The Five Daughters of the Moon

by Leena Likitalo

  “We divide into our usual groups,” I say. “Elise, you lead Merile and Alina.”

  “And Rafa and Mufu,” Merile adds, squatting down to pet the dogs in turns. “Yes, my dear sillies, we would never abandon you!”

  Sibilia rolls her eyes. She would be glad to leave the dogs here. Alone. Though fifteen and a half already, at times she acts immature. I can’t count on her maturing fast enough to become an empress in the case . . . No, I will not think of that either. We should and we will adhere to the established routine. “Sibilia, you come with me.”

  As the train slows down, we lounge by the marble-topped table, waiting for the guards to come. Remnants of tea slosh in the cups. I catch a whiff of the smoky scent. It reminds me of the home we had to leave behind because I failed my family. The least I can do is to ensure that one day my sisters can return to the halls and hallways where they belong.

  The train stutters to a halt. Tea spills over my cup’s edge, onto the saucer. The stain is shaped like a crescent.

  “What if they won’t let us out?” Merile clutches Mufu against her chest. The charcoal gray dog licks her face with ardor. Sibilia cringes.

  What if they don’t? Then I will have to argue our way out. This is the plan I conceived the night the gagargi’s spell broke. The letters I wrote in the carriage on my way back to the palace. The hawks I released to carry my plea to my seed. By coincidence and luck, both the ill kind and the good kind, the pieces that were missing earlier have somehow materialized.

  Though my seed never replied. How could he? But in him I trust, for he is the one the Moon sent for my mother when I needed to be conceived.

  “They will let us out,” I say in such a serene tone that my sisters have no choice but to believe in me. This is the power I have. This is the power each one of them must eventually learn.

  Minutes pass, and my heart races. What is taking the guards so long? Why haven’t they come for us yet? Why has the established routine been broken?

  My sisters trust in me. If I were to show any sign of nervousness or distress, they would soon lose their composure. I must not fidget with my bracelet. I must not smooth my hem too often. I may only continue to smile in the tranquil way that leads people to believe that I know more than they do, that indicates that everything is in order.

  At last, the door creaks open. Captain Janlav enters, our blankets heaped over his arm. “Time for a brief walk, daughters.”

  Alina and Merile run to him. And he . . . he laughs, head bent back, moustache vibrating. Elise, still sitting beside me, closes her eyes with a sigh so soft, so tender. Though Captain Janlav has forgotten her . . . It is as if a part of my sister wants to stay with him. Even if he is our captor, and hence due to report everything he sees and hears to the gagargi.

  “Here you go, little Daughter of the Moon.” Captain Janlav hands Alina her blanket. Merile snatches hers from his arms. Rafa and Mufu bounce against him, waiting to be dressed up in their coats that are no longer quite white.

  While Alina and Merile fuss with the dogs, I get up from my chair. Elise and Sibilia follow my example. I accept my blanket and so does Sibilia. But Elise halts before Captain Janlav and then slowly turns around as if she were waiting for him to wrap the blanket around her shoulders.

  I don my blanket, curious to see if manners take precedence over his orders. I meet Elise’s gaze, and it is a calculating one. She isn’t doing this because she yearns for his attention. This is a test, I realize. To see if he . . .

  He helps my sister to position the blanket around her shoulders just so, eager to assist her when he can. It is sometimes easy to forget who he is. A turncoat. The man who betrayed my family. But his manners aren’t ill. He believes in the cause that the gagargi whispered in the people’s ear. He believes he is on the right side. I can’t blame him for that.

  “Are we ready now?” he asks. No doubt the other guards already await us on the platform. Belly and Beard smoke. Boots and Tabard jest. The guards are more relaxed now that we are far away from cities, the places where the revolution tore deep gashes. This far away no one cares. Whatever happens in the palaces, whoever leads the empire, nothing changes for people who live in the deep north.

