by Anna Bright
“This is a safe place to pray.” Wash glanced again at the closed door. “Not out there. I am finished this morning. So now—you pray here. I will keep watch outside.”
I stared at her broad cheekbones constellated with freckles, her skin only a little lined, as my mother’s had been before I’d lost her.
Wash frowned, as if she wasn’t sure I understood. Her chapped hand cupped my shoulder. “You must be more careful.”
I blinked furiously. “Thank you. Spasibo.”
“Do not cry,” Wash said, not ungently. “Hurry.”
Wash returned to her prayer closet later—five times in one day, in keeping with Muslim tradition. Once, as I watched her slip away, two of the other cooks met my gaze, their own eyes defiant—as if daring me to question her absence. Another time, Vasylysa closed the door behind Wash when it hadn’t shut properly.
I wasn’t sure how safe or dangerous it was to be Muslim in the world beyond the Imperiya. Probably, it depended on where you lived. I’d never met anyone of Wash’s faith in Potomac, and the world was wide—and how little I knew about it, about what lay beyond my home’s borders and shores, was becoming clearer every day. What I did know was that here, inside the witch’s castle, her worship was a stunning act of resistance.
As she returned to the sheets she’d been scrubbing, Vasylysa and I exchanged a single, brief nod of understanding. The women in this cellar protected one another. This is a safe place, they all seemed to say with their silence.
It made me wonder how many other secrets might be safe here.
38
My muscles were burning before the sun had climbed halfway to noon the next day.
Up and down the stairs we climbed, avoiding the eyes of the soldiers by the front door who nudged Ivan every time we passed. He greeted Anya, his voice cracking.
I ignored them. We were busy. Baba Yaga needed clean sheets and towels again, needed her chamber pot emptied, needed her empty tea glasses tidied away. Anya winced with every movement, her chains clanking as she worked, her shackles chafing her wrists.
The sentry didn’t even look at our faces as we approached the tsarytsya’s bedroom. He saw our baskets and rags and stepped aside at once.
Inside were a great bed, desk, and wardrobe. All were of the finest, all in the utmost order, surrounded by pilfered statuary and artwork.
I knew I had no time to waste, but I stepped near to one painting, drawn by recognition. Angels and shepherdesses floated beatifically against a powder-blue background, framed in gold.
“Selah?” Cobie asked.
“This was stolen from Katz Castle,” I said, not turning. “I’m sure of it.”
Along the wall immediately to my left, a row of skulls wore a series of crowns, each more elaborate than the last. One was bareheaded. Perhaps it was home to the crown she wore today.
I hoped the skulls hadn’t belonged to the crowns’ original wearers—though, what did it matter? They were someone’s skulls.
“Selah,” Cobie said again, insistent. This time, I turned.
She leaned across the tsarytsya’s huge bed as if to strip its sheets, reaching for the headboard. It gave, and I gave a gasp, racing to Cobie’s side.
“You broke her bed,” I whispered in horror. “She’s going to kill us.”
But she hadn’t broken it. Cabinet doors opened along a seam in the headboard’s dark wood surface. The inside was lined with books—books upon books, covered with leather and canvas and gold foil. Some of them were in English. Most were in Yotne. Some were in old Deutsch or Arabiyya or Nihongo.
Cobie and Anya had warned me, but I wasn’t prepared. The sight of them, gleaming and cozy on their shelves, filled me with joy. And with fury.
I wanted to clutch the books to my chest. I wanted to steal them. I wanted to sit down on the tsarytsya’s bed and read them one by one.
I wanted to open a window and toss them to the ground outside, pages flying, to let her people know what a hypocrite their empress was.
I did none of these things.
Carefully, carefully, setting her unwashed sheet back over the mattress, I braced my dirty feet and balanced as I pored over the spines, hoping I’d find what I needed. What I suspected she might have.
“Here’s something else.” Anya stood beside Baba Yaga’s desk, blue eyes wide, a drop cloth in her hand.
A radio sat along its edge.
A radio. My brain was reeling.
