The Sisters of the Crescent Empress

by Leena Likitalo

  Captain Janlav pats Captain Ansalov’s shoulder, a jovial attempt to save what he can. “No, no, no, the orders are written and sealed. Shall we have one more look at them together?”

  And it is only because Captain Ansalov is still befuddled that Captain Janlav manages to distract him and direct him out, his last favor to us out of loyalty for the ruler he once served.

  * * *

  I am not alone with my failure, but in the company of my sisters. I had thought through many scenarios, but none wound up like this. I was prepared to sacrifice my soul, my very life, but in the end, even that wasn’t enough to keep my sisters safe. Defeated, I stare at the flaking paint of the pale blue door, closed and locked once more. For us, another one will not open. Or if it does, it will be that of the cellar, the one we shouldn’t walk through.

  My sisters wait patiently behind me. I can hear their nervousness in their shallow breaths and the floor creaking under weights shifted. Turning around, facing them, feels more challenging than confronting Captain Ansalov. “My sisters—”

  “He would have helped us!” Elise claps her delicate hands against her chest, awed by the man she once loved, whom she can now admit she never stopped loving, impervious for a moment more to our impeding fate. “All this time, and I didn’t know!”

  “Well, now you know,” Sibilia remarks, as disappointed as I am that our sister cares more for her heart’s chosen one than our own well-being. She slips the pearl bracelet around her wrist. She fidgets through each pearl before she finds the courage to ask what I should have willingly provided. “What are we going to do?”

  What pains me the most is to see the absolute trust in Alina’s deep-set gaze, hope in Merile’s dark brown one. Sibilia already knows, though she pretends otherwise. We have talked of this often enough. The grimness of our situation is only starting to dawn on Elise. She really thought she would be leaving the house tonight.

  “We must decide together how we wish to proceed.” And I lay down the facts and only the facts, no feeble promises of better prospects. I couldn’t change the orders Captain Ansalov received. Captain Janlav’s offer, born from a moment of opportunity, is something we can but forget. Now that the gagargi’s orders are in the air for both his guards and Captain Ansalov’s men to hear, defying them and engaging in a fight that is likely to end in gunshots and blood spilled is not something he is willing to risk.

  “One.” Merile picks the black dog up in her arms. It climbs to rest against her shoulder, prods my sister’s neck with its nose. “So you must choose one of us to go with you?”

  Alina intently studies my shadow, that of Elise. She nods to herself and kneels to summon the brown dog to her. “I know who you should pick.”

  Out of all of us, Alina is the one least afraid. She alone still believes that I will live up to my promise. A thought bordering on delirious comes to me. Could it be that my frail little sister can glimpse our future in the shadows? If I had thought to ask this earlier, could I have saved us? Could any knowledge have made the difference?

  “Either we all go or no one goes,” Sibilia repeats. She must have realized, too, that with his mind tampered with, Captain Ansalov will order anyone staying behind in this house executed.

  “I don’t agree with you.” Elise has her chin angled up, gray eyes afire with defiance. “Celestia, you are the Crescent Empress. What will become of our people if we meet our end in this house? With us gone, there will be no one left to champion for them. Don’t say no to the gagargi’s generous offer for purely selfish reasons.”

  For a moment, there is but silence, for what else could there be? And in this silence, the room feels smaller, the shadows in the corners darker, the light of the chandeliers feebler, the carpet akin to sinking ground. Where once the whole empire was mine, now I am hesitant to confront my own sister. For I don’t know if there is anything I can say to make her see that I am not defying the gagargi because I loathe him for what he did to me, what he did to us and our mother and her sisters. I am saying no to his plan to save her and our younger sisters and the whole empire from oblivion.

  In the end, I don’t have to say a thing. A thin, white shape forms beside Elise.

  “Drinking,” Olesia wails. Her shape is translucent. “Men drinking downstairs.”

  “Oh no,” Sibilia gasps, a hand flinging to cover her mouth. “Celestia . . .”

