Blessed Monsters by Emily A. Duncan

Author:Emily A. Duncan [Duncan, Emily A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250195746
Google: qBDhDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Published: 2021-04-05T23:00:00+00:00

29

NADEZHDA LAPTEVA

Zlatek blanketed a battlefield with his silence and the horror was profound.

—Codex of the Divine 44:867

Nadya slowly braided her hair. She wanted to make a good impression. She wasn’t planning to speak to the Matriarch—she knew where that would leave her—but she was going to the cathedral to dig through the library, and she wanted to at least look nice as she snuck underneath the Church’s noses.

It was like planning for a war where anyone could be the enemy and they could attack at any time, Katya had complained. But there were answers to be found in Komyazalov and Nadya intended to find them. She needed to figure out who the woman was that had given Kostya the pendant trapping Velyos and warned him about her. Gods, what would be different if she hadn’t bled on that damn amulet? If she had seen out the mission to assassinate the king as she was supposed to?

But that plan had been thought up by a boy desperately searching for power, and even if she hadn’t used Velyos’ power, Malachiasz still would have had his way.

Though he wouldn’t have had a reason to go to the one spot where killing a god would be possible without Nadya …

This was pointless. She needed to stop. She dropped her hands halfway through braiding her hair and tilted her head back.

She was missing something. There were too many pieces, too many variables. Where had Serefin gone? What had happened to him? All she knew was he was alive and Velyos was with him, which meant Serefin hadn’t really succeeded at what he’d set out to do. Funny how they were all such miserable failures in their own ways.

They had sent out messages to the front—Katya using her strange, weak saints’ power to speak to another Voldah Gorovni—but Serefin was nowhere to be found.

Nadya wondered if he had given up like he’d always clearly desired to. She had been present for his coronation and it had been the only glimmering second where she had thought that maybe he could be a king. Since, he’d only proven himself to be a boy who drank too much and ran away from his problems.

It would mean the war wouldn’t end. No one in that damned court in Grazyk wanted that. They didn’t care about the stripped land, death’s hand at the front, the children that were sent to war and came home shattered—if they came home at all.

Nadya had expressed her worries to Katya, but she was as cavalier as ever. She suspected the tsarevna was terrified by the thought of Serefin either dead or abdicating his throne. He was the only hope for a peace treaty.

A peace treaty he will never sign after what you did, Nadya thought, staring up at the high wooden ceiling. Listening to Marzenya had been a mistake. Stripping away blood magic had been a mistake. Even if they did find Serefin, it would only create more problems.

She knew the darkness the king of Tranavia hid.

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