The Usurper's Crown

by Sarah Zettel

  “No, I’m afraid not.” Grace’s eyes glinted. She snapped her fingers, and a fire sprang to life underneath the kettle. But the fire wasn’t … right. It should have burned red and gold. Ingrid was sure of it. Grace’s fire burned bright green. She had seen such light elsewhere. Where? It was important. Where had she seen that light?

  “In you get,” said Grace cheerfully.

  “What?” Ingrid scrambled to her feet, her heart pounding hard.

  “If you’ve nothing else to give, you must give yourself.” Mama’s paddle stirred the thick, black liquid in steady, even strokes. It had already begun to steam. “In you get.” She nodded toward the kettle.

  “No! Mama, Grace, no!” Ingrid backed away. She’d die in that darkness, she’d drown. She’d lose what little of herself she had left, the tiny spark inside her would be snuffed out. She knew it, and she didn’t know what else to do.

  “Nothing else for it,” rumbled Papa’s voice behind her. Ingrid swung around. Papa emerged from the woods, his gun tucked casually under his arm, and a brace of birds slung over his shoulder. Leo walked beside him, his scythe held in both hands ready to swing up. “You didn’t bring enough.”

  “You never did,” said Mama to the black liquid. “Tries, and tries, and it’s never enough for her, is it? Would have been enough for anyone else, but not for her, oh no. Can’t let go, can’t let it be enough, ever. Well, now you’re called on to give the last, my girl.”

  “You’ve always offered that much, but no one’s ever taken you up on it, have they?” Grace’s eyes were very green, and slanted in her face.

  Not right. Too much wrong here. She stared around at Mama, at Papa, at Leo. Then she saw the blade of Leo’s scythe wasn’t steel. It was stone, stained dark with something that was not tree resin.

  “Why are you doing this?” she cried. “Why?”

  “Because you won’t stop,” said Leo, stepping closer.

  “Because you can’t be stopped.” Papa stepped away from Leo, blocking Ingrid’s path.

  “Because there are limits to any power,” said Mama without breaking the pace of her endless stirring.

  “Because you’ve been divided and remade into something new,” said Grace pleasantly. “Unnatural thing that you are, you cannot be held back in any of the usual ways, as you fall under none of the usual provinces. She knew that. Now.” Grace’s eyes shone green with the same light that came from the strange fire under Mama’s kettle. “In you get.”

  She? She? Ingrid backed away, but there was nowhere to go. Grace, strangely altered as she was, stood behind her. The rest of her family surrounded her, pressed against her, herding her toward the great, dark steaming kettle.

  “Still afraid.”

  “In the end always afraid. So ready to give, until the end, then there is only fear.”

  “No!” shouted a new voice. Ingrid jerked her head around.

  Everett Lederle, his blue Union Army cap askew on his head and his clasp knife open in his hand. “Ingrid, here! Run!”

  “Everett!” Ingrid cried, and leapt toward him, pushing past her family in one burst of speed until she was beside him, her arms thrown around his neck in gratitude. “Mary Mother of God, Everett. How did you know?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Everett wrapped one arm around her waist. He brandished his knife at her family, who stood clustered around Mama’s kettle. The green light gleamed in their eyes and caught the smooth stone of Leo’s scythe blade. “I’ve got you safe now. None of them will touch you while you’re with me.”

  But why should they stay back? Ingrid swallowed and pulled away just a little. Leo had his scythe, and Papa had a gun. All Everett had was his tiny knife. Why stay away?

  “Everett, what’s happening?”

  “I don’t know. We just need to get out of here. We’ll figure it out later.” He grasped her hand and tugged her toward the house. “Come on.”

  But Ingrid held her ground. “Everett, I have to find … There’s something stolen and I have to find it.”

  “I know, I know.” He patted her hand. “But not here, Ingrid. You’re not safe. We have to get away.”

  Grace’s eyes glowed and she stepped forward. “Yes, run away, Ingrid. Do.” Her teeth, yellow now, and shining like her eyes, snapped.

  “Take her away from here, ungrateful girl,” muttered Mama, stirring, constantly stirring. “Get her out of my sight.”

