by Eva Brandt
The Grand Lich had been the one to send my soulmates here to investigate the surge in necromantic energy caused by the shattering of the seal around Snegurka’s prison. And yet, here he was, standing in front of Snegurka like he didn’t even care about her.
To say the whole thing gave me a bad feeling would’ve been the understatement of the century.
Oh, well. When it doubt, approach a situation with manners and judge the individual in question according to his or her response to you. “My Lord. I imagine my sisters must have already welcomed you to Chronikos, but allow me to extend a similar greeting. I trust that we will be able to set this misunderstanding aside and end the possible conflict between our nations.”
“You are most gracious, Queen Eiar,” the Grand Lich replied. I couldn’t see his face, but his voice sounded low and pleasant, nothing like what I’d expected it to be. “I’ve heard much about you and I do wish the circumstances of our meeting had been better.”
Cezar, Baltasar and Adrian bowed their heads, although they didn’t kneel. “My Lord, we appreciate your concern and your decision to come to our rescue,” Cezar said. “As you can see, we are all, for the most part, unharmed, and our disappearance was nothing but a ploy from Hades to... boost the population of his underworld.”
When stated like that, it sounded a little ridiculous. The Grand Lich already seemed aware of this information, though. “I’m aware, Cezar. But there’s a reason why I gave you that warning before you left Aeternum. There are more variables involved in this matter than the whims of a greedy god.”
I pressed my lips together in displeasure. We were going around in circles. I had a headache and my temper was threatening to flare once again. “Perhaps we should adjourn to the throne room and you can all explain your concerns to me in detail once we are there. My sisters have mentioned a few things, and while I understand what they’re getting at, I’m interested in your point of view.”
“That does sound prudent. This is not an issue we should discuss out into the open anyway.”
I waved my hand, and the palace obeyed my command, creating an easy shortcut for us to follow. Awkward silence fell over the group as we made our way through the building. I was unaccustomed to the tension. Even when I’d argued with my sisters in the past, there had never been this feeling of general alienation. My chest ached, and I didn’t completely understand why.
By the time we reached my throne room, I was more than ready to address the issue we’d all been dancing around since my reunion with Tarasia. “All right,” I said. “So I gather from what has been stated so far that I might have made a minor miscalculation when I drank water from the Lethe. Grand Lich, can you tell me the exact side-effects of this? How does it relate to the war?”
Much to my surprise, it wasn’t the Grand Lich who replied. It was Cassia. “Eranthe, do you remember your recent visit to The Frozen Peaks? We spoke and I mentioned I wasn’t sleeping well and I was having nightmares.”
“I remember, yes.” It had worried me at the time, but I’d naturally assumed it was because of the recent assassination attempt. Since Cassia had been vague about it, I’d let the matter go and relied on her soulmates to handle it. Clearly, I should have been a little more concerned.
“How are your nightmares involved in any of this?”
“I dreamed flowers that were bleeding,” Cassia answered. “At the time, I didn’t really understand it. But now... I think I do.”
“No,” Adrian suddenly said. “This has to be some kind of joke. A prophecy? Is this about a prophecy?”
Judging by the expressions on my sisters’ faces, Adrian’s guess had been correct. Baltasar let out an exasperated groan. “Grand Lich, with respect... You cannot be serious. You know as well as we do that prophecies are all a bunch of nonsense made up by mages with too much time on their hands and too little imagination.”
“For the most part, that’s true,” the Grand Lich replied, “but on occasion, you will find a few that actually comes true. I’m not sure if it’s accurate to even call those instances prophecies since it’s more like an anticipation of a possibility. Life changes as much as the Axis Mundi does, and for that reason, no prophecy can ever be reliable.
“But there is one thing we in The Immortuos Voievodat believe in, and that is the ultimate inevitability and solidity of death. Even for us immortals, it is something that follows us, shrouding our steps, as a curse or a blessing. And many years ago, a prophecy was created, of a queen who would control life and death. A queen who would be able to tear our kingdom asunder.”
