by Raye Wagner
The length of his body was next to her, both of them on her bedroll. She swallowed as her consciousness returned. What was he—
A woman’s scream rent the air, and Adaline’s heart stopped. She turned to her guard, her eyes widening in horror. The screams from her dream were real, and they were happening outside her tent. She pulled his hand from her mouth. “What is that? What are they doing to her?”
He dropped his gaze. “I tried to find all of the women and get them out. I must’ve missed one . . . some.”
Burning indignation seared her, and Adaline pushed his hand away and sat up. “You knew?”
He hung his head in a very uncharacteristic way and muttered, “I tried to get them all out.”
She tried to stand, but his arm circled her waist, and he held her down. “Don’t you dare,” she snapped. “That’s got to stop. Someone needs to stop them.”
He shook his head. “You cannot go out there, Adaline. They will turn on you, and I’m not sure I could protect you against . . . all of them.”
Reality crashed into her, rocking her to her core. Her stomach turned, and nausea roiled through her. Adaline tried to stand again, but Evzan pulled her back down, holding her in a vice-like grip. She hit him, smacking him with her open palm and then her closed fists. She screamed at him until he covered her mouth, and she thrashed against him as she tried to get out of the tent. If she could just get out, she could put a stop . . .
Evzan held her tight, taking every hit she dished out, and then held her close when she sobbed her dismay into his chest. She’d brought down the wall only to bring the same horror to the innocents of Beloch. Guilt racked her soul, and Adaline begged Evzan to let her do something.
“There is nothing you can do,” he whispered into her hair. “You cannot control everyone in your army. The men feel entitled to the spoils of war, and that includes the captives.”
Adaline shook her head, refusing to accept that her army was entitled to commit atrocities. She would not let this continue. Her thoughts went to her army, and she tried to figure out a way to make them understand. But she needed to earn their loyalty and respect before she would be able to get them to follow her. Or at least the loyalty and respect of her generals. If they believed in her, then they could enforce her rules. She really didn’t need the army to respect her; fear would work too. Which meant she needed an alliance with someone who already had the power and respect to enforce her rules.
She’d already seen the generals at the center of camp were not all in agreement regarding Adaline as the best leader for Cervene. And she’d seen the lack of unity within the ranks today. Evzan said the battles would become more difficult too.
As the inebriated commotion continued, Adaline soaked in comfort from Evzan’s proximity. Even if he didn’t love her, he was keeping her safe, and it was that safety which allowed her mind to wander in and out of options and possibilities.
Eventually, the din faded, and Adaline closed her eyes. Lulled by the soft snores of her guard, his arms still holding her close, Adaline eventually smiled, but her lips were tight and her mind grim.
She had a plan.
12
Vasilisa
“Oww,” Vasilisa said with a gasp as she bolted upright, her hand touching a throbbing lump on the side of her head. She blinked the sleep from her eyes and then screamed.
“Get up,” Baba Yaga snapped. “You need to start early today or you’ll never finish in time.”
The sky outside was still dark with night, the witch’s gaze the only light in Vasi’s room, and the glow was fading as Baba Yaga headed toward the door.
“What am I supposed to do today?” Vasi asked as she grabbed the dress she’d worn yesterday from the foot of the bed and pulled on the rumpled garment. She rushed out of her room and collided into the back of the witch. With a gulp, Vasi dipped into a curtsey and muttered, “So sorry.”
Only after she’d stepped away did it register that the body she’d crashed into was nothing like the stooped frame of the old gnarled lady glowering at her.
“Don’t bother apologizing unless you’re going to be specific. Now, stop dawdling. The entire house has kurz mites, practically an infestation of the little buggers. So no excuses, right?” The witch leaned toward Vasi and grinned. “The place needs a thorough cleaning, so get to it.”
Vasi couldn’t help the overwhelming panic fluttering in response to Baba Yaga’s declaration. The entire house? Vasilisa hadn’t even seen the entire house.
As if Baba Yaga read Vasi’s mind, the witch said, “The whole house is too much for one person in one day. Take care of the kurz mites, and the rest will take care of itself. And you have until sundown.” Baba Yaga stared at Vasilisa and said, “Don’t forget to wipe down every single door, and you’ll have to use magic.”
