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Chapter One

Village Outskirts

Ilyushka, Kolakolvia

Illarion Glazkov

Spring had reached the frozen north of Kolakolvia. The air was still chill, the ground was mostly covered in snow, but the thaw had begun. The herds were on the move. His best friend, Balan, had used that as an excuse to fetch Illarion from his labors at the mill. The village could use the meat, Balan had told Illarion’s mother. She had relented, and Illarion had been happy to escape.

The two young men marched into the forest, armed with two of the handful of firearms in their tiny village. Balan had their finest rifle, because he was the best shot in all of Ilyushka, and his father was their elected leader. As always, Illarion carried the shotgun. Cursed with terrible vision since birth, he could barely see the caribou at the ranges Balan routinely felled them at. The shotgun was in case of wolves. Illarion figured Balan mostly wanted someone along for conversation, but also to help pack out their kill since Illarion was as strong as an ox.

“Do you believe in fate, Illarion?”

“Sometimes,” Illarion answered.

Balan shook his head in disbelief. “What do you mean? Either you believe in fate, or you don’t.”

“Life is full of contradictions. I like to be one.”

“What does Hana think of that?”

“It’s one of the reasons I’m going to marry him,” came the voice from behind them. Illarion turned to see Hana running after them. “Don’t you try changing him now.”

Balan held up his hands in surrender. “I wouldn’t dream of it, dear sister.”

Whenever he saw his betrothed, it made his heart sing. Illarion welcomed Hana into a quick embrace and a kiss on the cheek. “What’re you doing here?”

“Father wanted me to see why Balan had taken the guns. Where are you two going?”

“We’re going hunting along the northern ridge,” Balan said.

“Doesn’t that place make you nervous?”

Illarion put his arm around Hana’s shoulder. She was a gentle soul, a match to his own. Of course she was worried about them going up on the haunted ridge. “We’ll be fine. I promise we won’t cross the boundary stones.”

“They’re just a pile of rocks.” Balan was exasperated. “I can’t believe how superstitious you two are.” But since Hana seemed sincerely worried, he relented. “Fine, Hana. We won’t cross the stones.”

“Good. There’s safety in respecting the old traditions.”

“I don’t know about that,” Illarion said. “If you’d not been chosen to be the village maiden for the spring celebration, we could have already gotten married.”

“It’s a great honor.” Hana laughed, because she was just as impatient about it as he was. “I’ll have food ready when you get back, for both of you. Illarion is invited too.”

“We should take our time,” Balan said. “I have no desire to get back to our screaming newborn brother anytime soon—”

“What he means,” Illarion said, “is we’ll be back as quickly as we can.”

“Of course. Be safe.” She stretched up and brushed a kiss against his lips, then gave her brother a quick hug. Illarion watched her trudge back through the snow-laden woods until she vanished from sight.

“Only two weeks until your wedding.”

“Two weeks,” Illarion agreed. “I can’t wait.”

“Neither can the village.” Balan sighed with mock disgust. “It’s a massive annoyance. A great many hopes were dashed when the Starosta’s daughter agreed to marry the big blind boy from the mill.”

“That’s because Hana is smart. And I’m not that blind. You’re just gullible enough to carry the heavier gun. Now let’s get this over with so we can get back in time for food.”

“And of course you’re hungry.”

“I’m always hungry.” That was the price of being large of stature, but at least Hana was a fine cook. Illarion really was looking forward to marriage.

They hiked up the ridge for a time. It was a good thing Balan was an excellent shot and could hit things far away, because his constant chatter made far too much noise for them to stalk close to any animals. “So as I was asking before Hana interrupted us, do you believe in the concept of fate?”

“I don’t have time to ponder philosophy, Balan. I’ve got a mill to run. What are you getting at?”

“Fate says we should both be in the army. There’s some great patriotic war to the south being fought by our countrymen, who we’ve never met, for an empire that we barely belong to. If we lived anywhere else, we’d be soldiers right now.”

Illarion never gave the war much thought. He should have reported for mandatory conscription years ago, but with his father gone, it had fallen upon him to work the mill. He was breaking the Tsar’s law, but it had been a long time since the Tsar’s men had paid attention to Ilyushka. “The decision was easy. The village needs me. The empire doesn’t know we exist.”

“Legally, my father should report us both as draft dodgers.” Balan laughed. “Except he needs strong backs to keep this village fed more than Kolakolvia needs two more soldiers. Not like the two of us could make a difference anyway. Father says that the Tsar has forgotten about Ilyushka because we’re at the frozen, ass-end of the empire. We haven’t even seen a tax collector in a decade. Not that I’m complaining about that, mind you.”

