The Sisters of the Crescent Empress

by Leena Likitalo

  “He has been such a great asset to me. The people listen to his voice,” the gagargi says, twisting a knife in the wound he knows I bear in my heart. Even our seeds, the ones that are still alive, have deserted us. He is responsible for the death of mine. “But enough is enough, I think. Having spared you, I have now favored him twice.”

  My dread is fuel for the spell that is growing ever so impatient. It forces my clenched teeth, my tight-pressed lips apart. I must clasp both hands over my mouth, bend my upper body down, to make it seem as if I were about to gag. The left corner of the gagargi’s lips twitches. He is satisfied, rather than suspicious.

  “Great Gagargi Prataslav,” Elise chimes, and at that moment I don’t know if the reverence is a mere practiced tone or genuine. I don’t know my sister anymore. “You are the Gagargi of the People. Your kindness knows no limit.”

  “Kindness,” the gagargi repeats slowly. Even if Elise’s intervention was an attempt to sway the gagargi to granting us, Merile, mercy, he isn’t a man capable of that. “Yes, I am kind. But I cannot be seen to favor any family over the others. Not even the one of celestial descent.”

  And with this said, his full, intense attention falls on little Alina.

  My stomach cramps as if my intestines were boiling, and I am no longer faking my nausea. A guttural hum rises inside me. I retch parts of the spell into my palms, swallow back what I can. It isn’t the time yet. Not yet!

  “The youngest Daughter of the Moon.” Gagargi Prataslav pats Alina’s head, his long, skeletal fingers weaving into the gray-brown hair. “Still on her sixth year, is she not?”

  Alina tenses and seems to shrink before my very eyes. I have never wanted anything as much as to rush to her, to hold her, but that I can’t do. Elise, Sibilia, and Merile turn to me, hesitant, concerned, and afraid, seeking guidance on what to do. I can’t provide them any, not when I am about to vomit out the spell that may not be enough to save us.

  “Every family gives their every other child to fuel the greater benefit of the empire,” the gagargi says, the terrible words preceding a suggestion unfathomable. “Imagine how it looks to the people, when the imperial family refuses to follow this rule.”

  It is clear to me now. He wants Alina’s soul, though it is deeply anchored to her body. That he shall not have, even if this will cost us older sisters dearly. I force my back straight, lower my arms to my sides. And curiously enough, now that I am about to set the spell free, it no longer fights against me.

  “It lives in his shadow,” Alina whispers, filling the calm moment about to shatter. “It’s growing.”

  The gagargi takes a step back and stares at his shadow, and with his gaze, with Alina’s words, everyone’s eyes are drawn to the black shape veiling the planks. This is the best I can hope for. I part my lips and release the spell.

  “What do you see?” the gagargi asks, unaware of the threads of silver that coil through the air toward him. This spell will not be difficult to maintain once connected to a person, I know this from personal experience. But each word I want the gagargi to believe will drain more of my strength than the previous, both that which was bestowed on me by the Moon and that of my very soul.

  “It’s growing bigger.” Alina hugs herself, her face paling as if she had not a drop of blood left in her veins. “There’s two of them . . .”

  My spell reaches the gagargi at the exact same moment as my little sister falls limp on the floor. The gagargi swats his palm at the back of his head. Does he feel my spell?

  “What is this?” the gagargi asks his two captains, as if they were to blame for this deviation from his plan, merely annoyed rather than suspicious.

  “Alina!” Merile shrieks, kneeling by our sister. “Celestia, help!”

  I dare not to move a step now that I am connected to the gagargi, and so I can but watch from aside. The good man, Captain Janlav, rushes to shelter little Alina from anyone who might think to hurt her more. He gathers her into his arms, holds her against his chest. “It’s all right. She’s alive. She’s breathing.”

  “Alina!” Merile cries as Sibilia pulls her up from the floor. Elise stands as if frozen, so far apart from our younger sisters. I pray the Moon our youngest sister has merely fainted from fright, nothing more.