  “Yes. Do.” Now Leo took a step forward, hefting his strange, stained, stone scythe.

  “Ingrid, please,” said Everett, retreating before Leo’s fierce grin, pulling her back toward the safety of the house. “Let’s go!”

  Papa lifted his gun.

  She should run, she knew it. The ones who faced her were dangerous. She knew that with all her heart. Everett was safe. He would protect her and keep her close, as he had always sought to do. Why didn’t she run? What held her here?

  Trust your heart over your eyes, said a voice in her memory. Whose voice? What memory? She didn’t know. Her head swam. Papa put his gun to his shoulder. Everett yanked on her hand, almost pulling her off her feet. He wanted to save her, to keep her close, to keep her from drowning in Mama’s kettle, that was somehow the source of all this danger. She had been led here, and now she was being torn away from here by these people who were not quite her family. But Everett was Everett still. Wasn’t he?

  Ingrid looked up into Everett’s eyes. They were blue as she remembered. His grip was as strong as she had always known it would be.

  The knife he carried had a blade of stone like Leo’s scythe.

  “Please, Ingrid,” he said desperately. “There’s no more time! Let me get you out of here!”

  “No more time,” repeated Ingrid.

  And she ran.

  She tore herself from Everett’s grip and she charged toward her family. She knocked Papa’s gun away. Leo’s scythe swished past her. Grace stretched out clawed hands, and Mama lifted her paddle, but Ingrid did not break her stride. She dove forward, flinging herself headlong into the steaming kettle.

  Ingrid fell into darkness. Nothing touched her, no heat, no cold, no air, no light. She fell, flailing her limbs, and there was no light above or below, only emptiness and falling as in a nightmare, but she did not wake. She screamed, but the sound went nowhere, and still she fell.

  Just as she thought for sure she must faint, the fall was done. There was no sensation of landing, just of ceasing to fall. She stood, she thought. There seemed to be some uneven surface underfoot, and she seemed to be whole and unhurt, but she could see nothing. Blackness as thick as blindness surrounded her.

  “So,” said a voice Ingrid was sure she should have known. “Not afraid enough.”

  Two eyes opened in the darkness. They were huge and green and slanted. Animal’s eyes, feral and cunning. Grace’s eyes as Ingrid had last seen them in the face of the apparition who had been Grace and yet could not have been.

  Her throat closed, and Ingrid swallowed hard.

  “You cannot see, little woman?” inquired the voice. “How very rude of me.”

  There was a soft pop, as if someone had snapped their fingers. Green fire sprang up before Ingrid. She blinked hard and stumbled backward.

  When she could look again, she saw a gigantic fox lounging on the other side of the fire. The light in her eyes was the same light that filled the green flames that burned without fuel between them. All of Ingrid’s memories came back in a single wave, of where she had seen this green light before, of who she was and why she had come to this strange place, and how this must be the Silent Lands, and who waited on the other shore for her.

  “I beg your pardon.” Ingrid’s voice shook. The Vixen’s mouth fell open, laughing. Her rank scent filled the place where Ingrid stood. The green fire illuminated only a small space around them. She thought this might be a cave, but she could not be sure. “I did not mean to intrude, I only …”

  “I know what you want, little woman.” The Vixen nodded he
r head toward Ingrid’s feet. “And you have won it. I give it to you freely.”

  Ingrid looked down. At her feet, in a small hollow of rough stone, gleamed a golden ball about the size of Ingrid’s fist. She picked it up, marveling at its great weight and cool smooth skin as it lay in her hand.

  She was looking for what had been stolen. She was looking for a heart that had been taken. She knew that, although she did not fully understand how. In that same way of understanding, she knew this golden ball held what she needed.

  “Why …” she began, and then she stopped. Questions might be dangerous here. They might be considered rude. The answers might have conditions she could not meet.

  “Why did I take it?” The Vixen cocked her head. “Why do I give it back now?” She lifted one great paw and scratched her chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps one day when the Old Witch had gone about some errand, she left her heart behind, as she is wont to do from time to time. Perhaps someone crept into her window and stole it then. Perhaps they meant it as a joke, or perhaps they meant it in earnest, for without her heart, without knowing who held it or what they might do with it, how could the Old Witch go about her business? How could she even dare to leave the safety of her house?” The Vixen’s eyes gleamed dangerously. “For she has much power and many enemies, the Old Witch does.”