Could I hail the Beholder, or the Waldleute? Or Torden? Or my godmother?—but I heard the tsarytsya’s voice on the other side of the door, in her sitting room.
I climbed down, shut the cabinet doors, wrapped a book in the used sheet, and remade the bed with clean linens as quickly as I could. Cobie stared at me, horrified.
“Do you know how much trouble we could get in? For a book?” she demanded.
I ignored her, stuffing the sheet and its contents into the bottom of a basket. “Cobie, can you read old Deutsch as well as you speak it?”
She drew back. “What?”
Before I could explain, the door swung open.
“Little Zolushka. I knew I smelled you,” General Midnight said with a smile. “Nasha tsarytsya would like a fourth for our game.”
39
“Stand there,” Baba Yaga said to Cobie and Anya, gesturing along the wall. She wore gray as always, but today a silver-and-diamond coronet ringed her head.
Cobie and Anya retreated between two statues that both looked like Roman emperors.
General Midnight sat beside Sunset; across from her sat Aleksei, the new General Dawn. I glanced at the tsarytsya, confused. “But you already have four players.”
She gave an icy smile and gestured to the seat opposite General Midnight. “You take my place today, little ash-girl.”
That smile left me cold to the bone. I sat.
“First,” said General Sunset, “we roll.” She held up the die in her lean, efficient fingers for me to see, then put it into Aleksei’s hand.
Dawn, Sunset, Midnight. Aleksei rolled a seven, Sunset a six. Midnight crowed when she rolled a nine, the highest value on the die, and again when I rolled a three.
“I will go first,” said Polunoshchna, leaning across the table to narrow her eyes at me, “and you will go last.”
They quickly gathered their claws and teeth before them. White for Dawn. Red for Sunset. Black for Midnight. The little pile heaped before me was gray.
Midnight lifted her chin, pugnacious and challenging, as she plunked a claw in the heart of the wolf. Sunset rolled her eyes and set a red tooth in Australia.
Baba Yaga laid a papery hand on Aleksei’s shoulder at my side. “It is your turn, my Rankovyy.” He swallowed and shook himself and placed a claw somewhere near the southern end of Africa.
Sunset, Midnight, and Dawn turned to look at me.
I didn’t know what to do, or what I was doing here at all. Hands shaking, I set a piece at the heart of the phoenix. Midnight sneered and took her turn.
The game tore ahead after that, each of us sinking our claws and teeth into territories across the map. I could feel Baba Yaga’s breath down the back of my neck, searching my face and my moves for something, but I didn’t know what.
Then came the attacks.
To take a terytoriya, players moved claws into territories adjacent their own, and a few rolls of the die decided whose claim won.
Tooth and Claw was simple enough. But I loathed it.
I didn’t even want to pretend to take places that didn’t belong to me. Even staking claims across the New World—places that belonged to other tribes, to other kingdoms—twisted my gut. More than anything, I wished Anya wasn’t standing along the wall, forced to watch a game about the horror that had been her childhood. I wondered if the tsarytsya could feel the disgust radiating off me.
Did she hope to learn what kingdoms I cared for? Was she rattling me for her own enjoyment? Watching to see whether Polunoshchna or I would strike first, or if Anya
would lunge at Aleksei again? I could divine nothing from her pacing about the room, except that while I played, she was playing a game of her own, and it terrified me.
It was fortunate that the others had little interest in the New World, because I played ineptly. Sunset was occupied with a strategy I didn’t understand, but Midnight was relentless and obvious, obsessed with the territories on the map that represented her immediate environs. She took first Yotunkheym, and then Ranneniy Shenok, and then grappled with Aleksei for the fat sheep representing Europe. But after Midnight laid claim to Den Norden, she turned her eyes on the New World.
I moved all my armies to the phoenix’s shoulders, her only means of entrance to my continent. Again and again, I fought her off. The die was a cold bit of bone in my hands, the claws rattling dryly across the board. Vasylysa had built up the fire again—silent as a mouse this time, her watery blue eyes darting around—and I felt sweaty in my shift, felt frantic with Midnight glaring at me.
