“I made a proper mess of things! If he truly represents a modern Gaulish gentleman, then they ought to do away with dancing at balls. Instead we shall sit on the floor and do ledgers, and remark on each other’s inadequacies.” Anya leaned back, letting the tubwater wash over her. To her shock, the house’s hot water came directly from pipes in the walls, and Renee swore no arts were involved.
“He was stressed from the disaster with the draugr, and hardly his best self. Give him time to warm up to you, dearie,” Renee replied, running a comb through Anya’s ear.
Three weeks had passed since the ritual, and Anya could now make a full turn around the garden without assistance. She had seen no more of Yvon, and Enkidu’s absence had grown into a dull sliver in her soul.
“Speaking of balls, I don’t see why you’re so defeatist about Hallowtide. You have a fine figure and a cute face, and that’s all the men see in any case. Just need to learn the new dances.”
“In Rus, my sisters said I danced like a drunken walrus.”
“Your sisters are a thousand miles away, and you have the hand of a Marquis!” Renee climbed into the tub, curling her sinuous body at its other end as she kneaded a sweet-smelling oil into Anya’s fur.
“I can do this myself, you know.”
“Shh, this is the fun part of my job. Just like washing my baby brother, St. Don bless his heart.” Renee pinched Anya’s cheek, and laughed as Anya felt a blush make its way across her face.
After the bath, Renee chose a floral perfume to mask Anya’s scent, and fitted her into a loose moon-patterned dress. There was a knock on the, and Renee stepped out for a moment to receive a message.
“Anna! Sofia wants to meet you!”
Anya froze. It was as if a heavy weight had been thrust onto her chest.
“Come on! She hardly ever grants invitations to her personal chambers.”
“Renee. What should I say? Do you think she detests me? For intruding on her on Yvon.”
Renee shrugged. “None of you asked for this consort business, so just open your heart and be honest. Always works in the chapbooks.”
She led Anya out into the steepled corridors of the house, passing a faded tapestry depicting a long-ago battle between two wolf clans, and a gilded painting of St. Culain slaying a draugr with a silver spear.
“Here we are! Good luck, dearie.”
Anya was thrust into a dim parlor. Almost every wall was covered in silk tapestries, and the sound of her footsteps was muffled into nothingness by a rich carpet. Around her, a dozen paintings stood on simple easels. The largest showed a family of goats in shimmering golden robes, standing amidst a tiered garden. The youngest, a girl of at most five years, was frozen in the act of wrapping blue flowers around her horns. The proportions of the painting were odd, with the family occupying only a small space beneath an immense sandstone arch and an ultramarine sky, and looking at it left Anya with a strange mix of comfort and melancholy.
“Do you like it?”
Anya’s tail flagged in surprise, and a woman stepped from the shadows. Her voice was like a knife hidden in velvet.
“Oh.”
The woman was a goat, but tall and thin, almost as tall as Yvon, and her polished horns rose from her head in exquisite spirals. She wore simple, flowing robes dyed in deep blues and purples, and fresh vines with hundreds of tiny pink flowers were wrapped around her horns. Somehow, Anya knew the woman was the girl from the painting.
“I am glad we may meet under more favorable circumstances, Anna Vasilyev. I am Sofia Augusta of Nicaea. Please, allow me to embrace you.”
“You…I…am also, um, glad.” Was she to be interrogated again? Anya vaguely recalled that Nicaea was a wealthy maritime kingdom far to the south.
The woman stepped further into the light, and Anya realized she was stunningly beautiful. Her close-cut fur faded from charcoal to rich brown across her face, and her rounded face possessed a near-perfect harmony of form. Only her large black eyes seemed out of place - like twin lakes, hiding unknown depths beneath a placid surface.
“Safak, please grant us privacy,” she said, and Anya started as a small brown-headed jay in a butler’s uniform stepped out from behind a painting. He bowed and stalked away with uncanny quiet.
Sofia knelt down, leaning in to kiss Anya’s cheek. Her perfume smelled of pine, and Anya felt a gentle warmth begin to blossom in her chest.
“Do you remember killing the draugr? You laughed, even as rivers of blood poured down your face.”
“I’m so sorry, I don’t-”
“It was an exceptional performance, delivered with utmost conviction. None of us could take our eyes off you.”
She kissed Anya’s other cheek and stood, her lips curving into a cryptic half-smile.
“Your demon is named Enkidu, is ‘he’ not? An old, wild draugr, last recorded in the Vasilyev bloodline seven generations ago. The crimson-horned beast that devastated the fields of Soltsy.” Sofia’s eyes remained distant, but Anya increasingly felt that something behind those eyes had fixed its hungry gaze on her.
