Wicked Saints (Something Dark and Holy #1) - Emily A. Duncan Page 0,21
Nadya was given the spell a heartbeat later. She blew smoky, glimmering symbols onto her palm and her hand lit into flames.
Parijahan exchanged a delighted glance with Rashid. Nadya moved over to the table and trailed a burning fingertip over what was clearly a discarded spell book page. She picked up the paper and it burst into flames. When only ashes were left in her hand, she tilted them into the blood mage’s palm. She brought her gaze up to meet his and was unsure of what she saw in his eyes.
Tension, curiosity, but underneath it all was something darker. Something that made a shiver jolt down her spine. It made her wonder why a heretic had been placed before her path. To kill him? What other reason could there possibly be?
A smile flashed on his lips, as if he could read her thoughts the way the gods did.
“So, what is the difference between you and our blood mage friend here?” Rashid asked. “Forgive a handsome young foreigner his ignorant questions.”
The blood mage in question flopped down on the pillows beside Rashid, opening his spell book in his lap. Nadya never saw him cut himself, but the back of his hand was bleeding. He used a quill to scratch the blood onto the pages of his book.
“I think your mage is making the differences fairly blatant,” she said. “Blood. Spell books. Heresy. That’s Tranavian magic.”
Malachiasz smiled without looking up from his work.
He smiles too much, she thought.
“My power is divine. I am not. There’s no blood. No spell books.”
“Just the requirement of constant approval from the gods,” Malachiasz said. “No pressure. One misstep and it’s all over.”
“Is it so hard to live by the will of the gods? They ask for so little. You give them no credit.”
He shook his head. “So little?” he asked incredulously. “They ask for far too much. Why do you think Tranavia broke with the gods? Who yearns for life yoked to another being’s whim? We wished to choose our own destiny.”
Nadya rolled her eyes. “And is your destiny worth the torture and mutilation of a century of innocents to reach the means for your magic? Hundreds upon thousands of people.”
His expression flickered but he recovered so quickly Nadya questioned if it happened at all.
“Sacrifices were made willingly. No one is forced into tests.”
“Except prisoners of war,” Nadya shot back.
He leaned forward. “Even prisoners of war are made to understand the greater good they’re serving in the end.”
“Greater good?” Nadya cried, finally losing her temper. “How dare you speak of a greater good, like your kind has any right to pretend you are anything but heretics and abominations revolting against the gods.”
Malachiasz was grinning now, sharp-toothed and dangerous. He lolled his head to one side, lazily closing his spell book. He took a bandage out of his pocket and slowly wrapped his hand. “All right, you win. She’ll be useful,” he said to Rashid.
Nadya didn’t like the sound of that. “Useful? Are you going to experiment on me as well?”
Malachiasz stood and crossed the room until he was standing over Nadya. He was very tall. He took her chin in his ink- and blood-stained hand and tilted her face up toward his.
“You would not be so lucky,” he said, his voice soft, his breath a whisper against her cheek.
“Malachiasz…” Parijahan said.
He released Nadya, taking a step back. “We can keep you safe,” he said. “The High Prince could be right outside the door and never realize the church is even here. I’ve made certain.”
“The High Prince, maybe, but what of Tranavia’s other horrors?” Anna shot back.
Now it was Malachiasz’s turn to go still.
“What?”
“The monsters you Tranavians let foul once-holy churches. What about them?”
“The Vultures do not venture onto the battlefield,” he said, but his voice was strained. One of his hands absently rubbed his forearm. “They haven’t left Tranavia in…”
“About thirty years,” Nadya said. “Funny, that.”
His eyes narrowed, but he shook his head, backing down.
Woven into the darkest of Kalyazi nightmares were the Vultures of Tranavia. Blood mages so twisted by their heretical magic they were no longer human, nothing more than violent monsters. It was true, they hadn’t been seen in Kalyazin in a long time. It was also true they had been one of the final nails in the last of the clerics’ coffins.
If they came for Nadya, she wasn’t sure she could escape so easily this time.
“Why would you help us?” Nadya asked after a beat of uncomfortable silence.