The Lost Queen

by Jenn Stark

  I roused myself to action, moving across the thick woven rug to grasp her hand. She held mine with both of hers, and her eyes narrowed as she dragged her thumb across the barely healed wound in my palm.

  “Nul Magis,” she murmured. “Wielded by a very strong magician—and now residing in you. It won’t help you with Myanya.”

  It was all I could do not to pull my hand back sharply, embarrassed, but Iskra had called it. The holdover toxin had taken up permanent residence in the palm of my hand, and I hadn’t had time to see about removing it.

  That said, I wasn’t in the mood to have any of my secondary skills second-guessed.

  “I wasn’t planning on using it for Myanya,” I informed her, gently removing my hand from her questing grasp. She turned and reached for Nikki’s hand, then paused, but was a second too late. Though any high-level Connected could block Nikki’s ability to read memories if they were expecting it, if Nikki caught them off guard, it was all over. Nikki pumped the old woman’s hand with enthusiasm, her jaw working as she quickly and efficiently read Iskra’s memories. Her brows shot high as she turned to me, but Iskra started speaking.

  “You have come for knowledge on how to beat the spirit of Myanya, to keep it from flowering to its full force, but I say to you, you’re already too late. Myanya is a hungry spirit who must see the fulfillment of the cycle. She has no other choice.”

  “Well, about that,” I said, as Svetlana clucked and fussed at Iskra’s side, eventually getting the old woman to take her seat again. “Why is she back? She apparently skipped one generation. Why not two?”

  Iskra grunted. “Skipped? No. She didn’t skip a generation. She changed tactics. The witch she chose was already one in an established coven, already promised to a male not of her choosing. The girl’s subjugation was preordained, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Regrettably, she did not survive the ordeal of Myanya’s challenge. The coven was powerful enough to cover up the evidence of what happened and let it be believed that no attempt had been made.”

  I stared at her, two things bothering me about this recitation. One, that it appeared to be common knowledge to Iskra, and two, that it belied what the Jones brothers had claimed. “The coven can hide all trace of Myanya from their peers? Even from the men who reportedly get some sort of supernatural call to action when Myanya rises?”

  “They can and they must. It is only when the prophecy is fully executed that the coven that takes on this great power is able to leverage it for their own benefit. Far more often, the initiate witch dies during her trial and tribulation, or comes back so scarred and weak from the ordeal that she is of no use as a figurehead to her coven. This prophecy was conceived in a far more brutal time. Over the centuries, the covens have not kept up with their training as rigorously as they should. As a result, we’ve grown weaker, particularly in the face of such primal power.”

  “What about you?” Nikki asked. “You not only were chosen by Myanya, you rejected her. And you lived to tell the tale.”

  “Not without great personal loss,” Iskra whispered, her voice cracking. “I believe Svetlana told you of my time in the convent after the trial. That was in payment to a group of exiled nuns, whose prayer on my behalf dramatically altered the outcome of my challenge. I entered their order as a novice and remained in service for eight years instead of the usual five. When I left, they allowed me to maintain access to these sacred rooms. I had long since recovered from the physical trauma of my trial, but it took me those eight years to expunge the mental trauma. The spirit of Myanya does not give up her chosen easily, and I will feel her power evermore.”

  “You still feel her,” Nikki groaned empathetically, ever the cop and psychic who had connected with far too many victims of especially heinous crimes.

  Iskra nodded and her gaze shifted to me. “Which is why I can feel her now, and her building fury at being denied her rightful vessel.”

  I straightened. “You know who she’s targeting?”

  The old woman grimaced. “Yes, to my everlasting dismay. She’s targeting the last remaining member of my family.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “What?” I blurted. “The doomed witch was a member of your family?”

  Nikki sighed beside me. “Hell hath no fury like a prophecy spurned.”

  Iskra didn’t respond, which was okay because I was still ramping up into full freakout.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, holding up my hands. “You’re telling me Myanya has made this a family issue? That ever since 1962, she’s been targeting your descendants—so that means not only now, but in 1990, too? I thought you couldn’t have kids after what she did to you.”

