The fires gnawed at the edges of Belnopyl like starving beasts. Even from within the darkness of her chambers, Vasilisa saw them in her mind's eye.
The visions of the flames unraveled like string, each thread fraying apart into a thousand possibilities - and each thread seeming only to spiral into darkness and ruin. She tried to sharpen her mind, to sift through the many to find the few strings that might lead to hope, but the more she tried, the further the visions eluded her, even with her mother's helping hands to guide her. And both within and without, her city crumbled.
Her mother sat beside her. The more strength she gave to help her daughter, the more she surrendered of herself to the curse eating away at her form. The withering was nearly complete - her mother’s fingers had long crumbled away into dust, along with her eyes, leaving only two hollows with the barest flickers of consciousness behind them. Her mother said nothing, her strength as feeble as it was, Vasilisa was unsure whether she even could speak, but all the same she could feel her mother’s gaze on her—the press towards that terrible decision yet unmade. She was only grasping at bare threads now, both of them knew. Yet in her heart of hearts...
“Time is thinning,” Khariija whispered at last, her chest lifting as her mind returned to her own body again. “You know this, my daughter. Have you seen the streets? Come dawn, they will run with red, or with gold. Choose now which color they will remember.”
The Grand Princess didn’t respond. She stood up from her own seat and pressed her hands to the windowpane, fingers splayed against the cold glass. Bodies were twisting and turning - there were hundreds of them now, hanging from the lampposts, the rafters of gutted buildings. Heads hung low as if in prayer, as if in mourning. And below them, the fires twisted and bled into the night sky, and she tried desperately to find the one thread of fate that would lead her through this moment without tearing her apart. But every path she followed turned into a noose.
The creak of an opening door tore through her trance. She turned to look, prepared to shout, to call for silence - until the sharp, curling scent of sulfur wafted into her chambers.
Yesugei.
The inky tangle of half-seen, half-parsed futures that were yet to be peeled away from her vision, melting away like snow. Time snapped back into the present with a clarity that eluded her for so long - and there he was, standing in the doorway. His dark hair was tangled with ash, his tunic torn, and beneath his tattered, burnt sleeves, his arms were cracked and scorched. The curse had consumed ever more. It curled over his flesh like blackened bark, thick with fractures that pulsed faintly with inner fire—the brand of the Apostle Alnayyir burned, brighter deeper than ever before. And yet, he was not in control - not yet - it was still the nomad princeling that stood before her, seeking of sulfur and sweat.
“Yesugei,” Vasilisa whispered, her voice heavy with exhaustion. The weight of a thousand years pressed on her shoulders - she did not realize she had been carrying it before, that heavy burden of the sleepless.
Beside her, Khariija leaned forward, her eyes sharp as knives. “How did you get in?” she asked, her voice carrying false strength her body could never hope to match. “The gates to the Great Hall are sealed. No one should be able—”
Yesugei stepped further into the room, dragging soot and shadow in his wake. “Have you forgotten, or did Vasilisa not tell you?” the nomad said, his lips curling into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I walked the Sacred Hollows too. I know the tunnels beneath this city just as well as your daughter. Perhaps it's good you were not told, else you might have blocked up that way too. Here-"
He reached into the folds of his ruined tunic and pulled out a small scroll, bound with white and gold wax. Vasilisa stared at it in disbelief, her mind instantly recognizing the seal. The Solarian - the only one of the dissident lords who remained outside the Great Hall, outside her grasp. She took the parchment from his hands, feeling the weight of it like a rod of iron.
She broke the wax, unrolled the parchment, and read.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Treachery...this is the final treachery. The trap closes around me now. The words before her eyes blurred and danced together, but their meaning remained clear.
“Vasilisa?”
They would butcher everyone. They would raze her city to the ground. They would hang anyone they deemed guilty for the riot. And for such treason, for such bloodshed, they sought her own seal. There was a small, blank spot, right next to the signatures of a few dozen other lords. Blind slaughter given legitimacy.
The Grand Princess’ hands trembled, and she forced herself to read the words again and again, praying she could find some other meaning, for some thread of salvation hidden cunningly between the lines. But none lay there. No, this was the final trap. The noise that lay at the end of those paths she had so desperately parsed. The end that could not be.
“Vasilisa?”
Yesugei’s voice broke through the buzz of importance that shrouded her thoughts. "They are already gathering. The Solarian has said his men will march at dawn.”
She could hear her own breathing now, sharp and shallow - and something else, too. A heartbeat. But not hers. Not exactly.
With a loud gasp, Khariija rose to her feet, struggling to keep herself upright with her remaining hand planted firmly on the table between them. “Do it,” she whispered, her voice bared like a knife. “They have shown their hand. Now we show ours. Do it, my daughter. We cannot live this lie forever - please.”
Yesugei narrowed his eyes, his expression hardening. “This madness...” He turned toward Khariija. “This madness took root the moment you returned. Everything began to fray the moment you walked back into her life.”
Khariija hissed, her voice low and sharp as a blade. “Mind your tongue, princeling. Know your place.”