“Are you wanting to run off and join the army then, Balan?”

“I think about it at times. What an opportunity for glory and adventure. Travelers say in the Tsar’s city of Cobetsnya there are huge buildings as far as the eye can see, each one sufficient to house our entire village, and every room has a glass bulb that produces lantern light on demand. There’re machines powered by steam. There’s food, and plays, and dances, and exotic women from across the empire. But instead of seeing wonders like that, I will probably someday be voted Starosta and run this forgotten place like my father and his father before him. And I wonder, is this all that fate had in store for me?”

Illarion snorted. “I’m content to marry your pretty sister and have many children to run the mill for me when I’m old.”

“You lack imagination, Illarion.”

“And you lack quiet. Now shush before you scare all the animals away.”

The hike was rough. The drifts were high here. The ridge was heavily forested, and despite Balan’s tracking skills they saw no tracks. Past these woods the tundra began, a vast, uninhabited land, where some said the old races still tread. Ilyushka was the end of civilization. There was nothing beyond the ridge.

Except for the boundary stones.

There was only one rule: don’t cross the stones. It was a rule every child broke before they were twelve, but a rule nonetheless. The village elders said it was a door to the fae realms. Or to Hell itself.

The stones had tumbled long ago, though legend was that they’d once been stacked in the shape of a door. Now it was just a pile of jagged boulders, covered in moss. Travelers spoke of these ancient structures being scattered throughout Kolakolvia. The elders said that when their people had first stumbled through the mists from the old world into Novimir, the stones had marked the border of the lands granted to man by the Three Sisters. They could tread this far, but no further. Trespassers would be punished.

“They’re just rocks,” Balan scoffed as they approached. “I can’t understand why folks are so quick to think everything is haunted.”

“Said the man who was going on about fate earlier,” Illarion said as he caught up. He was breathing hard from the uphill trek. “And they’re not just rocks. If you look closely, you can see ancient symbols carved into them, but they’re almost worn away now.”

“Got close enough for them to not be a blur, did you?”

Illarion laughed. Up close things weren’t too bad. The further away, the worse his vision. From up here, his family’s mill was just a brown smudge against the white plain. “How else was I going to see it? Didn’t you notice the carvings?”

“Sure, but that doesn’t prove anything. Somebody scratched those on there to scare kids and superstitious women a long time ago, and it’s worked ever since. People cross them all the time and don’t die.”

“Sometimes,” Illarion answered. “And sometimes they’re never seen again.”

“A bunch of stories.” Despite disrespecting the old ways, Balan stopped walking. It was one thing to speak, but it was another to do. And they were no longer twelve and needing to prove their bravery to each other by running around the stones before the fairies could take them away. Balan sighed. “What a waste. Something should have been moving this near to sundown, but not so much as a hare in sight. Well, let’s head back. As horrible and noisy as my new sibling is, I still love the little beastie.”

A minute after they began their long walk back down the ridge, a chill ran up Illarion’s spine. He stopped. It felt like . . . like they weren’t alone anymore.

“Do you feel that?”

Balan shook his head. “Feel what?”

Illarion had the impression he’d just missed movement between the trees. He started walking back toward the boundary stones, ignoring his friend’s protests. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end.

“Illarion, what are you doing?”

“I’m not sure. I just . . . I need to check something.” Something in his chest clenched, fearing what he would find. He readied the old shotgun and picked up his pace. Balan, not wanting to climb again, yelled at him to come back, and Illarion responded with a dismissive wave over his shoulder.

Illarion reached the ridge and discovered fresh tracks in the snow. He was certain these hadn’t been here a moment ago, and he could see the trail cut through the snow by his and Balan’s fur boots. These tracks were huge. Easily the size of a great white bear. He knelt down to see them better.

“What is it?” Balan shouted.

“Bear tracks.”

“Great.” Balan unslung his rifle. Bears coming out of hibernation were the worst. Their hunger made them extra dangerous.

Only then Illarion realized these prints couldn’t be from a bear. The paws were shaped more like a cat. What in the world?

He could see the deep indentations in the snow, and easily followed the creature’s path to see that they originated at the stones. But there were no tracks on the other side. They began at the rock pile, as if by magic.

Illarion wasn’t a very good hunter, as his vision precluded him from much success there. But these tracks were so obvious and clear in the snow even he could see the creature had been following them down the ridge.

The caw of a raven made him jump, and he looked up into the baleful regard of a big black bird perched atop the tallest stone. Had that been there before? The raven tilted its head, watching him back.

Illarion became suddenly aware that Balan has stopped talking.

He turned, looked over the ridge, and saw that his friend was gone.

