by Anna Kashina
“Come, Kashchey. Let’s settle some scores, shall we? You owe it to Marya.”
To me? What kind of nonsense was this? I was the one who owed everything to my father. My powers, my high station, my life. What could Wolf possibly mean?
“Leave Marya out of this.” A falter in Father’s voice made me shiver. Was he afraid?
He didn’t devour the virgin’s soul. Of, Gods, I failed him, all because of my foolishness.
Wolf took another step toward my father. “You owe her this, Kashchey. She always thought you were her closest kin. Have the courage to tell her yourself. Whose daughter is she?”
“Mine!”
Wolf bit gently on the Needle in his mouth and my father’s face twitched. In pain? Anger? I couldn’t tell.
“Let it be, Wolf,” Raven said quietly. I turned to him in surprise. Such pain in his voice.
Stop! I wanted to shout. Stop hurting my father and Raven, the two wise, powerful beings who made up my whole world. Stop causing them pain. And more than that, I realized. I did not want to learn why this conversation pained them. If I did, my whole world would fall apart. I knew this much.
But I had no power to stop it.
“All right!” Father said. “So, Marya is Raven’s daughter. What difference does it make?”
What? The world around me was going mad. Me? Raven’s daughter?
“He gave her up of his own free will!” my father said.
Wolf shook his head. “His spirit was broken, Kashchey, and you took advantage, because she was so perfect for you.”
Enough. Stop this madness at once. “What are you all talking about?” I demanded.
Wolf turned his gray snout to me.
His eyes shone like two yellow moons, moons marred with vertical slits of deeper orange. His gaze drew me in. Two pools of light filled my vision, momentarily blinding me with their brightness. Then the light faded to normal, and I stood looking at a forest meadow, and a cozy little house cradled in the curve of a quietly tinkling brook.
I’ve seen this place before. Where?
In my dreams, perhaps?
A young woman ran into sight. She was laughing. A wreath of wild asters crowned her head and she carried a bunch of forest bluebells. She sank onto the grass by the brook and dropped the flowers, breathing heavily and looking with expectation back in the direction from whence she’d come.
She was so beautiful that my breath caught with longing. I watched the perfect movements of her slender fingers stroke the flower stems, then smooth the waves of her long black hair. I admired the elegant line of her neck, and her clear green eyes, glowing like two emeralds in her warm, lively face. They were filled with laughter, and like her whole being, emanated happiness and health.
She could have been the image of me, had she not been so warm, so happy, so full of life and love. No one would ever mistake her for me.
Who is she?
The girl didn’t have long to wait. Another shape emerged from behind the bushes at the edge of the glade. A man. Pale, dark-haired, with dreamy eyes and a beaked nose.
He sat on the grass next to her. They looked into each other’s eyes and laughed. Then she fell into his arms and, after a lifetime of embraces and kisses, settled with her head on his lap. She was like a cat, playing with her bluebells, quite content with herself. The man looked down at her with such happiness that my heart ached for him.
Distantly I could hear faint sounds from the world I’d left behind when I submerged into the yellow depths of Wolf’s eyes, but they meant nothing in the face of this strangely familiar scene.
It was like looking into my Mirror, but infinitely more real. I could even smell the flowers in her hands, the fragrance of her skin, fresh like water in a clear forest spring.
The love in the man’s eyes was unbearable to watch.
“I have to go, Elena.” His voice was low, and deeper than I would have expected from his slight frame. And it was so familiar that I could almost sense his presence, somewhere, just out of my reach.
“Will you be long?” she asked, much too busy weaving together a garland of bluebell stems to return the man’s look.
Such anguish in his eyes! Such pain at leaving her!
Why am I forced to watch this?
I struggled to break free, but couldn’t. Wolf held me firmly in his power.
“No, my love,” his voice was almost a whisper. “I’ll be back soon.”
She lifted her head as he stood, but she didn’t get up with him. She lay sprawled on the grass, watching him like a playful kitten.
The man shifted shape.
It was fascinating to watch. I must look like this when I change into a dove, but I’d never watched myself do it. He bent and his form shrank into a small black shape. Where a man had stood a moment ago, there was now a bird.
Raven?
He spread his wings and flew out of sight.
I drew away from Wolf, breathing hard. Everyone watched me intently. But I had eyes only for the black bird, motionless on his branch.
“Raven?” I gasped.
“What did the beast show you?” my father demanded.
For the first time in my life I ignored him. I couldn’t take my eyes off Raven’s still form.
“You had a human form?” I whispered.
He shut his eyes.
Wolf nudged me. “That’s not the end of the story. Watch closely, Marya.”
“What is this?” I demanded. “What kind of magic are you imposing on me?”
“The same magic as is contained within your Mirror. The magic of the Primals. Now, watch, girl, before I lose my patience.”
I didn’t want to watch. But I couldn’t help it.
The maiden, Elena, was now alone. She left her bluebells heaped on the grass and walked into the house. A moment later she came out again to look up into the sky.
And then a new figure appeared in the glade.
My heart leapt, then stood still in my chest.