Yesugei stepped forward, and the chambers brightened with a dull woosh as flame burst forth from his arms, wreathing them in an orange glow. “I know my place,” he said, the flames flickering brighter. “I know my power, and I no longer fear you. This world is coming apart at the seams, and you’ve had as much of a hand in it as Jirghadai. Don't you see? You've played us all right into their hands, and down the bloodiest path. I know your place well - Vasilisa, she's a servant of the Harvest, like all the others! Please, do not listen to her!”
Vasilisa’s heart pounded in her chest, the echo of it growing louder, faster, until it filled her entire being.
She turned from them both, her decision made.
“I am tired.”
Khariija fell silent. Yesugei took a step back, his eyes narrowed as he looked at her, then at Khariija.
Without a word, Vasilisa walked to the balcony doors, her feet padding silently against the rich carpet. She pushed the doors open and stepped out onto the terrace.
The visions had been so clear. Below her, fires crawled through the streets like hungry serpents, and the night air trembled with the sounds of her people - screaming, killing, weeping, dying. The stench of charred wood and flesh drifted up.
This was her land. Her city. Her people.
But not her home.
You can never go home.
She could still hear those words—the ones that first haunted her when she tore a tooth of night from her heart to save him. The man she had loved, or at least the man she thought she had been capable of loving. But what had come of that love? It ebbed and flowed, returning and leaving like the tides, and it weighed her down even now. Yesugei, her love, her mercy, her burden. The same voice that whispered on his awakening sounded again, deep in the recesses of her mind.
You will never know home again.
A gust of wind cut through the balcony, sharp and bitter, sending a shiver down her spine. Vasilisa wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders for a moment, but the weight of it became unbearable. She shrugged it off, letting it fall to the stones in a heap. The cutting cold sent up goosebumps all along her skin, a furious shivering and chattering through her whole form - and yet she felt alive.
Her fingers rose to the golden necklace draped around her throat - the seven seals, each a talisman of the old gods. Seven false promises, seven burdens that dragged against her skin. The clasp came loose, and the chain slipped from her neck, clinking softly as it tumbled into the darkness below - the howling cries, the bloodshed. The screaming mass yearning for divinity.
One by one, she slid her rings from her fingers - gifts, debts, tokens of loyalty, all now meaningless. She cast them into the gloom without hesitation, their glitter swallowed by shadow.
This was her doing. And yet it wasn’t. It was the world - the way it had always been, the way it would always be if she worked by half-measures.
I reached, but not far enough. I reached for the clouds, when I should have reached for the stars.
She raised her head toward the night sky, where the stars gleamed through the smoke, silver-bright against the black. They shimmered like a thousand eyes, watching her. Whispering. Calling to her. For the first time, they spoke words she could understand.
"Vasilisa." Yesugei's voice drifted behind her. The messenger - and the message. The fragment she gave out of love for the world that hated her. She sensed him lingering at the threshold, but he drew no closer - out of fear of her, fear of what she was becoming. Fear of what she had already become.
“Oh god of mine,” Vasilisa whispered, her voice drifting upward to the heavens on the wind. “Oh Vraactan, my guiding star...”
She closed her eyes, listening to the stars hum in response, and cold clarity settled in her chest. She thought to ask Yesugei for forgiveness, but sensed she would not find any. Not for this.
Oh god of mine, oh guiding star above,
Accept my blood, my spirit, and my love.
Crush the wicked, purge the false,
And consume their hearts in my name.
The prayer left her lips in a murmur, half-chant, half-plea. The words floated upward to the heavens, light as embers carried on the wind. The stars shimmered brighter—whether in answer or warning, she could not tell.
"What are you doing?"
Yesugei's words brought her back to herself - no, they weighed her down, burdened her to the mortal world. She looked down, and saw she had climbed onto the parapet, her bare feet curling over the cold stone. Beneath her stretched the abyss of the city, a great void filled with fire and ruin whose depths seemed without end. The distant tolling of bells, the scream of the city, and the roar of fire consuming everything she loved.
"Vasilisa..." came the nomad princeling's voice. "Vasilisa...come down. This is not the way. Please."
“I am going to fly,” she whispered to herself, her breath shallow and uncertain. “Or die.”
The wind whipped her hair across her face, sharp as claws against her skin. She leaned forward, letting gravity tug her gently toward the precipice.
She turned her head, glancing at him over her shoulder. The wind tousled her dark hair across her face, but she didn’t brush it away. In the firelight spilling from the burning city below, the nomad princeling's face seemed twisted beyond recognition. The lines in his face made him seem many years older, harder - he would be a khan of khans in time, and yet now...only a king without a crown, without a people.
Her lips curled into a small, thin smile. At least there would be one of them whom fortune would make a king. Then she leaned back - tilting ever so slightly - just enough for the weight to pull her into the abyss.
Fly. Fly. Fly or-
Before the fall could take her, she heard him rush for her. Yesugei's hand shot out, and then she felt a searing pain as his claws latched onto her, biting deep into her flesh. It had all happened before. Dark claws, not ones of gold.
Vasilisa jerked to a violent, sudden halt. She looked down and saw her feet dangling perilously over the void as Yesugei clung to her arm with all his strength, his face twisted in panic.
"Don't do this!" he gasped, voice strained as he fought to pull her back.
Vasilisa dangled for a moment, her breath coming in ragged bursts. She met Yesugei’s terrified gaze - his black eyes filled with desperation - and she felt a cold tear run down her cheek.