“I can do it without magic, ma’am.” Vasi nodded, her palms sweating with the impossibility. There were a lot of doors. Practically half the house was doors. And she’d never heard of a kurz mite, let alone an infestation of them. But getting rid of the kurz mites would take care of the rest.
“You won’t finish at all if you don’t use magic,” the witch snapped, her teeth grinding against each other. She turned around, looking to be leaving, then stopped. Without glancing back at Vasi, Baba Yaga said, “If you don’t finish by sunset, you’ll be locked in a room with no way out except magic.”
“I can’t use magic,” Vasi protested for what felt like the hundredth time over the last almost two weeks. The ability to use magic was passed down from one’s parents. If her mother had been a witch, she never would have died. There was no possible way that Vasi’s father was anyone other than Casimir. Yes, Vasi saw and heard strange things, but that was all in her mind like talking to one’s self. After a deep breath, she reiterated, “I’m not a witch.”
“Well then, you’ll die trapped in a room with no doors,” Baba Yaga said. She snapped her fingers, and the sconces lit. “Now, get to work.”
“Where do I start?” Vasi’s anxiety spiked as Baba Yaga spun away and clomped down the hallway without answering. Vasi raised her voice and yelled after the witch, “What’s a kurz mite?’
Vasi stared at the empty doorway, her stomach churning with panic. Normally Baba Yaga threatened to eat Vasi. And the task felt impossible like Baba Yaga wanted Vasi to fail. Vasi refused; she’d do what she could and figure out the rest.
Ten minutes later, weighed down with two buckets of warm, sudsy water, Vasilisa ascended the long, narrow stairway to the top floor, deciding it was best if she worked her way down. A long procession of doors in a variety of shapes and sizes lined the walls before her, much like she’d seen on the second floor that first day. Baba Yaga had made a point to say she wanted every door wiped down, so Vasi was determined to start there.
Vasi set the buckets down in front of a red door that stretched nearly to the ceiling. Next to it was a blue door far too narrow for a child to squeeze through. The doors had only the lightest coating of dust, but there were a lot of them. She dipped a rag into the warm water and wrung it out, mumbling to herself, “A hundred doors, three minutes each, at most.”
She stood on her tiptoes, reaching to the top of the door frame, pressed her cloth to the wood, and wiped down the frame and then the door. Not even a minute. She pushed the bucket to the next door, wiped along the top edge, and sucked in a sharp breath when a stabbing pain shot through her hand. Vasi jerked her hand back and looked for a splinter, something to explain the pain, but there was only a red welt.
Trepidation skittered over her spine as she stared at the strange bite. But mites were tiny bugs, the size of the head of a pin. She looked for something besides the dust on her washcloth and then rinsed the rag. She reached up again, pausing when she thought she heard a chittering sound. With a shake of her head, she ran the rag down the door, brought the cloth back to the top, and a sharp sting on her hand made her jump back with a startled, “Oww!”
Pulsing pain radiated fr
om between her first and second knuckle, and another red welt blossomed. “What in the name of the djinn . . .”
Kurz mites.
The voice in her head gave no further explanation, and Vasi grimaced. There was no way a bug that tiny could hurt this much or make a welt the size of her thumb.
Vasi rinsed her cloth, finished the door, and then scooted down the hall. No more than three seconds in to cleaning the next door, and another prick of agony shot through her wrist. Vasi let out another yip, a mixture of pain and frustration and smacked her rag over the door.
They’re on all the doors. Can’t you see them?
“No, obviously I can’t see them.” All Vasi could see was a light layering of dust on all the closed doors. Infestation indeed. She slapped the cloth on the door with a curse, freezing when she heard the thunk of something heavy landing on the floor.
A thrill of triumph zinged through her, and she scrubbed at the rest of the door. Vasi managed to clean out the corners of the frame, wipe the dust from the beveled edges, and made it halfway down to the base of the door before another mite bit her, three times in quick succession.
She hissed, throwing her rag at the door and kicking the wood for good measure.
