“Adonais is good, my little one. You should have seen them! Our Vasylli went war-mad. They stormed those… whatever-they-call-themselves. Those pigs never expected the mad charge. A hundred of our best men. They fell on the enemy’s thousands like bees. Dubían they brought back. Yes, it was at great cost. We lost many, but the enemy lost more.”

Sabíana swelled with pride, and the tears gathered. She held them back. “How brave Dubían was. He never cried out. Not once! Though the pain must have been terrible. His wounds…”

“Mmmm. Yes. I washed him, you know, ducky. His face. You should have seen his face. Well, I’m sure you will. You were never one to shrink from death.”

“How could I? Mother died so young…” Her poor father. How he must be suffering Dubían’s loss. “Nanny, how is the Dar?”

The old woman’s breathing became erratic, and a sob escaped.

“Oioioi,” she keened, “my Dar, my wonderful Dar. He would not be so badly off if Dubían wasn’t killed. He can’t ask him—”

“About Voran and Mirnían,” Sabíana finished for her. “I must see him, Nanny. Get me my housedress. The green one.” She swooped into action, every movement of her body pushing the dangerous thoughts about Voran further away from her mind. The old woman, well-versed in the behavior of the Dar’s family, stopped chattering and hurried to be useful. She dressed Sabíana calmly, with firm, quick hands. Sabíana was grateful for it.

“No. First show me the fallen warrior,” said Sabíana as they left her bedroom. She would not use his name. To name him would be to personalize him. No more. She must become stone.

He lay in a vaulted room with high ceilings. As in the Dumar’s council room, decorating each corner of the room was a tree carved of stone. The air shimmered gold from the many candles surrounding his bier, which stood like an altar in the center of the room. Dubían was arrayed in ancient robes over golden scale-mail. The candlelight ricocheted off his helmet and greaves. His red beard looked almost bloody next to his white face, yet he smiled slightly. He looked so young. The few lines that etched his forehead in life were smoothed away by the hand of death.

Sabíana dismissed Nanny. She had a sudden urge to pull aside Dubían’s armor, to see the wounds for herself, to understand the nature of their enemy, but his face stopped her. He was so peaceful. Where was Dubían now? Was his spirit still living? Had it flown away somewhere? Why did his body appear still so vigorous, even in death? It looked like he would open his eyes at any moment and sit up to speak to her.

The candles flared, becoming impossibly bright. Their light rose like a wave, no longer gold, but pure, blinding white. Voices, faint and ethereal. The sound of wind whistling through reeds. The voices arranged into harmony, at first simple, then growing in complexity until it was like a river bearing down on her, like the rush of wind through heath, like the pounding of the sea on stones. Sabíana fell to her knees.

Three Sirin sat over the dead warrior’s body and sang. The first—her wings green as the forest—cried tears of fiery joy. The second—her wings like living sapphire and amethyst—cried tears of inconsolable pain. The third—her wings dark indigo like twilight—did not cry, her face grave and reverent. They took Dubían’s body with their talons and unfurled their wings, raising him gently, rocking him like a mother would a child. The colors of the gem-feathers burned from within, until they were flames engulfing his body. Sabíana’s eyes watered with the pain of looking at this light—so much brighter than the sun—and she was forced to turn away. From the corner of her vision, it seemed to her that Dubían opened his eyes and gasped for breath, but when she turned back to look, they were all gone. The world seemed grey and faded in their absence.

Hag: a shape-shifter of dubious loyalties. She may or may not be immortal.

Leshy: a spirit of the forest, Alkonist. Sometimes goes by the name “Lesnik.”

Rusalka: the unquiet soul of a drowned girl. Likes to tickle young men to death.

Bukavach: a six-legged amphibious monster with a taste for human flesh.

Vila: also known as “rain maidens.” They feed off the powers of others.

The Storyteller: a large cat with an inordinate love for fairy tales. Alkonist.