  “I couldn’t,” Iskra said, her words matter-of-fact. “But I could before.”

  Before, I thought. Of course. And then: oh no.

  Iskra nodded, watching me. “To protect myself from a future determined by those other than myself, I defiantly delivered a child when I was eighteen years old, a child I gratefully gave to a family who could love and support my baby in a way that I could not, given the path I was on.”

  “You chose to have a child? Doesn’t that…” I made a vague swirling motion with my hands at the approximate level of my uterus, the sum total of my knowledge of how coven magic worked. “Mess with your power, or something?”

  “It absolutely did, which was exactly the point.” At my startled look, Iskra chuckled. “This generation, they think reproductive rights are a modern issue. And not all covens are the same, of course. Some have been formed on the basis of equality between the two sexes, with very little regard for how one’s access to magic is affected by your awakening sexuality. But the coven that harbored me had different rules. Virginity allowed the initiate witch access to her untapped potential. A sexually awakened witch had a different, though in many ways lesser, access. Finally, a witch who has delivered a child had her access split. I not only delivered a child, I sent her to a secular home. It was my full intention that she never learn who and what she was, at least not by teaching pressed upon her by a coven. It was my intention that she grow up free.”

  Nikki made a face. “And if she had questions?”

  “I made provisions for that as well, but she never tripped any of those triggers. Understand, though, at the time, my priority was my own body, my own abilities. For me, in my coven and with my abilities, I had a very clear choice. I could take ownership of my body and my life, lose my virginity and thus sully my power on my own terms by giving birth to a child who would split but never augment my abilities…or I could be set up as a pawn for those in power. Mind you, I wasn’t even thinking of the prophecy of Myanya at this time. I was worried about far more mundane concerns.” She smiled, the lines in her face crinkling as her eyes danced. “And of course, I was in love, as far as anyone knew.”

  “Of course.” Nikki snorted. I could only stare at Iskra. Perhaps this was the gift that old age gave—perspective on troubles that must have seemed insurmountable at the time.

  “So, wait,” I said, my head beginning to hurt. “You weren’t in love?”

  Iskra cast her clear blue gaze at me, her smile turning ineffably sad. “Of course, Justice Wilde, but not as much with the young man in question as I was with bringing life into the world on my own terms. I thought this child would be safe, far away from the path of a witch. I thought she would be blessed and consecrated, grow tall and strong and happy, unencumbered by the expectations of a community she did not choose. I purposely did not keep track of her progress with her adoptive family, and then, only a few short years later, I encountered Myanya. In the years that followed, I redoubled the protections around my daughter, seeking to ensure her safety, but ultimately, it was not enough. By the twenty-eighth year after my assault, I knew only that my daughter was happy, healthy, and most definitely not an initiate.”

  “Someone lied to you,” I guessed. “Your coven?”

  She sighed, glancing away. “I b
elieved what I wanted to believe.”

  She wouldn’t be the first parent to do so, but Iskra was no ordinary parent. “How did she become a witch if you sent her into a secular family?”

  “Because there is nurture, and there is nature. The path we choose for another is not always the path they seek for themselves. My daughter had no knowledge of me, no idea of the trials I endured. I never wanted her to see me, what I had become.”

  The woman before me was beautiful, wrapped in a radiance I didn’t need my third eye to appreciate. Distractedly, I realized my third eye had dropped shut again. I flicked it open, then realized why I’d kept it closed. It was weirdly bright in this basement room, no doubt the result of a long history of Connected influence, whether the church was officially sacred ground or otherwise.

  But Iskra was still talking, and my attention refocused on her. “In retrospect, my decision to leave my daughter to her own life was a mistake. But I had no way of knowing at the time that my attempt to protect my beautiful baby girl would in fact lead her to her own demise.”

  I flinched. “Wait, so she did die as a result of Myanya targeting her.”

