by Mike Truk
Morwyn narrowed her eyes. “See? That’s the kind of language that motivates me to act and apologize later.”
“I have abilities beyond your imagination,” said Zarja. “Can sense things you humans have no means of divining. Do you think I’d reveal my true nature so carelessly if I didn’t think it safe for me to do so?”
“A lapse in your judgement,” said Anastasia, though she didn’t sound as confident as before.
Zarja hopped up onto the counter, crossing one leg over the other, revealing a delicious expanse of thigh. “First, know that I respect you both. Anastasia, I’ve seen many disciplus and human magicians over the course of my life, and few have had your potential. If you were to slip the constraints imposed upon you by your academy, I believe you could become a true force of power.”
Anastasia lowered her chin. “Exactly the kind of offers we were warned to be wary of.”
“But why? Did you ever take it another step and ask why your academy fears magic so much? Why it limits you to such narrow constraints? Velocity and hardness? The most basic of physical properties?”
“Magic is akin to fire,” said Anastasia stonily. “Without control it will destroy all that it touches.”
“Words of fear and ignorance,” said Zarja. “I won’t seek to convince you right now but know this: I can help you explore and expand upon your powers far beyond that which your academy has done. But there’s an even more important reason why we should get along.”
Anastasia drew herself up with imperious dignity. “What?”
“I like you.” Zarja’s smile was infectious and disarming both. She cocked her head to one side. “Your dry wit, the deep well of passion you keep so well hidden, your curiosity, your piercing intellect - you are a formidable, beautiful woman, and I would love nothing better than to be your friend.”
Anastasia began to splutter her response, but Zarja turned to Morwyn. “You, however. You’re as likable as a bed of bramble-laced nettles.”
Morwyn’s expression hardened. “That’s an interesting way to win me over.”
“I’m not trying to win you over. Any attempt to do so would only incite you to further violence. No. What I’d like to explore is the stench of death that hangs about you.”
Morwyn took a step back. “My - what? We fought earlier today - I’d say we all could use a bath -”
“No,” said Zarja. “I’m speaking of a spiritual stench. You’re a walking charnel house, Morwyn. Your gods are different from my own, your pantheon alien to my mind, but I’ve spent enough time amongst you humans to recognize this one’s calling card. Only one god reeks of bones and ashes. Only one of your human gods deals exclusively in death. Tell me, Morwyn.” Zarja bounced her leg, leaning forward on both arms. “Why do you reek of the Hanged God?”
Morwyn turned bone white. It was as if every artery and vein had been opened all at once. “I - what?”
“Your dreams. I’ve heard you scream at night. What do you see? When did they start?”
Morwyn took another step back. Hugh stared. She looked terrified.
“I can help, Morwyn.” Gone was her mockery. Zarja spoke quickly, earnestly. “You don’t need to face this by yourself. And unlike the rest of Mendev, I harbor no biases toward the Hanged God. I can help you, Morwyn.”
The captain backed up against the kitchen wall, causing shelves and plates and cups to rattle. Her jaw worked soundlessly for a moment before she turned and bolted out into the dining room, hooked a hand on the door frame and fled into the night.
“What by the Ashen Garden was all that about?” demanded Hugh.
“Precisely,” sighed Zarja. “Poor girl. I’ve never met someone so afraid of herself.”
“I… I need a glass of wine,” said Anastasia, lowering herself onto the bench.
Hugh cast around, found Morwyn’s bottle, and poured what was left into a mug which he handed to her.
“A lisica,” said Anastasia. She considered her wine then drained it. “Hugh. How could you?”
“I… it didn’t feel like I was making a choice,” he said. Risked a glance at Zarja, who was considering him speculatively. “I was drowning. And Elena - while she worked at the Rusałka - she was this quiet force of support and positive energy that I never appreciated until it was time to leave. And Zarja… I’ve….” He shook his head again, placing his palm to his temple. “I’ve needed her. Like cracked earth needs rain. She’s…” He broke off again, frustrated, trying to force his broken emotions into words. “She’s brought me back from the edge. And I realized… for better or worse, I needed her affection and love more than anything else.”
