guilt and the absence and the absolute wrong that was Marzenya’s death was still too real and too raw and it clashed too horribly with the agony of losing Malachiasz and—
Nadya slammed face-first into something hard. Katya bumped into her from behind.
“Why did you stop?” Viktor asked, a few paces back.
Nadya pressed her hands against a solid slab of magic. She frowned, tugging the glove off her hand. It was too dark for anyone to see what was wrong with her skin, the eye in her palm. She tapped her fingers against raw power.
“It’s like the wall in Dozvlatovya,” Katya observed.
“Similar,” Nadya said. She pressed at it with power. Dark well. Dark water. Daughter of death. “Not so old, not by far. This was placed recently, and not by the divine.”
“Blood magic?” Viktor asked.
Nadya probed a little deeper. No. This wasn’t blood magic. She didn’t want to spark an inquisition, but she knew this magic. She felt it each time Pelageya took her into her home. Earth, deep and heavy.
“Witch magic,” she said softly.
Viktor tensed. He was standing a little too close to Nadya. She could smell the incense on his clothes. She shifted away slightly, fingering her prayer beads.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you have swamp witches, moy gorlovky,” she replied dryly.
He cast her a sidelong glance. She scratched her fingernails against the magic, tugging on the threads of power she had taken from Zvezdan. It would be easy to pull this apart.
“Hold on,” Katya said, her hand gripping Nadya’s wrist. “Will you be letting anything out if you do this?”
Nadya frowned. “I don’t know,” she replied. “Sometimes you have to act.”
“I won’t have you setting off another event,” Katya warned. Her tone bit at Nadya.
So much had gone wrong and for what, because Nadya had lost her connection to the gods and wanted it back. She had been selfish. Leading Malachiasz to his doom with the promise of forgiveness. Sending Serefin into the dark instead of helping him, when she was one of the only people who could.
Who would still be alive if not for her?
“Katya, I cannot promise nothing will happen. But this wall was made to keep people out, not hold people in.”