digging into the back of her body, fire burning through her veins. She could feel tears pouring from her eyes, coursing down her cheeks.
She reached out to her goddess.
And a door slammed closed before her.
Panic flared, white-hot in her chest. All her joints locked up and her limbs shook. No, this wasn’t happening. No no no no no no no.
This isn’t real.
Was this something the Vultures had done to her? Was she being punished for the power she used trying to escape? This was a different kind of quiet than before. This was worse than the veil. This was emptiness.
Calm down, she told herself. Figure out where you are. A stabbing pain went through her as the silence remained, the gods now more than just out of reach, but turned away completely.
Maybe she would never hear another quip after an errant prayer again. She shivered. It couldn’t be that. The gods wouldn’t have abandoned her. Not for a few doubts, not for kissing a heretic—not even that.
Brushing her fingers against the slab she was lying on, she winced as the delicate parts of her hands met nails and broken shards of glass in return. She attempted to sit up, the jagged edges digging even farther into the backs of her thighs. Her thin dress was in tattered shreds, fabric clinging painfully to her wounds.
A low, pained moan broke past her lips as she tried to shift off the slab. Her head spun; she had lost far too much blood.
She moved herself gingerly off the slab, wincing as her legs were sliced open at every movement. Her feet landed on cold stone, but her knees buckled the instant she tried to put weight on them. She bit back a cry, snapping her teeth down on a fist, instantly breaking the skin of her hand. Iron heat filled her mouth and she coughed, spitting blood.
She pushed herself up off the ground and felt in the dark for a way out, a door, anything. Even if it was locked, she would feel less like she had ceased to exist. She had become nothing but the blood slicking the floor and blinding pain.
She couldn’t help the whimper of relief when her hand landed on a doorknob. She rattled it, though it was useless. It was fastened tight. Another surge of panic threatened to ruin her. She was starting to see things creeping out of the darkness. Things with nails for teeth and razor smiles.
She turned away from the dark and pressed her forehead against the door. The wood was cool and let her refocus before she tried to reach for the gods again.
The door to the heavens remained closed.
Anguish and a rage too fluid to fully define washed through her and she wanted to scream. She reached for the prayer beads she did not have and found nothing but Kostya’s necklace. She yanked it over her head and threw it across the room. She heard it hit the wall with a feeble, metallic clang.
“This isn’t fair!” she cried, to no one and to nothing because she was alone. Entirely alone in the kingdom of her enemies. Her best hadn’t mattered.
“I have only ever done what was asked of me,” she said, her voice feeble and broken. She leaned back against the door and slowly slid to the ground, ignoring the wrenching agony that followed, the blood that she could still feel dripping down the backs of her legs.
The veil had been uncomfortable, stifling, but she could always hear Marzenya’s voice if she reached. This was different. This was purposeful and had nothing to do with Tranavia’s machinations.
A line in a history book would half-heartedly mention the cleric who had tried to save Kalyazin but only managed to be forsaken by the gods. There would be no canonization after death for Nadya, just a quiet passing of the cleric who had failed.
She clenched a fist, ignoring the pain, only to cause more blood to slide down her wrist from her sliced-up palm.
Please don’t let this end here. If she cried out with everything left within her would she get an answer? Or would she have nothing but the ashes of the only thing that had ever made her life worth living? Zhalyusta, Marzenya, eya kalyecti, eya otrecyalli, holen milena.
Her plea went unanswered. Nadya was dropping into despair when something flickered at the corner of her vision. Nothing more than her addled mind playing tricks on her.
But the light grew stronger. Nadya frowned and slowly crawled