“Did you dig his name out of my skull?”
“Only a small detour to sate my curiosity. I am glad to see your jaw is fully recovered.” She beckoned Anya over to a heavy wooden table in the corner of the room. It was set for tea, and held a platter of pastries made from nuts and layers of thin dough. A small oil lamp burned brightly.
“I understand tea is quite popular in Rus, even if it remains an expensive novelty here in Gaul. Furthermore, this is yours. My husband may decree as he may beyond these doors, but I hope that we may meet as equals.” Sofia drew the rune-knife from her robes and slid it across the table. Anya snatched it up, sighing in relief as her arts-sense came back into focus.
Salutations. Nowhere was getting dreadfully boring without my favorite mortal pawn.
“The runes upon it. They are no language I know,” Sofia continued. “Can you read them?”
The goat has a curious arts signature. Where have I seen it before?
“No. Supposedly Fyodor the Terrible made it from the iron in the blood of sixty prisoners, but I’ve seen runes like these on old barrows. I think the knife is far older than Rus.”
“Interesting. And how did it come into your possession?” Sofia half-smiled. Her fingers idly rapped a pattern on the table.
“When I was eleven, I was playing in the garden with one of my imaginary friends.” Part of Anya’s brain was screaming at her to stop talking before she further embarrassed herself, but she couldn’t keep the words in. If this was the goat’s arts, she was subtle. “There was a bird that must have struck a window, because it was struggling on the ground with a broken wing. I felt sad, so my friend told me he could show me how to fix it. I could feel the parts that were broken, and he told me to bite my tongue and press my blood into the wound.”
“Were you successful?”
“I ran into the palace with it. By that point, it, um, it wasn’t a bird any more. My mother vomited when she saw it, and had the court magi take me away to burn it. The next day, I was given the knife to see if it reacted to me, and I met Enkidu.”
Sofia intertwined her fingers and leaned in. “I began to hear others’ thoughts at around fourteen, although my mother had warned me. My body had just begun to change, and to be privy to the minds of the men around me was often quite disturbing. I withdrew from court for several years.”
“I thought mental arts didn’t exist any more.”
“Not in Gaul, perhaps, as long as there is fuel for the stakes. And not in Nicaea, until my father spent a king’s ransom for a foreign princess and her unusual talents. Here, my arts remain a Clary secret.” Anya thought she saw something flicker across Sofia’s face - anger? Then it was gone, and Sofia’s expression was as a windless lake.
Oh. You FUCKER.
Anya, I remembered. Her draugr is dangerous. Do NOT let your guard down.
Enkidu’s vast form shivered, and for the first time in her life, the emotion Anya felt from him was fear.
“By the by, I encountered something odd inside your memories. A gap of about six months, where the fabric of memory broke into scattered threads. I only caught a single image: you, in a wedding gown, standing across an altar from a young man I did not recognize. It seemed unnecessary to prove your innocence, but I wish to know if you-”
She means…
A burning sensation began to grow in Anya’s chest, coiling tightly around her heart and lungs as her mind wrapped itself in tighter and tighter spirals. She knew this sensation, had spent the better part of a year trying to never feel it again.
She wants me to think about it. So she can pluck it out of my head.
Clammy hands, ripping fur from her body.
Don’t think about it!
Kneeling on the stone floor. Hands stained crimson.
“-Anna. Anna!”
The visions fell away, just as she felt something slippery vacate her mind. Sofia’s hand was firm on her shoulder, and Anya squeaked as she saw the goat’s eyes had gone wide and bloodshot. She leaned against the table and slowly gasped for air.
“I should…not have attempted to dig so deep, little rabbit. Whatever lies in your past, bury it. You have no need of such things here.”
Anya wanted to scream at the goat for her cruelty, or bring Enkidu to bear, but there was something pathetic in the goat’s eyes.
“Will you tell Yvon?”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Sofia looked down, as if making a mental calculation.
“I have no reason to.”
“Please.”
The main door creaked behind them. A somewhat disheveled serving-maid rat, holding another pot of boiling water. She wore a necklace with pendant in the form of a bee - a saint-symbol, although not one that Anya recognized.
“I think I should go.” Anya made to rise, but a hoof pinned her paw under the table. Sofia leaned over, lifting the empty teapot to Anya’s cup.
“Sit down. Act as if nothing is wrong,” she whispered.
“Good morning, Mirabel. I pray your father has returned to good health?”
