by Rosalyn Eves
A conflagration erupted around the tangle of lights, a burning bright enough for a witch.
The ground shivered beneath my feet, and I fell to my knees, dropping the weave before I could see if the fire had been enough.
I braced myself for another onslaught, cradling my burnt arm in my strong one. But instead of flinging another fireball at me, Vasilisa crumpled to the frosted grass and covered her eyes with her fingers. The veins in her hands and at her temple pulsed thick and blue. She didn’t look like a being who wanted to destroy the flawed human world I loved. She looked like an old woman, someone I might have become—someone who loved and hated in equal measure.
The bubble around us evaporated. The wolves were already running from the field, their bond with Vasilisa disappearing with her magic. Hunger shifted to human form and ran to my side.
“What did you do to her?”
“I stripped her magic.” After a beat, I added, “I think.” I didn’t know if I’d unmade all her magic or only some of it, if the damage was permanent or only temporary. But Vasilisa was not attacking, so I had clearly done something.
She began to laugh weakly. She dropped her hands and looked at me. “Brava! I did not think you had it in you. I could almost forgive you for what you’ve done.”
“Do you yield?” Hunger asked.
“I suppose,” she said, rather ungraciously. “And what shall you do now?”
“Win the war,” I said. “Negotiate a treaty that gives a place to the praetheria and restores Hungary’s independence, that gives a better voice to everyone.”
“It’s a pretty dream,” Vasilisa said. “But dreams have a way of disappointing you.”
She started to add something else, but a rumbling shook the ground beneath us, and she fell silent. I turned, braced to face some new disaster.
A praetherian army marched toward us, the low light glinting off swords and shields—and other items that might charitably be called weapons. A shovel, a scythe, a washboard. Above the army a handmade flag waved: Hadúr’s gold ash tree on a green field. My gaze dropped back to the front ranks of the army, to the woman at their head, her sharp teeth bared in a grin, her goose feet covered by boots.
“Ild—” I started, then stopped myself. The lidérc had given me her name but had not given me leave to use it publicly. I glanced at Vasilisa, to see her reaction to this new evidence of her loss, but she had already crept away in the chaos. I thought briefly of sending someone after her, but without her powers, she was no longer a threat to us.
Besides, even if she had tried to kill me, she had saved me too. She had taught me what I needed to know about myself to embrace my magic—all of it.
Hunger said to the lidérc, “I see you found them.”
“Most were gathered near the World Tree, as you said. And the others—well, a few light-lures managed to draw them out, and they did not kill me when they realized what I’d come for.” The lidérc’s grin widened.
A weight seemed to lift off me. I’d been a fool for far too long, hoarding responsibility to myself like a miser. This fight was not just mine—it had never been just mine.
Each of the praetheria before me was a drop of hope and, together, a veritable ocean of promise. The tide of battle was turning, and we would ride the cresting wave into a new world.
Debrecen, December 31, 1848
A rap sounded at the door of my bedroom. The hair I had been inexpertly trying to pin came tumbling down my neck, and the pins scattered. I surveyed the pins rather mournfully, then sighed and went to the door.
It was Mátyás. “Anna, there’s something I must—” He broke off, taking in the rather fine dress of burgundy silk with gold embroidery that I was wearing. “What are you doing?”
“Dressing for the ball,” I said, referring to the celebration planned for the end of the war and the new year in the hotel ballroom that night. The fortnight between the war’s end and the new year had been filled with treaty negotiations establishing Hungary’s independence and granting citizenship to praetheria in whichever nation they claimed. Both Hungary and Austria were to hold parliamentary elections in the spring, and the Ottoman pasha had promised to hold a similar election among the ruling class. We had not remade the world entirely, not yet, but it was a start.
I took in Mátyás’s clothes: a shirt and trousers that might have been through the war. “What have you been doing?”
“Not dressing, obviously.”
János bácsi had swept into town two days earlier with much-needed funds and had cajoled two suites of rooms for us in a grand hotel downtown. I had not stayed anywhere so fine in months, and still had not quite recovered from the bliss of a well-constructed bed and hot water for bathing.
“Come with me,” Mátyás said. A beat later, “Please.”
I followed him down the stairs, through the courtyard, and out the heavy doors to the square beyond. The Great Reformed Church gleamed golden across the square in the late-afternoon light.
“Look,” he said, and pointed up.
I looked up. Against a pale opal sky, a pair of birds circled overhead, drifting gradually lower, as if they could sense our attention. I knew almost at once that these were the Lady’s turul birds. I cocked an eyebrow at Mátyás.
“They’ve been following me,” he said. “Every time I go outside.”
“Maybe they’ve adopted you.”
He groaned. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” He rubbed his mustache—now back to its prewar shapeliness—and said, “Hunger told me the World Tree is my responsibility now that Hadúr and the Lady are gone.”
“You don’t have to accept that task unless you wish it,” I said.
“I know. Except I think I do wish it. I’ve never been particularly connected to a place, except Eszterháza, but there is something about this place—the tree, the plains…”
“The bandits and card games,” I suggested drily.