You need to see them to communicate with them.
“Communicate? If you’re only going to tell me useless information, or when it’s too late, why do you even bother talking in my head?” Vasi snapped at the voice in her head. Because telling her she needed to see the kurz mites wasn’t helpful. At all. They were invisible. How could she possibly see something invisible? Magic. Only, Vasi didn’t have any.
Vasi stood, glaring at the blue door and the invisible bugs she knew were there. She blinked with sudden realization. With a grim smile, she picked up the bucket of warm, sudsy water and threw it at the door. The water splashed up the vertical surface and then washed to the ground. She imagined she heard squeals of outrage, and Vasi stomped into the puddle, determined to crush anything there. “I need the house clean, and you buggers aren’t helping!”
She felt the crunch of a bug casing underfoot and froze. She patted the ground with her bare foot, stunned when she felt the chitin exoskeleton of a bug the size of a dinner plate. When she dropped to her hands and knees, the invisible creature was gone.
Fine. If she couldn’t scrub the mites out, she’d drown them out. Hadn’t Baba Yaga said to take care of the mites and the rest would follow? Vasi took the second bucket of sudsy water and splashed half of it on the next door, wiping the soaking surface once before moving on to the next, drenching it clean.
“So there, fiends.” Standing in a large puddle, Vasi reveled in her victory. Then she glanced down at her empty buckets and past them to the long line of dusty doors. “Clean the whole house,” she muttered. “Take care of the kurz mites . . .”
Hours later, her back ached, her sides screamed, and her thighs burned. Vasi heaved the buckets of soapy water up the stairs and down the next hall. Her arms shook as she hefted the weight of the bucket and doused the unfinished wood of her sixtieth door. To her utter dismay, the water only managed to wash halfway down, and when she wiped the wood clean she got bit again.
Fifty-nine-and-a-half doors clean, seventy-two left to go.
“You’re really not helpful,” Vasi breathed as she grabbed the empty buckets. Frustrated, tired, and hungry, Vasi swung the empty pail at the door and the invisible bug. “If you mites want me to leave you alone, then”—Vasi’s mind jumped to her impossible dream, and she shouted—“stop being so disgusting and filthy. The house is dirty, and it needs to be clean!”
Trudging back toward the stairs, she stutter-stepped, almost tripping over the buckets on the floor just before the stairs. She blinked, staring down at the containers filled with fresh, soapy water.
Setting down the empty pails, she moved toward the full buckets, wondering if their appearance was a trick. She’d seen no one besides Baba Yaga in the house, which left only . . . “Sef? Dom?”
One full bucket slid across the wet floor, stopping several inches past her. Right in front of the half-washed door. Vasi closed her eyes and whispered, “Thank you.”
She opened her eyes, and her vision wavered. All around she saw scuttling gray beetles, their scaly chitin like matted dust, on the doors she had yet to wash. She dropped her gaze and saw a dozen on the floor, scuttling to the bucket and rinsing off the dust. One of the bugs rose up on its hind legs and waved bits of cloth in its front pinchers.
Vasi brought her pruny hand to her mouth as she tried to make sense of the bugs and Baba Yaga’s words. Infestations were bad, and the disgusting-looking beetles had crustacean-like clumps of dust stuck to their shells. Picking up the full bucket of water, she splashed the next door. Three bugs washed away from the wood’s surface to the floor at her feet. One slid to a stop by her foot, waved its pincers, and lunged at her, biting her big toe. Startled, she yelped and kicked the creature, adding insult to injury of her sore toe, for the creatures were heavier than they appeared. The insect rose up, chittered at her angrily, and then scrambled off toward the staircase.
“Good for nothing,” she hollered after the bugs.
Vasi stepped forward just as another bucket slid her way. She and the bucket collided, and Vasi fell, landing hard on her hands and knees with a grunt. Her braid flung forward as well as stray tendrils that had escaped, and Vasi pushed her auburn hair back as she climbed to her feet. Grit and grime stuck to her face, her clothing dripping, soaked and soapy, and Vasi shook her head in frustration. Too late, the pail slid away from her feet as if the bearer was trying to move it out of her way. When she looked about, the dust bugs were gone.