“Balan?” He half ran, half slid, to the spot where his friend had been standing. The boot prints where Balan had stood were clean, but now there were the giant cat prints next to them.

Illarion spun around in a quick circle, looking for any trace of his friend. Balan had just . . . vanished.

He cocked back the hammer on the old shotgun.

The woods stood silent, still. No birds. No cold breeze. Only his own breathing and his heart hammering. There was a presence. Something watching him. He heard the lightest creak of branches in the trees above and looked skyward. There were fresh scratches in the bark, barely visible to his poor eyes. Only noticeable because of how deep into the wood the claws had torn.

There were more tracks. Sudden fear made him want to run, but he pushed that aside, because he had to help Balan. Only as he followed the obvious trail left by the creature, he was filled with dread. The woods grew thicker by the moment, and then suddenly opened into a tiny clearing. In the middle, resting in a halo of crimson snow, was Balan. What was left of him.

A leg.

A hand.

Part of a torso.

Balan’s head, mouth open in a silent scream.

Illarion braced himself against a tree, covering his mouth with one hand, as all his strength fled and his legs turned to water. He realized that tree was covered in Balan’s blood too. It was everywhere, steam still gently rising from the warm, red smears into the cool air. Like the animal had shaken Balan’s corpse to make a statement.

Do you believe in fate, Illarion?

In the distance arose a monstrous wailing like he’d never heard before. His head said it had to be animal, but everything else in him said it sounded like the scream of a tortured, infernal soul. It was heading for the village.

“Oh no . . . ”

Illarion ran toward his home, crashing down the slope, heedless of the branches slapping him in the face. The trail was obvious ahead of him, with the creature taking huge bounding leaps between each track. This route would take it directly to his family’s grain mill. A branch scrapped across his forehead, cutting deep, causing blood to spill down his face and into his left eye. He wiped it away, never stopping his run.

The forest line broke away, leaving him with a view of his home in the distance. He gasped for air but didn’t stop. He couldn’t. His mind seized on the singular thought that he could arrive in time to save his mother, then he’d run into town and find Hana safe.

Or maybe he’d wake up.

Do you believe in fate, Illarion?

Sometimes . . . 

Panting, he reached the outskirts of the village. The snow had been cleared from the road, so he lost the creature’s trail. Except the front door of his home was open. Blood smeared along the path, where something or someone had been dragged into the mill. Shotgun in hand, he lurched toward the large building. Part of him already knew what he would find inside. He didn’t want to believe, but what was left of his rational mind had already begun putting the pieces in place.

Trying not to step in the trail of blood, he quietly pushed open the mill’s door. The big space inside was lit by flickering lanterns. The familiar noise made by the turning waterwheel and the grinding millstone should have been comforting. It wasn’t.

Illarion looked up, and immediately wished he hadn’t. The thing was perched in the rafters, its face buried in his mother’s ribs. Her life pattered down onto the floor as she spasmed in her death throes. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. Her eyes were already glassy and sightless.

Gone.

The monster went still, then lifted its gore-covered muzzle to stare at Illarion. Like nothing he’d ever seen before, the creature was big as a bear, but catlike in build, except plates—shiny like the shell of a beetle—covered most of its skin. Black carapace over white flesh. It had four legs, but its long tail had a hooked, gleaming point on the end of it. It had four eyes, two on each side, that glowed like hot, red coals. Then, in the front of the muzzle where the nostrils should have been, another pair of eyes blinked open, startlingly human.

The mouth chewed, swallowed, then split open to display an impossible number of teeth.

“Dead Sister,” he heard himself swear.

Claws moved across the rafters, gliding smoothly toward him. Despite its size, the creature didn’t so much as shake the beams. Abandoned, his mother’s half-eaten corpse fell to the ground, hitting the floor with a wet thud.

Illarion shouldered the shotgun and pulled the trigger.

Lead pellets smacked into the beast. It flinched at the impact but didn’t fall from its perch. Gunsmoke filled the mill as the hellish being let out an angry screech.

He started to reach for the powder horn at his belt to reload, but felt the pounce coming and threw himself to the side instead.

The monster flung itself across the space. Claws struck the floor where Illarion had just been standing.

Reflexively, he swung the shotgun as if it were a club. The barrel cracked over the beast’s skull, but then the weapon was swatted from his hands so violently hard that the wooden stock splintered against the wall. The monster lunged for him.

Illarion ducked behind the millstone. He heard the snap of jaws at his ear. It clawed at him, but he kept moving, trying to keep the turning stone between them. The creature circled, kicking grain from the mill track. Illarion had spent hundreds of hours fighting with this old stone, pushing it whenever it stubbornly ground to a halt, substituting muscle when the river wasn’t flowing hard enough, which was often. Many times he’d cursed this stone while laboring over it, but right then that damned heavy rock was the only thing keeping him alive.