He laughed. “Well, yes, that too. And my dragon is calmer when I’m near the tree.”
I gave him a hug. “Then I’m happy for you. You’ll have to show me around sometime.”
“Of course.”
I pulled away. He smelled a bit as if he’d been through the war too. “You should change. And wash. And come to the dance.”
He did not look quite as enthusiastic as I’d hoped.
“There will be hundreds of beautiful women.”
His face broke into a grin. “I suppose I ought to at least wash.”
* * *
I caught my name as I passed by the front desk on the way back to my room. A man and woman stood talking with the attendant. Behind them, a maid bounced a small child in her arms.
“No, no,” the gentleman said in accented German, “we do not need rooms. We have them in another establishment. We are looking for a young lady who might be staying here. Anna Arden?”
“I’m Anna,” I said, my heart beating with a new surmise.
The woman whirled with a glad cry and threw her arms around me before I had done more than register that this was, indeed, my sister, Catherine. “Anna! I thought I had lost you, and then we heard that a young woman had convinced the Austrian emperor to step down, and I knew it must be you and insisted we find you.” She did not weep on me, as I’d feared she might, but her eyes were suspiciously damp.
“That,” her husband, Richard, said, “and Ponsonby sent me to check on the situation here for the embassy.” When Catherine poked him, he added, “But of course you were our first priority.”
“Oh, and you have not met Christopher yet!” Catherine lifted the little boy from the maid’s arms and presented him to me. Somewhat uncertainly—it had been ages since I had held an infant—I took him. He blinked at me, brown eyes beneath a shock of reddish hair. Mama’s eyes, I thought. My eyes. He smelled of warm milk and powder, and I nuzzl
ed my cheek against his hair.
“He’s beautiful,” I said, and Catherine beamed. Then her smile faded as she surveyed my undone hair. “I heard about the ball tonight,” she said. “I have clearly arrived just in time.” With an imperious gesture, she sent Richard, the baby, and the maid back to their hotel, demanded the hotel send a hairdresser to her at once, and chivvied me up the stairs to my room.
I could not help but laugh. Once, I might have been offended by her imperiousness, but now I saw that it was only Catherine trying to be kind in her own way. I thought of her long-ago debut, when I had sat on her bed and watched her prepare for the ball, my whole body stiff with envy. I’d broken her spell that night, launching the journey that had brought me here. The ball on this occasion might be a trifle unorthodox, but already I preferred it.
* * *
A ball can be many things: an invitation, a hunt, a demonstration. But a ball that is also a celebration is by far my favorite. The wide white ballroom with gold accents circling the ceiling was crowded with people: soldiers in military dress, wealthy women in satin finery, farmers in embroidered cotton dolmans and their wives in colorful skirts. Hunger held court with a cluster of praetheria in a far corner. They seemed wary, and I could not entirely blame them. This reborn world was still new—no one entirely knew the social etiquette.
The musicians struck up a waltz, and couples circled onto the floor. Hunger swept by with Emilija, followed by Mátyás and the lidérc. I introduced Bahadır to my sister, and he gallantly led her into the dance. I hoped Gábor would ask me, but before he could reach me, a squat man with a flowing beard and horns protruding from his forehead bowed before me.
Franz Joseph asked me next, starched and formal. “I’m sorry about your cousin.”
I followed him through a turn. “Thank you.” We’d buried Noémi just before Christmas, holding her service in a golden cathedral that would have charmed her. Across the room, I caught sight of Franz Joseph’s mother, glowering at me. I had to look twice to be sure—the archduchess I’d known would never be so undignified. But there was no other word for her expression: she glowered.
“I’m sorry about your country,” I said. One of the conditions of the treaty was that the current ruling heads resign: Kossuth had stepped down as president; Franz Joseph had abdicated his throne. No wonder his mother looked as though she could spit nails.
He smiled a little. “All my life, I’ve been groomed to serve my people. If it is their will that I resign, I cannot set myself against it. I hope they will allow me to serve in other ways, perhaps in the new parliament.”
It was several more dances before Gábor could catch me: I passed from one partner to the next, from praetherian to soldier to János bácsi, who had to abandon the csárdás in the middle and sit down to catch his breath.
When Gábor joined us, he was not alone. His sister Izidóra stood beside him, radiant in a red skirt and blouse, an embroidered scarf tied around her hair. A young man accompanied her, tapping his feet in time to the music.
I rose and greeted Izidóra with a kiss on each cheek. She introduced me to the young man, her new husband. “My mother wanted to come, but she could not leave her grandbabies for so long. So I am sent to tell you that if you mean to marry Gábor”—here her smile widened until it wreathed her whole face—“you shall have to come and visit so that she can teach you. There is much you need to learn about being a good Romani wife.”
“I should like that,” I said, recognizing the invitation for what it was: a truce between us. I was not the daughter-in-law his mother had hoped for, but I could learn to become part of Gábor’s family, as he could learn to become part of mine.
Gábor caught up my hand and pressed a kiss on it, and a bubble of happiness swelled in me.