The maid slowly nodded as she approached the table. There was something wrong with her gait - an injury on one side of her torso?
A minute buzzing began. Anya looked down, and saw that a hornet had crawled out from under the maid’s cuff. It circled the table before alighting on the pastries.
“Mirabel, are you in good health? If you need to rest, I can easily find a replacement.”
The maid nodded again, stumbling, and another hornet was dislodged from her neck-fur. It hovered, seeming to taste the air, and landed just next to Sofia’s hand.
“I am truly, truly sorry.” Sofia leapt to her feet, smashing the oil lamp against the maid’s face. Flames burst from the glass, and a grinding buzz filled the room. Anya tried to bring her knife to her finger, but found herself frozen in place. Then Sofia’s body collided with her own, flinging them both into a tapestry behind the table. It ripped from its fittings and fell, covering them almost completely.
“Your arts!” Sofia said.
The moment Anya pricked her finger, she felt it. Dozens of motes of unlife, filling the air and crawling on the other side of the fabric. They had the grave-scent of a draugr, but possessed only a rudimentary collective will.
“Can you kill it?”
“It’s spread over what feels like insects. The physiology is different from what I’m used to, and it’s hard to keep a lock on something so-” Only blood magi with truly aberrant minds mastered insects. And if she failed, Sofia would…
“St. Iseult be damned.” Sofia grasped the knife-handle, her fingers interleaving with Anya’s as she pushed the blade into the rabbit’s shoulder. Enkidu’s presence solidified, and the pinpricks resolved into tiny, venom-bloated creatures. It was a hive, each member nurtured by a chain of older sisters until…there, the queen, its abdomen filled with spiraling rows of eggs. A machine for copying itself into the world.
“Enkidu, follow the path I traced. It’s tight, so stay steady. Work of life, be unmade.”
Enkidu’s claws arced through the air, and one by one the insects began to fall silent. The hive wavered at each death, but it would not be enough. They were chewing at the tapestry now, buzzing just above her ears, and their stingers would need only the slightest opening…
Another life force burst into the room, and the swarm wavered, as if cut off from whatever sustained it. There was a wet thud, and Enkidu’s miasma surged through the remainder of the hive. The infernal buzzing ceased.
“My lady.” The voice was gruff and masculine, and its owner carefully pulled back the now-ruined tapestry. It was the bird from earlier, and the glint of chainmail was visible where his uniform had come undone. He held a dagger, its blade dripping black ichor.
He met her gaze, and Anya was immediately conscious of the fact she was still pinned down by Sofia. She could hardly move her legs, and Sofia’s diaphram flattened her bosom with every shallow. Warm blood pooled between them and dripped onto her face. He saw it, and trained the sword on her neck.
“She didn’t do it. We need to examine…yok ebesinin nikahı.” Sofia froze. The maid was splayed on the floor, her head cleanly separated from her body. A hole in her clothing revealed a cluster of neatly arranged hexagonal cavities dug into swollen red flesh, each filled with an engorged, squirming grub. Anya felt Enkidu shiver.
Kill it.
The bird brought his claw down, and the hive collapsed with a paper-like crunch. The maid’s body released a spurt of ichor, and Sofia vomited. Anya made a silent prayer to St. Georgei.
“Is it a draugr?” the feline asked. His accent was much harsher than Sofia’s.
“It looks like a partial manifestation. The wasps were a vehicle for some kind of draugr.”
“Her mind was hollowed out,” Sofia said. “Only a sliver of consciousness remained, and she experienced no pain. Her death was a mercy.”
She slowly inhaled, and continued.“We can request an appraisal from the Royal Institute. For now, lock down the house and make arrangements to examine the servants. Then send someone to find the maid’s father. I will explain the situation to Yvon. Anna, come with me.”
They left through the back door. It led to a narrow, nearly lightless corridor. There were peepholes set into the walls at regular intervals.
“Have you seen arts of that form before?” Sofia asked, her breath still heavy. “You did not appear shocked.”
“Never. But I’ve used all sorts of maggots and leeches, and seen more than enough infected wounds.”
“Once we find the culprit, I will have you burst every vein in their body and then…ah, never mind. For the moment, pay no heed to my words.”
They came to a door at the end of the corridor. Sofia leaned down and used her sleeve to wipe the blood from Anya’s face, then gently pried the knife from her shaking hands.
A flash of yellow on her wrist. A single hornet. Its antenna swept back and forth, searching for a place where the fur parted. In a way, it was beautiful, with an iridescent body and shimmering scales.
“Sofia!”
