Wicked Saints (Something Dark and Holy #1) - Emily A. Duncan Page 0,13
uncomfortable.
“You’re our voice to the people, love,” Horz said. “You’d best get used to blind adoration.”
“There are more Tranavians nearby,” Nadya said to Anna.
The Akolans just exchanged a knowing glance. There was something else going on here.
But before she could think of what to do, Rashid hefted his own crossbow and fired.
She ducked instinctively, in an attempt to knock the bolt into her shoulder or arm, somewhere less deadly than her heart.
But she heard the thud of the bolt hitting flesh and a strangled cry and it took her brain a handful of painful seconds to catch up. It hadn’t been her. She hadn’t been hit.
“You missed.” A new voice spoke, this one rich with a thick Tranavian accent.
A chill dragged down Nadya’s spine. Tranavian words bouncing off the walls of a dark cavern as her home burned above. Was the voice the same? It sounded the same. The same lilt—even though the words were Kalyazi this time—and a distinct presence of authority.
How had the prince caught up already? It was too late, it was over.
She turned.
There was a Tranavian soldier on his knees in the snow, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his shoulder. His face was expressionless, his eyes glassy. Behind him stood a tall, wiry boy with sharp, wild features and long black hair. The boy’s hands were covered in blood, a crumpled spell book page in one, the other held outstretched toward the soldier in the snow.
“I go and find the one you let get away and you don’t even have the decency to kill him,” the boy said, and tutted at Rashid.
His fingers twitched, just slightly, and whatever spell he had caught the soldier up in changed and the man crumpled to the ground, dead. He dropped the page and used the snow to wipe the blood off his hands.
It wasn’t the prince. Nadya wanted to be relieved—because maybe this meant she was safe—but she had felt the wave of power as the boy cast his magic. It was strong. Far stronger than the power she had felt from even the Tranavian prince during the attack.
“We could have gotten information out of him,” Parijahan pointed out, then simply moved away from Anna’s blade.
Anna shot Nadya a desperate look, but she just shrugged, equally bewildered. The only Tranavian she could now feel nearby was the mage, but he clearly knew the Akolans.
They needed to leave. This commotion was happening dangerously close to the monastery, to the prince. Nadya saw her chance when Rashid began picking through the soldiers’ belongings. But the Tranavian boy took a step closer and she froze, suddenly aware the situation had moved from benign to deadly in only a few short seconds.
The way he looked at her was too discerning, too focused. Even in the darkness, Nadya could see his eyes were such a pale shade of blue as to be nearly devoid of color. He was the second Tranavian with eyes like ice she had seen in as many days.
His gaze flicked to Anna, but then returned to her.
“Names?” he asked.
Parijahan shook her head.
“We very politely gave them our names, but I suppose Kalyazi don’t appreciate manners,” Rashid said.
A smile slid over the Tranavian’s face, slightly feral. His canine teeth were oddly sharp; everything about him was sharp in the most unnerving way. There were three vertical lines tattooed down his forehead in black ink, ending at the bridge of his straight nose.
“Wise of them.”
Nadya was beginning to see her mistake in not taking the opportunity to run. There were only three of them, and none of them could be much older than her, but there was something so off-putting about the Tranavian. She couldn’t put a name to it, but she knew—intrinsically—he would not hesitate to kill her if she made any indication of hostility.
Would he hand her right back to the prince? Or would he kill her here and take whatever power her blood might harbor for his own?
She might have failed to protect the monastery, but she would die before she let herself fall into the hands of a Tranavian.
He stepped closer. She froze, all cavalier thoughts of heroism escaping her. She didn’t know if she could actually fight off this boy if it came to it, and maybe waiting out the situation would get her to the other side alive. He took her string of prayer beads in one hand. A hiss of displeasure escaped her lips. No one touched her beads but her.