Wicked Saints (Something Dark and Holy #1) - Emily A. Duncan Page 0,38

steady and warm against her cold skin. He studied her face and all feelings of distaste quieted as she studied him in return, trying to piece together what it was that kept staying her hand. His dark tangle of thick hair that he had pushed away from his face was caked with blood and snow and made him look all the more feral. A curiosity she couldn’t quite name took root within her. Here was the very thing she had been taught her entire life was an abomination—and he was very much the worst kind of abomination—but he was also just … a boy.

A boy whose hand was still on her face. She fought between wanting to wrench away and resting her face against his palm because it was warm and she was so very cold.

“Nadezhda Lapteva,” he said contemplatively. When he shared his own name, she couldn’t help feeling as if he were pulling her under into some dark depth from which she would never escape. It was a similar feeling now.

But it was only a feeling.

“What?” she said irritably, upset with herself for whatever this was, and with him for acting strange after she had just watched him turn into a monster.

“You could be exactly what these countries need to stop their fighting,” he said. He dropped his hand and she was colder for its absence. “Or you could rip them apart at the seams.”

11

SEREFIN

MELESKI

Svoyatovi Valentin Rostov: A cleric of Myesta, Rostov infiltrated Tranavia at the beginning of the holy war, utilizing his goddess’s powers of deception. For years, Rostov fed information back to Kalyazin, until a Tranavian prince who suspected him of using magic other than heretical blood magic poisoned him.

—Vasiliev’s Book of Saints

Serefin hated when he had to admit Ostyia was right, but he woke the next morning with a hangover to compete with all others. To her credit, she wordlessly handed him a waterskin as they left and her smile was only slightly sly.

“How much of a fool did I make of myself last night?” he asked once the inn was out of sight.

“You promised Felicíja Krywicka the entire western reaches as a wedding gift,” Kacper said.

Serefin’s eyes narrowed. The prior evening was hazy but he was fairly certain that was a lie.

“It was fine,” Ostyia said. “You were a little too Serefin at times, but overall, no harm done.”

“Blood and bone, not my true face,” Serefin said, mock horrified.

“While you were talking to Felicíja, Krywicki mentioned he was in Grazyk a month ago and was alarmed by how many Vultures were skulking through the palace,” Kacper said.

Serefin straightened in his saddle. “Did he say anything else?”

Kacper nodded. “The Vultures are recruiting at a fast pace, as if they’re preparing for something.”

“We know that Vultures are taken to the Salt Mines when they’re instated,” Ostyia mused. “And we’ve been sending a lot of Kalyazi prisoners there the past few months.”

Serefin felt a shiver creep up his spine. They were still missing something.

Sunlight glittered off the deep blue of the lake, nearly blinding Serefin if he looked at it directly. Grazyk was a port city by Lake Hańcza, open to many channels and wide rivers that eventually flowed into the sea.

Boats floated lazily near the docks. Serefin wondered if anything was ever done about the pirates preying on Tranavian ships as they met the open waters. It had become enough of a problem to garner his father’s attention, but that was before Serefin left. A port city in the middle of the kingdom. Sometimes it felt like Tranavia was more water than land.

There would be a string of small villages to pass through before they finally reached the city. Those always smelled foul and looked worse, what with the beaten shacks only barely holding together and racks upon racks of fish drying out in the sun.

Serefin watched a young woman cross the street, two buckets attached to a rod over her shoulders. They were full of water and moving, live fish. Her clothes were tattered, her skirts ragged and dirty at the hem. A small boy ran up to her from where he had been sitting in the doorway of a house with shutters that hung on single hinges. He pulled on one of the buckets, knocking her off balance. She was laughing as she set them down and reached inside, pulling a fish out and showing it to the boy.

The war was running Tranavia into the ground. Kalyazi villages were in a similar state, but