Switching out the monastery’s incense with lemongrass, or snipping the sanctuary’s candlewicks.

His pranks, conjured from a mixture of boredom and delirium after early morning prayers, had been innocent at first. Nadya stabbed her knife into yet another potato as she glanced at him. “Nadya,” Konstantin whispered, “I’m serious.” He was rumored to be an extremely powerful blood mage, one of the most terrifying in all of Tranavia, a land rife with heretics. She tried to be glib, but the idea of the High Prince anywhere near the monastery made her shiver. Perhaps it’s their High Prince and he’s finally decided to convert.” “What could it possibly be? The Tranavians at our doorstep? They have seven thousand stairs to climb first. She received a withering look in response. “Is it our impending death by potato avalanche? I can’t hear it, but I’m certain it’s coming.” If he was trying to distract her, it wasn’t going to work. There was nothing but the service upstairs. His paring knife hung limp in his fingers as he listened. “Did you hear that?” Konstantin acted like she hadn’t spoken. She hadn’t anticipated losing her entire day to remedial labor, yet here she was. The table was covered in potato peel spirals. Now go wither in the cellars for the rest of your life, Nadezhda.” “You could change the tide of the war, Nadezhda. “A cleric’s duty is important, Nadezhda,” she muttered, mimicking the dour tone of the monastery’s abbot. She twisted her knife hard against the one in her hand, narrowly missing skin as she curled the peel into a spiral. Nadezhda Lapteva glared up at the mountain of potatoes threatening to avalanche down over the table. It was late afternoon, just before Vespers, a time where psalms to the gods were given up in an effortless chorus. The calming echo of a holy chant filtered down from the sanctuary and into the cellars. She can grant any spell to those she has blessed, her reach is the fabric of magic itself.

She is constant she is unrelenting she is eternal. A bitter cycle that Marzenya spins with crimson threads around pale fingers.

Wicked saints a novel