  The gagargi sighs, shaking his head at the scene, and I feel the thread connecting us pulsing. I sense that he got what he needed. My sisters are terrified. He thinks that they have lost faith in me. The two captains have seen us weak and wailing. “Captain Janlav, take them away, will you? They are of no more use to me.”

  The gagargi lies, for this isn’t the case. But I am relieved as Captain Janlav carries little Alina out, as my sisters follow behind him, leaving me alone with the two most frightening men I know. If it weren’t for the spell, the nights soaking in my father’s light, this one and only chance I have to save my sisters, I would follow my swan-self’s suggestion and flee the room regardless of the consequences.

  Boots is already drawing the door closed when the gagargi adds, “Captain Ansalov, you can return to your duties.”

  This I didn’t expect, and the lack of knowing the gagargi’s reasoning behind this sudden decision unnerves me. The line of Captain Ansalov’s jaw tightens, but he is a soldier too experienced to disagree. He simply salutes and strides out. I am glad to see him go, but also terrified of remaining alone with the man who stole my soul once already.

  When only the gagargi and I are left in the dining room, his demeanor changes. He spreads his arms wide, as if welcoming me into his arms. There is still no sign of a spell, and yet his words are ominous beyond comparison. “It would be futile of you to try and resist.”

  Even with my spell latched to him, doubt nags my resolve. The gagargi masters his dark art. He has decades of practice and studies behind him. What chance do I stand against him? There is only one way to find out: to do the exact opposite of what he told me, to resist him for as long as I can.

  “We might as well start.” The gagargi chuckles, and when he finally pronounces the glyph of his own, I am appeased, but only for a moment. For I know that though his violence will not leave behind bruises, he will take pleasure in breaking me. He wants to, needs to take over my mind. He needs to leave this room believing he has achieved this. That is the only way I can save my sisters. “You do know, the less you resist, the easier it will be for you. Think about it, Celestia. Would it really be so terrible for you to simply enjoy my company? Once upon a time you did cherish my touch.”

  I gasp as the spell lashes against my face, half of it for show, the other half from genuine shock at how difficult it is to keep him out of my mind, even when prepared for the attack. The gagargi strolls to me in a leisurely pace, dripping water. I stand still as he reaches out to fondle the back of my neck, his breath so close I can smell his hunger, not a morsel devoured, not a drop drunk to quench his thirst. “You will stand by my side.”

  I dare not to move, not to breathe. Regardless of what I told myself before, I am not whole. I will never be whole. But my spell is still attached to him. If Sibilia is right, the gagargi will think my words his own. Yet I must be mindful of them. I will not have strength to make him believe many.

  “Stand by my side.” The gagargi lifts his hand to draw a circle on my forehead as he has done before. His spell intensifies. I feel it pushing through my skin. I wonder, does the same principle apply to him? Does he have only a limited supply of ideas he can press on me? Is that why he ordered the two captains to leave? “Before our people.”

  “The ceremony,” I whisper. Him being closer . . . Him being closer makes it easier for me, too, to wield my spell. My confidence grows. My words hold my father’s power and his do not. I press my will on him through the threads connecting us. “You will send for me.”

  For even if I want nothing as much as to leave this house right at this moment, this encounter will leave me drained. I am not yet married to the Moon. My sisters and I, we need more time, not only to plan but to st
art trusting each other again. I don’t know if a month will be enough, but that is the best I can do.

  “Send for you?” The gagargi blinks, shakes his head, but I am almost sure he doesn’t realize the form my resistance has taken. Indeed, his next words, the cruel smile, confirm this. “I will send for you.”

  He thinks it his idea. The spell is truly working. But my expression must not betray how I rejoice over this small victory. Not when the battle itself remains yet unfought.

  “In the ceremony, the imperial family will show example,” he continues, and I know what he means without him saying it aloud. It is an idea too horrifying for me to voice.

