by Lana Popovic
Mara’s eyes landed on me as if she could hear me coming to conclusions. “Of course, it was only a name as good as any other false one. What is the sense in styling something an ‘angel’ or a ‘god,’ if it hails from a place where all are gods compared to us? But it was useful in one respect. Where there are things one might call angels, one can expect things like devils, too.”
She paused for a moment, tracing a fingernail over the creases of her full lower lip. Despite the thousands of years between them, Mama did the exact same thing when she lost herself in thought. I glanced over my shoulder to find her already watching me, her eyes glittering in the dim. Not the way eyes usually glistened, but closer to crystalline, like something with facets.
On second thought, after everything I’d seen, what did I know about what we were? Or about what being human even meant?
“He did not look like a devil when he came,” Mara murmured pensively, dragging my attention back to her. “But then I suppose they never do, to start. We had been hearing the strangest things for months, brought by survivors fleeing their lowland villages. We took them in but thought them ignorant foreigners, and dismissed their tales as outlandish fears. The Greeks may have called us all Illyrioi, as if we were one people, but we were far from one; many clans scattered over the lands, with different customs, different tongues.”
It shouldn’t have been such a revelation, but it was. I’d read about the Illyrians in schoolbooks, the collection of Indo-European tribes that lived in the ancient Balkans. And somehow that name made Mara’s age shockingly real in a way nothing else had. I’d known she was over four thousand years old, that two hundred generations separated me from her. But for the first time I fully felt the depth of the chasm of all those years between us.
“My people were the Ansannae,” she went on. “My line—our line, from mother to mother—had ruled them for centuries. When it came my turn, no other clan we knew of boasted a leader of my ilk. We had our gods, but the times we called upon them were few and far between. Why do so except in obeisance, when there was no true need? My people wanted for nothing while they had me.”
She sounded like a mother when she talked about these people. Her first family, so long dead even their burial mounds must have turned to dust. She would’ve been a thing apart from the people she led, with so much magic twisting through her blood. But I didn’t hear even a hint of aggression or conquering, just that desire to nurture and protect.
Listening to her made me think of Romulus and Remus curled against their wolf mother’s belly, sharing her warmth and milk.
“The stories were all the same,” she continued. “Villages stormed by a demon king who commanded legions, battalions of black-eyed devils on horseback whose steeds bore the same black eyes. This army withstood hacking, flaying, fire. None of it saved any of the attacked; no defense they mounted did any good. And instead of murdering their victims, the horde somehow consumed their spirits, turning the fallen into their own.
“The few who fled from the scourge made their way to the mountains. To me.” She gave a labored sigh, as if remembering weighed on her down to the lungs. “I offered them succor, but they never stayed. They felt our doubt; even then such claims as theirs were not easy to believe. Yet they still dreamed of him, they said. They dreamed that he was coming, so they moved, they ran, as if having me at their back might shield them. Perhaps it all would have been different if even one of them had stayed.”
Her eyes were so bleak, I could almost see the strata of millennia bearing down on her. Like she might collapse into a buried fossil before she could finish her tale.
“Then a man came in early spring, alone, on a blue roan mare. It had only just turned warm enough for wider foraging. I had two daughters by then, and both Amrana and Amrisa were gone that day, gathering the sweet cattail reeds that grew by the glacier lake. It was some small blessing, perhaps, that he saw me first rather than them. I was past thirty myself, at least ten years his elder. Any other woman of the tribe would have waded well into old age by then. But the other-blood that runs through our line had kept me hale and beautiful.
“He sought an audience with me, offered himself into my service as a cunning man. He was the last of his tribe, he said, from a settlement not so far from us, down in what is now the rich, green Zeta Plain. The rest of his people had fallen to demons and then risen again to join their ranks, and he had been left to wander, grief-struck and alone.”