  We exit the train for what I hope is one last time. Just as I had expected, Belly and Beard smoke, Boots and Tabard huddle at the platform. There is no one waiting at the station, apart from a magpie, the bird black and white—and why would there be when the trains are scheduled to stop here only once a week? People here, they have learned that ignorance is bliss. As soon as they saw the train and the guards, they no doubt hurried inside, locked the doors, and shuttered the windows. They will not be peeping out before they hear the train depart.

  The sun clings on the zenith, as high as it dares to climb during a winter day. It is freezing cold on the platform. The temperature sets against my ankles like icy chains. For surely it is that which weighs on my steps, and not guilt.

  “Rafa and Mufu want to run around the station!” Merile announces. She is more cunning than I have given her credit for, it seems.

  “Captain Janlav.” Elise links her arm with him as if he were still courting her. She asks cheerily, “Shall we go and see how fast they can run?”

  He chuckles, though frost already forms on his beard and moustache. “I don’t see why not.”

  But he studies me for a moment too long, as if there were something he was about to say, that no one else will say. What can it be? Has he learnt of our plan? He doesn’t say. He leaves with Elise, Merile, and Alina. The first part of the plan is set in motion.

  I stroll down the length of the platform with Sibilia, the magpie hopping alongside us. Beard waddles behind us. I know it is him, though I can’t see him. His breath always smells of raw onions.

  “My stomach cramps,” Sibilia says.

  I hear Beard stumble, halt. He doesn’t want to hear a single thing more about Sibilia’s wretched days. She excels in describing them. She has had a lot of practice. This, too, is a routine we have carefully built up, a topic of conversation we know the guards don’t want to overhear.

  We reach the end of the platform and the narrow plank stairs there. I barely dare to glance to my left, at the stables that should be there, for the person who should be waiting for us. For it is such a long time since I wrote the letters, since my hawks flew off. So many weeks separate us from that night. Is it really possible that a plan conceived in such a way could work?

  “There’s someone waving at you,” Sibilia whispers, plump cheeks glowing red.

  It is only then that I dare to look.

  The man dressed in a wolf’s fur coat tends to the brown horses harnessed before a troika even as he waves at me. His collars are drawn up against his bearded cheeks, but his cap doesn’t quite hide his missing eye and the scarred face. It is my seed, General Monzanov, but I can’t afford to bask in joy even for one heartbeat.

  “Why, is it really . . .” Sibilia’s voice trails off. She can’t quite believe what she is seeing either. She rubs her eyes, the movement already clumsy from the cold.

  But as my sisters so often remind me, my mind is ever cold and rational. This isn’t as I planned. There is but one troika waiting for us, and the three horses munch hay contently as if they had been about it for hours already with no end in sight to their blessing. Where are the soldiers ready to escort my sisters and me to safety? There, by the stable, two astride chestnut horses, two on the ground, cigarettes jutting out from the corners of their mouth. They wear lamb fur coats and red gloves. Are they loyal to my seed or someone else?

  General Monzanov waves again. Why is he drawing attention to himself? The smell of raw onions reveals Beard approaching Sibilia and me. What should I do? Ignore my seed or acknowledge him?

  “What is General Monzanov doing here?” I wonder aloud as if I were puzzled to see him.

  Beard strokes his chin, and I am not sure if he is doubting my performance or equally confused by the general’s presence. Eventually
he says, “Your seed bears a message to you.”

  This is the time I must remain calm so that the cogs and wheels of my mind can spin fast rather than be jammed by emotions of any sort. If Beard knows that General Monzanov bears a message to me, this means that one of the guards—Captain Janlav, no doubt—noticed him as soon as the train halted and has talked with him. This must be why it took the guards longer than usual to let us out. Was talking to the guards my seed’s idea, or has something gone terribly wrong? Why do I think it might be the latter? There is only one way to find out.

  “Then I shall go and talk with him,” I say to Beard. I brush Sibilia’s arm as I pass her. “Wait here.”

  I stride down the creaking plank stairs, sabots clacking.

  As I wade through the snowy path, toward the stable, I catch a glimpse of Elise, Merile, and Alina. She still clings to Captain Janlav’s arm as if she had a hard time staying up on the icy street. The dogs dash from Alina to Merile, bringing back twigs that the girls toss at them. Elise veers to a halt as she notices me alone. I swing my right hand up as if I had slipped and needed to balance myself, a sign agreed on beforehand. She should delay on the street. She doesn’t yet know it, but we might need to soon part ways with each other.