  “She did. And because Myanya never completely left me, I saw my daughter’s death. I lived it as Myanya wanted me to, as punishment for refusing her. Now, however, she calls to me again, with visions of a girl who looks like me at that age. In my nightmares, Myanya whispers I should behold my granddaughter, her newly chosen vessel. I…I don’t know if my daughter had a child of her own, but it’s possible.” She shuddered. “It’s possible.”

  “Oh, man,” Nikki muttered, and I glanced her way, but my friend wasn’t looking at me. Nikki, more than most, understood the pain of watching your children grow from afar, unable to interfere with their lives. If one of her children had endured the fate Iskra’s daughter had faced…

  Iskra nodded. “I have no claim on my daughter, nor any right to judge her path, nor that of my granddaughter’s, if she exists. We are each on this earth to fulfill a purpose we have chosen hand in hand with the goddess, and it is not my place to direct anyone’s path but my own. But the fact remains that, though I believed I was the last woman of my line remaining, I can feel that Myanya has returned. I can sense the malevolent power within her, like a quickening in the heart, an anger in the blood. Even all these years later, it calls to me. I am grateful, in the end, that my daughter did not have to endure Myanya for long. But if there is another child…” Her words drifted off.

  I folded my arms, disgusted with the entire idea of three generations being haunted by the same prophecy. “But I thought the spirit of Myanya was supposed to empower women.”

  “Not women,” Iskra scoffed, the two short words the closest she’d come yet to a snap. “It is supposed to empower the coven. The vessel of the woman in whom the prophecy is fulfilled becomes a scarred warrior along the way—and that scarring is emotional, physical, and psychological. It is the true mythology of the goddess debased and defiled, only to rise up again in righteous fury, her light so strong that it cannot be shut out. Only then can she lead her coven to victory, a dawn of a new world.”

  “Tell me about that victory, then. Because it’d better be pretty impressive to justify that much pain.”

  Iskra’s lips twisted. “You forget, it’s a woman bearing the pain. And such pain is a sacred grace to the eyes of many, particularly in less enlightened times. But as the woman in question, you—you do know what is in store for you. Myanya’s spirit makes it very clear what she intends you to endure.”

  “How?” Nikki put in. “You get visions? Nightmares? And how much notice do you have?”

  “In my case, I had nightmares for several weeks. Always the same, where an exalted goddess is captured and delivered to the underworld, roasted on a spit and defiled for all her believers to see, then returned to the world of day a scarred warrior—smarter, stronger, more powerful, wiser. She has been broken, but she is ineffably stronger in the broken places.”

  “I hate that phrase,” I muttered. Stronger in the broken places. I’d lived it too many times.

  “More to the point, she leads her coven.” Iskra tapped her chest. “I tried everything to avoid taking on that mantle. I dimmed my own powers. I conceived and then gave up a beautiful child. I forswore relationships. I worked hard for my independence. I wasn’t about to let an ancient prophecy seeking to kindle itself in my blood undo all my hard work.”

  “And you succeeded.”

  She shook her head. “With the perspective of age, I’m not so sure of that anymore. It was only with the grace of hidden and persecuted holy sisters of that I was able to find the strength within me to fend off Myanya’s challenge. It took me eight years to recover from that challenge, and a lifetime of fear and loneliness followed. So who truly won in that equation?”

  We sat for a long moment in silence, then Svetlana appeared again at the door. To be honest, I hadn’t noticed her stepping away. “Dr. Mikhailova, it’s safe for you to leave.”

  “Safe?” I stood with Nikki and once more attempted to see around the room with my third eye, instinctively flinching away when the brightness bore down on me. “Why wouldn’t it be safe?”

  “There are many types of rage in the world,” Iskra said, struggling to stand again. She picked up an elegant walking staff and leaned on it. “Some of it you can bury, some you can’t.”

  “Amen, sister,” Nikki muttered.

  Staff in hand, Iskra hobbled toward the door, her back hunched, her eyes sharp beneath her corona of white hair.

  “Did Danae say anything about people wanting to take Iskra out?” Nikki asked quietly as we followed behind. Svetlana opened another panel in the antechamber beyond the sitting room that led to a dark corridor of rough stone. No artwork lined the walls here, and no carpets covered the floor. I suspected we were now moving beneath Red Square to one of the nearby residential areas—all of them some distance away. We’d be underground for a while.