She let her head drop low, her chin nearly tucking into her chest. Her shining hair rushed forward to hide her face. “And in my abysmal weakness, I believed him,” she said, softly, bitterly. “I believed every last word, may the gods and stars curse what is left of my soul. I swallowed the story whole, like a bird a poisoned worm. And it was not just his face that swayed me, though he was a pleasure to look upon. Such strong shoulders and capable hands, eyes green as forest fern. He told me his name was Herron, and the way he smiled at me . . . not as a man bending knee to his new queen, but as one lover at another. As if it were already certain I would take him into my heart.”
My insides aching preemptively for whatever was coming next, I reached for Niko’s hand. Even from here, I could hear the thundering of Mara’s dread. And I remembered what she’d told me when I first asked her who he was.
A monster, she’d said.
And my beloved, once.
“Before him I had known whichever man I pleased, for a night or a moon or a turn. But I had never known one quite like he was. He was a cunning man, just as he had said. He knew how to heal with herbs, with various kinds of earth. That was not extraordinary in itself; we had wise ones among my people too.”
She flung the hair back from her face, then swept her eyes over us all. Like she was drawing strength from the sight of us, all her children together. A side of her mouth peaked up in a rueful quirk.
“But there were things he showed me that not even I could do. Sometimes, when we were alone, he took hold of time like clay between his hands. He drew moments out into whole days, slowed down the world to honey dripping. He caught birds for me mid-flight, showed me a bear cub frozen between blinks, its mother rearing up like a clawed statue next to it. I remember putting my hand against her chest, over the mat of coarse and reeking fur. To feel how long it took for each great strike of her mallet heart to hit.
“When I asked how such things were possible, he told me that the oldest gods of all spoke to him. That in his grief for all he had lost, he had offered himself to them in body and soul—such that they now lived inside him and fed him power, bound by the ink in his skin.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “I took it to mean that he had become something like a priest. And in my foolishness, I questioned him no further. His loss was still so raw, I thought, writ large in the hungry way he looked at me. And it was such a heady, rich relief, respite from a loneliness I had not even known I felt, to have my strength entwined with his strength. Like dragons wound around each other, or the harmony of some tremendous song. It did not occur to me to think,” she added with a rueful chuckle, “that those ravenous eyes might hold a very different kind of hunger.
“I still cannot guess why he held off for so long, but that some part of him must have truly loved me. Yet the things inside him would not let him rest easy by my side. So that autumn, the horses went.”
She rubbed her temples, digging deep. In the candlelight, the tattoos down her arms stood out stark. The diamonds plucked out by Dunja were gone, but they hadn’t left the pucker of scars behind. The lines of the constellations ran smooth and unblemished.
“My people were terror-struck,” she continued. “None of us had ever seen such abomination. Our herd was still alive, if life simply meant an absence of death. They didn’t feed; they could be dragged ploddingly to water, but once there, they wouldn’t drink. Their eyes had turned a tainted black, and they behaved as if they had forgotten what being alive even meant.”
Her jaw set hard. “They had also
become unnaturally strong. None of us could stand to let them live as they were—but when threatened, they fought back like true demons. Faster than the eye, and so vicious, kicking and biting and rolling over like horseflesh boulders. It took me, Amrisa, and Amrana to restrain them all. The things we had to do to them before they finally succumbed . . .”
Her face twisted, and a single tear slid down her cheek like a glass bead. It was the first time I had ever seen her cry.
“I do not like to think of what it took to bring them peace,” she finished in a hitching whisper. “And still, I never thought to blame him. Because by then, I loved him. By then, I had borne his child. Amsherra, my third daughter, named for both me and him.”
My breath caught. I remembered the dream I’d shared with Iris, the first we’d ever seen of Mara. The spell she cast in the snow-cloaked clearing, shapes carved into the crust of ice. Dried flowers and ground powders spread out all around her. The pervading sense of some terrible, soul-deep sacrifice.
I shook my head against the thought. It was too terrible even to consider.