"Let me go," she whispered, pleading. "Please, Yesugei. Let me fall."
"No." His voice was hoarse but resolute. "I can’t let you die."
A bitter laugh escaped her lips, broken and raw. "I’m already dead." Her voice cracked, and for a moment, something like relief flickered in her heart. "All I want now...is to fly."
She looked at him for a long, aching moment. Then, with a trembling hand, she reached up and took his wrist, feeling the pulsing warmth of his burnt flesh beneath her cold fingers.
"Forgive me," she whispered, her voice barely sounding over the wind. "Forgive me for what I have to say."
He stared at her, searching her face, not understanding. Never understanding. But then again, how could he?
"I hate you, Yesugei," she whispered, the words slipping free like poison. "I’ve always hated you. I never even knew why I saved you."
A shadow passed over his face, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Not now.
"My love for you...it was just the mad love of a girl. But that girl died beneath the Sacred Hollows." Her hold on his wrist tightened, and the nomad groaned as she felt bone beginning to crack beneath her inhuman strength. But still, he held on. "That girl is gone. And I am not her."
“Yesugei...” Her voice dropped to a low murmur, and the weight of the world pressed against it, vast and implacable. "Let me go. Please."
He shook his head frantically. Pain would not be enough - he would take all the pain in the world and still hang on, hang on to the vision of the woman he loved. You are not a princess, you are not even human. Speak with your real voice. Remember who you are.
A terrible sound filled the night—a roar of twisting iron and shattering glass, of groaning stone and the creak of ancient bones. It surged through the air, vast as the sky, cold and relentless as the void.
LET GO.
The nomad princeling cried out as the divine command slammed into him, ripping through his mind and body with the irresistible force of the divine - a command that struck to the primal core of the mind. His fingers spasmed, and his claws slipped from her flesh.
Then cold night swallowed her whole as she fell. Her arms spread wide like wings, her hair trailing behind her like a river of black silk. For a fleeting moment, she felt free - free of the city, free of the crown, free of the weight of everything.
She closed her eyes and waited to see if the stars would catch her.
***
“Where am I?”
“You are falling.”
“So, I jumped?”
“More of a tumble.”
“And what about you?”
“I do not wish to fall with you.”
"So it has always been you within this wretched heart."
“From the first time you opened your heart to me, and every moment since. The Chirlan you knew was a shadow, a corpse from the past who served his purpose to torment your mother - and to merge our spirits.”
“What happened to the original? He was alive once. I saw him smile. Those were your memories of him.”
“He perished. Slain by your mother, though in truth - slain by his own hand. He loved her - loved her so much that he could not bring himself to stop her sin against the Grand Design…but neither could he bring himself to live in shame. I see the twisting of his reflection in another…but that is something that has not yet come to pass.”
A silence stretched between them, vast and starless, like the moment between breaths.
“I thought I could save them.”
“And now?”
“Now...I am not so sure.”
“You sound disappointed. You hoped for something greater.”
“I hoped... I hoped they could crawl out of the pit we- you threw them into.”
“Would you call it so? The human spirit, a pit? It was my gift to them.”
"Some gift. Look what has come of it. Look what has come of this land, this madness. What great folly is this charge! To judge the whole wretched, beautiful human race? What folly - and what folly in me for thinking it would follow me on its own."
“So what is to come now?”
“Now...now I know. Men are beasts, same as any others, untamed and wild. They will not follow me into oblivion on their own. There can be mercy, but there must also be pain. And terror...damn it all.”
“You are tired.”
“I am. Tired of hoping. Tired of walking on eggshells and dancing about to the tune of men. Tired of being the princess of a land that will never call me its own. Mistress over nobles that despise me…”
A pause. Complete, total, deafening silence.
“And every step I take in the mortal world only seems to make things worse. And I see how I could have done things differently - and yet, I only ever see the same ending.”
The darkness curled around her like smoke, thick and cloying. God's presence slithered within it, weightless and vast. She could shed no tears, for she had no eyes.
“I only wanted to bring them paradise.”
“You are not the first.”
“And a princess can only do so much.” She paused, drawing a breath into lungs that stretched across the cosmos. A beating heart that thrummed in the glow of a thousand-thousand stars. “But a god...a god can do much more.”
“What of your hope, then?”
“I won’t let it go.”
“Perhaps, but it seems you've let go of yourself.”
“Yes.” She whispered, and her voice trembled, just slightly. “I cannot save both. I don’t have the strength left to hold on. Not to myself.”
“And you would have me take what remains?”
“You already have.” A bitter laugh slipped from her lips. “You were always with me, weren’t you? Always watching. You’ve seen what I’ve seen. So tell me, Vraactan...”
She hesitated, as if the question might break her. “Do you think they can be saved? In your heart of hearts? Will this nightmare ever end?”
The darkness stirred, like a ripple spreading across a still lake.
“It is not for me to say.”
“Then who?”
“You. Only you.”
Vasilisa's heart tightened, the weight of it unbearable. She reached out, searching in the space between spaces. But Vraactan was already gone. And she was alone.
She pulled in another breath into her lungs, tasting blood and ashes on her tongue. And terror. So much terror.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
***
Skrikk...skrikk...