“Perhaps not so close next time,” she sighed as she rubbed her aching palms. “But, truly, I thank you for your aid. It’s a mercy.”
As the day wore torturously on, Vasi’s vision blurred with exhaustion. She did not see the kurz mites again. She hefted load after load of water, each pail heavier than the last, until her arms felt like jelly.
“Ninety-four,” she panted, stumbling to the next bucket outside a peach-colored door. Vasi stared aimlessly at the dusty peach paint. When had the task become about the doors? Or was it about the kurz mites? No, it was the house. Vasi needed to get the house clean. She ground her teeth in frustration and jerked the handle of the pail, but she was so exhausted she stumbled with the weight. With a sigh, she set the pail back on the floor and then stretched, pressing her hands to the ache in her lower back, muttering, “I’m just going to take a little break.”
Vasi slid to the floor, sickening dread pooling in her gut making her nauseated. Baba Yaga wasn’t teaching Vasi anything; the witch didn’t even want Vasi here. She’d been set up to fail, sent to be bitten by invisible, disgusting bugs while she uselessly cleaned dusty doors. Her eyes burned as deep betrayal settled in her heart. Vasi leaned against the wall and raised her watery gaze to the ceiling, doing her best to blink away the tears.
“Dinner unmade! Wood stove empty!” Baba Yaga yelled from below. “A half dozen of my mites dead! What is the meaning of this?”
Vasi pushed to her feet as the enraged witch crested the stairs.
The hag glared at Vasi. “And I find you lazing about!”
She swayed with fatigue. Vasi’s body was a mass of aches and pains and bruises, and Baba Yaga was upset about the bugs?
“The doors are clean,” Vasi croaked, shocked. Even the peach door she stood next to was clean. The length of the hallway was dry, no evidence of the water she’d spilled, and the wood floors gleamed with fresh polish. She blinked, trying to reconcile her memory to the reality in front of her.
“Do you think you’ve succeeded? You killed several of my kurz mites, and the only reason they helped clean was because they were terrified of you. Do you think fear is a good way to motivate someone to work? How long do you think their loyalty to you will last? You were unnecessarily cruel, and why?” the witch growled.
Vasi’s frustration boiled into
hot anger. Tilting her chin up, Vasi glared back at the witch. “That’s rich, coming from you. You told me you had a kurz mite infestation.”
“So? Do you know how long it took me to get them to come into my home? You’ve scared dozens of them away.”
“You want those ugly bugs here? They’re disgusting. They bite—”
“Only if you’re pushing them around. If you’re good to them, they’ll be good to you.” Baba Yaga narrowed her flaming eyes. “You didn’t even try, did you?”
“Is the entire house clean?” Vasi asked in disbelief.
“It is.”
Instead of making Vasi feel better, having Baba Yaga admit to Vasi’s success only made her feel worse. “Please, just give me the Phoenix Fire.”
“No,” the witch growled. “Lesson number one: Beauty doesn’t equate to good, and evil doesn’t usually appear in ugly trimmings. Loyalty and kindness can be found in beasts. You judged the kurz mites to be bad because they don’t fit your perfect picture—”
“No,” Vasi insisted, straightening. “If I assumed they were bad, it was because you told me they were an infestation. You deliberately misled me, and that was wrong. If you respected the kurz mites, you would’ve introduced them as friends, not foes.” Vasi raised her face to the ceiling and yelled, “I’m sorry, kurz mites, for treating you poorly. I was misled about your purpose, and I erred in my hasty conclusions because you bit me.” She faced Baba Yaga and said, “If there’s a way to make it right between me and the mites, I’d appreciate you sharing that information with me.”
The witch gnashed her teeth. “Just leave. You’re too weak to do what you must to save your precious humans. Anytime you want to quit, just go. I’d relish the peace. But I’m warning you: If you stay here, you either find a way to access your magic, or you’ll die, and all of your loved ones will too.”
With that, the witch turned away, her skirts sweeping across the pristine floor as she left Vasi alone in the hallway.