Most of all, I felt the throbbing call of the book at the bottom of Cobie’s basket.
Suddenly, the door burst open. A cadre of guards entered, two men gripped between them. Both were injured, one with a gash in his thigh that stained his pant leg an ominous brown-red. Baba Yaga and the generals rose.
“We are occupied,” said the tsarytsya. Her voice was cold.
The soldier answered her in Yotne, looking confused. Baba Yaga arched her eyebrows and nodded her head at me, as she had once before. “Angliyskiy, please, for our guest.”
Angliyskiy. English. Aleksei stole a glance in my direction, brow furrowed.
“We think they ran from Zatemnennya,” the guard said.
I frowned at Aleksei. He paused, translating in his mind. The eclipse, he mouthed a beat later.
This made no sense to me, but the tsarytsya turned to the men. “Come you here of your own accord,” she asked, “or are you compelled?”
One of the men did not answer. The other cried out in Yotne, clutching his bleeding thigh; he strained toward the door, pleading to be released.
Baba Yaga sighed, pulling a long dagger from her belt. “Compelled, then.”
In two swift moves, she clawed their heads from their bodies. Blood painted the walls.
Cobie cried out. My stomach heaved. I pressed my lips together, tried to look away. But the empty eyes of the man who had not spoken stared up at me, precious scarlet lifeblood leaking out onto the stones.
We had been playing a game a moment before, and now two men lay dead on the floor. It seemed impossible.
I wished for a priest or an imam or a rabbi or a mere moment of silence. I wished for my father. I wanted to flee to the kitchens. I wanted to go home.
Without thinking, I gripped Aleksei’s hand at my side. He squeezed it, meeting my eyes, his pale face set like stone.
Then he glanced at Sunset and Midnight behind us and released me.
Baba Yaga turned to the four of us, shaking her head again, gesturing for us to sit. “I have no use for the compelled.”
I settled into my chair, afraid I’d be sick.
What difference does it make? I wanted to demand. In a world where the tsarytsya took what she would, where her word was law and she the only god there was, who could say whether anyone chose or had their choices made for them?
But watching the men’s blood leak across the slate, I realized what she had been asking. Are you bounty, she meant, or are you a hunter? Are you a wolf, or are you prey?
I had not realized there was a correct answer to give her, when we arrived. I had not known what the consequences would be if we answered wrongly. That those men could have been Cobie, or me, or Anya, if we’d mumbled a reply that displeased the tsarytsya.
Had she put this question to everyone in the castle? To the women in the kitchens? To Wash? How had they known what to say? How had any of us found ourselves in this tower of nightmares?
I was playing her game and knew none of the rules and suddenly fear felt so thick in the air I could scarcely breathe.
We had to get out of here. We had to get clear of this place before it was one of us dead on the floor.
The tsarytsya was watching me closely, but her face gave nothing away.
“It is your turn, Rankovyy,” said Sunset.
But Baba Yaga sighed, sounding almost dissatisfied. “Enough. I’m tired.”
Relief filled my lungs. I could leave. I pushed my chair back, trying to curtsy even as I rose.
“Wait,” Midnight barked at me, holding up a hand, already counting rapidly—her claws, Sunset’s, Aleksei’s, and mine. She clenched her fist around a palmful of pieces, dark hair swinging over her shoulders, her eyes angry.
“Who—” Sunset asked.
“You won, Vechirnya,” the tsarytsya said. “Zolushka was second.”
“Did you think you’d won?” Midnight sneered at me, though I’d said nothing. “Sunset always wins.”
I drew back. “I didn’t think I’d—”
“I have my tactics,” Sunset explained to me quietly. Her full brow drew together seriously as she spoke. “You chose a different one, of course—but the New World was a wise place to begin.” She raised a hand in something like congratulation.
“And of course, Sunset always wins,” said the tsarytsya. “She is the head of my pestykk, and as Zolushka said, Midnight, you lack control.” General Midnight scowled at me; I tried not to shrink in my seat. Baba Yaga’s voice grew cold. “And if she had won, you three would be lying dead alongside those traitors’ bodies, because she is a child from nowhere.”