The holy man let out a strangled gasp as he staggered down the alleyway, indistinguishable from the dozen others into which he had turned and fled - a labyrinth of trash and debris. In one hand he held the ax of the gods, and in the other, the wound in his side where the knife had slipped between his ribs. He left behind a trail of life essence, and the ax scraped loudly on the cobblestones as he dragged its ponderously heavy weight behind him.
Skrikk...skrikk...
How did it come to this? The plan had gone perfectly until the fires lit by the faithful seemed to take on a life of their own, and lurched out against the holy masses to burn them to ashes. All strength and fight left the holy man then, and all he could do was flee - flee right into the knife of some gutter rat who sprang out with a treacherous thrust in the chaos of the holy masses' rout. Now he was alone - all alone - and the voices of the gods no longer whispered to him. Why had they abandoned him? Why now, now at their greatest hour of need?
The Fangs of Simargl were torn to pieces in the granaries, their bodies hoisted high and paraded through the Three Sisters' street. The same had come of the Sun-Walkers of Xors - their leader's head had passed by the holy man atop a pike. The false idol’s men scoured every corner of the city, dragging out his brothers and sisters from cellars and alleyways, slaughtering them with the efficiency of butchers. There was no fight left. There was only survival—flee, hide, burrow into the city's guts like a worm until the sun rose again. If it ever rose again.
The holy man swayed as he reached the corner of the alley. He heard the patter of running footsteps too late, and nearly collided with another. The instinct of the damned flickered through his exhausted mind - no, he would not let them take him without a fight. He tried to lift his ax, but the haft which had once felt no heavier than a reed now felt like a stone in his hands.
A soot-streaked face stared back at him, wide-eyed and familiar.
“It’s you...” the woman raised her hands in a gesture of peace. Her dark braid lay limp over her shoulder, and the holy man recognized the green beads woven into it. She was one of the Earth-Mother’s flock, whose people were tasked with seizing the armory. The holy man let his arms drop, too tired to muster suspicion.
"Brother," she whispered, stepping closer. "I thought—" Her voice cracked. "I thought the gods would see us through. But I... I can't hear her anymore. The Earth-Mother...she's gone. Have you heard anything? Have you seen anything?"
The holy man shook his head, a bitter smile tugging at his cracked lips. "They've abandoned us. Or been disappointed. Perhaps today was not meant to be ours. Whatever's come to pass - it's only us now."
The woman swallowed hard, her hands trembling. "What do we do now?"
The holy man leaned heavily on his ax. "We hide. Until the riot dies, until the false idol's supporters lose their fervor." He glanced down the street and felt a stirring of distant memory as he looked upon the silhouettes of the buildings, the hanging signs. "There's a house near here. We’ll go to ground, wait for the fighting to stop. Then we'll join the masses that will turn out from their homes. Forget about the false idol - what matters is that enough of us survive to fight another day."
The woman nodded, brushing a tear from her soot-streaked cheek. A flicker of hope, dim as a guttering flame, passed between them. She moved closer, offering her arm to support him—and then the world shifted.
A shadow fell over the alley, vast and unnatural, as if the night itself had drawn closer. Darkness blanketed them both, smothering the flicker of torches from distant streets.
The woman’s breath hitched. “What—?”
The holy man looked up, and his breath left him in a single, trembling exhale.
The stars were gone.
Where the heavens had been, there now stretched an expanse of shifting, oily blackness - a surface slick as glass and alive with strange, flickering lights. Colors rippled across the surface, and in their ripplings the holy man discerned a pattern - in the blackness there were scales, giant ones, each larger than the roofs of the city below.
The air thickened with an unbearable pressure. Then the sky blinked.
A terrible, blinding light flooded the alley as a colossal eye opened, turning night into day with its golden radiance. The holy man staggered, raising a hand to shield his eyes. He saw it then—the vast eye, rimmed in gold, its slitted, cat-like pupil shifting slowly as it took in the city below. A monster, searching for its prey.
His heart stopped as the eye turned, searching—finding. Its gaze settled on the two figures huddled in the alley.
Pain exploded through the holy man’s skull, sharp as a knife driven into his brain. He clutched his head, gasping as if his mind were being peeled apart from the inside. Claws—thousands of tiny claws—raked against the inside of his skull, as if his brain had come alive and was trying to rip free from the prison of his body. The holy man collapsed to his knees, choking on his own breath.
Beside him, the woman writhed in the same torment, her face contorted in a rictus of pain. Then, abruptly, she stopped.
Her eyes snapped open, wide and wild. “I can hear them!” she cried, her voice shrill with ecstasy. “I can hear the gods! They are here! God is here!”
The holy man tried to respond, but the words curdled on his tongue.
The woman reached toward the heavens, tears streaming down her enraptured expression, as though she were reaching for the gods themselves. And in the next heartbeat, she was gone.
No scream, no sound. Just a dark splatter where she had stood, her body reduced to nothing. Blood, bone, and viscera smeared the cobblestones, her sticky clothes soaked in the mess like a butcher’s rags. Crushed - crushed like a bug beneath a giant, invisible hand. The hand of God.
The holy man stared at the remnants, terror and disbelief tearing his mind in two directions. And his own body refused to move, no matter how powerful the terror in his heart drove him to run.