“Oh.” Sofia struck her wrist against the wall, leaving a tiny smear of viscera.
They stood still for what felt like an eternity, hair on end and ears straining at the slightest sound. Eventually, Sofia took Anya’s arm and pulled her through the door.
—
“Good morning, Anna.” Alain poked his head around the heavy door. He was dressed in full armor, although many of the straps had been left undone, and carried his sword in its scabbard.
It was around an hour since Sofia had left Anya in Yvon’s study. It was a large space, held up by wooden pillars that met in interlocking vaults. There was a balcony overlooking an overgrown garden and the manor’s oblong lake, a desk piled with orderly papers, and several bookshelves. Anya sat on a couch that was far too large for her, across from a tapestry showing a crowned wolf wreathed in sunbeams, surrounded by armed vassals.
“We’ve locked down the house, but there isn’t much we can do until the Royal Institute sends its magi over,” Alain said. He looked anxious, and kept slapping the floor with his tail. “Are you alright? I imagine it was terrifying.”
“The murderous wasps, or the mind-trawling goat?” Anya replied. Alain raised his eyebrows, evidently finding her comment in poor taste.
“I didn’t know Mirabel well, but she shouldn’t have been caught up in all this.” Alain looked guilty. “When you saw her, was she in pain?”
“There was hardly any life left in her. I doubt she was even conscious.”
“Someone will have to go into the slums to tell her family. A letter won’t do.”
A heavy pause. Alain made a saint-sign Anya didn’t recognize over his heart.
“Don’t you have better things to do than keep an eye on me?”
“Yvon’s orders. He and Sofia have Safak, but everyone in the house could still be in danger. Also, well, I’ve been been worried about you ever since the ritual.”
“Made it through the Peninsular War. I’ll find a way through this mess.” She offered a stiff half-smile.
Footsteps in the hallway, and then two people entered the room. A wolf in magus’ robes bedecked with military medals, his head covered in a black veil embroidered with symbolic eyes, and behind him an imperious black-wooled ram in a fitted doublet.
Alain jumped from the couch and knelt. “Sir Jean! I did not realize you had returned to the Institute. I take it you are here to aid-”
“I am here for the so-called consort. Out of the way.” His voice was guttural, and he brought his head forward, as if locking in on the beaver’s scent.
“Wait! Sofia has already established her innocence!”
“How convenient. Now, stop debasing yourself for a harem girl.” The wolf took a step forward, his gait long and prowling, and placed a hand on hilt of a shortsword that hung from his belt.
“I can’t let-”
The wolf revealed a fraction of the blade, and it seemed to suck up all illumination in the room before releasing a flash of brilliant sunlight. Anya’s vision whited out, and she heard a scream and a heavy thud. Then thick fingers were around her neck, slipping under her ribbon and its claim-seal to press down on her trachea.
The light faded into broken afterimages, and she found herself looking into the wolf’s veil-eyes. Alain was curled on the floor, his hands covering his face.
“Hmm. One would think that the esteemed Vadim III could offer more than a bloodstained doe.” The wolf chuckled, running a claw along the outline of her face and down the inside of her ear.
He must be blind.
“Raphael. The bindings.”
The ram moved behind her, roughly pulling her hands behind her back and wrapping them in silver chains.
“What are you doing?”
“You are under arrest for use of heretical arts, and suspicion of attempted murder against a marquis.”
“I have done nothing but use my meager talents to prevent further death, and the marquis in question would certainly agree.” The wolf’s scent, a mix of predator-musk and ash, clogged her nostrils.
“I fear my dear brother has allowed his lust to gallop upon his reason.” The wolf’s mouth contorted in disgust. “After your performance at the ritual, the draugr’s corpse was sent to the Institute for dissection. Each and every organ was riddled with malignant growths. Its stomach was filled with teeth, and when we cut open its brain we found it lined with eyes. Do you take pleasure in such acts of defilement? Take pride in the thoroughness of your corruption?”
“I had only a few moments before the beast removed my head. No time for precise work.” Anya shivered, remembering the feeling of the draugr’s body collapsing in on itself, failures cascading until no life was left. There was a certain manic satisfaction in such total annihilation.
“Jean! What are you doing?” There was a commotion at the doorway, and Yvon rushed into the room, Sofia holding on to his arm. He made for Alain, and lifted the beaver to his feet.
“Greetings, dear Yvon. It would seem your chambers have a rabbit infestation.” Jean pulled Anya up by the scruff of her neck, nearly spitting out the words.
“Let her go.” Yvon crouched as if to lunge, but Jean interposed Anya between them.
