instead of warning them that Nadya had a relic that could do them true harm.
True harm if she figured out how to harness it. The power was fluid and unlike what she was used to. It didn’t want to bend to her will; rather it moved chaotically through her. She took a step and the ground underneath her blasted out, a chunk of stone hitting the Vulture, another one slamming into a monk.
There was no time for apology. The Vulture’s claws grazed inches from Nadya’s chest. Blood dripped from her eyes, staining the jawbones red as it caught between the teeth.
Nadya had a bad feeling about where those jawbones came from. She kicked out, her boot slamming into the Vulture’s head and snapping her neck. But physical blows were useless. She had seen Malachiasz run a Vulture through with his claws and have her step away like nothing had happened.
Magic, however. Magic could stop one of the beasts. She hoped.
She had never been told how Malachiasz killed the last Black Vulture and ascended his throne. He would never give her such a secret, he would never tell how his kind were rendered mortal even as they could withstand such horrors done to their bodies. But her relic bone knife had hurt Malachiasz and surely this magic could, too. The relic’s power of fire surged, desperate to be used, and she whirled away from the Vulture, casting out a hand and throwing a spray of white flames that caught on approaching Tranavian soldiers. Divine power quieted, she yanked on the old thread again and grasped the chaos.
Everything went white. Her vision blanked out. She was vaguely aware of magic at the Vulture’s bloodied hands. A clawed hand reaching for her throat. The Vulture’s blond hair shining against the flames still burning in patches on the ground.
The gods were ancient and unfathomable. There were older, deeper things, but how much farther back could a mortal’s brain comprehend than beings of forever? Nadya had so much more to learn about the gods who had touched her and led her down this dark and terrible path.
The relic retained the power of the cleric that had died with it; but it also held something more, and it was that something more Nadya grasped as time went sludgy around her.
Nadya grazed against the will of a god.
Everything stopped.
She dropped back, breathing hard. But nothing moved. She reached up and touched the shroud wrapped around her head. This was not like her divine magic. That was condensed. That was power granted from divinity to be palatable to a mortal. Just enough for her fragile body to contain. This was far more than that, far more than any mortal should ever touch. And here it was, held within the piece of a dead saint.
How many relics held power this way? What could she do with power of this magnitude?
It was building within her, light edging out underneath her skin like veins, and it would destroy her. It would rip clean through her and there would be no putting her back together. Heat and flame and an anger so profound and so deep that it became the very core of her.
How was she surviving this?
Nadya pushed it out of her body.
The magic shot out around Nadya in a wave of fireball. It struck the Vulture and she burned. Not like last time, not a heat so easily shaken. All that was left was a pile of charred bones at Nadya’s feet.
Bile rushed into Nadya’s mouth, tinged with copper, and she retched. She turned, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand. She could hear the battle but it sounded calmer, less chaotic, like the Tranavians had been fought off.
There were still more than a handful of Tranavians, perhaps seven or eight. But Nadya’s power blast had hit more than the Vulture and charred bones were scattered in the clearing like discarded garbage. She clapped her hand to her mouth, horror rippling through her. There was no way she had only struck Tranavians with that blow. Kalyazi must have been caught in the chaos.
She had just killed so many people.
She staggered back a step. The remaining Tranavians were tossing down their spell books. A pair of monks were cutting off the sleeves of their coats and she could feel the horror of her people at her back.
This had not been what she intended. She hadn’t meant to take in that much power.
“This is what happens when a mortal