When I returned home to England in the new year, to see James and my father and mother, and to let my mother fuss over my trousseau, I would not go alone. Mama might be shocked at my choice of a husband, but Papa and James would like him nearly as much as I did. And the only thing Mama would find truly unforgivable would be my marrying without her help—hence the trousseau.
In the summer, under a bower of June roses, we would be married in the gardens at Eszterháza. I hoped my family and Gábor’s would both surround us, but whatever they chose, we would be there together. János might even officiate, if his gout did not flare up.
At that moment, Catherine spun by in Hunger’s arms. She looked dazed and more than a little alarmed, and I laughed again. I knew Hunger missed Noémi, as did I. But the spark of mischief in his eyes promised that he would be okay.
As would I.
Gábor tugged me into the dance, and then, as the clock inched toward midnight, the host of the ball ushered us all to the doors, where we might view the fireworks he’d managed to procure.
Brilliant flowers of light bloomed in the night sky over Debrecen, their fiery patterns caught between clouds and the dark roofline of the city. Fireworks. I hadn’t seen such a display for months.
All around us, illusions were taking shape in the air, spiraling upward to join the fireworks. A phoenix erupted from a spout of flame; a griffin took wing from a parapet near us. A great turul bird swooped low over the square and a couple of ladies shrieked. (I was not entirely certain that one was illusion. I should have to ask Mátyás.)
The bells of the Great Reformed Church began to ring out, and members of the orchestra took up their instruments and began playing a triumphant tune in the square. All around me, ballgoers raised a hue and cry, some of them with noisemakers.
I’d never been in Hungary for the new year, and I turned astonished eyes on Gábor.
“The noise is supposed to drive away evil spirits and bring luck in the coming year.” His smile was a white slash in the darkness.
It was midnight, the first day of 1849.
Gábor cried, “Hajrá!” and plucked me up off the ground, swinging me in the air.
My heart soared, and I laughed. It was impossible not to be hopeful as the new year dawned, impossible not to believe that this year might be better than the last.
Szilveszter night stretched before us, but it was no longer the cold, sharp expanse I’d feared. The darkness that cocooned us held the promise of days to come, and of nights filled with love and laughter and the hope of peace.
Gábor set me down, gently. I slid my arms around his waist and settled into his embrace.
Being with Gábor felt like home.
That home was not a country, though Hungary shared both our hearts, or a building. It was a place where we knew and were known.
Gábor bent to kiss me, and I saw my face briefly reflected in his eyes. The girl that looked back was more than the things she’d been named: Barren, chimera, spell breaker, monster…hero. She was all those things, and none of them.
She was me, entire, gifts and flaws together.
I hoped when Gábor looked at me, he saw his whole self likewise.
I met Gábor’s kiss, then took his hand. A few late fireworks burst in the air above us. As the other guests drifted back into the ballroom, we set off across the silent streets of the city, a new world spread wide before us.
The End
My favorite thing about historical fantasy is the way it marries the mundane with the fantastic, blending real-world events with magic. As such, while I’ve taken some liberties with the timeline (and the addition of magic), I’ve also tried to stay true to the spirit of the historical record.
By late summer 1848, Hungary was at war with Croatia; by fall, Austria and Romania had joined in (both Romania and Croatia were Hungarian territories). Within a year, Austria would emerge victorious. The liberties won in March 1848 would be lost, and Hungary would remain part of Austria until the end of the empire, following the First World War (and the death of Emperor Franz Joseph in 1916). In my fictional version, I’ve compressed
the timeline of the war, moving up, among other things, Franz Joseph’s coronation (the real coronation did not happen until Emperor Ferdinand abdicated in December of 1848). In this alternate timeline, the inclusion of the praetheria accelerated the Russian involvement and thereby amplified the war earlier.
While my descriptions of the war include Luminate magic, they also include details from the actual Hungarian war for independence, drawn from contemporary accounts. Where possible, I tried to use the general strategies and troop movements from the war: for example, the battle at Kápolna was a decisive loss for the Hungarian troops, though not so devastating as I’ve described. And Dembiński and Görgey were in fact at lunch miles away in Eger when the battle started (much of the description of the lunch and Dembiński’s subsequent actions were drawn from Görgey’s own account of the war and its aftermath). Of course, the addition of magic makes the stakes much higher—which makes the scenes more fun to write.
Like the war itself, the historical characters have also been fictionalized. I’ve tried to convey their personalities where they are known, but conflicting accounts make this difficult. Kossuth Lajos has been portrayed as a hero and a patriot by some—and a weak, vacillating egoist by others. Görgey might have been (as his memoir suggests) a soldier’s soldier who only sought the good of Hungary, even in the face of Kossuth’s opposition; or he might have been a traitor, trying to impede the war effort to stay in the good graces of the Hapsburgs. Josip Jellačić, the ban of Croatia on whom Dragović is very loosely based, was a hero for many, particularly the Austrians—and a villain to the Hungarians. Only Haynau, the Hyena of Brescia, seems universally despised. (Lázár István, in his Hungary: A Brief History, records that later in life Haynau retired to rural Hungary, where he was rumored to be a vampire by his neighbors). Most likely the truth of these characters lies somewhere between these extremes.