“Oh?” Azarov peered at the town as if expecting it to suddenly unfold into a more interesting version of itself. “Why? Is there something special about it?”
“There’s a very fine mural in its cathedral.”
“Of Sankta Lizabeta?”
Was this her town? Yes, he remembered now. She’d performed some kind of miracle here to lure the young king to the Fold. But there was no mural in the church. “I meant the statue,” he said. She’d made it bleed black tears and covered it in roses.
“Who are you?”
Aleksander looked up from the cartridges of ammunition he was sorting. “I beg your pardon?”
Brother Azarov was standing beside the cart. His yellow hair was mussed from the night’s adventure and his eyes were narrowed. “Whoever you are, you’re not Yuri Vedenen.”
He made himself chuckle. “Then who am I?”
“I don’t know.” Azarov’s face was grim, and Aleksander realized too late that his show of confusion over Adena had been an act. “An impostor. An agent of the Lantsov king. One of the Apparat’s men. The only thing I’m sure of is that you’re a charlatan and no servant of the Starless One.”
Aleksander turned slowly. “A servant? No. I will serve no one again in this life or any other.” He considered his options. Could Brother Azarov be made to understand what he was, who he was? “You must listen closely, Azarov. You are on the precipice of something great—”
“Do not come near me! You are a heathen. A heretic. You would lead us into battle and see us murdered on the field.”
“The Starless One—”
“You have no right to speak of him!”
Aleksander almost laughed. “No man should be forced to grapple with irony so furiously.”
“Brother Chernov!” Azarov called.
Down in the market square, Chernov looked up and waved. He and the other pilgrims carried baskets and crates full of food and supplies.
Aleksander yanked Brother Azarov behind the cart and clapped a hand over the pilgrim’s mouth. “You have asked for miracles and I have brought you miracles. You don’t understand the forces at work here.”
Azarov thrashed in his grip. He had the strength of the soldier he’d once been. He wrenched his head free. “I know evil when I see it.”
Now Aleksander had to smile. “Maybe so.”
He let a nichevo’ya form behind Azarov, towering and bewinged. Calling on merzost was painful, like a breath torn from his lungs, a moment of terror as his life was ripped away to form another. Creation. Abomination. But he was used to it by now.
Azarov’s eyes widened as he saw the shadow of the monster behind him. He never had a chance to turn. A whimper squeaked from his lips as the nichevo’ya’s clawed hand burst through his chest. He looked down at it—black talons curled around his still-beating heart. Then he crumpled.
Murderer! Yuri’s distress was like an alarm ringing in his skull. You had no right!
Be silent. Azarov was willing to die for me and he did.
Aleksander glanced around the wagon. The pilgrims were still approaching. He had mere moments to decide what to do with the body. The nichevo’ya could carry it away but would be seen taking flight with Azarov. He would have to bury the pilgrim beneath the weapons and hope to retrieve the body when they returned to camp.
He heard shouting from the market square. Some kind of storm was moving in, the clouds casting dark shadows over the town.
No, not a storm. It was moving too fast for that, a blot of darkness spreading over the houses. Everything it touched turned to shadow, seeming to hold its shape for the barest moment, then dissolving into smoke. Kilyklava. The vampire. Had he somehow drawn the blight to Adena, or was it mere coincidence?
People scattered, screaming, trying to outrun it, trying to hurl themselves from its path.
Aleksander couldn’t look away. The shadow raced toward him. Brother Chernov and the others dove from the road, abandoning their bread and cabbages.
Run.
He knew he should. But it was too late. What would death feel like the second time around? The old horse had time to release a startled whinny, before it and the cart were swallowed by the darkness.
The shadow surged toward him—and parted. It coursed around him in a rush of night. It was like gazing into the black waters of a lake. Then it was gone. Aleksander turned and saw the blight pour over the road and meadow before somewhere on the distant horizon it seemed to stop.
It had come on silently, swiftly, an arrow shot from some invisible bow, and it vanished just as fast. In the town square—or what was left of it—people were weeping and crying out. Half the town was just as it had been—full of color, the market stalls packed with cured meats, heaps of turnips, bolts of wool. But the other half was simply gone, as if a careless hand had wiped it away, leaving nothing but a gray smudge, a swath of oblivion where life had been moments before.