“I have no desire to tear anything asunder,” I pointed out, alarmed that this was even an issue. “If anything, I want to stop that from happening. I want to stop the war.”
“You can’t stop it. It’s already begun. The prophecy isn’t literal, and like most things, it’s not about what you actually do, but what you’re capable of doing. In your case... You are meant to be the next Grand Lich. You are meant to take up my position and become one of the rulers of The Immortuos Voievodat.”
The whole exchange reminded me an awful lot of what Orthrus had told me in Hades. He had seemed completely convinced that I needed to stay in the underworld, to be their queen.
I hadn’t been willing to accept that option from him. This new offer was no different, and I didn’t intend to allow anyone to tell me what I could and could not do.
“If you’re here to pass the torch, so to speak, you’ll have to find another queen of life and death, one who is willing to accommodate you. I have a home here. I’m the avatar of spring. That hasn’t changed just because I got a power boost while in Hades.”
“Oh, I thought you would say that. The real issue is not the power you got. It is your inability to control it. I believe we’ve just noticed the first symptom.”
“Grand Lich, just because Eranthe lost her temper for a brief moment doesn’t mean she’s meant to be a necromancer,” Baltasar said. “That is absolutely absurd.”
“It’s really not. Adrian, you know this as well as I do. Death magic is like a disease. Once it’s taken hold of you, it never lets go.”
Adrian clenched his fists and glowered at the necromancer. “My case was different. I actively sought a power that was against my nature and when the corruption happened, I accepted as the natural turn of events. I have no regrets about becoming a strigoi. But Eranthe isn’t like that.”
“And what would you know of it?” the Grand Lich asked. The shadows around him swelled, turning the throne room dark and ominous. “The three of you have only met your new queen a day ago. You defend her with such fierceness, but you lack the most basic understanding of what she is, what she wants and needs. You are still just children.”
“And yet, you were the one to send us here,” Cezar pointed out. “You wouldn’t have done that had you not trusted us to do the right thing.”
“I do trust you,” the Grand Lich said. “And I always knew in my heart that you were the ones meant to come here. But that doesn’t change what I said earlier. You cannot refuse the power that you have already embraced, Queen Eiar.”
“Is that a threat? If I don’t take up your position, will you attack The Realm of Eternal Youth?”
“Oh, no.” The Grand Lich waved a hand dismissively. “The war has nothing to do with me, or at least, not with my opinions. It is the emperor who leads the assault on Chronikos, and it is him you must stop. I cannot intervene more than I already have.”
Well, that was straightforward enough, at least. I still didn’t believe that my destiny was to become the Grand Lich, but if the war was related to the emperor, I’d just have to find a way to contact him and end the conflict.
“Thank you for that valuable piece of information. Where is the emperor now? Still in Aeternum?”
“No, he’s here,” Cassia said. “His fleet is just off the coast of Akhlut Beach. Oki is keeping an eye on him and Emmerich is making sure the wards in the area hold while I’m here. But he’s not our p
riority, not really.”
“Of course he is, Cassia. Our first priority must always be to safeguard and protect our people. I don’t particularly care what other people say or think about what I’ve done. If you’re right and this power is meant to consume me, then so be it. In the meantime, I will put an end to this useless war. I won’t have the earth of Tis Ánoixis taste any more blood. No one else needs to suffer for the game of the gods.”
My three sisters looked at one another, as if silently communicating, debating their options. Tarasia frowned, her eyes still flickering with the glow of her inner sunlight. “You’re right, of course,” she said. “No one should have to suffer. I would have preferred for you to be able to stay out of it, but that is no longer an option.”
I would have been a little more excited about Tarasia finally realizing that I was an adult and a queen in my own right had her tone not been as ominous as the shadows around the Grand Lich.
