you that I couldn’t?” Serefin asked. It was hard to speak, his words came out thick and muffled.
He couldn’t make out her features in the darkness. “I want to be the queen. It’s that simple.”
Queen alone.
“He’s down here, isn’t he?” Serefin hated that his voice broke. He hated that he was scared.
“He needs you,” ?aneta replied.
She nudged him forward. Toward the darkness. Into the depths. He had no choice but to throw himself headfirst down into it.
30
NADEZHDA
LAPTEVA
Svoyatovi Konstantin Nemtsev: A cleric of Veceslav during a rare time of peace between Kalyazin and its neighbors. That did not protect Konstantin from meeting an unfortunate end. He was captured by Tranavian blood mages and drawn and quartered. The peace did not last long.
—Vasiliev’s Book of Saints
Nadya dreamed of many-jointed monsters and creatures with thousands of teeth. Of gaping mouths and claws of bone. These monsters, they knew her. They reached for her, hissing her name, and even as she ran she could feel claws catching on her clothes. The thousands of eyes peeled away the flesh on her back. She dreamed of fields of blood, of blood raining from the sky, of a world already ravaged by war with rivers that ran red.
She woke up screaming. Horrible, throat-searing screams that shook her whole body. Her hair dripped with sweat. She was only vaguely aware of Parijahan’s cool hands brushing her hair from her face, of the whisper of Akolan words, rapid and fluid.
Of the door flying open, a pair of warm hands folding over hers, the bed sinking down slightly on one side as Malachiasz sat, pulling her against his chest.
“Nadya, it was just a dream,” he whispered in her ear in Kalyazi. Her screams gave way to gasping sobs. “You’re safe here, towy d?imyka.”
She curled against him, his heart beating fast against her ear. There was rustling on the other side of the room and she heard Parijahan and Rashid talking softly to each other. Little things to center herself in reality.
“What time is it?” she asked, her voice raw. It hurt to speak.
“Sometime in the middle of the night,” he replied.
It felt like it should be nearly morning. She heard the door close as Parijahan and Rashid slipped out.
If she hadn’t felt so awful, she probably would have blushed at the realization she was alone with Malachiasz on his bed. At this point she was too tired to care.
“I haven’t heard the gods since I woke up in a pool of my own blood,” she whispered. “What scares me is maybe it’s a good thing. I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
Malachiasz nodded slowly. He looked like he’d been torn from sleep; his long hair was tangled, his shirt hastily thrown on. It was open wide, half hanging off one shoulder.
“It’s perfectly human to doubt, Nadya,” he murmured.
“Not when you’re divine,” she said. She sniffed pathetically.
“No, I suppose not,” he agreed.
“How do you do it? Live without faith?”
He was quiet against her except for the rhythm of his breathing. “Nadya, do you really want to know where my ethics come from? Me?”
Him, the king of monsters. The liar. The heretic.
No … she supposed she didn’t.
She murmured her answer. He nodded, unsurprised, and gently kissed her forehead.
“I feel like I shouldn’t ask what had you screaming bloody murder in your sleep but I admit I’m curious.”
“Monsters.”
He flinched. He thought she was talking about him. She almost wished she was, at least that would be easily explained. She considered letting him believe he gave her nightmares. But she wasn’t that cruel.
“No, not like that,” she said, when she meant not like you. He visibly relaxed and that made her curious. “Would that bother you?”
“Of course it would.”
“But you like being what you are.”
His expression shifted, became troubled. He didn’t correct her. “I would not want to be the cause of your pain, even if it may be inevitable.” After a long silence, he spoke again. “Perhaps you should try to sleep again? I’ll let Parijahan know she can—”
“Stay,” Nadya said, cutting him off.
He frowned, already shaking his head. He started to stand but she caught his wrist.
“I care about you, Malachiasz,” she said, the words rapid as they rushed out of her. “I don’t know when it started, but it’s real and it terrifies me. You’re the single most frustrating person I have ever met and I’m still a little convinced we’re enemies and caring for you is literal heresy, but I do. You’ve been lying to me from the beginning and I