Curse-Maker- the Tale of Gwiddon Crow

by Alydia Rackham

  I sat back, staring hard down at the blunt, meticulous inkwork.

  “Vassilissa Kararov,” I murmured, tapping the edge of the cover with my finger. “I know that name...”

  “Mm,” Prince Krystian grunted. “That surprises me. Nobody’s known her by it for at least a thousand years.”

  “What?” I said, lowering the book. “Why would anybody know her by something else? She was thrown off a cliff.”

  “She was.” The prince nodded once. “But…she didn’t die.”

  My attention sharpened. Krystian sat back a little in his chair and gestured absently toward the book I had.

  “If you keep reading, you’ll find the rest of her story—all that’s known about her, anyway,” he said. “She was rescued by a mysterious force in the water, one we eventually discovered was a Tenebris—or perhaps, the Tenebris. Those on the coast call her Myrkur. The witch of the sea.”

  My blood thrilled, and I suddenly couldn’t look anywhere else but at him.

  “Vassilissa was taken to a cavern on an island nearby—I can’t remember its name. And while she was there, Myrkur introduced her to magic.” He shrugged. “The rest is history.”

  “What do you mean?” I demanded. “What history?”

  “Vassilissa went on to become one of the great Caldic Curse-Breakers,” he answered frankly. “But at the same time, she secretly worked to fracture every alliance in Edel and began the war that ended the first age. And during that war, she murdered most of her former friends. She released Mordred the Draid from his prison on the Isle of Avalon where Merlin had chained him, and helped Mordred conquer Albain. By that time, she’d changed her name to Baba Yaga. Before that, Baba Yaga had just been a fairy story the people of the Purpurny Les Woods would tell their children at night.” He flashed his eyebrows darkly. “Now, she’s very real.”

  “This is her?” I whispered. “Vassilissa…She is Baba Yaga?”

  “The original account was written here in Astrum just a year after Yelena Kararov was hanged,” the prince vaguely pointed at the books in the room. “Confirmed by all those witnesses, and also written down in the family history of the Lopukhins.”

  I couldn’t speak. The book in my grip suddenly seemed very heavy. Then, Prince Krystian sat forward, bracing his hands on the armrests.

  “I’m going to walk some more,” he muttered. “My back is stiff.” And he got up, almost soundlessly trailed across the library, felt for the door, found it, and left. He shut the door behind him.

  I stared after him long after he’d gone, the book weighing on my hands. But again, as if I couldn’t do anything else, my attention was pulled back to the book.

  And I kept reading.

  I didn’t come across the prince for the rest of the day. As the morning stretched into the afternoon, I went down to the kitchen in search of food, and found cold beef and bread and cheese on the table, along with a weak wine, which I ate and drank. But I didn’t hear him anywhere.

  With what strength I had, I listlessly wandered the portions of the castle I’d never entered, all the time listening for sounds of movement. On the second floor, I came across another large, portrait-filled hearth room; a door to a huge balcony, an overlook to the Hall of Fountains below, two guest towers, a great parlor, a small puppet theatre—sumptuously-decorated—and a much greater theatre, whose sculptures, chandeliers, velvet curtains and fantastical murals took my breath away.

  On the third floor, I also discovered an indoor archery range in the south tower, and an entire room filled with a miniature city surrounded by forests and populated by hundreds of beautiful dolls, no doubt belonging to Princess Tulia. The last place I came upon was an entire tower of luxurious apartments…

  Each filled with sleeping courtiers turned to stone.

  I fled that tower with greater desperation than I had ever felt. And I retreated to the princess’ chambers, and shut the door behind me.

  As the afternoon dragged on into evening, my bones ached so badly I could only sink down in front of the fireplace and hope that the heat would soak into them.

  But as I sat there, the silence of the entire day haunted me. Everything I’d read in the red book swirled round and round in my mind. Everything, just as Prince Krystian had described. And in far more detail. Dispassionate and matter-of-fact, every event laid out plainly and clearly, the same way a clock displays the time. A person couldn’t argue with the expressionless face of a clock, no matter what she felt about it. The time was the time, and nothing could change it. So it was with that infernal book.

  Finally exhausted, I dragged myself to my feet, and pulled off my boots for the first time in…I couldn’t remember. I wearily shoved the top blanket aside and crawled into the bed, wrapping myself up and curling into a ball, groaning at the persistent pain in my organs. I turned the lights down, leaving only the fireplace to burn. And as I gazed, unfocused, at the flickering light that threw shadows across the walls, my thoughts filled with the prince. And no matter how I tried to divert myself, I kept wondering where he had been all these endless hours, and if he felt the silence and the darkness as keenly as I did.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “It’s lighter.”

  My voice echoed through the cavernous space of the great library—against the checkered marble floors, the towering white bookshelves, all the way up to the skylight and the vast blue murals of heavenly beings.

  The prince, who stood toward the middle of the library in front of a shelf near the top of the “keyhole” bend in the shape of the room, turned his head toward me. He wore a light grey, fitted doublet and loose trousers with tall grey boots. Intricate silver embroidery flashed across his chest, sleeves, and high collar, caught in the light from the torches. He held something that looked like a large key in both hands—but he seemed to forget what he was doing as he turned to face me.

