would result in disaster.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it. Maybe we should try trusting each other,” he said. At her incredulous scoff, he continued. “Just a bit?”
She smiled at that.
“What do we need him for?”
“It’s complicated and very religious.”
He didn’t manage to mask his distaste. She laughed.
“There’s no we. You only want ?aneta as leverage to get your throne back.”
“Oh, don’t say it like that.”
“You left her with the Vultures for months and are only going to find her now because she’s of use to you.”
He swallowed. He couldn’t really argue with her.
“Tranavians are cruel,” she said.
If he took her bait she would never tell him what she was planning. He tamped down his rising frustration.
“What for?” He pressed on mildly, “He committed treason, Nadya, and you’re technically the enemy; I need to know what you’re planning.”
After a few seconds of petulant silence, she sighed.
“There’s a place in Kalyazin that myth says is the seat of the gods. I’m going there. Stop looking at me like that; I know what Malachiasz wants to do. It’s surrounded by a forest only the divine can walk through.”
At Serefin’s confused silence, she continued.
“The gods don’t talk to me anymore. And you don’t care about that, fine, but this?” She waved to the snow dusting the ground. “And the rusa?ki attack, the rumors of other things, horrors, emerging from the deep dark where they slept. There’s something coming, Serefin.”
“Something is stirring. Something is hungry.”
He shuddered violently.
“That implies I’m going to let you go,” he said.
“Whatever you think about the gods, I don’t care. But something is in the air and I intend to find out what it is and how to stop it. You don’t have to come with me. I’ll get ?aneta for you; you take your throne back, maybe stop this damn war while you are at it. And you will let me go. I need to go home. And I need Malachiasz for this.”
“So, you think he’s divine?”
“I think he’s an idiot. But that ritual of your father’s was to become—if not a god, then akin to one and I believe Malachiasz has succeeded at something of the sort. He can take me where I need to go.”
“Have you told the others?” His voice came out strained.
Nadya shook her head. “I’ll probably die down there.”
Serefin didn’t want her to go down there by herself but the prospect of dealing with his brother—the word was still strange and unfamiliar and uncomfortably right to Serefin—was not something Serefin wished to do. He didn’t want to admit how much he wanted to let Nadya deal with this problem.
“Tell me you have a plan, at the very least.”
“We’ve been talking, he and I. There’s a crack in his armor.”
“I’m not hearing a plan.”
“Because your plans have been so detailed?” She rolled her eyes. “Whatever he did … I don’t think it took him as far as he expected.”
“You lost me.”
She laughed, surprising Serefin, who had never heard her laugh quite that way before. It wasn’t derisive, but a gentle, easy sound. “He shattered himself, yes, but if he had the power to dethrone the gods, well, wouldn’t we have seen the results by now?”
Not if the gods don’t exist, Serefin thought petulantly.
“Oh, wishful thinking,” the reedy voice chimed.
He held up a hand and a large, dusky gray moth landed on his index finger, its wings fluttering and catching the fading light.
“You think he can be saved?” Serefin asked. He was willing to play the long game. It would make Malachiasz easier to kill.
“Hardly. But perhaps pulled back into a semblance of coherency.”
“And if not?”
“If not…” Nadya paused. She eyed the vulture that was still watching them. “Then the Vultures will finally accomplish what they were created for and that will be the end of Kalyazin’s clerics.”
“I thought you wanted him to rot.”
“I do,” Nadya said fervently. “He deserves whatever nightmare he’s in. But he’s the only one that can get me where I need to be.”
They rode in silence for a while until one by one the horses began to balk, firmly planting their hooves and refusing to go any farther. Serefin couldn’t blame them—he certainly didn’t want to go any farther—and begrudgingly made the decision to leave them behind.
“Out here?” Rashid protested. They were miles from any sign of life, and the surrounding fields were dry and barren.
“I’m not a monster,” Serefin said.
“Debatable.”
Serefin ignored him, cutting his forearm on the razor in his sleeve and flipping through his spell book. He ripped out a