Blessed Monsters (Something Dark and Holy #3) - Emily A. Duncan Page 0,98

who he was talking about.

Katya swore loudly. “Vashny Koroshvik, I hate you.”

Serefin grinned at her. “I wish this was my fault!” He dropped his pack and pulled his spell book out, holding out his other hand to Nadya.

She frowned dubiously but handed him a voryen, ignoring Katya’s protests. Serefin sliced the back of his forearm and bled onto his open spell book.

Nothing happened.

“In case you were concerned,” he said.

Kacper rolled his eyes.

Serefin turned to the dark-haired boy. “Is this you?”

“Your brother took my ring,” he snapped, but the way he watched the sky gave Nadya pause.

“Oh, so he did. Can you survive another claw to the chest without it?”

The boy’s hand ghosted over his chest, his face paling.

“Then, Rusya—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“—I suggest you help us however you can.”

Thunder cracked ominously and with it something pierced directly down Nadya’s spine.

“Ah, damn,” she said tonelessly. “Serefin, if we’re friends now, could you do me a favor?”

“Depends on the favor,” Serefin replied. “Don’t know if we’re friends like that.”

“Fair. Well, I’m about to pass out. Don’t let me break my head on the cobblestones.”

“Oh, I can manage that.”

31

MALACHIASZ CZECHOWICZ

So close, so close. All it would take is a few more bites, a few steps closer to ascension, I can feel it, I can taste it.

—Fragment of a journal entry from an anonymous worshipper of Chyrnog

“You think it will be as easy as that?”

Malachiasz faltered, tripping and landing hard in the dirt. He hadn’t been walking long; he needed to be careful this far into Kalyazin.

He spat out a mouthful of dirt and dragged himself up, smiling through the grit. Chyrnog was anxious because Malachiasz had something. It was impossible, too big too much too hard to put the pieces back together, but he had something. The four, the book, what he would need to bind Chyrnog back into the earth.

It was dark. It had to be, he couldn’t stand the light. Destroy the sun and the pain will end. The thought was sly and insidious and very much his. Or not? He and Chyrnog would be the same, one day. Shape the world instead of changing for it. How many times had this world beaten him into an image that fit its shape better? Why should he submit again when this was his chance to finally take everything he had been working toward for himself? Why save a world that deserved to burn? Or, in this case, fade painfully into cold dark nothingness.

He was at the edges of a forest, a frozen river at his side. His breath ghosted out before him in the freezing air, his fingers stiff beneath thin gloves. His hunger had him in an iron grip, tugging in a direction he did not wish to go.

“You think I can do nothing without you? Boy, do not overestimate your importance. I am not the god you ended. Do not think I have not already started what will cause your downfall if you fight.”

Anything can be killed, Malachiasz returned. I killed death.

“Marzenya wished to have what I have.”

Panic fluttered in Malachiasz’s chest.

“How long can you ignore your hunger, child? How long can you pretend it’s not eating you from the inside out?”

Malachiasz swallowed, mouth flooding with saliva. No. Not this again.

“You make it so easy. Your fighting is a game. You yearn to know what would happen if you kept going, pushed farther, let go.”

No.

“You lie so easily. A lie all the same.”

Malachiasz coughed, choking on blood. He spat. Wiped it from his eyes and nose. There was nothing he could do as his control slipped away and chaos took over.

He wasn’t always conscious when this happened. Usually he hid until it was over and then investigated the damage he had wrought. This time was different. Chyrnog wanted him to bear witness, to see what he was, what he would do underneath the god’s sway.

He couldn’t close his eyes against it. He couldn’t stop it.

There was a village nearby, someone awakened. Not a soldier, not a cultist, not someone who had chosen this life of horrors. Someone who had simply woken up at the end of the world and discovered something had changed. Someone who had never touched magic, and only ever heard the fables of saints.

Once upon a time, Svoyatovi Igor slew a dragon with three heads and stole its scales to make armor that could not be broken by spear or sword.

Delizvik dela Svoyatova Kataryn threaded the stars through her hair and danced in the woods and kissed