The colossal eye shifted, fixing its gaze fully upon him now. Its brilliance swallowed him whole. Every thought, every memory, every shred of will dissolved beneath that stare. There was no escape—there was only god.
The holy man closed his eyes, his mind crumbling beneath the weight of divine presence.
And then, blessedly, mercifully, he knew no more.
***
By the flickering light of a candle, the lords of the realm planned how they would save Belnopyl from its own princess.
Tactics, the question of whether to scale the walls, flood through the open Gods’ Gate, or batter their way through all three gates with a ram - and of course, the question of reward.
Doubtless, the men would need to be compensated for their duty to the crown - the princess was said to still have a sizeable portion of the tithe that her father had collected from all their estates, and so some began to shout and complain that Vissarion should have included such in their petition. Others planned to take their reward from the heathens - before the riot, the reach of the Grand Princess' cult had spanned from gutter wretches all the way to the second sons of lesser boyars and disaffected druzhinniks, many of whom still had land and riches of their own. If the cult was to be broken, and their members hanged, then surely the faithful deserved their spoils?
But amidst all talk of spoils, tactics, and the occasional burst of righteous anger, boyar Svetlov nearly surrendered to sleep's heavy pull over his eyelids. When news of the fighting had first drifted over to his tent and the boyars began to gather, it had already been on the cusp of nightfall. Now, the night was at its deepest and blackest, and still there seemed no end in sight. It was said that men needed less sleep as they aged, and yet, Svetlov felt he only needed more
And Svetlov did consider himself old - he had just shy of fifty summers under his belt, and two of his sons were already men and warriors well and grown: one was the commander of a border garrison in the Clutchpurse Lord's domain, and the other was a druzhinnik in his father's own band - unbloodied, but brimming with promise and a good mind for tactics. It should have been Daniil sitting at the table, not himself, nodding off as he was.
Svetlov had almost completely fallen asleep when he felt a rough hand on his shoulder. The table had gone completely silent. Even the infernal flies ceased their buzzing.
"Gods...gods above..." came the hushed whisper.
Through the open flap of the meeting tent, the boyars all looked on in silent terror. Svetlov rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and then felt his heart go still at the sight.
At first, it looked like nothing more than a strangeness of the light - a large gathering of clouds over the city, perhaps. But the night was at its deepest and blackest, and when the clouds stirred and slithered, then it was beyond doubt. A serpent uncoiled itself from the sky, hovering over the city, it's head dipping in and out of the clouds as it twisted and turned. And it's eyes...two eyes flared golden light that could be seen from miles around, like the fires of the lighthouses on the Shivering Sea. The terrible golden stare blazed down upon the city, like rays from the very heavens themselves, and below it the city had fallen utterly silent.
"Gods burst my fucking guts," growled one boyar. "A demon. A fucking demon. She's summoned it, hasn't she? The stories were true, they ALL were true..."
"What's going on?!" shouted another. "This can't be happening!"
"What- what do we do?"
"She means to kill us all, you damned dolts!" shouted boyar Mstislav - Svetlov turned to see he was shivering, his face bloodless and pale. "Leave! Run while you can!"
"You will do no such thing!" The shout and scrape of a chair nearly set some boyars running. Vissarion stood to his feet, his expression a stone mask.
"Are you all a bunch of frightened spinsters, talking of magic and demons?" Vissarion roared, sweeping his gaze over the others in their seats. "Are you not men of reason? Of action? If that beast is no illusion, if it is a thing of heathen magic, do any of you think it can be outrun? Do you think your horses will carry you faster than that monster?"
The question hung in the air. Mstislav did not move, rooted in place by Vissarion's angry stare. Svetlov realized his hand had strayed to the seal around his neck - a small thunder wheel, carved from the wood of a dead Elder Oak, the symbol of Perun. The Grand Princess and her cult had never been so great if a concern, not to Svetlov at least, who counted his domain thankfully distant from the capital and its developments.
He thought of his eldest, Mikaylo, probably walking about the walls of the border fort overlooking Merinsk. He thought of Daniil. He thought of his wife Darina, plump and jolly with age - she would be asleep at this hour already. Distance had always protected them from the executions, the intrigue, and madness of royal courts and their ways. Distance would not protect them this time, not from the beast roiling above the city.
If it could not be tamed, then it needed to die.
"So be it!" Svetlov growled as he stood to his feet. "If death comes all the same, I'd rather meet it with my feet on the earth of my ancestors, and a sword in my hand! And who are we, to let a Solarian talk to us of faith, my lords? I will stand here, come what may."
A small murmur of assent rippled through the ranks of his peers. Eyes flicked to and fro, like sheep watching each other to see who would step forward first. Ostromir, another old hand from before the days of the Khormchak yoke, stood up, his hand on the pommel of his sword. Then Dvorimir, Borislav, Radomir - and soon, half the lords of the realm were on their feet, their faces etched with the determination of men doomed to die.
As they went out, Vissarion clapped Svetlov on the shoulder. "Good man."
When Svetlov left the tent, he felt the cold night air like a slap across the face. The others were already gathering their men, shouting orders, rousing up their druzhinniks from sleep or drink. All round there rose up the clatter of arms and armor, shouts of command, runners and retainers scurrying every which way carrying their masters' orders and arms. As Svetlov began to head to his own tent, he saw Daniil running towards him from across the camp, bearing his father's sword and helm.
