Ruthless Gods (Something Dark and Holy #2) - Emily A. Duncan Page 0,2
did not trust or believe in, he would not have her executed.
“What do we do?” Ostyia asked.
Serefin raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t know.”
* * *
There was an obvious solution to appease Ruminski, but Serefin was uncertain of how to attempt ?aneta’s retrieval. From what he could discern, the Vultures had fractured significantly. He hadn’t seen many slinking around the palace, but he wasn’t about to go to the cathedral door and knock to see who answered.
He rubbed his eyes, tired. He wanted to sleep through the night, just once. Instead he sought out the cleric, holed up in the library as ever, because, as she put it, where else was she supposed to be?
“So his majesty has deigned to grace the poor boyar locked in her tower, wasting away,” she said when he found her. She was sitting in a high window alcove, one leg kicked off the edge. Her white-blond hair was loose around her shoulders. Serefin couldn’t recall a time when it had not been carefully braided.
He tensed, glancing through the gaps in the stacks to see if anyone was around to hear. But it was too early for any slavhki to be awake.
“It’s like you want me to be forced to hang you,” he muttered.
She snorted softly, dark brown eyes dismissive. She had dropped the act of the clueless, backwater slavhka and the girl who had appeared in Józefina’s place was sharp and witty and completely infuriating. The handsome Akolan boy she was constantly with, Rashid, had quietly given Serefin new paperwork to explain this girl—pale freckles, pale skin, pale hair but curiously dark eyes and eyebrows—a far cry from red-headed Józefina. The paperwork was forged; the explanation surprisingly solid. Road flooding from the lakes had plagued their journey and they had arrived too late for the Rawalyk but couldn’t yet return home. It would do. Her given name was functionally Tranavian enough to pass, if spelled differently.
She sighed, shifting to the corner of the alcove, and gestured for him to climb up. He settled in next to her and riffled through the stack of books she had piled up. Tranavian texts on the old religions that were so decrepit and brittle they might fall apart in her hands.
“Where on earth did you find these?” he asked.
“You don’t want me to answer that,” she said absently as she returned to her book. “But do warn the librarian. Wouldn’t want the old blood mage to die of shock when he finds his banned texts collection ransacked.”
“I didn’t know we had banned texts.”
She made a humming sound. “Of course you do. Have to keep all that heresy at the forefront of the kingdom somehow, yes?”
“Nadya—”
“I do have to say,” she continued, “I am surprised these weren’t burned. You lot seem like the book-burning type.”
He wasn’t going to take that particular bait.
They were quiet as Nadya read and Serefin paged through another book. He couldn’t quite figure out what she was studying.
“Have you seen any Vultures around recently?” Serefin finally asked.
She lowered her book and shot him an incredulous look. “Have I what?”
He supposed he hoped the answer would be yes and everything would be simple for him; a mess easily cleaned up.
“I should think the king of Tranavia would have more dealings with that cult than one captive peasant girl,” she said primly.
“I hope someone overhears you saying these things and forces my hand,” he replied.
That got a short laugh from her. She leaned back, dangling her legs out into the open air. He didn’t even know why he was asking her except she had shown up in Grazyk at the same time as Malachiasz and clearly knew him; he didn’t know what they’d had between them. He’d never asked. But Nadya had said enough offhand to suggest she and the Black Vulture had been more than strange allies and what he had done was more than a simple betrayal.
Why did he assume she knew more about the Vultures than he did? Her, the cleric from Kalyazin. It was ridiculous; this wasn’t getting him anywhere.
He leaned his head back on the wall.
“Why are you asking?” she asked.
“I don’t have to give you my reasoning,” he reminded her.
“Serefin, every day you make me regret not killing you a little bit more.” But there was no heat in her words. They had an uneasy truce, and though Nadya was furious he had kept her more or less trapped in Tranavia, she didn’t seem altogether eager to leave, either.