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Synopsis
The startling conclusion to the instant New York Times bestselling Something Dark and Holy trilogy
The girl, the monster, the prince, the queen.
They broke the world.
And some things can never be undone.
In Emily A. Duncan’s Blessed Monsters, they must unite once more to fight the dark chaos they've unleashed - but is it already too late?
A Macmillan Audio production from Wednesday Books
Release date: April 6, 2021
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Print pages: 496
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
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Blessed Monsters
Emily A. Duncan
1
MALACHIASZ CZECHOWICZ
There is music at the end of the universe. Chyrnog’s songs that push like roiling worms into the brain and slowly take apart the mind. A weakening before consumption.
—The Volokhtaznikon
Malachiasz Czechowicz woke up in bloodstained snow. The cold of death was a needle that dug deep into bone, and he remained still, eyes closed, ice soaking into the last tatters of his clothes, until his skin warmed.
He shivered only once, as the cold from the snow became more present than that of the grave, doing his best to shove past his disorientation. Had he—?
Yes.
He had died. The last thing he had seen was Nadya, streaked with blood and tears, churning with spent power and clutching him. Then darkness, but not quiet. No peace.
He was afraid to move, afraid to disturb whatever tenuous silence had wrenched him away from the ledge. He shouldn’t be breathing.
His fingertips were blackened with what he hoped was magic and not frostbite. He let his iron claws slide back into his nail beds and nearly cried with relief that he could. He didn’t feel like himself, but he hadn’t felt like himself in a long time.
He was going to die here.
He blinked. Considered how he already had. He touched the wound at his chest. It wasn’t bleeding, but it was certainly a gaping hole that led straight to his heart.
He shouldn’t be alive.
At his edges were echoes of transcendence, and he wasn’t prepared to return to that state. Becoming a god was a bit of a lottery, he had found, and chaos was a not entirely pleasant lottery to win. As sweet as the thrill of power might have been, the pain of his bones shattering only to reform only to break free of his skin was a little too near for his taste. If he pressed out—just a bit—he could feel where he became something more. It was a series of steps before the fall, and the illusion that he was consciously in control of it was one he would like to maintain for as long as he could.
He had only killed one god.
There were many more to go.
“Well, boy.” A horrible voice slithered through the back of Malachiasz’s skull. His vision blanked out. No bleak mountainside of white and white and white. No more anything. Only darkness.
Malachiasz had known horrors. He knew the sounds of nightmares and chaos. The feeling of burning coals raked over skin, of knives under fingernails, of living shadows taking him apart and putting him back together in the wrong order. He knew pain. He knew chaos. He was chaos.
But chaos—chaos was small and rational at the foot of this.
This was all those terrors combined and wrapped into something much worse. Two words, small, insignificant, yet with them came an invisible shackle binding his wrists, a collar around his throat. A promise.
Well, Malachiasz replied, trying to be the Black Vulture and not the terrified boy. This won’t do at all.
It was the wrong move, and the voice gave a scraping laugh. A starburst of pain rattled across Malachiasz’s vision, sparking the darkness with bursts of light. He was so young before whatever had taken him.
“I am tired of mortals who think they can fight me,” the voice said. “I have been waiting a long time for you. But there will be time for that, time for everything, time for exactly what I wish. This is our introduction, you see.”
Malachiasz’s heart was pounding so hard he thought it might give up in his chest, and at least that would stop the horror.
Hard to have an introduction when I don’t know your name.
“Earn it.”
* * *
Malachiasz didn’t know how he had made it off the mountain. He was outside the strange church, every part of him aching, the forest creeping, taking, rotting within him.
He had grown used to his vision splitting every time a cluster of eyes opened on his body. He was used to his shifting chaos. But this pain was darker, and there was nothing for him to do but grit his teeth and press through it.
The church was made of wood—had it been stone before? He needed a place to get out of the cold, to feel something. The door opened easily at his touch. He closed it behind him, relishing the silence.
Moss crept along the floor and up the walls over the old icons. He could feel the forest pulling at his fraying edges, trying its very best to unravel him, as it ate and ate. It had nearly succeeded once. He stepped across the hallway and closed the door to the stairway leading to the well. He didn’t want to think about what Nadya had done.
The crunch of bones underneath his boots was loud as he followed a hall to the sanctuary. He bypassed it, hoping to find a smaller room to hole up in until he felt warm.
Maybe he would never feel warm again.
It took time, stepping through rotting plants and brittle bones, to find the room that would have housed the caretaker of the church. There was an oven in the corner. Malachiasz filled it with shattered bits of furniture and reached for his spell book. It wasn’t at his hip. Neither was the dagger he’d carried for years. Frustration and anxiety and blistering fear overcame him all at once and he thudded heavily to the ground, squeezing his eyes shut. He let out a long, shuddering breath.
He buried his face in his hands and tried not to bring back the voice. He suspected the being was always there, watching. Waiting to overwhelm him further. Forcing his eyes closed did little, a cluster of them opening on his hand and disorienting him.
When he had snapped past the mortal bonds tying him to this realm of reality, a lot had been made clear that had been taken by the Vultures. Things he had lost. Was any of it real?
He remembered the boy with the scar on his eye. And dragging books into the boy’s room after a failed assassination attempt. Spending his days wandering the palace until the boy pulled him back to lessons.
His brother.
Serefin. His murderer.
Family was something Malachiasz had yearned for but now wished to forget. Better to have the false family he had built for himself to replace the one wrenched away. Reconciling this was too difficult.