  “Show example,” I repeat, and I think it is out of my own initiative, not his. The gagargi wants Alina, though she is almost seven already. He wants to extract her soul before the gathered crowd and feed it to the machine. He will not give up on her before his will comes to pass. I speak four more valuable words. “Hand over her soul.”

  “Hand over her soul?” The gagargi considers this for a moment. He knows my little sister is weak of mind, has seen it with his own eyes now. Potions don’t work on her, and the guards will confirm this. She isn’t fit for a public appearance, and extracting a crying child’s soul before the crowd wouldn’t be the best of propaganda.

  “Hand over her soul,” I repeat, and will him to draw the right conclusion. Let him want me to present a soul bead and feed it myself to the machine. When that day comes, the bead will not contain Alina’s soul, but that of some other unfortunate person.

  The gagargi’s gaze sharpens. “Celestia . . .”

  His spell only builds up while I feel mine already waning. Sibilia did warn me that the power charged on me would drain out all of a sudden. I don’t dare to spend more on reinforcing my idea when there is still more I need to accomplish.

  “You are very important to me,” he says, and his words sink in. I am important. I have always known that I am important while my sisters are not. No, that is of his doing, something he wants me to believe toward his own myriad ends.

  “You will send for me,” I repeat, focusing my fast-fading spell on the one last idea that I must imprint onto the gagargi’s mind. “You will send for my sis—”

  The spell that ties the gagargi to me snaps mid-word, and I recoil from . . . not pain, but absence of power, that of my father is all gone. Desperate, I attempt to pronounce the glyph again, the litany of consonants, even if the resulting spell will be powered by my own soul.

  The glyph refuses to take shape. It’s a mindless, arcane thing. It doesn’t care about my desperation, doesn’t care that crucial words remain yet to be said.

  “I will send for . . .” the gagargi muses, rubbing the back of his head as if he had a headache.

  “For my sisters,” I whisper, praying the Moon my mere voice will be enough. The only way I can ensure their safety is for us to stay together. But my words lack power now. “My sisters.”

  “It is agreed then, dearest Celestia.” The gagargi nods, oddly satisfied, as if he had what he came for at last. “I shall send for you in time for the ceremony. You may bring one of your sisters with you.”

  Chapter 11: Alina

  The roses bloom red and pretty, but even so there’s something very wrong about them. I pick up Sibilia’s dance card from the sofa pushed against the wall and squint at the flowers Elise had to paint during the night so that our sister wouldn’t learn about the surprise. Every petal is as it should be, every leaf, too. But . . .

  “Table. On the table. Next to the pastels.” Merile raises her voice at Beard. She holds the silver mirror in one hand, a piece of paper in the other. Being five years older than me, my sister gets to oversee the preparations while Celestia and Elise ready Sibilia for her big night. Though I don’t think she’d know what to do if Irina and Olesia weren’t there to advise her.

  “Are you certain you’ve ogled at yourself from all the possible angles yet?” Beard asks my sister as he lowers the tray of meringues on the oval table that has been moved before the windows. Irina nods both in approval and disapproval, two thin fingers lifted to her lips.

  “No.” Merile sniffs, tilting the mirror so that she can better see the ghosts. Rafa and Mufu spin with her. I’ve brushed their coats to shine copper brown and silver gray. “Punch. What’s taking so long with the punch? They’ll be ready any moment now, and we’re not—there’s still so much to do!”

  But I think the drawing room looks like a different place already, as it’s meant to look. We—or the guards actually—have already moved the furniture against the walls and looped the maple leaf chains to hang from the ceiling. There’s not much left to do for me, apart from the very important task, but the time for that comes only later. I dangle my feet over the sofa’s edge. I’m bored.

  As if sensing this, like Nurse Nookes always did, Olesia turns around and drifts across the carpet that’s been set very straight. She sits down next to me and brushes the roses with the tips of her pale fingers. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”

  “Pretty . . .” I whisper back at her, though with Merile overseeing—that’s what she calls it—the guards entering and leaving the room, no one is paying any attention to me, not even Rafa and Mufu, because they’re too busy hoping that one of the guards would trip and scatter treats. I glance at the roses once more. Though Papa looks at them fondly from the sky, he’s not yet up in this world and won’t be for some time still, as it’s not yet even five here. The time for shadows . . .

