Wicked Saints (Something Dark and Holy #1) - Emily A. Duncan Page 0,78
into his pocket and handed Serefin a stack of crumpled papers. “Also, my agent returned from the Salt Mines. It’s not good, Serefin.”
“When is anything?” Serefin asked as he unfolded the paper. His hands were shaking, he noted absently, an afterthought.
He read through the report, his heart sinking.
“Is this real?” His voice came out weak.
Kacper nodded.
The Vultures and the king were working together—though Serefin knew that wasn’t quite true. Puppet strings. They had nearly succeeded in their goal with a new experiment, so said the papers. But their last was too strong-willed and difficult to control. They were moving to a new step in their gruesome process and placing his father at the center of it.
It felt like a sick joke. As if everything had been in front of his face the whole time but he had been too focused on the wrong things to see it. The Tranavians’ flight from the gods hadn’t been so simple and easy as magic and atheism.
“My father is a weak mage,” Serefin rasped, his voice strained.
Kacper nodded.
If he was reading this correctly—and he wasn’t sure he was—the Vultures had found a way to more power than any mortal should ever be able to reach, and they were going to give it to Izak Meleski. For a price. A sacrifice. That little anecdote from Pelageya about a mortal becoming divine now felt sickeningly ironic. It would only cost Izak his son, a paltry trade in the grand scheme of things. What was Serefin’s life in comparison to unlimited power?
This was his father’s chance to finally prove to his kingdom and his people that he wasn’t just a weak king and weak blood mage. He would be more; he would be greater. He would become a god.
“He’s … gone mad,” Serefin said. It was the only explanation. The Vultures, his mother’s skittishness, Pelageya’s warnings. His father had lost his mind.
And Serefin would pay the price.
Kacper glanced at the ceiling. Serefin growled, pulled his dagger from its sheath and sliced open his hand. He slammed it down onto the table nearby and the smell of smoke filled the room as he snapped all the spells placed by his father. Damn the consequences.
“Do you know who this former success is?” Serefin pointed at a line in the report.
“The Black Vulture is likely, but, no, I have no idea.”
Serefin rubbed his forehead. The Black Vulture wasn’t important right now.
When had his father’s mind snapped? He tried to think back further—he had been so out of touch with what happened in Tranavia while he was at the front; were there signs all along? He thought of the Tranavian villages he’d ridden through, destitute and close to fading away entirely. His father seemed indifferent about the plight of the country as a whole, the plight this war was spurring forward. It hadn’t always been like that. He remembered when his father cared, even if it was years ago.
He might never know when things had changed.
Serefin leaned back against the table, suddenly weary. “How much blood would be needed to set this into motion?”
Kacper didn’t respond.
The pieces were beginning to align, and the picture they were forming was too horrifying to comprehend.
“Perhaps the blood of the finest mages in Tranavia, brought into one place under the guise of the Rawalyk,” Serefin whispered. “Common blood would do no good, it has to be blood with power. The girls disappearing, have any of them been from families that don’t use magic?”
Kacper shook his head. “All blood mages. What if—” Kacper paused, unsure of what he was saying. “If this has never been done before, we don’t know what will truly happen to your father.”
“I’ll be dead, so I don’t really care what will happen to my father,” Serefin countered. “But, what if … what if it has been done before?” he muttered, mind racing. “The answer is here.”
Kacper lifted his head. “What?”
“The witch. The witch’s words, blood and bone. ‘Gut the Kalyazi churches, melt their gold, grind their bones.’ What else did she say?”
“‘What if those gods the Kalyazi worship aren’t gods at all?’” Kacper asked, horror lacing his voice.
Serefin nodded slowly. He didn’t care about the Kalyazi gods, but if they were something else entirely, what would that mean for Tranavia?
“So, what do we do?”
Serefin tried to think but came up blank. What could they do? What could they do when his mad father was steps away from godlike powers?
What could they do when the very girl who communed with these creatures