by Raye Wagner
Magic of Talisman and Blood
Curse of the Ctyri Book 2
Raye Wagner & Rita Stradling
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Curse of the Gods
The Deception Dance
About Raye Wagner
Also by Raye Wagner
Raye’s Acknowledgements
Rita’s Acknowledgments
Magic of Talisman and Blood
by Raye Wagner and Rita Stradling
Copyright © 2018 All the Words
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, media, and incidents are either products of the authors’ imagination, or are used fictitiously.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
Edited by Krystal Wade and Dawn Yacovetta
Cover Design by Covers by Combs
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The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment.
1
Vasilisa
Vasilisa’s mind reeled, her thoughts whipping about with the same rapidity as the blurring trees. Behind her on the saddle, the immortal Horseman, Aksel shook violently, his racking tremors vibrating through to her. His horse ran as if the very beasts of hell were pursuing them; the speed burned Vasi’s eyes, and tears streamed down her cheeks.
After seeing her father surrender to the Cervene army, she’d demanded the djinn Aksel take her to the witch Baba Yaga, and he’d agreed. At least she thought he’d agreed. He’d said nothing as they rode; or if he had, the words were lost in his quaking, the speed of his horse, or the wind, gone somewhere into the fading light.
The rich hues of twilight darkened as Vasi and the Horseman entered the Ctyri forest, and the smell of vegetation, piney evergreens mixed with the decomposing foliage of the forest floor, overwhelmed Aksel’s potent scent of leather and steel and musky horse.
They burst through the forest and onto a road.
“Shh,” Aksel said, his voice trembling. He reigned in his horse, and the animal’s pace slowed to a canter and then a trot. “Shh.”
Vasi assumed the famed Horseman was talking to his beast, and after a couple of minutes at a more sedate pace, she shifted in the saddle and whispered, “How far is it to Baba—”
“Don’t turn around,” he said. He dropped the reins and pressed his fingertips to her cheek, coaxing her to face forward. “Be careful here. We must get her to agree.”
Vasi froze, and her heart rate jumped as her anxiety spiked.
A cart and a peddler occupied the road ahead, stopped at the end of someone’s lane. Standing at the end of the path and the edge of the road was a hunched figure. Her long hair fell in matted knots, obscuring most of her face, all but her hooked nose.
Aksel pulled his horse to a stop.
“Is that Baba Yaga?” Vasi whispered, speaking so rapidly her words blended into a mess of syllables.
Aksel flinched, and the peddler turned back to his cart, reaching forward, his hands brushing over his seat and up the back rail before he climbed in.
“I’ll ask this only once. Are you determined to go to the witch of the woods?” Aksel whispered.
How strange that he would even feel the need to ask now. “You said it was the only way to get the Phoenix Fire.” She started to turn around, but then he blocked her movement with his hand on her shoulder. She huffed and clenched her hands. “You said it was the only way to save my father.”
“I did. But you must consider, Vasilisa: What would you give up to get the Fire?”
Vasi raised her face to the heavens. There, through the leaves, she caught the glimpse of the stars in the night sky. She closed her eyes, shamed by the determination coursing through her. “I would give up anything.”
“Anything?” he whispered, his warm breath brushing against her neck. “What if . . . Would you be willing to give up your humanity?”
Her skin prickled, starting at her neck and traveling down her arms. The ills of humanity were what had led to her predicament. The humanity of Tsar Baine and his vile nephew, the duke. Marika’s greed, and Nikolai’s . . . Vasi wasn’t sure how, but she knew he’d failed her. Even Prince Henryk had failed to notice the path he’d pushed her down when he tried to change her engagement. Humanity? “Yes. Definitely.”
Aksel said nothing, only shook his leather straps, and his midnight stallion rode out into the road toward the rutted lane.
The peddler jiggled the reins, and then the cart ambled forward. The woman pivoted and shuffled toward a tall fence.
Vasi blinked to clear her vision, but the image didn’t change.
The trees fell away, laying bare a small meadow nestled in the forest. Her jaw dropped as she gaped at the bones. Piles of bones. Everywhere. Bleached shafts woven into high gates extending up into the sky. Skulls stared out into the forest from hollow eye sockets, topping some of the longer bones. Deep-green pines encircled the clearing, making the ivory even more stark in the moonlight. Dread pressed deep into Vasi’s chest, and she gasped for air as she looked on at the human remains.
What had she agreed to?
Vasi gaped as she noticed that in the middle of the bone gate, a house sat on two enormously large, sinewy chicken legs extending into the air.
The witch slashed her hand through the air, and the legs bent at the knee, lowering into a crouch. Atop the avian legs rested a gruesome foundation of more bones with a building on top. Vasi continued gawking at the long paneled walls of a very normal-appearing house. The structure disappeared behind the bony barrier, and only a wisp of smoke funneling up from a chimney was visible over the twisted human remains of the fence.