“Even so.” Midnight swallowed, leaning across the table at me. “You lost. So you lose.”
“Lose what?” I pulled farther away from her, shoulder blades pressing into the back of my chair. Alarm shrilled up my spine. “I have nothing. I didn’t know we were playing for stakes.”
“At this table, there are always stakes,” Sunset said, organizing her pieces and leveling me with a glance. “And you accepted that seat.”
Had I? I’d had little choice—but Baba Yaga had no use for the compelled, and I would do myself no favors arguing to the contrary.
“What if I didn’t lose, on my own terms?” I squared my shoulders, trying to mask my own desperation. “I did what I set out to do. I defended an entire continent. Number of territories be damned, I say I won.”
Baba Yaga slowly began to clap. Her cold laughter howled through the room. “Very good, Zolushka,” she said. “Spirited, indeed. A worthy addition to my table. Focused.” She emphasized the word, staring pointedly at Polunoshchna.
I did not care for the tsarytsya’s flattery. And I did not thank her for giving her general greater cause to hate me.
“I will grant you this,” said the tsarytsya. “You have still lost, but you may choose what you forfeit.”
I shook my head, jaw tightening. “What does that mean?”
Cobie and Anya had been standing quietly against the wall for the better part of an hour. Baba Yaga nodded at them now. “Choose. We need fresh blood for the full moon tonight.”
40
Fear and nausea shot through me. I fought to control my reaction. “What does that mean?” I asked again slowly.
“Tonight, we will sharpen our claws.” Polunoshchna’s smile was dark. “Every full moon, we meet in the courtyard to winnow the pack. The best rise. The worst fall.”
“We fight,” Vechirnya said evenly, rolling her eyes at Polunoshchna. “We open the ring, and members of every class participate.”
I met the eyes of my two best friends in utter horror. Blood still painted the walls and the floor; its copper scent had sent my stomach reeling. “No,” I said to Baba Yaga, horrified. “No, I can’t.”
What kind of fighting would it be? How long would it last—till first blood, to the death? My brain raced with questions, and I fought not to let them show. I didn’t dare look at Aleksei beside me, for fear of giving myself away.
Both Anya and Cobie watched me, their
expressions guarded. Were they each asking me to choose them, or wishing it wouldn’t be them, or both? My panic rose.
Could I ask to fight, myself? Or if I refused, would Baba Yaga simply pick one of them for me?
“I will choose.” Across from me, Midnight stood up, eager.
Sunset rolled her eyes. “You lost worse than she did.”
I glanced between Midnight and Sunset, loathing the way Baba Yaga pitted them against one another—for what? Her own entertainment? To keep them malleable and dependent on her? To keep them from uniting against her?
Did she mean to make me treat my friends—my sisters—the same way?
I assessed the facts as calmly as I could, and chose.
“Cobie.” The word broke from my mouth. “Cobie will fight tonight.”
I felt Aleksei relax at my side. Anya clenched her teeth and shook her head.
“Very good,” Baba Yaga said, almost smiling at me. “Well and quickly chosen.”
I said nothing.
“Now,” she said, waving a hand at the blood spattered on the floor and the wall. “Clean this up.”
The empress and her generals swept from the room without a backward glance.
We scrubbed the stones on our hands and knees. The blood of the dead men was everywhere. Neither Anya nor Cobie spoke to me.
I hoped the murdered men would find peace. I prayed theirs were the last deaths I would be forced to watch for a long, long time.
With the full moon so close at hand, I doubted that prayer would be answered as I hoped.
“I can’t believe you didn’t pick me,” Anya muttered in the direction of the floor. “I can fight. You know I can fight.”
“Of course I know you can fight,” I said. “I’ve seen you take down every single one of your brothers and my first mate. You’re a shield-maiden.”
Anya, fighting with her brothers. Torden, teaching me to shoot, his broad hands on my shoulders. The memories and the moments of racking loss came again and again, and they never hurt any less.
“And yet you still picked Cobie, because she—what? She used to wear a knife everywhere?”