Anastasia raised an eyebrow. “Given what I’ve heard every night on the way here, I was about to make a cheap joke, but no. Alas. This…. This transcends such juvenile humor. And you, Zarja? You speak of what you can offer us. What’s in this for you?”
“For me?” Zarja titled her head to one side and smiled provocatively. “The sheer, unadulterated joy of your company. No? Then I’ll say this: Hugh has the smell of destiny to him. Perhaps it’s the Thavma magic that draws me, but I think it’s more: I have had dreams, prophetic dreams, that have convinced me he will play an important role in the lives of countless fae to come. I’m drawn to him like a moth to a flame, in part in the hopes of influencing him to be his better self.”
“And the other part?” asked Anastasia.
“He is absolutely amazing in bed,” said Zarja with a wicked smile. “I’ve lost track of the hundreds I’ve mated with over the course of my life, but I’ve never fucked a man with such stamina, hunger, and desire. And have you even seen his body?”
“I see, yes,” said Anastasia blushing furiously and turning away. “Right. Point made.”
Zarja laughed. “I have my motivations, dear Anastasia. But I won’t deny I’m nervous.” She glanced at Hugh, growing sober. “Especially now that I know what happened. Thavma magic warps the very weft of reality. And Hugh… as wonderful as he is, I still have moments where I fear for my life. How this will all play out I don’t know; this road could lead to significant betterment for my people, or calamity. But I know I can’t stand aside.”
Hugh took up another bottle of wine, considered it, then put it aside. Wondered if he should seek to reassure Zarja; decided now wasn’t the time. “You going to write to Annaro, Anastasia?”
“I don’t know.” She stared down at the tabletop. “I should. I am his disciplus. Everything I’ve been taught compels me to report this situation immediately…”
“But?”
“But.” She sighed, looked down at her hands. “To do so would damn you as well, Hugh.”
“And,” said Zarja, voice gentle, “there’s the matter of your own rebellious nature.”
“Rebellious?” asked Hugh. “I would hardly call Anastasia -”
“You haven’t been sitting beside her all the way north,” said Zarja. “Sounding out her thoughts and opinions on everything under the sun. We’ve had long days to get to know each other, and while I’ve dissembled under the guise of Elena, Anastasia was perhaps a little too honest.”
“You played me,” said Anastasia, turning to glare at her.
“No,” said Zarja, slipping off the counter to kneel before her. “Anything but. Our every conversation only raised my admiration for you further. While you’re terribly limited in your understanding of magic, your opinions, your suspicions, your desires - they’ve all revealed you to be someone who could truly blossom into a magnificent person. Oh Anastasia. You’ve impressed me so, even as you revealed your reservations about the world around you.”
Anastasia sat with ramrod stiffness. “I’d never have breathed a word on any of that if…”
“If you thought I could actually understand what you were saying?” Zarja’s eyes twinkled. “But oh, I did. I know how you chafe against the restrictions set on your quest for knowledge. How foolish and short sighted you believe the academy’s politics to be. How much potential you sense out t
here, just beyond your fingertips. You’re like a songbird whose cage hangs in the forest. You yearn to fly, Anastasia, and I love that in you, for that impulse reigns in me, too. I would help you slip free of your cage, would show you how to spread your wings and take to the air. Could unlock your gifts, if you but let me. If you could but be honest with your own impulses. Your own nature. Your own desires.”
Anastasia’s eyes glazed over. “You speak words of such sweet temptation. So typical of a fae.”
“And who warned you against me?” asked Zarja, voice soft. “The masters at the academy, no? The men who fear the forests, the wilds, who broke your will when you were a child and forced you to channel your gifts into chirography? No.”
Zarja reached out and took Anastasia’s hand in her own. “They tried to break your will. They failed. All these years you’ve been questioning. Wondering. You told me of your adventures. How often you were disciplined. How you never ceased to wonder. And in me you can finally get your answers. I am not alien. I am not dangerous. I am not other, Anastasia. I am merely the logical conclusion to your every thought.”