  I lift my forefinger minutely, a sign she shouldn’t say more. Men drink to gather courage when faced with commands they aren’t willing to obey sober. This is no longer my choice. The two captains will force me to go to the gagargi, to abandon my sisters. Or then, the order they think they must obey is the grimmer one, the one from the past that has already been once carried out, that led Irina and Olesia to their graves. But Captain Ansalov may not remember that, and it is my fault and no one else’s.

  “My sisters . . .” I have always known that as the Crescent Empress I might need to choose from two equally appalling options. But never did it even occur to me to speculate which of my sisters deserves to live the most. For that is a decision I can’t make, one that I can’t ask them to make for me either. “I . . .”

  “Celestia, wait,” Sibilia says, so quietly, so shyly, uncertain and yet so sure of herself. “There is one more thing that we could try.”

  “Tell us.” Merile speaks in my place.

  Without saying another word, Sibilia strides to the window closest to our rooms and yanks at the curtains. It takes her three attempts to fully part them. The thread tears loose just as we gather around her.

  My beloved, he hasn’t yet risen to the sky. Yet, where there should be but dark, a faintest silvery glow emerges. It finds its way into the room through the crack in the glass, the gap between the planks, past the open curtains. “Our father showed me something that for a long while only confused me. But I just realized what he might have meant. That is, I’m pretty sure I know what he was after.”

  The silvery light draws me toward it. My sisters and Olesia hear the call, too. It can be but a message from our father, for we are all his daughters.

  “When I read the scriptures, I came across a spell that might enable me to change the souls between two willing bodies.” Sibilia glances at Alina and Merile, and then . . . at the two dogs. No wonder that my sister is hesitant. Her idea is straight out of a children’s story. “He has shown me the dogs running through the forest, following the magpie. I think that . . .”

  She doesn’t need to say more. She is suggesting switching Alina’s and Merile’s souls with those of the two dogs, to be guided to safety by the witch who demanded too much from me in her greed. And then she wants me to leave the house with . . .

  “Could you bind the spell?” I ask, though this is a ludicrous conversation to have in the first place. But I must know the answer to make a decision of any sort. It is very challenging to maintain a spell while moving, and if the spell were to snap, the souls would no doubt return back to their original bodies.

  “I’ll stay here,” Sibilia replies, her voice steadier than mine. “Captain Ansalov will have no reason to go after the dogs.”

  The rest of her plan dawns on me. She wants me to leave the house with Elise. Elise, of all people!

  “No.” I cup Sibilia’s cheeks, kiss her forehead. My dear sister, the one I once chose to stay behind with me, the one I promised to never abandon, is ready to sacrifice herself to save her younger and older sisters—a duty that was mine, but which I couldn’t carry through. “No, no, and no.”

  But my sisters care little of me rejecting the dreadful idea. They don’t yet understand the price it bears, the sheer number of unknowns. What would happen to our youngest sisters once their bodies cease to breathe? Would they remain captive in those of the two dogs forever? Or would the witch know a way to bring them back?

  “Yes, that’s it!” Elise claps her hands. She isn’t cheerful as much as relieved. “Celestia, can you not see it? This is our father’s will.”

  Alina s
queals with delight. “I’d be a dog!”

  “But what of my dear sillies?” Merile asks in a quiet voice, though she must know the answer already. There is nothing left in this house for us, for them, but despair.

  “Please, be quiet,” I plead with them, pacing away from the pale light. Sibilia’s plan is far-fetched, its implications more terrible still. If her spell were to fail, the lives of our youngest sisters would be forfeit. If it were to work, beyond all logic, beyond all sanity, four of us would have a chance to live. But one of us would fall.

  “Rifles.” Olesia’s shrill whisper interrupts my train of thought. “Irina says . . . Men loading rifles.”

  “Father Moon, forgive me,” Sibilia mumbles even as she marches to me. She grabs my wrists and pulls me with her into the beam of light. “Will you show your wife your will and let us get on with it?”

  Before I can tell her that it is outrageous of her to ask this of our father, demand my husband show me what he sees when he hasn’t chosen to do so before, impossibly, the light turns luminous. I can’t move, wouldn’t even want to move, as it swallows me whole. My beloved reveals his blessed face to me, the drawing room fills with his silvery presence, and I can at last see that which has come to pass under his celestial gaze.