Fortunately, my other sisters were a little more optimistic. Frost bloomed underneath Cassia’s feet like a flower. She smiled at me, and the soft expression made me see the nymph behind the avatar of winter, reminding me of simpler, happier days. Out of all of us, she’d been the one to physically change the most after becoming the ruler of a realm of the seasons, and while I’d long ago grown accustomed to that, it was still nice to see my true sister hidden behind the facade of the snow queen. “We will face this threat together, like we always have,” she said.
Pandora flicked her fingers and a golden leaf appeared in her hand. She walked up to me and slid it in my hair, entwining it with the flowers already growing from my crown. “We are with you always, little sister. That won’t ever change, no matter what happens in the future.”
She smelled like ripe grapes, rain, and tears, and I had a feeling I was still missing something big. Nothing in the Grand Lich’s words explained my family’s weird attitude. They still knew something they hadn’t told me.
Even so, I decided to let the matter go. Right now, I wasn’t a priority. I still believed that. If I’d left Hades, it had been primarily because I wanted to save my people. I was a queen and that took precedence over everything else.
“So be it,” the Grand Lich declared. “But I advise you all to be prepared. This isn’t over.”
The latter sentence echoed through me like the ominous inevitability of the flow of time. I wanted to argue with him again, to tell him that I was the ruler of my own destiny and nothing could change that. Before I could do so, he brought his palms together in a prayer-like gesture. The shadows around him deepened further, and the life inside the floors and walls of my palace cried out at the sudden onslaught of dark magic.
It was a strange gesture, since I couldn’t actually see his hands. I could only distinguish vague shapes underneath the heavy black robe he was wearing and make guesses on what he was doing. Stranger still, the magic didn’t feel hostile. In fact, as much as I hated to admit it, it almost had a familiar feel.
The shadows swept over Cezar, Adrian, and Baltasar, and their breaths caught as their bodies lit up from within. “You really should be more careful where you discard your blessings, gentlemen,” the Grand Lich said. “It’s not nice to waste your gifts in such a way.”
He didn’t offer any further pleasantries or goodbyes. Instead, he snapped his fingers and melted away into the same shadows he’d appeared from.
As soon as he was gone, the heavy weight of the death magic vanished with him. The only sign that he’d ever been there was the slight trace of the blessing he’d placed on my soulmates. “Well, that was unnecessarily dramatic,” Adrian said, breaking the heavy silence in the throne room. “A prophecy. Out of anything the Grand Lich could’ve possibly told us, that wasn’t an option I considered.”
“Me neither,” Cezar said, “but I suppose he has his reasons for acting this way. In any case, that doesn’t matter right now. Your Majesty, I assume you’ll want to see my uncle at this time?”
“Yes, Cezar, that would be for the best,” I replied. “It’s time to put an end to this nonsensical farce, so Tis Ánoixis can start to rebuild.”
And to do that, I had to speak with my lieutenants, to check up on what Tarasia had done in my absence. I trusted my family, but without this information, I couldn’t hope to negotiate properly with Cezar’s uncle.
I closed my eyes, allowing my mind to connect to the core of Chronikos. It wasn’t as easy as I’d have liked, as the energies of my homeland were still disturbed. Still, my powers responded, guiding me to the answers I sought.
So far, most of my inner circle seemed spread out across Tis Ánoixis. Green was the only one still in The Gardens of Edenia. April and March appeared to have traveled in other regions, and Veggie was for some reason in The Forest of Purity.
I couldn’t get a good feel of May’s location, but I felt a whisper of her magic coming from the direction of Tou Kalokairioú. She must’ve gone to Tarasia’s realm, perhaps to help her lieutenants while Tarasia herself handled the wards and the immediate danger here.
Tentatively satisfied, I reached out to my messengers. Upakaruda responded to my call, and by the time I opened my eyes, they had already arrived in my throne room. “Your Majesty!” Upa said enthusiastically.
“You have returned!” Karuda exclaimed.
“You were greatly missed,” both of them added at the same time.