“No,” whispered Anastasia, drawing her hand back.
“Yes,” said Zarja, kneeling still at her feet, fox tail weaving from side to side. The air around her was magnetic, pregnant with emotion, her sincerity such that Hugh found it hard to breathe. “You can write to Annaro. I won’t stop you. I won’t even flee before his soldiers come to kill me. But you’ll spend the rest of your life dreaming of me. Of what you turned away from. But on some level, you already know what you’ll be sacrificing to duty, and that knowledge will poison you. Extinguish that which is wonderful and brilliant in your soul. Because you’ll not be killing me, but murdering that selfsame spark that fuels your passion for magic. Kill me, Anastasia, and the rest of your life will be a half-dead slumber. You know this.”
Anastasia didn’t reply. She was breathing heavily, staring down at Zarja with wide eyes, her chest rising and falling. “You’re… you’re using óneirothélisi on me.”
“You know I’m not. That bond that’s been building between us all these days and nights - it’s been entirely natural. Our friendship. Our mutual respect.” Zarja’s voice was low, husky. She reached out again and took Anastasia’s hand, and this time the disciplus didn’t pull back. “What you’re feeling right now. It’s what I’m feeling. It’s why I felt safe revealing myself to you. Because I knew you’d understand. That at heart you’d want to protect me. To let this feeling between us grow.”
Anastasia slowly shook her head but couldn’t tear her gaze away from the lisica’s upturned eyes. “No… no, I can’t…”
“Yes,” whispered Zarja, rising to her knees and leaning forward, pushing herself between Anastasia’s knees. “Yes, you can….”
Hugh’s heart was in his throat. He could barely breathe as he watched the two women draw closer together. Were they… was Zarja going to…?
“I swear this to you,” said Zarja, squeezing Anastasia’s hand. “I shall respect your boundaries. I shall not push nor tempt you further. If you allow it, I shall be your friend as before. But. If you ever wish to ask a question of me, of óneirothélisi or my view on chirography, on the wide and wondrous nature of magic that goes beyond your Bozhidar and Zhemilir, then you will have a willing accomplice in your studies. Can you live with that, Anastasia?”
The disciplus forced herself to swallow and pressed the base of her palm to her temple. “I - yes. I don’t even know what I’m saying, what I’m agreeing to - but yes. We can… I shall not… yes.”
“Thank you.” And Zarja leaned forward to kiss Anastasia chastely on the cheek. “I couldn’t ask for more. Thank you.”
“I… I need a moment,” said Anastasia, rising to her feet and backing away. “There’s a lot for me to process. I’ll - I’ll be turning in. Good night.” And she climbed the stairs to the second floor loft.
Hugh dry swallowed. The tension there had been thick enough to cut with a knife.
“Outside,” said Zarja, rising to her feet and smoothing down her skirt over her taut ass. Without a backward glance she strode out the front door.
“Damn,” whispered Hugh. Never in a million years would he have guessed the night was going to turn out this way. He pushed off the counter and followed the lisica into the night air. Erro lay across the Mandroga, a few shutters outlined from within by lantern or candlelight, but for the most part already dark and settled down to sleep. The air was cool, and a gentle wind was blowing through the tree tops, tousling Hugh’s hair as he stepped up beside where Zarja stood, arms crossed, staring out over the river.
“That went better than I expected,” she said. “A gamble, but a good one.”
Hugh scratched the back of his neck. “For a moment there I thought it was going to go somewhere else with Anastasia altogether.”
“I could have pushed it, yes. And I believe Anastasia would have proven… receptive. But no. It would have been too much for her come morning. She’d have awoken as if from a fever dream and panicked. No telling what she would have done then. She’s strong, but my nature and what I represent embodies an existential threat. Moreover, it would have been unkind, and I’d never risk hurting her. So, no. We achieved a lot tonight. Now we let her settle, let her own the decision, and then see where things stand.”