  The Great Thinking Machine has grown in size. It is blacker than the night, an oiled creature with a thousand spindly, insect legs. It hisses in hunger, though dozens of men feed it small amber beads in a constant supply. Another group of men piles holed paper sheets in its gaping maw, questions that the gagargi demands answered. The cogs and wheels spin as the machine crunches through numbers without thought or care. All this is possible only because . . .

  A peasant woman with more white in her hair than one of her age should have presents her newborn to a country gagargi. The man in black robes extracts the child’s soul from the writhing body with practiced ease, a glyph pronounced, fingers flicked. The small glass bead fills with amber light. The baby ceases to move, to breathe, to be. The gagargi nods, satisfied with a job well done. He offers the limp body back to the woman. She attempts to hide her tears without success. This is the fate of every other child.

  There are more visions of my empire, but they change too fast for me to catch more than a glimpse of each. But in many of them there are weapons fired without thought or reason, snow and frozen ground stained with blood, houses and fields left behind for someone else to claim. I don’t know why my beloved hasn’t shown this to me before, but now isn’t the right time to ask. Not now when the vision changes once more, and I see with my own eyes the one that first confused, then inspired Sibilia.

  A black dog, a brown dog dash through the midnight forest, thin tails extended straight behind them, ears pressed against their heads. Theirs is speed, theirs is devotion, as my beloved lights their way through the unnamed, winding paths. A bird black and white flies before them, wings beating fast, but whether it is fast enough . . .

  “Celestia.” Elise’s whisper is soft, wavering. “Please come back to us.”

  I blink and find my sisters huddling around me, my beloved’s light receding. I understand now what I should have realized on my own a long time ago already. When one is taking, one isn’t looking. That is why I didn’t see these visions before.

  “What did he show you?” Sibilia asks, and my younger sisters stare expectantly at me. They know that I now know my beloved’s will.

  “I must return to the Summer City, there to put an end to Gagargi Prataslav’s rule.”

  * * *

  Men arguing. Glass shattering. Furniture being pushed aside. These harsh sounds carry through the house, and we hear them clear now. The impatience and anger unleashed.

  “Hurry.” Olesia flickers out of sight, back. “Irina says to hurry.”

  I have always prided myself on being able to think rationally even in the direst of circumstances, and this occasion is no exception. Sibilia’s plan is our best and only option. It pains me to accept this, but there is no other choice.

  I stoop down and pat my knees twice in quick succession. The dogs bounce to me, brown coat, gray coat gleaming under my beloved’s light. I meet their big, round eyes. “Let me have a look at you.”

  My sister’s dogs are more than themselves tonight. There is a deeper understanding present in their glistening gazes. They are ready to sacrifice themselves to save their mistress, her little sister. And for that I love them as if they were truly my sisters.

  “Alina, Merile.” I address our youngest sisters even as I rise up. Elise herds them before me, not quite able to conceal her own haste. Sibilia peeks out through the crack in the glass, the gap between the planks, thoughtful. Olesia falters out of sight, returns fainter, but there is nothing I can do for her. “I have seen what Sibilia has seen. Will you let Rafa and Mufu help you?”

  “Yes!” Alina agrees as if she had been waiting for this moment for months and then again months. And perhaps she has.

  “Other way.” Merile pouts her lips. Tears glitter at the corners of her eyes. “There is no other way. Is there? One where . . .”

  Elise wraps her arms around Alina and Merile. Regardless of what she insisted earlier, it isn’t easy for her to part from them. It isn’t easy for me either. I should have been the one to sacrifice myself, not Sibilia. “I am afraid there is none.”

  Merile blinks, frustrated and furious. Finally, she nods. “What do we need to do?”

  Sibilia stirs by the window. Her gaze is full of wisdom and my beloved’s secrets. For a long while after her debut, I wondered if my swan-self kept her word, if she flew to the highest skies, if she conveyed the news of my sister’s coming of age to our father. Now I know she did. As I have been blessed by our father, so has my sister. “Not much. Elise, where did you put that needle?”