  “Nada.” I shook my head. “By all accounts, Iskra is a revered elder of the community, adored by university students, witches, and secular residents alike. No one should be targeting her.”

  “It’s to the right, dear,” Iskra said ahead.

  “No, that way was blocked, Dr. Mikhailova. A construction team cracked the support structure, not realizing…” The voices of our guides dropped into easy conversation as we wove our way to the left, but I didn’t miss the tension in Nikki’s body. I felt it too.

  “By the pricking of my thumbs,” she muttered, and I reached inside my leather duster for my card deck.

  “Light?”

  Dutifully, she flicked her phone light back toward me, and I pulled three cards. High Priestess, Queen of Swords, Page of Swords.

  Nikki scanned them too. “You think we’re going to get a message from Myanya? High Priestess has to mean Iskra, though I didn’t think her powers were all that high anymore.”

  “They’re not,” I said. I shoved the cards back in my pocket and felt the ungainly ridge of another two cards poking out. I snagged them and drew them out, peering down in the reflecting light. Five of Wands and the Moon. “I don’t like the feeling of this.”

  “So the High Priestess is Iskra, and the Queen of Swords has gotta be our lost queen. Page of Swords, that’s a message, and then we’ve got the card of confrontation as well as the card of hidden knowledge. You think we’re walking into a fight?” Nikki asked when I showed her the cards.

  “I think we’re not being told the whole story here. I think we may be walking into an explanation we’re not expecting. Maybe Iskra’s been lying to us, maybe not. Either way, we could be about to face something that she’s orchestrated, a betrayal.” I grimaced. “That doesn’t feel right, though.”

  “Oh, well, this does take me back,” Iskra said from farther ahead. “I thought these old passages had been blocked long ago.”

  “They had, Dr. Mikhailova. But the construction…”

&nb
sp; “Yes, yes, of course. It’s just—well, I never thought I’d see the day when I’d willingly walk back in here. I’d never even imagined it would be safe.”

  “It’s the safest way, Dr. Mikhailova. We’re all here for you.”

  As Nikki and I caught up, we saw Svetlana draw back an enormous dead bolt from a metal door hinged into the stone. It swung silently into the room, and Iskra turned back to us as she entered the room behind Svetlana. “You’ll forgive me if we don’t tarry, but this room—it had meaning to me a long time ago.”

  “And it will have meaning to you again.”

  The voice sounded loud and strident in the small space. Nikki and I nearly crashed into an Iskra who had gone stock-still with shock. I quickly saw why. There were easily twenty hooded and cowled figures spread around a pentagram etched into the floor, and in the center of that pentagram was a white and twisting column of flame, almost—but not quite—taking on the form of a woman.

  “Or, we could be walking into a fight,” Nikki said, as I opened my hands wide, blue flame kindling in my palms.

  The fire in the pentagram exploded.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It only took a heartbeat for the vortex of flame in the pentagram to fill the entire enclosed space, and the cowled figures who were standing guard at its tips strained back. They were holding the line, but they clearly had not been prepared for that level of intensity.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Iskra. She stood rooted to the spot, Nikki and I flanking her. “You cannot seriously believe you can summon Myanya to this space and live, Svetlana. We are not prepared!”

  “You are prepared.” Svetlana was now facing the doctor from several feet away, though still on this side of the pentagram. She’d shucked her coat, and for the first time, I saw that she wore a chain of silver around her waist, hung with icons. Had that been why I couldn’t use my third eye effectively in St. Basil’s or even in the chamber immediately below the church?

  Well, it was doing its job now. The witches were doing their level best to throw up a temporary wall to keep Myanya contained, which gave me a breath to study the twisting fire in the center of the pentagram. As it had been in the cave in Budapest, it was vaguely feminine in shape, but there were absolutely no markers as to facial features, height, or weight—everything was grotesquely elongated and flaring with heat, down to her fiery mane.