Coherent thought teased at Vasi’s mind, her wonder and awe refusing to solidify into a single thought. The multiple horrors she’d already endured left her empty and drained, and Vasi swayed, staying upright only because of Aksel’s arm around her waist.
The witch waved her hand again, and the bones of the grisly hedge rattled and rubbed against each other, parting to reveal the bent, scaly fowl legs and the attached feet with thick black claws extending deep into the ground.
Vasi shuddered.
And at the same time, Aksel hollered, “Ho there, witch.”
Baba Yaga spun with a hiss, her firelight gaze piercing the darkness. “You’re late,” she snapped at Aksel. Without coming to the road, she waved her hand and pivoted toward the gaping maw in her fence. “Go on with you then. You’ve kept your part.”
Aksel stiffened. In a tone frigid and cutting, he said, “You owe me a minute of conversation, hag.”
“Where do you think? Right where you left her,” he replied, the hostility in his tone matching the witch’s. “On the road where you dropped her, with our enemy.”
“Your enemy?” Vasi asked, confused. Her thoughts were muddled, and she was convinced she’d misunderstood. Our enemy or her enemy? A moment later, she blinked, returning to the present from her stunned stupor. Rats. If either of them had responded, she’d missed it.
“Well, put her back,” Baba Yaga growled. “I’ll have nothing to do with her.”
Vasi gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. She wanted to scream at the witch to stop with her selfishness. Vasi didn’t want to be with her either. Who would? “I’m sitting right . . .”
Aksel slid his hand over Vasi’s arm in a gentle caress, clearly meant to hush her. He straightened, and his voice remained biting. “If you continue to hide from your responsibility, you will bring the end of us all, Jezinka. Stop your foolishness—”
“My foolishness?” she yelled. “It wasn’t my foolishness that started this.”
“No?” he asked, his voice deadly calm like the stillness just before a raging storm. “Then pray tell, who’s foolishness was it?”
Baba Yaga froze, and the firelight in her eyes dimmed. “It was not all by my hand.”
Only a few feet now separated them, and Vasi watched the witch’s emotions flit and flicker over her face in a bizarre dance of pain, disturbing on such fierce features.
“You placed the curse,” Aksel said, his tone still brittle and cold—and yet aching with unvoiced torment. “You have an obligation to fulfil as well, old witch. Your previous refusal to act was the failure that now makes our situation dire.”
“I won’t,” Baba Yaga said. “I won’t take her.”
Vasi’s heart fell into her stomach, and frustration burned the back of her eyes.
“You are bound by the same curse as the rest of us. If I have to bring all of my brothers to your stoop for you to see reason—”
“Fine,” the witch growled. “Give her here. If she’s so anxious to learn magic—”
Vasi shook her head, extending her hands out in front of her as she proclaimed, “No. You don’t understand. I don’t want to learn magic. I just want the Phoenix Fire so I can stop the war.”
“Why do the young have to be so stupid?” Baba Yaga muttered. She lunged forward and yanked Vasi from Aksel’s horse.
Vasi tumbled to the ground with a cry of surprise, but she quickly jumped to her feet, pushing wisps of hair from her face.
“I have her now, see,” Baba Yaga snarled. “Now, be off with you.”
The witch tugged on Vasi’s bruised wrist, and she winced. “I’m not stupid,” she muttered as she tried to yank free. She looked up at Aksel and said, “Please don’t leave me alone with this monster.”
Aksel shook his head, his face now covered by the shadows of a dark hood. “You will answer for any pain you cause, Baba Yaga.”
Vasi stilled and then leaned forward, straining against the witch’s grip, but couldn’t see the rider’s face. Had he been wearing a cloak? Vasi couldn’t remember.
He clicked his tongue and shook the reins. A moment later, his stallion bounded into the night, leaving only dirt billowing behind them.
Baba Yaga yanked Vasi’s wrist, dislodging the young woman from the road and making her stumble forward.
“Stop doing that,” Vasi yelled. “Aksel said to stop hurting me. If you don’t stop—”
“He said nothing of the kind, foolish girl.” Baba Yaga glanced back at Vasi and cackled in glee. “He merely said I will have to answer for your pain.” The old hag leaned forward, suddenly taller and more menacing as she gnashed her teeth in Vasi’s face. “I like to eat your kind of pain.”
Vasi drew back, startled by the rotting stench of the old woman’s breath and her fearsome, serrated teeth. “You can’t eat me.”
Although, the scrap of fabric caught in the witch’s teeth looked a lot like the cloaks Lord Baine’s men had been wearing. Vasi swallowed the bile burning the back of her throat, her certainty wavering, and babbled desperately, “I’m sure I taste terrible . . . like moldy beans.”