“And I missed Tis Ánoixis very much as well.” It was true, even if my absence had felt much shorter for me than it had for them. “I require you to send a message to Emperor Octavian of the House of Aeternalis. Let him know that I have returned to my throne and his envoys are unharmed. We request a meeting in a neutral location, so that we may end this useless war, once and for all.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. We will convey your message at once. Should we wait for a reply?”
“Please do. And be watchful. Take note of the troops you see and of their attitude. If anyone attempts to harm you, come right back and let me know. I’d like to hope that ending this war will be easy, but somehow, I doubt it.”
“We understand, Your Majesty. We will be careful and prompt in accomplishing our mission.”
Upa and Karuda both bowed and took off, much like my sister’s phoenix had, earlier. I watched them go, wondering if maybe I should’ve asked Tarasia to summon Horus as well. Sending both messengers would’ve been a little safer.
I shook myself, pushing back the niggle of self-doubt. My power would be more than enough to protect Upakaruda. I was just letting this whole thing with the Grand Lich get to me, and that was unacceptable.
I turned toward my sisters once again and forced myself to not dwell on their still visible restlessness. “All right. Now that we’re done with our preliminary meeting and arrangements... Why don’t you let me know exactly what’s been going on in my absence? When did the war start? How many dead do we have on both sides and what are we doing to control the rising death toll?”
“Right now, we’ve been putting a lot of energy in solidifying the wards and making them aligned to my magic,” Tarasia replied. “Most of the undead can’t bypass that. But there have been attacks regardless.”
“A throng of risen entered the area around The Bridge of Melting Snowflakes,” Cassia said. “It was mostly repelled by my amaroks, but the river and the settlements in the area were badly affected. The population was evacuated in time, but Lillia was practically burnt to the ground.”
My breath caught. Lillia, the village where we’d all grown up, was no more. “Why do I get the feeling that’s not the worst of it?”
“Because it isn’t,” Cassia replied. “There was an outbreak of the plague in The Forest of Purity. It polluted the lake. The unicorn herd has almost been wiped out.”
Three
Venom
Baltasar
When I’d first arrived in The Realm of Eternal Youth and stumbled into the strange, magical forest, I hadn’t paid much heed to the creatures inside. I’d been too enthr
alled by the realm’s queen to think about the vegetation, the birds, the beasts, and later, the unicorns that made their home here.
Even so, the stark contrast between the way the forest had been then and its current look still left me speechless, for more than one reason.
I took one look at the withered leaves, the dying trees, and the blackened ground and I knew. I knew that the past had once again returned to haunt me.
I said nothing of my revelation. If my friends realized it, they didn’t mention it either. Instead, we all trailed after the silent Eranthe, just as quiet as her, respecting her grief.
Out of her sisters, only Pandora had come with us, together with her strange companion. “Tarasia and I did our best to contain the damage,” she said as she pressed her hand to a withered tree trunk. “We kept the forest from dying out completely, although we couldn’t connect to the pool like you do. We tried to help the unicorns as well. Unfortunately, their magic was bound to that of the forest, and once the plague spread, our power couldn’t shield them. To make matters worse, it wasn’t in our ability to stay here all the time. We had to continue our work on the wards and protect Chronikos as a whole.
“In the end, we sent The Vegetable Lamb here, and his concentrated power has helped contain the plague. As a result, some unicorns survived, although I hear they are still very ill and the lamb is having trouble keeping them alive.”
If I was right about the source of this disaster, it was a miracle Veggie had managed even that. Then again, the queens of the seasons were very powerful and resourceful. Perhaps I was just jumping at shadows and seeing things that weren’t there.
I wasn’t. As soon as we arrived at the polluted lake, my worst fears were confirmed. All I had to do was step onto the grass, and I felt the magic now embedded in the ground reaching out into me, seductive, familiar, and so comforting. If I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine I was back home, in the place where I’d been born—the same one where I’d come closest to dying.