When the boy reached him, Svetlov saw in his eyes the wonder of the young - and the terror of one who had never seen battle. His son's eyes darted from his father's face to the great, roiling serpent above the city as he handed Svetlov his sword, and set about helping him buckle on his helm, his fingers trembling.
Svetlov took hold of his sword and pulled it free. The blade's familiar hiss set him at ease as he drew it - sharp, solid, true. It had served his own father and his father's father before, and now it would serve him. Now, mine...and then...
He looked at Daniil, his jaw set tight. "Son, listen to me," he spoke, each word measured carefully against the maddening buzz of the coming battle. "That...thing...it is a demon, you understand? The Grand Princess summoned it, more like than not, or one of her heathen courtiers."
"The Grand Princess?" Daniil said in a hushed tone, his eyes flicking back to the serpent as it gazed about the field. The golden glow washed over the camp for a brief moment, and the gathering armies outside the city's walls shone like a river of light.
"Yes, Her Majesty," Svetlov said, his lips set in a grim smile. "And I doubt she means us any good. We'll ride out to meet her, see if we cannot talk sense into her."
"And if you cannot?" Daniil replied. There was almost a childlike questioning in that tone - he was a man grown and brave, yet all Svetlov could see was the young boy who cried when his older brother stole away with his toys, or beat him in sparring with wooden swords. He still has so much do so, to see, to love.
Svetlov placed a hand on his son’s shoulder, giving him a gentle squeeze. “Then she and the serpent will die,” he said, “or we will.”
Daniil swallowed hard. For a moment, it seemed he would accept his father’s words without argument. But then his son stubbornly jutted out his jaw, and the resolve of youth hardened his features. “Then I will ride with you, Father.”
“You will not be there to see anything.” Svetlov’s voice was quiet, but there was no mistaking the command in it. He gripped Daniil’s arm tightly. “Listen to me, boy. You are to take a horse - take any one you can find, in this madness it won’t be hard - and make for Nyatkinsk.”
Their town, barely deserving of the title, lay a day's ride to the west, just bordering the pasturelands of the Widow and her kin. With a swift rider and knowledge of the trails, Svetlov had managed to make the journey in half a day when he was young, and still able to catch sleep in the saddle.
His son's eyes widened in surprise. "What! No! No!"
"Yes," Svetlov replied, his expression growing grimmer by the second. "Once you get there, take your mother, any treasures and jewels you can carry, and bring Foma with you. Then ride as fast and hard as you can for Merinsk. Your brother is stationed near Belotyevak - find him there, and then head for Kovrovsk."
"You want us to run?"
"I want you to live, boy!"
Daniil shook his head, impetuousness bubbling up to the surface. "No, I won't run! I am of your druzhina, father! My duty is to stand and die by your side, not run with my tail between my legs!"
Svetlov's open hand cracked across Daniil's face. The boy staggered, but did not fall. When he looked back up at his father, his face was red with embarrassment, and trembling with unshed tears.
"The duty of a son comes before the duty of the druzhinnik," Svetlov barked. "And the duty of a son is to live. That comes before any other oath or blade. Now go - go while you can!"
Daniil’s nostrils flared. For a dreadful moment, it seemed his son might refuse. But then Daniil nodded - dropping his head low with despair.
The boyar allowed himself one fleeting moment to soften. He pulled Daniil into a quick embrace, one arm wrapping around his shoulder.
“Go now,” Svetlov whispered, pulling back. “Ride hard and don’t look back.”
Daniil wiped his face with the back of his hand and nodded again, swallowing the lump in his throat. Without another word, he turned on his heel and sprinted toward the rows of tethered horses at the edge of the camp, shoving past a squad of pikemen as their captain roared for them to join the growing ranks of men at the front. Other sons, other fathers, other brothers went on proudly, and already a chant of "Kill the serpent!" was rippling through the packed crowd. Other sons, other fathers, other brothers all went on to die.
Svetlov took a deep breath, then looked out towards his own pavilion. “Efim!” he shouted, his voice cutting through the clamor of the camp.
His senior druzhinnik - a stoop-shouldered swordhand older than his master, with a face like beaten leather - appeared almost immediately, leading Svetlov’s horse by the reins. “Ready, m’ lord. All of us."
Svetlov swung himself up into the saddle, as he had hundred times before. He adjusted his grip on the reins, feeling the leather creak beneath his gloves. He looked out to the black trident and oak waving in the distance, and beneath his banners, his druzhina. A dozen armed and armored cavalry - among the realm's finest horsemen - backed by half a hundred pikes and crossbows, all gathered beneath the flapping silk.
“Where to, m' lord?” Efim asked, his grizzled expression unreadable beneath the flickering torchlight.
"Where the danger is greatest."
"As always, m' lord.” replied Efim with a smile.
The sword gave a high metallic ring as Svetlov ripped it free from the battered sheath. "Forward! With me!"