Alkonist: a general label indicating any creature of authority in the Lows of Aer

From “A Bestiary of Vasyllia”

(Old Tales, Book II)

Chapter 17

An Ordeal of Stories

“Breakfast time, my darling Voran.”

It was the girl’s voice, not the hag’s. He dusted the night’s snow off his filthy rag-blanket. When will she tire of this game?

As usual, he was surprised he slept at all. Every night, as he lay down on the brown straw near the outhouse, he hoped he would simply freeze to death. Every morning he woke up, aching and miserable, but very much alive.

This morning, like all mornings, the smells coming from the lopsided hut were obscenely delicious. His eyes confirmed the promise of his nose—the table was littered with thick, buttery pancakes, stuffed chicken and pike, pickled tomatoes and cucumbers. He groaned slightly. The girl—her red hair a gorgeous mess framing her pale beauty—laughed a little as she blushed. He almost laughed himself. She was so obvious in her attempts to force the information out of him.

“All this I prepared for you,” she whispered. “You do not know how hurt I am that you never eat. Please, I beg you, join me today. You must be very hungry.”

He sat down next to her, compelled by that invisible string binding him to her will. She took a pancake, doused it in butter, slathered it with red caviar fit to burst, adorned it with dill and parsley. Then she lifted it to his nose. The smell was overwhelming.

Voran turned his face away, though it took a great deal of effort to do so.

“Why do you do this to yourself, Voran? All you have to do is tell me. Simple. A few words. What do you seek in the Lows of Aer? Then all this food is yours. And so much more.” She leered at him, and he nearly vomited again.

It took all his remaining strength—little as there was— to croak out his daily answer to her pleas: “I would sooner gnaw on that table than eat what food is on it.”

“Get out, pig!” The hag had returned, brandishing a clawed fist. Voran scurried out of the hut—his stomach reluctantly groaning—the hag after him, now wielding the pestle-club. She contented herself to a mere three blows this morning. Must be tiring of me, he thought, and did not know whether to be relieved or afraid.

This was their monotonous routine, their eternal courtship. After withstanding the temptation of food, he experienced a certain reawakening of his heart. He tried to inflame his hatred, hoping it would give him enough resistance to break the hag’s power. But the moment he began to gather strength from such thoughts, as if by enchantment his fall with the maiden-hag flashed on his memory, and he stewed in his guilt, trying not to think of Sabíana.

This morning, he was so overwhelmed by despair that he searched for large stones to dash his head against. But the moment that he bent over to pick a particularly jagged rock, total apathy was thrust on him, leaving him powerless. Again, he fumed in impotent anger, and the cycle repeated itself endlessly, until he merely fell over from exhaustion.

That internal war was far worse that the degrading tasks she forced on him—cleaning after her, washing her, dressing her, mending her clothes. Soon, time blurred into a single unending day of drudgery.

“The outhouse needs scrubbing,” she growled at him, her hands twitching on the handle of the pestle.

His legs felt more like lumpy rocks than usual, and he rose—too slowly for her tastes, as the pestle-club reminded him—to do her bidding.

To his surprise, Voran heard the unmistakable, and very unexpected, sound of a human voice. A man’s voice, apparently speaking nonsense over and over again. Soon some semblance of words reached Voran’s ears.

“Broken windows, broken heart

All beyond your feeble art.

Strong you are, but wise are not

If you think to hide your thought

To force that Raven Son to speak

Better drown him in a creek!

Too late! The Lows are here to call

Your naughty actions to account.

If you lose, the cursed goes free,

And his care will come to me.”

The speaker was an old man with a curly, matted black beard unevenly streaked with grey. His head was a shock of tangled white bursting from under a woven black cap. His face was remarkably free of wrinkles, his eyes innocent and childlike. He wore a nondescript grey robe, and rough shoes woven from tree bark peeked out from the tattered hem. He held a dark wooden staff with a crooked crossbar on top. As he approached the hag, he placed his hands on the crossbar. A kestrel appeared out of nowhere and sat on his head.