  Ingrid swallowed again, and clutched the golden ball close to her chest.

  “But perhaps there was a little man who aspired to divinity and I was asked by one whom I’m glad to have owe me a favor to stop his plans.” The Vixen grinned. “Perhaps I saw the future and it amused me to help it come about. Perhaps I just saw an opportunity to anger the Old Witch. It could be all these things, or none of them.” Her teeth were white, and very sharp. “What would you give to know the answer to that riddle, little woman?”

  Courtesy is all where you are going. Avanasy had said that to her. How could she have forgotten, even for an instant? Ingrid pushed the guilt away. This was not the time.

  “Thank you for your hospitality,” she said, dropping a curtsey to the Vixen. “I am very much afraid that it is time for me to go.”

  “Perhaps,” laughed the Vixen, swishing her tail back and forth. “Take care of what you’ve been given, little woman, and take care of your daughter while you can.”

  “I …” began Ingrid. But she stopped. She meant to say, “I have no daughter,” but standing knee-deep in memories freshly brought back to her, she realized she could not remember when her time had last come. So much had been happening, she had completely lost track of her days.

  Was she carrying Avanasy’s child? She could well be. One hand went automatically to her belly.

  The Vixen threw back her head and let out a snarling, growling laugh that went straight through to Ingrid’s bones. “Go, little woman, get away with you, before I decide perhaps I’d like to keep you here.” Eyes and teeth flashed in the light of the green flames. “Or your daughter.”

  Grabbing up her hems, Ingrid turned and ran. The Vixen’s growling laugh followed fast behind her, and she had no thought but to get away from it. She stumbled through the darkness, the golden ball held tight to her bosom. Gradually, she saw light up ahead; it was strange and diffuse, and certainly not daylight, but she followed it anyway, because she had no other guide.

  At last, Ingrid stumbled out into the odd, pale light of the Land of Death and Spirit. Ahead of her lay a green meadow surrounded by the dark piney woods she remembered. Behind her rose a smooth green hill like a bubble from a pot of water. A single thorn tree grew from its crown, spreading its branches up to the sunless sky. She knew this place. She had been here before.

  Ingrid saw no movement from the dark cave mouth from which she emerged, but she hurried on toward the piney woods anyway.

  The only question being, which way do I go? She looked around for the river, for her other self, and saw only the dark tree trunks in every direction.

  Something pushed at her palm. Ingrid stared at her hand where it held the golden ball. The ball stirred against her and pushed outward, as if seeking release.

  Slowly, uncertainly, Ingrid set the ball onto the grass. It glinted for a moment in the pale, greenish light, and then it began to roll toward the woods. With nothing else to do, Ingrid followed.

  She followed the ball into the darkness that gathered under the pine trees. The thick carpet of needles should have crunched underfoot, but did not. She followed the ball across the narrow brook that ran silently over the rounded stones that lined its bed. The water did not wet her shoes or the trailing hem of her skirt.

  She followed until the trees turned from pine to oaks and maples, and she saw the lone, crooked birch tree that spread its branches as if to bar her way. The golden ball rolled unhesitatingly beneath it, and the branches sagged, defeated, to let Ingrid past.

  Ahead stood the fence mended with bones. The cat perched on top of it, ears alert. The bone gate swung open for the golden ball, and Ingrid followed. She was owed for this and that knowledge removed her fear as she stood in the torn and savaged yard before the house on its scarred and taloned legs, turning and with each step gouging up great chunks of mud.

  The golden ball stopped and Ingrid waited, her hands folded neatly over her apron. Slowly, the house stopped its restless turning and knelt so that its splintered steps touched the ground and its door could fall open.