“After that taste, the thirst must have grown too much for him to further contain himself. Only a few weeks passed before he shook me awake before the dawn. He was so glutted with stolen strength that I could feel it, like serpent tongues flicking against my skin. The tattoos around his arms writhed like things alive, and his green eyes had turned to night.
“‘Mara, my sun,’ he said to me. ‘Rise now, and come. There is something you must see.’
“I knew enough to veil my fear, though my skin crept away from his touch. Then he led me through the settlement, and I saw what he had done. All my people stood gathered outside beneath the spreading fire of the dawn, stiff like pillars outside their homes. Just like the horses; blank, black eyes, all living yet lifeless. From the youngest children to the death’s-door old.
“‘Oh, no, please, no,’ I whispered, though I did not know whom I beseeched. I felt as if my body might bury itself into the ground. All these people—now flesh-clad ghosts—had trusted me and loved me, placed themselves into my hands. And I had let myself be beguiled by a man’s honeycombed lies.
“‘I beg forgiveness for paining you, my sun,’ Herron said to me, cradling my face. ‘But it was more than time. The Lightless gods demand their tithe of souls. But I would not take you as I took your people, nor would I take your daughters and ours—not without permission. I’ve searched for you since I felt your glow, from so many leagues away. Now I would have you with me, my tigress and my queen, to live forever by my side. The Lightless will sustain you as they do me, and will never let us die. Together we will storm and sack this world, twist it into dripping halves and suck out all its pulp.’
“Under the madness of his gaze, all I could think was of my children. Amrisa. Amrana. And little Amsherra, not even weaned. I brought this on them and now I would save them, however I must. By stars and gods, I would. I would.
“‘What would you have me do?’ I asked him, searching for false sweetness to give him, finding only gall. ‘What—what must I do to take my place by your side?’
“‘I will show you,’ he whispered, kissing my hands. ‘I will ink you with the gateway patterns, and I will teach you the words. Once it has been both inscribed and spoken, they will claim you as their vessel. All you need do is let me show you how to let them in.’”
With that, Mara stood so abruptly that I jerked against Niko, who gripped my hand hard. I could hear the shallow flutter of her breathing beside me. We had both been spellbound by the sound of Mara’s voice, just like the mass of coven daughters. I could hear the rumbling avalanche of their reaction, all this unwelcome revelation. This wasn’t a story most of them had heard before—though I could see by Izkara’s stony eyes that a few of them had known.
Mara’s first daughter certainly would have.
I scoured the crowd until I found Amrisa’s face, dark and impossibly lovely. Her eyes were closed, her tear-slick features sculpted into an expression of agony so keen it looked almost like epiphany.
Everything in me shied away from hearing how this story ended.
As Mara rose with blazing eyes, the furs and shawls fell away. Under them she wore a black rib-cage corset that laced up the back, above a black leather skirt with ragged hems. With her clenched fists and wide-legged warrior’s stance, even the dancer’s clothes seemed cut for battle.
“I told him I needed three days to myself,” she said, her eyes still burning. “To purify and to prepare. And as he was only too eager to grant me whatever I wanted—so he could finally have all that he wanted—he left me to my work.”
I’d almost forgotten that she was what Dunja came from, until she began the dance.
We weren’t going to hear the ending, then.
We were going to see it.
Eleven
Iris
I CAME BACK TO MYSELF WITH A SUDDEN, SHEARING BREATH. Terror still rolled through me like waves, in sharp dips and crests.
That man’s face. His eyes. That hideous, serpentine dark squirming around him.
He had seen me, and now he wanted to eat me. And not just me, but Lina, and all the rest of our coven kin.
I thought my ribs might crack from the force of my hammering heart.
“He’s coming!” I half shrieked, flailing feebly. “He’s coming!”
“Flower, hush,” Fjolar soothed from above. My head was pillowed in his lap, and his coarse palms cupped my burning face. The cool chain of his arrowhead bracelet felt like bliss against my skin. “Easy, now. You’re all right.”