  For my seed has brought with him only one troika. It can’t fit the six of us. If it comes to choosing between some of us fleeing or all of us staying . . . During the five long weeks of solitude, I have considered every eventuality. I have already reached the decision that is by no means easy but the best of our available options.

  If need be, I will remain behind. Elise and the girls shall go with my seed. Elise understands my people. Merile and Alina are the youngest. And there is the sad truth that I can but acknowledge. As the witch warned me, the price for bleeding away the gagargi’s seed is high. I may not be able to have other children, though only years may reveal the true state of matters.

  I glance over my shoulder, though I know I shouldn’t. Sibilia shivers on the platform, gray blanket folded tight against her chest, with only the magpie as her company. My poor sister, she is still but a girl, and yet there is nothing I can do for her. To save Elise and the little girls, I will have to sacrifice Sibilia’s freedom. It isn’t fair of me to decide for her, but this isn’t something I could exactly have asked her opinion about either. If she knew, she would only hate me.

  As I approach my seed, the wrongness intensifies. The reins of the brown horses are tied to a wooden rail. Why would someone preparing for a speedy departure do so? Closer still, I notice no belt cinches my seed’s coat, and I can’t see the telltale bulge of a sword either. No strap of a rifle runs across his chest. He is unarmed—why? To deceive the train guards into thinking that he is on the same side? Mother always said that hope isn’t something an empress can count on. It isn’t the wind that chills me, but recalling her sober tone.

  “Celestia,” my seed greets me when I am a mere ten steps away. He spreads his arms wide, palms up. The movement is stiff, as if he were wounded. His smile betrays nothing, but his gray eyes reveal his pain.

  “General Monzanov . . .” I can’t quite hold on to my composure. I dash to him, through the crunching, ice-crusted snow. For this is the man I have always been able to rely on. It is he who sided with the gagargi because that is what I asked of him. It is he who has now forsaken the same man, simply because I sent him a letter.

  My seed clasps his arms around me. I bury my head against his shoulder, the snow-dusted wolf fur that smells of smoke and gunpowder. He has come to set us free. With his help, I will reclaim my empire. With . . .

  “Celestia,” he whispers. And there it is again, the wrongness.

  I don’t want to break the embrace. But my own needs or wishes bear secondary priority to those of my empire. Even if the train guards believe my seed to be on the same side, the sooner we are on our way, the higher the likelihood that at least a part of the plan will work.

  I steel myself and say what needs to be said. “Untie the horses. Take Elise and the girls. I will remain behind and delay the pursuit, no matter the cost.”

  He steps away from me then, and this single act of rejection hurts my heart, my body, as if I were a creature of glass fracturing against granite. “No.”

  His gaze is very gray, pale as icicles. I meet his eyes, dreading what I might see. What is the reason behind his refusal? Has the gagargi tampered with his soul as he once did with mine? I know now what to look for, the absence of emotion, of memory. But my seed’s gaze is bright, his own. He isn’t under the gagargi’s power.

  “Why?” I ask, unsure of how much time we have left. Elise still lingers at the street with the girls. Sibilia paces back and forth on the platform, the magpie skimming beside her. Belly and Tabard have joined Beard. My sister will soon grow afraid of them and dart to me. Of that I am sure.

  “The Crescent Empress is dead. General Kravakiv has been defeated. Every noble close to you or your mother has been either converted or executed.” My seed’s voice is level, that of a man who has delivered bad news to his empress too many times to count. “Gagargi Prataslav learned of our plan. I don’t know how. It doesn’t matter now. My men and I were ambushed yesterday, just a mile away from this village. I was captured. My company was rounded up and shot before my eyes. One after another.”

  I can see the blood staining the snow, the smoke parting after gunfire, even without closing my eyes. And closing my eyes would benefit no one. I can only consider the facts and try and craft a new plan. “The soldiers by the stable?”