The cry of “Hurrah!” carried them to the front, and the trident-and-oak of Nyatkinsk joined the three dozen other banners that flapped in the wind, barely visible were it not for the array of torches and braziers that lit the battle line. The finest swordhands and riders of the realm took the field at the front, beside their sworn boyars. Behind them, a forest of two thousand pikes, and another two thousand shieldbearers that formed a shining array of steel scales. And behind them, a swarm of common men armed with long infantry bows and crossbows - too many to count.
The men parted in haphazard fashion to let Svetlov through, and he found himself sidling up beside Vissarion, glad in a western suit of gilded plate decorated with sunbursts and stars. Even the man’s damned horse was clad in barding of the sun. Compared to the Solarian, Svetlov might have seemed more a well-to-do freerider than a boyar, but the Solarian nonetheless gave an approving nod as he looked to him.
“Do you think she will listen?” Svetlov dared.
“I do not know.” whispered the Solarian. “I do not know.”
The serpent turned to face the gathered army outside the walls. Its eyes flashed over the battle array once again, showering them in what might have well been sunlight. Svetlov covered his eyes until the glare passed, and when he blinked the dancing spots from his eyes, he saw the Gods’ Gate had opened wide, and without a sound.
The Grand Princess strode out to meet them. No heralds, no guards.
Even from a distance, even in the gloom, her form was unmistakable. Her dress was in tatters, covered from head to toe in blood, and she came towards them alone, padding barefoot across the grass with all the grace of a peasant woman. In one hand, she held the sword the heathens called Kladenets - the sword of heroes - though to Svetlov it seemed only an abomination, more a chunk of stone than a sword. In the other hand, a strange length of fabric trailed behind her, dragging along the dirt. At first it looked like a long cloak or veil unwound from the Grand Princess’ dress, but as she came closer, Svetlov saw knots tied along the fabric’s length, and something heavy dragged beneath the folds.
For a moment, it seemed the Grand Princess would not stop - that she would walk right on and past the gathered army before her - but eventually, she halted. Then her eyes opened, and Svetlov saw two pinpricks of gold flick briefly to his face before studying the others in turn.
He shifted uncomfortably in his saddle - everything felt wrong, his stirrups were pulled too high, his belt too loose, and the clasp of his helm was biting into his chin. When he moved to adjust the clasp, he realized his fingers were trembling.
“Your Majesty,” spoke Vissarion, his face set in an eerie calm as he raised a hand in greeting. No jest rose in his voice, no sneering laugh that the others had become accustomed to. “We have gathered here to bring order to the city in your name.”
“Indeed, you have.” replied Vasilisa. She slammed the stone cleaver into the ground, and ran a free hand through her blood-slicked hair. “In my name. I received your petition, my lords. Here is my reply.”
The Grand Princess cast the length of fabric in a smooth, effortless motion that belied its heavy weight. It unfurled as it flew through the air, billowing like a serpent of many colors, and landed with a dull thump at the hooves of Vissarion’s horse.
The boyars recoiled instinctively at the sight. Some gasped. Others cursed.
The silk, spread across the cold grass, unveiled its gruesome burden. Twenty severed heads, their slack faces pale and bloodless. Each head was wrapped in its owner’s banner - striped cloths of red, green, blue, and all stained crimson. Foremost among the slack-jawed faces that stared up at them were the Clutchpurse Lord and the Widow of the West, bound side by side.
Svetlov’s stomach curled and clenched. Some younger lords bent over in the saddle and retched violently at the smell. Even the Solarian leaned slightly back in his saddle, his droopy eyelids twitching open in shock.
Before anyone could mount a reply, the Grand Princess’ voice sounded - an inhuman voice like the grinding of stone, the scrape of glass - it rolled like a wave over the gathered army. The voice sounded - and yet, the Grand Princess’ lips did not move.
This is my reply.
Her voice sounded in their minds, each word followed by a chorus of smaller whispers.
Lay down your arms. Surrender your lands, your titles, your wealth. Surrender it all before the throne you abandoned. Then kneel, or die.
“Enough!” roared Vissarion. The Solarian’s sword leapt free with a ring, and its honed point stabbed in the direction of the Grand Princess. “Enough of this madness! Kill her, kill the witch! Kill her now!”
No, was all Svetlov could think. No. No. No.
The sound of the iron charge of a dozen horsemen thundered through the field as the Solarian’s retinue swept forward to cut down the lone woman.
The Grand Princess smiled.
The beast’s eyes flared, bathing the whole world in harsh light, so cold it burned. Men screamed, shielding their fasces; horses reared back in terror, their eyes rolling, bucking their riders from the saddle. Svetlov blinked, dazed by the explosion of brilliance, and in that brief moment of confusion among the men, he felt the serpent drop from the heavens.
It fell with the force of a falling mountain.
The boyar saw it through the dancing spots of his vision - a dark blur against the sky, moving impossibly fast for a creature so massive. In one heartbeat, it hovered above the city; in the next, it struck the front line of the gathered cavalry and boyars with a sound like the world itself cracking open.
BOOM!
The ground rippled and broke beneath Svetlov, and the impact threw him and his horse into the air. He felt himself slip out of the saddle, and when he hit the ground - he hit it hard. The solid earth drove the wind from his lungs, and all he could do was lie in ponderous wonder as the earth around him heaved and shattered. Men and horses flew in every direction, tossed like dolls in the hands of an angry child. Others, less fortunate, disappeared beneath the serpent’s immense bulk. It was larger than he could have imagined.
