his iron teeth, his madness, and kissed him.
He tasted like blood; he tasted like betrayal.
“I can feel it,” she whispered, her hands smearing blood on his neck. “What have you done? I can feel it.”
His eyes flickered back to their icy pale, agony stark within them. “Myja towy d?imyka. Myja towy szanka…” He tilted her face up. Kissed her again, careful with his razor claws, his touch achingly gentle. When he pulled away his eyes went onyx once more, the ice bleeding away into darkness. “It’s not enough.”
“Malachiasz?” Her voice broke and she clutched at him even as she felt him moving farther and farther away.
One of his hands lifted; the backs of his fingers brushed against her cheek.
He thought this would heal the gaping wound of his tattered soul, save his kingdom. She was watching him destroy himself. Spiraling into pieces as he was twisted into something far past a monster.
But he still has his name, she thought, a desperate, fleeting, irrelevant thing.
Tears dripped down Nadya’s face and she caught his hand, pressing it against her cheek. She kissed the back. His hand slipped from hers.
His vast, black wings snapped open and he rose, crashing through the high window in the chapel and sending fragments of broken glass raining down upon them. Nadya stood, blood staining her skin, fingers to her lips.
The veil over Tranavia was ebbing away, the gods’ touch returning. Now their presence felt wrong. Nadya braced herself for Marzenya’s anger, but nothing came.
She could feel the gods, but they did not speak to her.
36
SEREFIN
MELESKI
Svoyatova Evgenia Dyrbova: The last known cleric, Svoyatova Evgenia Dyrbova, a cleric of Marzenya, fell on the battlefield. Her last words were considered a prophecy of doom—the gods would recede, their touch would lessen, clerics would be even more of a rarity. Kalyazin would be doomed, if nothing changed, if the war continued.
—Vasiliev’s Book of Saints
Serefin woke on the sanctuary floor surrounded by dead moths and shards of glass. He opened his eyes just in time to see the cleric faint, her Akolan friend not quite reaching her in time to keep her from crashing to the floor.
Light still haloed her head.
“Nadya,” the boy whispered, picking her up. He glanced at Serefin, going rigid when he noticed he was awake. He gently set the cleric down and picked up a discarded dagger.
“You know, if we killed you as well we could end this war even faster,” he said. He crouched next to Serefin, the dagger held lazily between his long, brown fingers.
“Go ahead,” Serefin mumbled. Where was Ostyia? He’d lost track of her in the madness.
The boy studied him. He looked out towards the entrance to the sanctuary. He shook his head. “No. I don’t think you’re anything like your father.”
Those words flooded Serefin with relief. “Is she going to be all right?” He worked himself up to a sitting position. He shouldn’t be moving at all; he had lost far too much blood.
The Akolan boy looked at Nadya. His features softened. “I don’t know. But your asking makes me even less inclined to kill you.” He stuck out a hand. “Name’s Rashid.”
Serefin stared at him, amused by the absurd normalcy in the gesture. He shook the boy’s hand. “Serefin.”
Rashid stood and walked over to the Akolan girl, unconscious a few steps away. As he was checking on her, one large, gray moth fluttered down to the ground in front of Serefin.
“Are you the only one left?” he whispered, nudging the moth onto his index finger. The moth’s wings fluttered. No. The moths would return; the stars would return. He had been altered and now he had to figure out what that meant.
“Get off me, I’m fine, I’m fine.” The Akolan girl’s voice rang out. She sat up, holding her head. Her eyes narrowed as she scanned the room. “Where’s…” but she trailed off, her question going unfinished.
She moved, kneeling next to Nadya. Lightning jolted the room, too near for comfort, but the rain outside was now only rain. Serefin scrambled to his feet, searching the hall for some sign of Ostyia.
He found her lying underneath a pillar like a discarded rag doll. Panic gripped his chest. It didn’t look like she was breathing. No, not Ostyia. He knelt beside her, hesitant to look any closer. He didn’t want confirmation of a tragedy. He didn’t want to know.
“You’re not allowed to die,” he rasped. When he touched her, a constellation of stars formed around his hand. “If I’m not allowed to die, you’re