His time in the forest was hazy. It had clawed at him long before they’d reached Tzanelivki. The moment they left the monastery and moved into Dozvlatovya, it began its assault, wanting to devour him. Serefin had been distant as they traveled through the forest, constantly taken by fits, his eyes bleeding. And if he—or Nadya—had shown signs of malicious intent, Malachiasz was too distracted to notice.
Copyright © 2021 by Emily A. Duncan
MALACHIASZ CZECHOWICZ
There is music at the end of the universe. Chyrnog’s songs that push like roiling worms into the brain and slowly take apart the mind. A weakening before consumption.
—The Volokhtaznikon
Malachiasz Czechowicz woke up in bloodstained snow. The cold of death was a needle that dug deep into bone, and he remained still, eyes closed, ice soaking into the last tatters of his clothes, until his skin warmed.
He shivered only once, as the cold from the snow became more present than that of the grave, doing his best to shove past his disorientation. Had he—?
Yes.
He had died. The last thing he had seen was Nadya, streaked with blood and tears, churning with spent power and clutching him. Then darkness, but not quiet. No peace.
He was afraid to move, afraid to disturb whatever tenuous silence had wrenched him away from the ledge. He shouldn’t be breathing.
His fingertips were blackened with what he hoped was magic and not frostbite. He let his iron claws slide back into his nail beds and nearly cried with relief that he could. He didn’t feel like himself, but he hadn’t felt like himself in a long time.
He was going to die here.
He blinked. Considered how he already had. He touched the wound at his chest. It wasn’t bleeding, but it was certainly a gaping hole that led straight to his heart.
He shouldn’t be alive.
At his edges were echoes of transcendence, and he wasn’t prepared to return to that state. Becoming a god was a bit of a lottery, he had found, and chaos was a not entirely pleasant lottery to win. As sweet as the thrill of power might have been, the pain of his bones shattering only to reform only to break free of his skin was a little too near for his taste. If he pressed out—just a bit—he could feel where he became something more. It was a series of steps before the fall, and the illusion that he was consciously in control of it was one he would like to maintain for as long as he could.
He had only killed one god.
There were many more to go.
“Well, boy.” A horrible voice slithered through the back of Malachiasz’s skull. His vision blanked out. No bleak mountainside of white and white and white. No more anything. Only darkness.
Malachiasz had known horrors. He knew the sounds of nightmares and chaos. The feeling of burning coals raked over skin, of knives under fingernails, of living shadows taking him apart and putting him back together in the wrong order. He knew pain. He knew chaos. He was chaos.
But chaos—chaos was small and rational at the foot of this.
This was all those terrors combined and wrapped into something much worse. Two words, small, insignificant, yet with them came an invisible shackle binding his wrists, a collar around his throat. A promise.
Well, Malachiasz replied, trying to be the Black Vulture and not the terrified boy. This won’t do at all.
It was the wrong move, and the voice gave a scraping laugh. A starburst of pain rattled across Malachiasz’s vision, sparking the darkness with bursts of light. He was so young before whatever had taken him.
“I am tired of mortals who think they can fight me,” the voice said. “I have been waiting a long time for you. But there will be time for that, time for everything, time for exactly what I wish. This is our introduction, you see.”
Malachiasz’s heart was pounding so hard he thought it might give up in his chest, and at least that would stop the horror.
Hard to have an introduction when I don’t know your name.
“Earn it.”
* * *
Malachiasz didn’t know how he had made it off the mountain. He was outside the strange church, every part of him aching, the forest creeping, taking, rotting within him.
He had grown used to his vision splitting every time a cluster of eyes opened on his body. He was used to his shifting chaos. But this pain was darker, and there was nothing for him to do but grit his teeth and press through it.
The church was made of wood—had it been stone before? He needed a place to get out of the cold, to feel something. The door opened easily at his touch. He closed it behind him, relishing the silence.
Moss crept along the floor and up the walls over the old icons. He could feel the forest pulling at his fraying edges, trying its very best to unravel him, as it ate and ate. It had nearly succeeded once. He stepped across the hallway and closed the door to the stairway leading to the well. He didn’t want to think about what Nadya had done.
The crunch of bones underneath his boots was loud as he followed a hall to the sanctuary. He bypassed it, hoping to find a smaller room to hole up in until he felt warm.
Maybe he would never feel warm again.
It took time, stepping through rotting plants and brittle bones, to find the room that would have housed the caretaker of the church. There was an oven in the corner. Malachiasz filled it with shattered bits of furniture and reached for his spell book. It wasn’t at his hip. Neither was the dagger he’d carried for years. Frustration and anxiety and blistering fear overcame him all at once and he thudded heavily to the ground, squeezing his eyes shut. He let out a long, shuddering breath.
He buried his face in his hands and tried not to bring back the voice. He suspected the being was always there, watching. Waiting to overwhelm him further. Forcing his eyes closed did little, a cluster of them opening on his hand and disorienting him.
When he had snapped past the mortal bonds tying him to this realm of reality, a lot had been made clear that had been taken by the Vultures. Things he had lost. Was any of it real?
He remembered the boy with the scar on his eye. And dragging books into the boy’s room after a failed assassination attempt. Spending his days wandering the palace until the boy pulled him back to lessons.
His brother.
Serefin. His murderer.
Family was something Malachiasz had yearned for but now wished to forget. Better to have the false family he had built for himself to replace the one wrenched away. Reconciling this was too difficult.
His time in the forest was hazy. It had clawed at him long before they’d reached Tzanelivki. The moment they left the monastery and moved into Dozvlatovya, it began its assault, wanting to devour him. Serefin had been distant as they traveled through the forest, constantly taken by fits, his eyes bleeding. And if he—or Nadya—had shown signs of malicious intent, Malachiasz was too distracted to notice.
Copyright © 2021 by Emily A. Duncan
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