“Patience, brother. The rabbit arrives from a foreign land, once with which we were at war only three months ago, and suddenly every assassin in the country wishes to make your acquaintance.”
“Sofia already cleared her name, and you offer nothing but idle conjecture.”
“Oh, pardon me. I failed to account for the Nicaean princess’ infallible arts.” Jean took a step closer - while he was likely the same height as Yvon, his natural slouch put him several inches below his brother. “Tell me, do you bend the knee before joining her in bed?”
Yvon pulled his lips back and let out a deep growl.
“Now, Anna, to whose tune do you march?” Jean continued. “One of the old aristocratic families, upset that the Clarys have been allowed to rise so high through commerce? Or perhaps Vadim III wishes to remove a key financier of Gaul’s military?” Anya flinched at the mention of her father’s name.
“My arts are mine, and mine alone.” Anya’s heart began to beat faster, and Jean tightened his grip.
“Really? How many troublesome boyars did your father have you eliminate?”
“I would never let…let…” She tried to force the words out, but her throat was too tight. Knotted memories uncoiled from the edges of her mind. A bird that was no longer a bird. Her mother’s scream. Her father’s proud smile.
She strained around and sunk her incisors into Jean’s hand. He let go immediately, and she dodged the ram’s surprisingly quick hands to dash behind Yvon. Sofia put a protective hand on her head.
“Ack! When did you teach your little doxy to-”
“My wife was nearly murdered in her chambers, and all you have done is assault my knight, harass my consort, and bark at shadows! Do not disgrace this house with your presence! Get out!” Yvon growled.
In an instant, the wolves lunged forward, interlocking their arms and snapping at air mere inches from each other’s snouts. The tussle lasted perhaps three seconds, and Anya felt Sofia tense up.
They broke off, and Jean’s hand went to his sword. The ram quickly stepped forward, tapping Jean’s shoulder.
“Do not, master. None of them are worth it.”
“Get out, Jean. I will not repeat myself.”
“So you would reject the assistance of the Institute?”
“You have done more than enough. Now. Get. Out.”
“Very well, very well,” Jean replied, turning to go. “By the by, if you truly have faith in the rabbit, perhaps she can be of assistance. Her arts are gruesome, but first-rate.”
Dead silence, except for the sound of Jean’s and Raphael’s footsteps retreating down the hallway. Alain rubbed his eyes, and gave Anya a weak thumbs-up.
“Anna. Did he harm you?” Yvon asked.
“Just a sore neck.”
“Hmph. I call on the institute for assistance, and of course that venom-blooded scapegrace leaps at the opportunity to insult me. If the army did not have need of his arts, I tear off that ugly veil and add a few new deformities to his face.”
“Dear, pay him no mind. The other magi found no further threats within the house.” Sofia replied, lightly brushing Yvon’s cheek. She led him to the couch, and forced him to sit.
“And you!” Yvon turned to Anya, his eyes cold with fury. “Why on the name of St. Lear did you bite my brother? Do you have no purpose but to scorn the privileges I have afforded you, or are you a mindless beast in the guise of a woman? Out with it!”
“Yvon. Enough.” Sofia sat next to her husband, and carefully wrapped her arms around his shoulders. To Anya’s surprise, the wolf deflated, as if all the tension had suddenly escaped his body.
“Yes. Of course.” Yvon exhaled deeply.
“You plan to personally lead an investigation, correct?”
“They went after you!” Anya thought that Yvon would begin crying, but he shook his head and regained his composure. “I will go mad if I am forced to wait within this house while others seek the plot’s root. Do not try to persuade me otherwise.”
“I know when I am no match for your obstinacy. You shall go, and I shall bear the worry.”
“Um, Sofia?” Anya interjected. “If I may, I could assist Yvon. I can heal, or hurt people, even if I never did the latter for my father.”
“Unacceptable,” Yvon replied. “You will remain in the house, where you will be safe, and where your unique magnetism for catastrophe will not create further problems.”
“Anna, from what source does this interest originate?” Sofia asked.
“If my father is involved, I can’t stand idly by.”
Sofia tilted her head and let out a hint of a smile. “A passable performance, but that is not the true reason, is it?”
Anya sighed. “My arts are my only gift. Without them, I am nothing.”
“Yvon, if she wants to be useful, let her. Her arts are much better suited to danger than my own, and come at far lower a cost. Besides, it will be challenging for her to bear an heir if you are dead.”
Something seemed to flash behind Sofia’s eyes…pity? And then it was gone, and her visage was as still water.