Blessed Monsters (Something Dark and Holy #3) - Emily A. Duncan Page 0,53

the shadows. His skin was ashen and sweat beaded at his temples.

Kacper looked ill. “Where is this going?” he asked sotto voce.

“I don’t know,” Serefin replied. The man on—in?—the tree hadn’t moved, but Serefin could feel power radiating off him in cool waves.

Kacper glanced to where Malachiasz was curled in the corner, his eyes locked on the man. “And what’s wrong with him?”

“Everything. I’m going to try to help him.”

“Bad idea,” Kacper said.

“I know.”

“He tried to have you killed.” Kacper’s gaze fell to the scar along Serefin’s neck. “Not tried,” he muttered.

“And I murdered him for it. We’re even.”

“That’s not how this works at all.”

“We’re pretty far outside the realm of knowing how this works, I’d say.”

Kacper scowled. Serefin kissed his cheek.

“We’re here because of him,” he grumbled. “He doesn’t deserve your help.”

Serefin let out a breath of a laugh. “He absolutely doesn’t. But who does?”

Kacper rolled his eyes.

Serefin moved over to Malachiasz, who did not stir as he sat down next to him.

“Can you hear it?” Malachiasz asked in a toneless drone.

Serefin tensed. “No.”

“The singing. He’s singing.”

There was no singing. There was nothing but the soft sound of chains as Kacper carefully shed his and sat down, leaning against the opposite wall.

What’s wrong with him? Serefin asked Velyos.

“The awakened one will drive him mad.”

What? What does that mean?

“The need, the call. Chyrnog is entropy; he consumes. Power, flesh, it’s all the same.”

“I’m going to hurt him,” Malachiasz said, his voice small. His pale eyes were glassy with tears.

“That doesn’t seem like something that would particularly bother you,” Serefin replied.

Malachiasz swallowed hard. “You’d think not, huh?”

Serefin’s eye narrowed. What did this cult really want with Malachiasz?

“It’s so loud, how do you not hear it?”

“I can’t hear anything.”

What is he going to do? he asked Velyos frantically. What is about to break?

“I shouldn’t be here,” Malachiasz whispered. “I’m not strong enough to stop this. I thought I could fight him, but I can’t. I’m—I’m so hungry.”

“Everything,” Velyos said simply.

NADEZHDA LAPTEVA

A drop of rain fell against Nadya’s cheek and a part of her was surprised to find only water, not blood.

The city rallied quickly, thanks to the tsarevna. The boyar couldn’t exactly tell her no, especially when she had the cleric to wave around as proof of something wrong. But Nadya couldn’t shake the feeling this was all a distraction from something bigger.

Nadya kept her concerns to herself. For once, she wanted to leave this battle to the soldiers who were trained for it, even if it wouldn’t be that easy. She knew what was expected of her. She was the good little soldier to be used for mass destruction whenever Kalyazin wished it. That was her fate.

It took everything in her not to turn and walk away.

Darkness fell quickly, blanketing the world, smothering. How clear it was that this was magic-borne and unnatural. Even as torches were lit along the wall, facing the swamps, it wasn’t enough. Nothing would be enough.

“Tell me what’s about to happen,” Katya said as she came up beside Nadya on the wall.

“Zlatana was banished and she wants her domain returned,” Nadya said.

“Using swamp witches.”

Nadya nodded.

“They should be easily dealt with.”

“Possibly, if we didn’t also have an army of corpses to contend with,” Nadya pointed out.

Rashid arrived in time to hear this and made a small noise of distress. “I had been so hoping the corpses weren’t going to be involved.”

“No such luck,” Nadya said. “What happens if they can’t be cut down without magic?”

Katya shot her a sidelong look. “Then it will be good we have you.”

Zvezdan’s power still hot within her, Nadya wondered what would come of her spilling her own blood—how much power could she gather? It wasn’t worth the risk, not in Kalyazin, but the idea was tempting.

Deep in the swamps something screamed.

Rashid shifted on his feet next to Nadya.

“Where’s Parj?” she asked.

“On the other side of the wall with Ostyia.”

Another scream. Soul-wrenching and wailing, it tore jagged edges into the night. There was a movement at the border of the swamps. She caught power in her palms, hot light spilling through her fingers.

“Why are we here, Nadya?” Rashid asked, his voice pitched low.

She gazed into his terror-stricken eyes, and whispered, “I don’t know.”

MALACHIASZ CZECHOWICZ

It was beautiful, eternal, transient, unending unending unending and if he did not stop the singing, he would die.

It was flipping itself back and starting over and it was driving him mad. Or maybe when he had woken up in the snow, careful, quiet, the life slowly returning to