A terrible roar filled the bleak, black night as the serpent pulled itself free from the crater of its landing, shaking free dust and chunks of earth like a dog shedding water, crushing more men around itself. Its scaly hide glistened in the moonlight.
Swords and spears fell upon the hide of the serpent. Spears shattered like twigs against its flanks. Swords bent or snapped on impact. The great beast did not even seem to notice the men who fell on it from all directions.
As the boyar scrambled to his knees, he felt a gust of wind pass over his head - the serpent’s tail whizzed just over him, a black blur whipping across the field. In its path, a hundred raised pikes shattered like stalks of wheat before a scythe.
One druzhinnik pointed at the serpent’s head, shouting, “The eye! The eye! Hit the eye-!”
He never finished. The serpent’s eyes opened once more, and in an instant, the man was crushed - flattened as if by a contemptuous, invisible hand from the sky. A dozen other men followed the druzhinnik in like fashion, turned into dark stains beneath the golden gaze.
Svetlov gagged on the smell of blood and dust as the serpent rose into the air once more. It coiled upward, rising higher and higher, blotting out the stars and the moon. A sound like fury ripped through the night as a thousand bows and crossbows unleashed their steel into the sky, but the arrows and bolts bounced off the serpent’s hide, or fell short altogether as it climbed higher and higher.
And then the beast plunged down again.
Its jaws spread open, its maw stretching to twice the width of the serpent itself, and as it fell the serpent swallowed all. Men, horses, and banners whole. The sound of its mouth snapping shut echoed like a thunderclap. Again and again, the serpent struck - rising, plunging, devouring - each assault shattering against the panicked mass from a new direction so that nowhere was safe. Those who fled were swallowed by the serpent's maw. Those who stood to fight were crushed beneath its bulk.
Svetlov fell onto all fours, crawling and heaving like a pig as he struggled over the mounting bodies, looking blindly for his horse, any horse. But every mount in sight had bolted, or was torn apart in the carnage. Everywhere, there was only the nightmare of broken limbs, shattered weapons, and mangled corpses littering the earth and falling from the sky.
And then he saw her.
Before the gates of Belnopyl, before the infernal city, stood the Grand Princess.
Vasilisa.
She was glowing - her pale skin was alive with an eerie glow, and her hair blended with the night sky, seeming speckled with stars. Her arms were raised toward the heavens, and from her lips came a strange, haunting song, sung in a language Svetlov did not know.
The serpent seemed driven by that song, moving with terrifying precision at every verse. It coiled and struck, crushed and devoured, in perfect rhythm with the melody.
Svetlov could only watch in horror - and in awe. They had lost from the moment they stood against her - the terror being sown now was merely a show.
He tried to rise, to flee on foot, but a group of panicked druzhinniks barreled over him. One man’s boot struck the back of his head with brutal force.
Pain exploded through his skull, and then everything went mercifully black.
***
And yet, Svetlov of Nyatkinsk stirred anew.
When he awoke, the battlefield was silent.
The first thing he felt was warmth - the beating rays of sunlight, true sunlight, against his face. He opened his eyes slowly, blinking against the blinding light coming over the eastern horizon. As he dared to move his head about, he realized he was lying in a puddle of filth and mud - but whole.
Slowly, every movement a trial of its own, he managed to rise to his knees. The silent carnage stretched as far as the eye could see - the echoes and screams lingered like the fading traces of a bad dream. Piles of corpses broke the smooth landscape like hills. Shattered banners and upturned wagons littered the ground. Arrows jutted out, as numerous as the grasses themselves.
The serpent was gone.
Svetlov staggered upright, swaying perilously like a drunkard, and looked around in disbelief. Amidst the wreckage of the battle, he saw others - men and women lying prostrate on the ground, their arms outstretched toward a figure that stood at the center of it all atop a mountain of the dead.
Vasilisa. Vasilisa the Fair.
She stood cloaked in sunlight, her arms raised toward the sky, her expression calm, serene. And Svetlov saw the truth: she was no longer the terrible, wrathful god of the night - now she was a vision of beauty, radiant and holy, the dawn itself given life.
His heart swelled with a strange feeling. Worship. Terror. Rapture.
He staggered forward, stumbling over the bodies of the dead, the men whose names meant nothing now, whose banners lay broken and defiled.
He tripped over one - a corpse in gilded plate - and the impact sent him flailing to the ground. Strength failed him - he could not rise, and so he crawled until he was close enough to see her clearly.
And then, like the others, he bowed his head to the earth and spread his arms to his sides. And then he prayed.
The morning’s glow spread across the sky, casting long shadows from the forms of the three travelers that departed from the city.
The last Qarakesek rode at the front, followed closely by a girl-shaman and a crow. They crested the hill at the edge of the city just as the first light crept over the horizon and touched the land.
Yesugei slowed his horse, glancing back one last time at the figure in the field - a goddess cloaked in sunlight. For a fleeting moment, he thought of bidding farewell, offering her the parting words he never spoke. But the woman he would have spoken to was gone, buried beneath the god she had become.
He turned away, tightened his reins, and rode on. There was nothing left to say.
And Vasilisa the Fair smiled, her gaze fixed on the rising sun.