I pawed at him like a frightened child, and he caught my fingers easily with one hand. “I saw Lina, I saw her, and she told me—she said to find his soul.” His grip stilled over mine for a moment, tightening hard. If I hadn’t been so crazed, I would have yelped with it. “And the man, the man, with tattoos and black eyes and all the dark,” I gabbled. “He’s going to hurt Lina, and he’s going to . . . to storm and sack . . .”
His hold relaxed, and he ran warm lips over my knuckles. “Just bad dreams, flower girl. From the poison you inhaled, and that’s wearing off. Angel’s trumpet is a strong hallucinogenic. Nasty stuff, notorious for nightmares. I’ve never—I’ve never seen you so afraid. Not even the Quiet shook you like this. I should have been more careful to keep you to the path.”
He swept his thumbs over my cheekbones in a remorseful caress. I barely recognized him, the new tenderness with which he cupped my head.
He was actually taking care of me, without even begrudging it.
Little by little, I calmed, my breathing steadying. Could that really have been a hallucination, a poisoned dream? Lina had looked so real, and that blight of a man . . .
My head still pounded like a beaten anvil, and I felt feverish and jittery. I turned my head and moaned against his palm. “Can . . . ?” My voice died into a rasp. I worked up a pitiful amount of spit and swallowed it, so thirsty my tongue clicked in parting from my palate. “Can we go? The air . . . there are too many smells here, and it’s too hot. I think it’s making me worse. I’m sorry, I—”
He nodded briskly. “Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault. Sit up a little, flower. I’ll take you somewhere with clearer air.”
He shifted us in a single fluid motion, propping me up and turning me so he could slip an arm behind my back and knees. I let my head droop against the solid bulk of his shoulder as he picked me up, cradling me against his chest. Through gritty, slitted eyes, I watched him carry me to a simpler, less imposing set of wrought-iron gates.
“I’ll have to put you down for the passage through the Quiet,” he said, brushing his lips over the top of my head. The gentleness of the touch made me want to cling to him even harder, fold myself into his heft when I still felt so weak and small. “So I can lead the way. Do you think you can stand?”
Everything inside me wilted at the thought of submerging myself inside the Quiet again. The loss of my senses. The loss of my self. I�
�d forgotten that we’d have to wade through it on our way out as well as in.
But we couldn’t stay here, not when every breath made me want to swoon.
“Mm-hmm,” I grunted vaguely. “I can try.”
He set me down gingerly. I swayed a little but stood, clinging to his hand. Once I was stable enough to take most of my own weight, he propped a foot up on the gate’s iron bars and booted them open.
As soon as they swung outward, I began to quake. I didn’t want to do it, didn’t want to, would have done anything to evade another foray into the Quiet. It had been such a misery last time, and this time I was weak. What if I forgot how to keep myself knit together? What if I unraveled like a ball of yarn before I reached the other side?
“You’ll be fine, flower, I promise,” Fjolar said, drawing me to his side and pressing a light kiss of encouragement into my temple. “It won’t be pleasant, but you’ll pass through just as you did before. I won’t let you go.”
I nodded slowly, tearfully. The care in these new kisses, and in his touch—I was beginning to almost believe in them.
He tugged us both forward, and stepped through the gates. All that fresh trust in him lasted until the exact instant the void of the Quiet sealed around me, closing over me like water across a drowning girl’s face.
The thrash of fear was so great that for a moment it sustained me on its own, expanding to fill me until it brought up short against the very edges of my silhouette. And then, rising to meet the direness of my need, my wisteria rushed up to take the panic’s place. My infinite bloom had been hovering near my surface—whatever I’d done in reaction to the angel’s trumpet poison, it clearly had summoned the bloom somehow—and now its flowered branches burst out of me again, weaving themselves around me to shelter me from the Quiet. I could firmly feel the borders of my body where latticed wood and petal pressed against me, keeping me enclosed.
Cupped like a yolk inside the confines of my own will, I wouldn’t dissolve or lose myself.