  My seed glances at the red-gloved soldiers. He shrugs as if they didn’t matter. Perhaps they don’t. “They have their orders. They are beyond reasoning with. It is as you said. Their minds are not their own.”

  My stomach clenches, a pain trivial compared to that which I had to suffer to rid myself of Gagargi Prataslav’s seed. He has grown powerful indeed. How many men and women does he have fully in his control, with parts of their souls captured into glass beads?

  “What are their orders?” I ask, refusing to give up. For fear can only cloud one’s mind, and that is something I will never again let happen to myself.

  My seed pats the neck of the closest horse, a thick-furred brown mare tacked on the troika’s left lead. He has always loved horses; the ones he owned, the ones that gave their lives in the battles, the ones he met just in passing. The mare swishes its tail and continues munching hay. My seed smiles faintly, but then his expression turns somber. “Once the train leaves, they will shoot me dead.”

  My heart sinks, for it is as if the ground were drawing me toward it, as if it were just a matter of seconds before it will swallow me altogether. My seed has calculated the odds and come to a grim conclusion. He has accepted his fate.

  I will not resign myself to mine. Not before I have explored every possibility, no matter how unlikely they are to succeed.

  “We do have one troika.” I must hear his reasoning. I can’t just welcome defeat, return with my sisters to the train, and leave him here to die.

  “The gelding in the middle is lame. The troika’s right runner is broken.”

  I shake my head despite myself. No wonder the soldiers by the stable are snickering. They know any attempt my seed were to make would be doomed to fail. They want to see him try, I realize. And worse, the gagargi wants me to attempt to defy him.

  If I were to try today, he would win. If I don’t try, he will win. My prospects are bleak indeed.

  “The gagargi wants me to tell you that you belong to him.” My seed spits on the ground, the snow trampled ugly brown by hooves. He is disgusted by the words that he must part with. “The next time you try to flee, he will have one of your sisters shot.”

  My enemy knows me too well. I can see my life unfolding before me. He will blackmail me into appearing by his side and bearing his seed. Once he thought he could have me marry the Moon while spellbound to him. Now I doubt he will let any gagargi perform the ceremony, lest my father learn of his foul ways.
I can live with my own pain, but not with the knowledge that further actions on my part will hurt my innocent sisters.

  Elise has halted at the end of the street. She is waiting for my signal. But she has stared at me for too long, and this has intrigued Captain Janlav. He studies me, suspicious. Even Merile and Alina have noticed that the plan isn’t progressing as it should. They no longer play with the dogs.

  I wave at my sisters to return to the train. This plan is foiled beyond recovery. We must salvage what we can.

  “I am proud of you, Celestia,” General Monzanov says. Mother thought him the best strategist to have walked under the Moon for centuries. He knows when a defeat is inevitable. He doesn’t waste time dwelling on it. “You have found yourself a formidable foe. Though the situation might seem bleak now, that it is not. You are a daughter of my seed. You are the empress-to-be. You will defeat the gagargi one day, and your victory shall be great.”

  My breathing comes in short gasps. I swallow back tears, the lump in my throat. He believes in me, the one who failed the empire. How can he be so sure of my victory, when even I doubt myself?

  He places his palms on my shoulders and presses a kiss on my forehead. His gray beard tickles my skin. His frostbitten lips feel warm. This is how I must remember him. All this will be gone in mere moments.

  “Go now, with your head held high. Take your place as the Moon’s wife. You will come up with another plan. You will triumph. You will succeed.”

  I kiss his cheeks, twice on each side. Then I turn around and march back, following my own footprints. The icy wind chafes my face, my forehead, as if trying to erase his kiss. Tears burn in my eyes, but I will not cry them. Not now, not ever, for my sisters must not see me despair. I can’t allow the guards see me waver either. There is a chance they don’t know of what came and will come to pass, no matter how small that chance might be.

  My sisters await me on the train platform with the guards in a crescent behind them. Elise’s smile falters as she takes in my grim expression. Sibilia closes her eyes and sighs. Merile takes hold of Alina’s hand. The dogs are curled at their feet.