  Baba Yaga stood in the doorway, leaning on her stained pestle. Eagerly, the golden ball skipped up the steps and hopped into her hand. Baba Yaga caught it firmly in one skinny claw. With the other, she rapped on it with her knuckles. The gold cracked open and fell away. Inside lay an egg, smooth and white and gleaming. Baba Yaga cracked that too. The white spilled away leaving something red and blue and pulsing in her crabbed hand. Baba Yaga looked at the thing hungrily for a moment, then tucked it inside her tattered black robe, as if she were tucking away a full purse or a precious locket.

  When she drew out her hand again, Baba Yaga smiled, a rictus grin that exposed all her black iron teeth. Ingrid shuddered but held her ground. The Old Witch set aside her pestle, and did a thing Ingrid had never seen her do before. She walked down the steps of her house.

  As she came nearer, bone-thin and bent, her eyes nearly as hollow as a ghost’s, Ingrid felt her nerve fail her. Her knees began to shake and she wanted more than anything to run away, but she could not. Baba Yaga held her pinned with her dark gaze.

  The Old Witch stood before her now. Ingrid should have been able to feel her breath, but could not. She smelled a dry, musty scent, like old dust, like bones.

  In a single, swift motion, Baba Yaga kissed Ingrid on the mouth. Ingrid staggered back, only just keeping her balance. Her mouth filled with the tang of cold iron.

  And she knew how to cage the Firebird. She knew it like she knew her own name. She could forget everything else, and she would remember this, she was sure of it.

  Ingrid thought to stammer out her thanks, but one glance from Baba Yaga silenced her utterly.

  “You have been paid your price, now go. I have business to which I must attend.” There was a quality in those words that made Ingrid shiver. She was about to speak up to say she did not know which way to go, but the world around her was already fading. She did not feel herself being dragged, so much as all that was around her seemed to be rushing away, wrinkling, like a cloth pulled from a table. She screamed, because she feared another long fall into darkness.

  Ingrid woke.

  Chapter Twenty

  She might not have moved at all. She was in the burned forest on the hillside. Lien knelt beside Peshek’s wracked body, but … Ingrid blinked and looked again. Peshek was ruined no more. His skin was red and blistered, but no longer blackened. His breath did not rattle in his chest as he lay on the scant bed of coats that had been spread for him. He would live. She could tell that in an instant. Her first sight returned to the world was that Peshek would live.

  “Magic.”

  “And neatly done,” repli
ed Lien. Ingrid jumped. She had not realized she had spoken aloud. “She is powerful, your empress.”

  Ingrid’s first instinct was to say, “She’s not mine,” but she stopped those words. “Where are they?”

  “I sent them down,” he nodded toward the pass where the smoke still hung heavy in the air, “to see if any lived yet there.”

  Ingrid swallowed hard. “I must find them.” Her blood rushed in her veins, and she knew the sensation to be from the knowledge the Old Witch had given her. She must pass it on and quickly. This was not a secret she was meant to hold.

  “Then we will go.” Lien stood. “You have your answers?”

  “I do.” Despite the need for movement that sang inside her, she glanced down at Peshek where he lay, dead to the world. “Shouldn’t you stay …”

  “All that can be done for him has been. We will return.” His voice was stone. He was making his choice. He could not worry about Peshek, because his niece was in a danger he knew better than any of them. Ingrid wanted to berate him, but could not. She just tucked up her hems in her waistband and started down the hillside toward the center of the devastation.

  It was a long walk. The wind blew hot and heavy with ash. It was difficult to breathe without coughing. The stones were black with ash. Ingrid’s eyes and lungs burned, but she kept slogging forward, the strength of the secret she carried urging her onward. Lien paced quietly beside her, and she was very glad for the presence of another being.

  Then, at last, they crested the rise, and looked down on the real horror.

  The army had been caught in the blaze with nowhere to flee. Men and beasts had died where they stood, and now were nothing but char and black sticks that once were bones. The stench was unspeakable. Ingrid’s hand went immediately to her face, and she had to choke down her bile.

  “Come, mistress,” said Lien, but even his voice shook. “Come. We must keep going.”

  And they did. They waded through the ash and ruin. Ingrid blocked her mouth and nose with her apron held crumpled in both hands. It brought only a small measure of relief. Heat nibbled at her skin and horror nibbled at her mind.