  Elise quickly fetches the needle from the table while Sibilia instructs us to settle into a crescent so far away from the window that the beam of light barely touches our sabots. She nudges the gray dog before Merile, the brown one before Alina. I have no role in this ceremony. It is up to my sister to perform the rite.

  The sounds from downstairs intensify. Men searching for courage have perhaps found it from the bottle, and have no other option but to cope with their commands. Olesia’s shape shivers worse than before. She doesn’t need to tell us to hurry.

  “Father Moon,” Sibilia addressed my beloved, her tongue clicking with the glyph, I recognize this now. “Four willing souls, four bodies, will you save your daughters?”

  The silvery beam of light flowing into the room gleams in reply. My beloved has at last risen to the sky. The two dogs trot to the purest of lights. Alina and Merile follow them, as does Sibilia. Elise shifts to do likewise, but I seize her arm. This rite doesn’t concern us.

  My hand clenches blue bruising tight around her slender arm.

  “Finger.” Sibilia beckons Alina, the needle already poised.

  Alina sticks her forefinger up. She winces as Sibilia stabs it. A drop of blood swells on her fingertip, scarlet in color.

  “You, too,” Sibilia says to Merile.

  Merile hesitates. She glances at her dogs, at us. I meet her gaze. Does she not hear the sounds from downstairs? Does she not realize this is our only chance? I will my eyes to convey all this.

  Merile sighs and extends her hand toward Sibilia. Our sister sinks the needle in her flesh.

  Next, Sibilia squats down. The dogs offer their paws at her, one after the other. She draws their blood, her movements growing clumsier. “Now, what was the thing I was supposed to do next?”

  There are footsteps pounding up the stairs. More than two pairs. Many more. The captains are coming for us with their men. But telling Sibilia to hasten the spell would only confuse her more. And if even this were to fail, more than one of us would fall.

  “Ah, that bit.” Sibilia swiftly rises up. She waves wide circles with her hands. She lets another glyph out . . .

  If I had thought my beloved’s light bright before
, I had no idea of how bright it could be. The Moon’s light floods the drawing room so bright that for a moment I can’t see. When my vision returns, Merile and Alina are already changing. They writhe and whine. They shiver and shine. Then their gazes dull, their souls leave their bodies.

  And the dogs before the girls change, too. They curl down, twitch, go limp. Did the spell not work? Or did it go wrong like so many things have done of late?

  But no, the dogs stir, bounce up to their feet. Now their big eyes glint with confusion, not with fear. They open their mouths as if to speak, but only a curious growl comes out. They glance up at me.

  “It worked,” I say. The impossible, the improbable worked. I bless my beloved’s name.

  Sibilia purses her fists against her hips, satisfied. Elise’s lips part as she wonders at the girls that are not our sisters, the dogs that are.

  The footsteps reach the hallway beyond the locked door.

  “My dear sisters . . .” I must persist, hold on to my composure just a little while longer. As much as I would like to, there is nothing I can do for Sibilia. I can’t switch places with her, for she must stay behind for the spell to remain intact. And intact it must stay for the two captains to believe Alina and Merile dead. That is the only way for them to flee. However, it is up to me to save Elise and myself, even if she has acted treacherously in the past. I don’t yet know what consensus the captains have reached, but I pray to the Moon that they are still willing to obey the gagargi’s original commands. “Let us be brave.”

  A mere heartbeat later, the door swings open. Olesia shimmers, disappears out of fright. Or altogether. I wish we could do likewise, but we are not yet ghosts.

  “Daughters.” Captain Janlav enters first, his eyes hard as beaten copper. The offer born from opportunity is gone, as I knew it would be. I can but accept this.

  Captain Ansalov strides in after him, the bayonet attached to the end of his rifle gleaming in my beloved’s light. Beyond the open door, in the hallway, wait both the guards and the soldiers, every single one of them armed. The tension between them is so dense that one could march on it.