  I realize what’s wrong with the roses. “They have no shadows.”

  Olesia leans closer to me, to flick the dance card open. Though of course it won’t open. She doesn’t have a shadow. Or she does, but not in the way living things have.

  I turn the dance card open for her, careful not to wrinkle the paper. “Maybe they’re ghost flowers.”

  “Perhaps you are right.” Olesia tousles my hair that Elise refused to braid this morning and repeatedly told me not to braid myself either. Everyone has been tousling my hair lately, since . . . I’m not going to think about the gagargi or what I saw in his shadow. I don’t need to think about that. Not for three weeks or so at least. Not until he sends for us.

  “Do you think we’ll start soon?” I ask the ghost.

  Olesia glances at the locked door of the room Celestia and Sibilia share. Well, it’s not really locked, but I like to think it’s that way, because we have the key and if we wanted to, we could lock and open it at will! But we don’t want to do that, and we don’t need to do that, because Elise arranged with Captain Janlav that she and Sibilia and Celestia can use the room to get ready for the Ball, that’s how she calls Sibilia’s surprise. And that’s not the only thing she arranged—the decorations and the treats and the dance cards are all of her doing. She talked and talked and smiled and smiled until Captain Janlav and the guards agreed that they’d never wanted to do anything as much as to celebrate my sister’s debut.

  “No, not yet,” Olesia replies after thinking about my question for quite a while, though neither she nor her sister actually bothered to go and check up on my sisters. Lately, they haven’t been very good ghosts. They haven’t done much of the floating around or walking through the walls and they don’t appear that often anymore either and when they do, they don’t stay for long. It’s as if they’ve grown lazy.

  Though I could have, I haven’t grown lazy, and Nurse Nookes would be proud of me. And Mama, too! I can read and count all by myself now. But there’s not too many people around to tell about it. Nor that many things to read. Not that many things to count either, apart from hours and days.

  “One. Two. Five.” I poke each dance listed. There’s five of them and then five again, with blank spaces left for the names of the cavaliers. Waltz, polka, the one with the tricky name that I call goose song, mazurka, and then there’s the chicken dance. “Ten.”

  “I am looking forward to dancing,” Olesia muses, gazing at the guards from under fluttering lashes. They look d
ifferent today, too, with their clothes freshly laundered, with their hair braided with red ribbons and thick red belts tied around their waists. “We have never had a ball in this house.”

  “Surely you had at least one!” I say, because lately the ghosts have also started to forget things. They’ve always been pale, but now they’re definitely beyond any color. I realized this upon coming back from visiting the shadows. I could have stayed with them in the dark. They were very friendly, and the ape and the swan were there, too. They promised to take good care of me. But I told them I couldn’t stay for long because my sisters would grow worried about me. And when I woke up, my sisters were so relieved that I knew I’d been right to return.

  “Perhaps we had.” Olesia glances at Irina as if hoping her sister would agree with her. But Irina is too busy guiding Merile to notice either of us. As she drifts closer to the table, farther away from us, she dims so much that I can barely make out her shape. Maybe the ghosts are fading because they’ve let me and Merile and Sibilia see them too many times. “Yes, we definitely had.”

  I’m happy to see her happier, though I think she believes now what she wants to believe. But I don’t mind. There’s no harm in that.

  “Tonight, I shall dance every single song. I shall start with . . .” Olesia purses her lips as she studies the guards. Then a man enters the room, and Olesia smiles as a cat with a full plate of cream just placed before her might. “That one.”

  The man with no beard or moustache, with his hair braided up and boots polished to shine, doesn’t look familiar at all. As he crosses the room to join the other guards, his heels clack an excited tune. Who can he be? He laughs at something Captain Janlav said and tugs his shirt’s edge down with both hands as if it were too short. It’s only then I recognize him. “That’s Tabard.”