He walked with the confident, springing steps of a born charmer, a conqueror who had just spotted prey worthy of his attention.
My father, Kashchey the Immortal.
I’d been told that, in the old days, he’d used charm to win his women rather than brutal force. Even in my day I had seen it often enough to recognize that seductive look on his face. Worse, I saw a matching look of interest in the girl’s green eyes, imperfectly concealed by a charming expression of boredom.
I didn’t need to watch further to know what happened next.
“Enough,” I said, stepping away from Wolf. “I don’t want to watch any more. I don’t see why you have to show me this.”
My father’s victories over women often had unfair and destructive consequences, but I’d learned long ago not to care. Now, here, in my unbalanced state, I didn’t want another desperate story forced on me. So, my father had taken away Raven’s love. That was between the two of them. Why did I have to care?
Wolf’s rumbling growl vibrated through the ground.
“Step away from him, Marya!” my father ordered. “You don’t have to submit to this nonsense!”
“Oh, yes, she does.” Wolf smiled through clenched teeth. He looked into my eyes again with his shining yellow gaze and I couldn’t resist him anymore.
It was as I’d expected. The airy-headed maiden fell head over heels in love with my charming father and followed him to his castle. In her short farewell, she told Raven that Kashchey was her true love, and the silly bird-man gave her his blessing instead of beating some sense into her foolish head.
His grief was hard to watch. He shook with it for what seemed like weeks. Months? I could not tell. When he had finally composed himself, he walked out of his little cottage and, under a dawn sky, he turned himself into Raven again. And then, he had spoken the words whose power shook the glade, the forest, and the cottage.
I didn’t understand them, but as a shape-shifter, I knew. He had forsaken his human form. He had locked himself into
his bird form for eternity.
This was why I had never known he had been a human once.
But there was still more to see.
The vision shifted to our city, to the plaza in front of the castle that I instantly recognized. Elena emerged from the main gate and walked up to two people waiting for her on the cobblestones. The first, a tall thin girl with a long braid, looked familiar. The way she moved, the majestic posture that made her look like a noblewoman despite her simple peasant dress. She turned and I saw the familiar curve of her neck, the line of her round cheek, sweet and glowing like a young peach.
Praskovia?
I knew she’d been a beauty in the past, but I’d never realized the majesty of her noble grace. It made here stand out even next to Elena, surely the most beautiful woman in the world.
A movement in the tall narrow window above their heads caught my attention. My father’s face came into view. He also spotted Praskovia. The predator’s glint in his eyes had returned. But his look quickly faded to boredom as he slid his eyes over Elena. Neither of the girls noticed him.
I recognized the man standing next to them. He was younger, and his beard and long straight hair weren’t white, but his light blue eyes shone with that same spirit I’d seen earlier today in my father’s dungeon. The man I saved from my father’s wrath, now lying upstairs in the castle, safe in my servants’ care.
Praskovia’s father.
The scene changed, and with a sinking heart I looked into a clearing at the side of the lake, the very same one in which we now stood. I looked down into the mirror gleam of the Sacrifice Pool with its treacherous currents rippling underneath the smooth surface. I looked up, and saw my father and Elena walk out from between the trees and stop to admire the view.
My skin crept as I recognized this scene.
My dream.
Except that now I was an observer, not a participant as I watched Elena walk next to my father in springy, vigorous steps. Blessed Kupalo, what was my bond to this woman?
My heart ached to break free, but I couldn’t move. Even if Wolf released me now, I wouldn’t be able to stop watching.
I could sense everything through a double pair of eyes. Watching from both aside and within, I felt the touch of the gentle summer breeze, the silky grass at my feet, the pleasant coolness emanating from the water. I sensed the love she felt for the man walking next to her, the man who thought of her with nothing but boredom, whose eyes were already set on his next innocent victim.
I loved and hated him at the same time. And I could not draw my eyes away.
Elena cradled something in her hands. My hand itched as the familiar shape of a warm oval object that seemed to fill it. I felt it so often in my dreams. Except that, unlike me, Elena didn’t seem to be bothered by it.
Perhaps because she knew what it was?
“This is a good place to swim,” my father said. “The best one on the whole lake.”
Don’t listen to him! I prayed silently. I didn’t care what my father did to his women once he was tired of them, but I didn’t want to see it.
I couldn’t look away.
“I would love to go for a swim,” she said, her face glowing with happiness. She loved him so much. I hated her for that. “But I cannot leave my baby,” Elena continued. “She will freeze.”
“Give her to me,” my father said. “I will keep her warm for you. For us.” He gave her an affectionate look that I knew was a lie.
Elena hesitated for a moment. Then she opened her palm and handed the thing she held to my father.
It was an egg. A spotted bird’s egg.
“I wish she could grow up to be human,” Elena whispered, looking fondly at the egg.
“She will,” my father said. “After all, her father had a human form once. After she hatches, I’ll teach her to change shape like he used to. Now, go, swim, my love, we’ll both be waiting for you right here.”
Elena was as silly as I’d suspected. Without hesitation she pulled off her dress and jumped into the Sacrifice Pool. As soon as she did, my father turned and walked back into the forest.
