veins of darkness trailing out over her palm. One vein had started to lace up her ring finger.
Why was his clean, yet hers corrupted like this?
He looked puzzled. He closed his fingers around his own scar, his other hand tracing hers with an almost gentle touch.
“The magic is not mine,” she said.
His eyes bore down on her. “But you know what it is.”
She had assumed it was Velyos’ power, but what if it wasn’t? What did he know? “I don’t know how to break it.” She touched a piece of bone that threaded through his dark, wild, tangled locks of hair. It was too far, but he didn’t flinch away.
She needed to dig her fingers into the crack in his armor and wrench it open. She had his name—knew how much of himself he had tied to it—but would it be enough? He had to want it to be an anchor. He had to want to be Malachiasz Czechowicz.
Somehow, she had to find him. She had to find the boy all while convincing the monster to let her take ?aneta. It was an impossible task.
Tension lay suspended between them. It was an unsettling discovery, to find that she didn’t feel a desire to take her voryen and put it through his heart.
“Here she is!” ?ywia sang, breaking the silence as she shoved a hunched, frail form into the throne room.
Nadya hissed out a breath. The Black Vulture moved away, back to his throne, the moment between them broken.
?ywia skipped up to the dais, settling herself at the foot of the throne. “What do you want with her?” she asked. As if Serefin hadn’t told her.
Nadya shot her a glare. ?ywia shook her head, ever so slightly.
Was she helping her or not?
Nadya moved closer to the crumpled form that was ?aneta. She was terrified of what she would find under the curtain of limp curls.
“I’ve been told she committed treason,” the Black Vulture said.
“You’ve been told?” Nadya asked. “You were there.”
?ywia shot her a wide-eyed look as the Black Vulture’s expression grew distant and confused.
“What?” His voice cracked over the single word, a lost boy, bewildered in the dark until he was pulled back under.
Stop it. She shouldn’t be separating the two like this. It was all Malachiasz.
Nadya shrugged. He clearly wanted to ask her more, but instead he slouched back on his throne, frowning almost petulantly. Nadya turned away.
“?aneta?” she whispered, scared to reach for her.
“Her grasp of her name is questionable,” the Black Vulture said. He leaned his chin on his hand as he watched. “Her grasp on … reality is questionable.”
“Speak for yourself,” Nadya muttered.
She caught the Black Vulture’s quirked eyebrow and ?ywia’s narrowed eyes. She was being too familiar.
Nadya reached her hand out, jumping when gnarled fingers with jagged, broken fingernails snapped over her wrist. The curtain of hair parted.
“Oh, darling, what have they done to you?” she whispered.
10
SEREFIN MELESKI
Part back the flesh, shatter the bone, and see what shapes the beating heart of a being that once was and is not anymore. Velyos is tricks. Velyos is patience.
—The Letters of W?odzimierz
Serefin had learned very early in life that making Ostyia mad would only result in his suffering, so he tended to avoid it at all cost. The more they dealt with Malachiasz, the more unavoidable it was.
“What do you mean you let her go?” Ostyia said, voice level.
“We couldn’t exactly storm the Salt Mines, could we?” he returned.
When they had woken and found Nadya gone, Serefin had been more relieved than anything else. He wasn’t ready to face ?aneta, and Nadya had taken the burden upon her shoulders.
“You let her go to do what? Get ?aneta back?”
Serefin nodded.
Ostyia’s eye glared. “And that’s all?”
“What she does down there is her business.” He moved past her and stoked the fire before digging in his pack for something to eat. The Akolans had wandered off to get a closer look at the entrance to the mines, likely to their detriment. “Stop questioning my decisions.”
Her fists clenched. “You can’t be serious, Serefin!”
“Do you have a better plan?” he snapped.
“She’s going to bring the person who murdered you back when we’re having a grand old time dealing with things without his meddling, so, yes, I do have a better plan. But it doesn’t matter because it’s not like you ever listen to me!”
“Why should I listen to someone who has lied to me for years?”
Her jaw dropped. “I never lied,” she said coldly. “You weren’t exactly asking after him.”
Kacper was watching