  “Does it?” he asked. “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” I murmured, unable to summon much volume. “But the clouds are so thin I can almost see the sun.” I lifted my face, and gazed up through the skylight, watching the threads of grey cloud drift by.

  “And…what does that mean?” the prince pressed.

  I sighed, bringing my gaze back down to him.

  “I don’t particularly want to think about it,” I confessed, my voice shaking on the last word.

  His eyebrows drew together, and he lowered his head. He picked up the object he held with one hand, and thumped the end of it against the palm of the other. It was a key. A large, golden one, with jewels in the handle.

  “What’s that?” I asked, coming closer and stiffly easing down into a nearby chair.

  “What—this?” he held the key up. “This goes with a present my mother got last Christmas. Want to see it?”

  My mouth twitched.

  “Let me check my schedule,” I muttered.

  The prince suddenly laughed—and it rattled the oppressive silence of the stoic books all around us. Then, he turned to a space between the shelves, groped for a moment with his free hand until he found a large keyhole, and pushed the head of the key into it.

  With a firm twist, he turned the key, and a loud clack issued from some mechanism in the wall. The next moment, a gap opened up between the shelves, and the prince wedged his fingers into the crack, and pushed to the left.

  The shelf gave way and slid away from him, revealing something I’d never seen before.

  It resembled an organ, with no keys. And its dozens of flutes were made of glass. All around it, gorgeously-crafted gold pieces held the flutes in place. The mysterious and beautiful instrument glinted and glimmered even in the dim light, almost glowing with a light of its own.

  “What is it?” I asked, hushed.

  “It’s…Well, it’s a glorified music box,” Prince Krystian explained. “Here, let me…” He bent down, his brow furrowed with the effort, and groped again for another keyhole in the side of the instrument. When he’d found it, he pushed the
same key in and twisted it perhaps ten times. Each time, the instrument gave a brisk grinding sound, as if gears inside were tightening. Then, the prince released the key. It started to turn on its own, in the opposite direction…

  And music swelled out.

  I had never heard music played by more instruments than perhaps a flute and a fiddle at the same time. But this sounded like a dozen flutes and two-dozen fiddles, and perhaps a harp—but with a glassy, humming, ethereal quality. A slow, swaying, dreamlike and melancholy melody, with delicate harmony keeping it company.

  The prince straightened, setting his hands on his hips, and let out his breath.

  “Mother always thought it was too quiet in this library,” he murmured. “It made her lonely. So Father had this made for her. Do you like it?”

  “Is it magic?” I whispered, captivated.

  He chuckled.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “It isn’t even Spegel glass. Spegel glass doesn’t vibrate enough to make music.”

  “It’s…very beautiful,” I said weakly, the sad swells of the music wandering over me.

  “Have you ever danced?”

  My whole being twitched, and I jerked my gaze from the instrument to the prince. But he just waited, his eyebrows slightly lifted.

  “Danced?” I repeated. “I…Yes.”

  I hesitated. But the prince’s look of curiosity only waited.

  I slowly glanced away, my gaze unfocusing, as memory rose in my mind.

  “I’ve danced in midsummer evenings, in glens filled with star-flowers, with a white-hot fire burning in the middle…” I said, my voice quieting. “We wore almost nothing, and painted our bare skin with runes of all colors, drawing lines across our faces and our necks, tying our hair in knots, with bells jingling in our braids…We danced with nymphs and dryads and fauns and black fairies, our bare feet in the cool, soft grass. Wild, frightening, exciting songs—so old I couldn’t understand the words, but the terrifying, wonderful melodies seemed more familiar than my own name. All the nymphs and dryads and fairies around me. The nymphs were like ghosts, moving like smoke, or like moonlight on water. The dryads had hair of rustling leaves, with silvery patterns across their skin, and eyes that burned like coals. The black fairies had wings of feathers and lace, and wherever they stepped, red flowers bloomed. They were the most dreadful, and I wanted to be near them. Their skin shone like black marble, their eyes like starlight. We spun and twirled round and round, and threw our heads, letting our hair fly…And when I would touch any of the black fairies, I felt as wild and dangerous as he was.”

  I came back to myself for a moment, looking at the prince. His head was lowered, and some color had come into his cheeks.

  “You’ve danced with men, then?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t call them men,” I answered, with quiet wryness. “I remember one…He was like dancing with a storm. Wrapping all around me, dark and cold and hot…His speech was like the wind that tears in over the rocks before a hurricane, and his eyes were like lightning.”

  “What was his name?” the prince asked.

  I watched his expression, considering his strong, refined features, and his curls. I gave half a smile.

  “You wouldn’t understand it if I said it,” I said. “Black fairies don’t speak with words. Only magic.”

  “And you could speak to him?” Krystian prompted, lifting his head, his eyebrows drawing together.

  “Of course,” I replied, my smile settling a little. “I am a witch.”

  “Did you dance with your feet on the ground, then?” he wondered. I snorted.

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s the point of a Spinning Fire Dance.”

  “What does a Spinning Fire Dance do?” he asked.