It took her a long time to die.
She struggled against the current that pulled her underwater, against the tugging weed, with more force than I had imagined existed in her slender body. She rose to the surface and the air filled with her pleas and screams. She screamed to my father’s retreating back. And then, when she realized fully what he had done, she turned away from him. Her eyes went empty at this realization, but she did not cease her struggle.
I admired her for that.
Not long after her first screams echoed though the woods, a black bird flew out of the trees and darted over the Sacrifice Pool. He must have been nearby, but not close enough at first to see what happened.
Raven circled low over the water, trying to pull her up with his claws, trying to fetch something big enough for her to hold on to. He got so dangerously close that her gripping hands almost pulled him underwater with her.
He would have given his life for her. But in his bird form he could do nothing to help her. If only he hadn’t forsaken his human form!
His eyes were two pits of despair as he struggled, drenched and exhausted, unwilling to give up and yet powerless to do anything for his love except to die with her.
In the end he chose life.
Perhaps it was for the sake of the egg, his unborn child, now safely in Kashchey’s possession.
As her struggle finally ceased, as the water closed over her head one last time, he dropped in fatigue on the bank of the lake and lay there for a long time.
I had never known before that birds could cry.
I sensed the bonds of Wolf’s hold weaken. Numb, I sank onto the grass.
“What did you do to her?” my father demanded.
“I showed her the true story of her birth. From an egg that you hatched, Kashchey.”
“What of it?” my father asked. “There is no harm in her knowing that! She was born as a dove, but I taught her to take her human form. Just like I promised her mother.”
“And what about Raven?”
“He knew. He didn’t seem to care. So I kept her to myself. I brought her up as my own daughter. What else should I have done?”
Wolf fixed him with a long stare, but didn’t say anything. Instead he turned to me.
“What you saw, Marya, was more than the story of your birth. It was also the story of the first Solstice Sacrifice in your kingdom. Kashchey devoured her soul, and her love gave him power and eternal youth. It changed him. That’s when he realized the tradition must continue, and that the Solstice night—the shortest night of the year—was ideal for this deed.”
“Not true,” Kashchey protested. “The Solstice tradition and the Kupalo cult go back into the ages.”
“Not in this form. Solstice fertility rites are indeed ancient, but they have long become no more than festivities, with some suggestive symbolism. Devouring a virgin’s soul to feed your power—that, I can tell you, was your invention, Kashchey.”
“But why—?” My lips did not obey me. They felt dry, cracked. Cold. I subsided, listening to Wolf’s steady voice.
“Kashchey raised you as his own. He learned to control you with magic, taught you to believe that Solstice Sacrifice in your kingdom was an old and important tradition—all because you were so perfect for this role. You see, for the sacrifice to work, the one conducting it must be untouched by love. He soon found he couldn’t do it himself, because his constant love affairs drove him in random and dangerous directions. But if he had a high priestess who could control her feelings so well, he wouldn’t have to worry at all.”
Control my feelings. I remembered how my father taught me not to form any attachments since early on. How anyone that caught my fancy tended to disappear, until, at thirteen, he had taught me the horrible lesson of lust and love once and for all. I always thought this control was part of my power.
“Before you came of age, he was force
d to choose the Mistress of the Solstice from old, spiteful women who had already wasted all their capacity to love in this world. But such women never had enough feelings left inside them to gain him real power. And yet he couldn’t use a young woman instead. The Drink of Love, another important component of the rite, is a powerful potion and no young woman could withstand it. You were his perfect chance.”
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
“You have bird’s blood in you. You have much passion, but for the passion you have, you are much more resistant to the urges of human flesh. Only Kashchey, having brought you up, knew how to control you.”
Kashchey, so often caressing me; the lovers he’d procured for me. How I’d always longed for his touch more than anything, and yet, we had never taken that longing further than dreams and desire.
It had worked, perfectly. I could never love my father the way I yearned to. And as long as he was near, I could never love anyone else.
“And then there was the Needle,” Wolf continued. “The ingenuous way to separate his death, to take it away from his body so that he could enjoy his life without aging or fear. Again, you were the perfect guardian for it, Marya. Your powers, your solitude, your devotion, made the Needle safer with you than it could have possibly been with Kashchey himself.”
“Why can’t you just leave us alone, Wolf?” Kashchey asked. “What went between me and Marya is none of your business. Why go through all this trouble to destroy our Solstice night? Why do you care?”
Wolf turned to him. His eyes gleamed with an expression I read as triumph. But I also caught more in their depths. Bitterness. Pain.
“You know this feeling, Kashchey? Of deeds long past, coming back to bite you in the face?”
“What do you mean?” My father’s voice faltered. He was afraid, I realized. Afraid beyond measure.
“Elena was my ward. I swore an oath to keep her safe.”
The silence that followed was filled with the echoes of deeds long past. When I could no longer bear it, I fought for strength to turn to Kashchey and meet his dark gaze.
“Why, father?” I whispered. “Why did you have to kill Elena?”
Raven’s eyes opened in a flash.