Ruthless Gods (Something Dark and Holy #2) - Emily A. Duncan Page 0,1
that had settled underneath his skin. Yes, ?aneta had betrayed him, and, yes, he had died for it, but did she deserve the terrifying fate Malachiasz had chosen for her?
“You’re being unusually calm about this,” Kacper noted.
“What will they do, I wonder? Hang me? Toss me in the dungeons and forget about me?”
Kacper deflated some, shoulders slumping. “I hate when you’re defeatist,” he muttered, shoving past where Serefin stood to make his way into Serefin’s bedchambers.
“Where are you going?” Serefin asked. He contemplated the bottles in his cabinet before pulling a miraculously full bottle of vodka from the shelf. “I’m not defeatist,” he murmured. “I’m pragmatic. Realistic. This was inevitable.”
“A coup is not an inevitability,” Kacper snapped from inside the room. Was he packing? “None of this would have happened if you had hanged that damned cleric instead of forcing her into the same odd limbo you’ve forced on the rest of the country. But you didn’t. And here we are with a coup on our hands because we have no one to blame. Do you want to end up like your father?”
Serefin flinched. He took a long drink. Dreams of moths and blood and his father’s body at his feet. He had not landed the killing blow but it was his fault all the same.
“No,” he whispered, brushing a pale moth away from the flame of the candle.
“No. You don’t.”
But that is likely inevitable, too, Serefin thought morosely. Kacper would not take well to him saying it out loud.
“Half your clothes have been eaten by moths.” Kacper sounded despairing.
The door flew open. Serefin’s hand went to his spell book, adrenaline spiking. He shuddered, sighing. It was only Ostyia.
“Oh, you’re awake,” she said flatly.
“Lock that door.”
She did.
“I told him what was going on and he’s standing there drinking!” Kacper complained.
Serefin offered Ostyia the vodka bottle.
Kacper poked his head out and groaned as she grabbed it and took a sip.
She winked at Serefin—an exaggerated blink from her one eye.
“Get back in here, Kacper,” Serefin said.
Kacper huffed loudly and leaned in the doorway.
“How long have they been meeting?”
“I’m fairly certain this is their first,” Kacper replied.
He tamped down his rising panic, taking the bottle back from Ostyia. Anxiety had been steadily dogging his steps for months, waiting for him to falter. If he paused and thought too hard about it he would be swallowed alive. He had to pretend this wasn’t happening.
Kacper slumped against the doorframe.
“Your desire to see to my safety is, of course, appreciated,” Serefin said, ignoring the dry look Kacper shot him. “You’re a good spymaster, but a tad hasty.”
Kacper slid down to the floor.
“Let’s figure out what they want first,” he said. He set the bottle down on the table, brushing away another moth.
Ostyia frowned, moving to the chaise and perching on the armrest. She yawned.
“We knew Ruminski would want answers eventually,” Serefin said.
“He’s been asking for months, Serefin. He simply got tired of waiting,” Kacper groaned.
Serefin lifted his shoulders in a weary shrug. “Perhaps they can be reasoned with? Surely there is something they want that I can give them.”
“Clandestine meetings by your enemies don’t suggest a list of demands that can be provided for,” Ostyia said.
“The entire court is my enemy,” Serefin muttered, throwing himself down into an upholstered chair. “That’s the problem.”
She nodded thoughtfully.
He had tried to win the court to his favor but nothing was working. There were too many rumors to combat that he couldn’t explain. He couldn’t reveal who had truly killed his father, and the whispers swirling through the underbelly of the court were starting to drift dangerously close to the truth.
A Kalyazi assassin. The Black Vulture. Treason. Disaster. A missing noble. A dead king. Titles from the common folk that Serefin could not shake: King of Moths, King of Blood. Serefin blessed by something no one could explain. What could the blood that fell from the sky that night be other than a blessing?
Serefin had nothing but questions and resistance from his nobility. The Kalyazi were pressing Tranavia’s forces back, and even if Tranavia did not know Kalyazin’s only cleric had killed the king, the Kalyazi surely did.
Renewed hope from Kalyazin was the last thing Serefin needed.
He couldn’t stop the war. He couldn’t answer his nobility’s questions unless he wanted Nadya hanged and he found he didn’t want that. She had done what he could not, and while she was still from an enemy territory and a force for something Serefin