  I paused a moment, canting my head.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I want to know,” he replied. I thought a moment.

  “It…Well, it calls magic to you. It binds allegiances. And it’s…Well,” I looked up and away. “We savages in the woods call it fun.”

  “Fun,” he repeated.

  “Yes,” I answered. “Ever heard of it?”

  “Oh, I think I’ve read about it once. Always wanted to try it,” he chided, closing one eye. I chuckled.

  “All right,” he said, clapping his hands together in front of him. “Show me.”

  I stopped.

  “Show you?”

  “Mhm,” he nodded, and held out his hands toward me. “Show me this Spinning Fire Dance.”

  “Um, there’s not actually a fire in here,” I said flatly.

  “Yes there is, it’s over there,” he pointed vaguely to the fireplace.

  “That’s not the same,” I countered.

  “Well, I can’t make a fire in the middle of the floor—Mother would murder me,” he waved it off.

  “We’re wearing all our clothes,” I jabbed—hoping to see more of that color rise in his face. But he instantly waved that away, too.

  “Well, it’s wintertime, can’t be catching pneumonia. Otherwise, I’d wholeheartedly agree.”

  “Ha!” I barked, startled. He grinned, and beckoned with his fingers.

  “Come on, come on. Educate me. Unless you think I can’t be taught.”

  “I don’t think you can,” I poked, shaking my head. “You’re too stiff.”

  “Stiff? Me?” he pointed to himself in surprise. “Nonsense. Come here, girl.” And he stepped toward me, and somehow found my wrist with his hand. And he tugged on me.

  Before I knew it, I was standing up, and coming along with him as he dragged me toward an open section of the marble floor.

  “Ow…I’m…Erm…” I winced, tugging back on him slightly.

  “What?” he demanded, instantly stopping and frowning.

  “I…might be the stiff one,” I confessed, feeling suddenly out of breath.

  “It’s a good thing I’m just a learner,” the prince said, giving me an encouraging smile. “No need to hurry. Now, what do we do?”

  “Well…” I fought back the spasms of pain traveling down through me, and tried to think. But, after standing still a moment, I shook my head. “We can’t do a Spinning Fire Dance. I don’t…”

  “What?” he asked, leaning toward me.

  All vestiges of my amusement fell away, and I looked at the floor.

  “I’m not strong enough,” I finally muttered. I lifted my head, and looked at him. I took an unsteady breath. “I feel like…I feel like an old woman.” I laughed—and it shook. “I couldn’t spin if my life depended on it.”

  “Well, we’ll do what my grandparents do, then,” he proposed. “All grace, little movement. That’s what grandpa always says, anyway.”

  “What—how?” I asked, bewildered.

  “Here…Where are you?” he asked again, pulling on my arm…

  And then, he slid his right arm around my waist, underneath my cape. In another movement, he’d caught my right hand up in his left.

  And he was holding me. Not against him, but very, very close. All my senses jolted.

  I could suddenly smell the scent of him again—that musk of frankincense. It filled my head, waking me up, banishing the ache in my neck.

  His fingers closed gently around my right hand, and he settled his own right hand against my back. I could feel every shift of his fingers through my tunic. And I stared at him, up into his face, thrown utterly off-guard.

  “Put your hand on my shoulder,” he instructed, his voice close and immediate. Without thinking, I settled my palm near his collar.

  “So,” he stated brightly, as if beginning a lecture. “It’s a simple step. Follow the music, just one-two-three, one-two-three. You start with your right foot, I start with my left. Obviously, the first step is the long one, followed by two short ones. You follow my lead…But I’m not going to lead you much of anywhere, because we might collapse or bash into a chair.”

  I snickered a little, and he chuckled when he heard it.

  “We actually
are like two old people, aren’t we?” he joked.

  “Mm,” I managed.

  “All right, so…We’ll wait for the music…and…”

  When the downbeat came, he pulled on my waist. We both took a small step to my right, and I managed to follow it with two shorter steps. The prince straightened his back, securing his hold on me as we stepped again, and again. He fell silent, obviously concentrating—for of course, he had never danced blind.

  And in that moment, I suddenly realized that, whilst he had doubtlessly danced with countless princesses and courtiers, none of them had ever been able to look at him like this—so closely and almost secretly—without him looking back at them. His dark head tilted slightly, as if in thought. Curls across his forehead, youthful smile lines around his eyes, that unique and wolfish mouth…

  That scar on his cheek. And the one on his lip.

  My heart started to pound. And all at once, I felt more frightened than I ever had whilst dancing with the fairies.

  The music grew louder. It swelled up around us, as if filling the room with invisible dancers that swirled and twirled all around us. The prince turned me, slowly, and I followed him, watching his face, every edge and surface of it…

  And my mind wandered into a fantasy.

  What would it have been like on the eve of a feast week here at Astrum, when all the lamps were lit, and lit white wax candles sparkled on golden stands, banishing every trace of gloom and cold? What would it have been like, as all the corridors and halls rang with laughter and conversation; to hear the swish of elegant, colorful ballgowns covered in glittering jewels, doors noisily opening and closing, children dashing from feasting hall to ballroom?