Hugh turned to consider the lisica. “I’d never have guessed you were this calculating, Zarja.”
She arched a honey-colored eyebrow. “You could call it that, yes. But doing so leaves out the genuine affection I have for Anastasia.” She glanced sidelong at him. “I told no lies in there. I like her. More than I expected. There’s something about how buttoned up she is that makes me want to tear her clothes off and make her scream. Shatter those artificial walls that damned academy built into the fabric of her soul. I want to set her free. So, while you could call me manipulative, I’d call it nurturing. I want to help her realize her potential and pushing too hard too soon would ruin our chances of making that happen.”
“I stand corrected,” said Hugh. “And Morwyn?”
“You’re going to need to find her,” said Zarja. “I’m guessing she’s crossed the river and is wandering Erro. She’s in an even more precarious place than Anastasia.” Her voice softened. “She only understands strength. What does that say about a human? How they were raised? The lessons they were taught? I can’t begin to guess how hard her youth was. Hers is the language of domination. Yet if you dominate her - as I know you could - she’d only be damaged further. She’d force herself to become submissive to you, but it would come at the expense of her own self-respect. She’s tied too much self-worth to her martial ability. And up until she met you, that worked. Now?” Zarja shook her head sadly.
Frustration arose within Hugh. “I sensed as much. But how do I get through to her then, if my every attempt is met with a dagger?”
“I don’t know. I could guess, but in this I think it best to leave it to your instincts. But tread carefully, Hugh. She’s balancing on a knife’s edge. Push her the wrong way and she could fall into something far more perilous than you can imagine.”
“What were you talking about, back there? About the Hanged God and her?”
Zarja shook her head slowly. “It’s a realm beyond my understanding. Human theology. You worship real powers, but they are alien to my kind, and do not concern themselves with us. What I sense is that she has attracted the Hanged God’s attention in some way. A faint hint of that pale creature’s ashen power surrounds her, fuels her, makes her more lethal than any normal human should be.”
Hugh rubbed at the stubble along the length of his jaw. “Great. The one god that is reviled by the Fate Makers. Anybody who has anything to do with the Hanged God is taken to the Obsidian Monolith and never heard from again. No wonder she’s kept this under wraps.”
“The aura is faint. But there. Hence my caution. We’re dealing with something very delicate and very, very deadly. Speaking of which.”
Hugh gave a hollow laugh as he covered her hands with his own. “Feeling?” He searched for the right words. “Bewildered. Lost. Hollow. Confused.”
“That all?”
Hugh bit his lower lip as he considered. Focused on himself. “I’m… relieved.” And realized it was true even as he said it. “I’ve been carrying this secret for so long that I’d forgotten how heavy it was. Now that I’ve shared it, for better or worse… the weight has lifted. A little.”
A smile curved the corner of Zarja’s full lips. “And notice how nobody screamed or declared you a monster.”
His smile was bitter. “That’s because none of you know the details.”
“Don’t underestimate our understanding,” said Zarja. “I know myself to be biased, but Anastasia and Morwyn had an opportunity to reject you and didn’t. Feel that in here,” she said, thumping his chest lightly. “Yes, there’s room for deeper understanding. And yes, no doubt you bear the responsibility for their deaths. But intuition tells me something much more important was at play. I’ve not heard of a Thavma walking the waking world in decades, if not longer. For one to have revealed itself to you, to have spared you…”
“What are you saying?” asked Hugh, trying not to growl.
“That in time you may reconsider what happened in the Goat’s Wood. As you learn more. As you gain a better understanding of what was at stake.”
“And what was at stake?” Almost he could hear the Lost Reavers howling their outrage in his ear.
“I don’t know. But with my help, perhaps we can figure it out. I’d like to be present when Anastasia probes the Thavma’s spell. Perhaps there is information contained therein that evaded the discipluses that examined you before. Perhaps we can begin to learn what happened to you, and why.”