“Ha!” the witch exclaimed, her bloody spittle hitting Vasi’s cheek. Baba Yaga yanked the young woman forward, leading her toward the house. “You have no room to tell me what I can or can’t do, little girl. And the only thing that tastes like moldy beans is moldy beans. Yer probably naught more than a slave, run away from your master. Aksel always had a weakness—”
“No. I’m a merchant’s daughter. I told you, I just want the Phoenix Fire so I can stop the war with Cervene. I just want to get my father back.”
“Then why were those men after you? They said you belong to the duke, that you’re his property.”
“That was my stepmother’s doing, and she had no right. I’m not a slave.” The idea of Lord Baine owning her made Vasi shudder. He’s dead. He couldn’t touch her now.
“You think he didn’t know that your step-mamma sold you? He probably told her to.”
“How would you know? You weren’t there.” Vasi scrambled to keep up with the witch’s rapid pace. Exhaustion and frustration battled for Vasi’s attention, and she tripped over her own feet.
Baba Yaga’s grip kept the young girl upright as they made their way to the house.
The house leaned forward at their approach like an excited dog impatiently awaiting its master. Vasi kept her feet, glancing back when she heard a rattling, but it was only the gate knitting itself up behind them. The moment they stepped onto the house’s stoop, the entire dwelling rose, ascending up into the air.
Turning to stare at Vasi, the witch said, “Running away from your responsibilities will only bring you pain, girl.”
Vasi straightened, squaring her shoulders, and glared back. “Actually, I was running toward them. If I remember correctly, Aksel said you were the one running away.”
Baba Yaga’s stringy gray hair whipped around as she spun away with a loud huff.
Vasi gawked, her gaze darting about. This high in the air, she could see over the treetops of the Ctyri forest. If the moon had been brighter, perhaps she could’ve seen into Rizy itself.
The house rocked and then settled as the legs holding it upright locked. Vasi continued to stare as the witch led the way into the house. A long narrow hallway appeared clean but dimly lit. Small sconces were spaced evenly on the otherwise barren walls, their gleam reflecting off the stone floor. The only open doorway lay ahead with bright light spilling several feet into the hall.
Before they reached the illuminated room, Baba Yaga turned into a wall and stepped through it. As soon as Vasi crossed the wall, a new passage appeared. The candlelight guttered, and Vasi squinted to see as they climbed a seemingly never-ending stairway.
Baba Yaga stopped their ascent at the first landing, stepping into a large foyer with hallways branching out like legs of an arachnid. She jerked Vasi into the first passageway on the right, the witch never breaking stride as she led Vasilisa to her intended destination. Boxes lay scattered throughout, and they wove through the cramped space until the end where a door opened at their approach. The witch stopped and pushed Vasi through the doorway.
Vasi stumbled in, recovered after a few steps, and turned to face the witch. Looking through the darkness, Vasi realized the faint illumination they’d used to navigate the second story emitted from the witch’s fiery eyes.
The hazy-red glow lit the witch’s features, and her lip curled in a gruesome sneer. “You wanted to be here so much, and now here you are.” She glared at the young woman and continued, “But if you think Aksel will save you, you’re wrong. This is my house. If you’re lucky, I’ll eat you tomorrow.”
The door slammed betwee
n them, leaving Vasi in darkness thicker than pitch.
“Or you could just give me the Phoenix Fire,” Vasi muttered. Bone-weary, she exhaled and slid to the floor.
2
Vasi awoke with a start on the hardwood floor, blinking at the soft blue fabric of the window seat across from her. She clung to the single moment of peace, and then memories crashed over her mind. She remembered everything: Lord Baine’s black blood, Casimir’s surrender, and Aksel, her favorite of the Four Horsemen, dropping her off with Baba Yaga.
Vasi sat up, glancing around the room she now inhabited. Shadows and gloom occupied the small space in the filtered pre-dawn rays, perhaps exacerbated by the heaviness in Vasi’s heart. Reaching into her apron pocket, her fingers brushed against the doll and settled on the hilt of her father’s knife. Vasi gripped the handle, and the cool metal was a reassuring weight in her hand. But her stomach churned as memories of Lord Baine resurfaced: the duke clutching the gaping wound in his neck, his blood seeping through his fingers, the blood splattering on Vasi. She released the blade and stared at her hands.
They were clean. No, not clean; there was dirt and mud staining her skin but no blood. Her dress, cloak, and boots were equally grimy, but not a single speck of maroon. Vasi sat back on her butt, replaying the scene over in her head. The knife had lodged in his throat; surely that was a fatal blow. The only explanation she could come up with was Aksel had somehow, magically, gotten rid of Lord Baine’s blood. Well, that was a mercy. If only she’d been as lucky as far as her father was concerned.