But not for long. The monster was too fast. He kept away from the claws, but it was the long tail that got him. It flashed like a whip, slashing across his chest. Illarion slipped. Just a moment. That was all it took. Jaws clamped down on his shoulder. Teeth sliced through his body. Illarion screamed as he was lifted into the air and tossed across the room. Boards broke as he crashed against the wall. The burning lantern fell from its hook and shattered. The oil immediately caught, spilling fire across the floor.

Vision swimming, Illarion struggled to his feet. His chest burned with an unholy agony from where the tail had sliced him. Poison.

The creature sat crouched on the track, tail swaying back and forth hypnotically. It could have killed him, but it was playing with its food. Desperate, Illarion grabbed hold of the nearest thing that could serve as a weapon, a simple grain shovel. Furious, he started toward the beast.

The monster cocked its head, as if confused. Food wasn’t supposed to fight.

Illarion was strong. Stronger than anyone else in his village. People wanted to wrestle him just to see if they could make him move. Years of stubbornly pushing a millstone had that effect. He hit the beast as hard as he could.

The shovel clanged uselessly off its shell.

The creature swatted him to the ground.

He was lying on the mill track, bleeding all over perfectly good grain. The beast clambered over him, jaws open, hot slobber spilling all over his face. Up close, he could see its humanlike eyes staring right through him. The stinging tail rose, this time aimed right at his face.

It struck.

Illarion caught the stinger with one hand, the point stopping only an inch from his eye.

The monster seemed surprised. Probably as much as Illarion was.

As long as he could remember his mother had warned him to keep his fingers away from the spot where the millstone ground against the track. It’s faster than it looks, Illarion, she often said. One of his grandfathers had lost a hand that way.

Before the monster could react, Illarion pulled the tail hard and jammed it against the base of the turning millstone.

The stone rolled over the beast’s bulbous stinger, crushing it in a spray of black ichor.

Illarion rolled over and scrambled away.

The monster screamed, spun, and attacked, digging furrows in the stone. It thrashed side to side, tugging, flinging its blood everywhere, trying to pull its trapped tail free. If it was successful, he was dead.

Illarion found his makeshift weapon and swung the shovel at the creature’s legs. This time he was rewarded with a satisfying crack, and the limb collapsed beneath its weight. The crippled beast shrieked in pain.

He hadn’t realized he was screaming until his throat caught, and he began coughing. A wave of dizziness came over him, and he fell to the ground.

The fire had spread rapidly up the walls. They’d always dreaded a fire in the mill, because it had to be kept bone dry and everything inside was flammable. Except the monster was still trapped, so the fire would take care of it.

Illarion crawled until he reached his mother. He ran a hand over her eyelids, closing them, then stroked her hair. “I’m sorry.”

He levered himself up and stumbled outside as the mill he’d grown up in went up in flames. The creature shrieked its fury at him, and then started to desperately gnaw off its own tail. It had only made it halfway through before a flaming beam fell and crushed it.

Outside, the grounds were empty. There was no shouting from the village. Everyone should have come running as soon as they saw the fire. By now a bucket brigade should have been forming to fight the blaze.

Illarion started toward his village. He had to know.

Pain nearly brought him to his knees. The area around his wounds was so inflamed it felt like he was being stung by thousands of wasps, and the poison must have been spreading because the dizziness was getting worse. He had to use the shovel as a crutch just to stay upright as he shambled toward Ilyushka.

Complete stillness greeted him. The stillness of a cemetery.

Pieces of bodies lay in small pools of blood, like horrific children’s toys that had been carelessly discarded. Blood trails, spatter, and gore marred the once quaint buildings. He didn’t go in any of the homes along the main road. He didn’t need to. The stories were told in the violence outside.

The Starosta’s home was the biggest in Ilyushka. Their leader was an important man, but it was also necessary because he had ten children. Illarion had been welcomed here as family. The front door had been torn to splinters.

“Hana!”

Illarion stepped inside. Not a sound. No weeping, crying, or moaning.

No baby’s cries.

There were bloody tracks on the floor, so clear they were obvious even to his eyes. Some were paw prints like the beast that had bitten him, but others looked like they’d been made by pointy-toed shoes. The raiders had vanished as quickly as they appeared.

Hana’s mother lay on the kitchen floor, chest ripped open and hollowed out. Illarion’s mind retreated into safe, dark recesses where it didn’t have to process the scene before him. Detached, he took in the corpse, the blood. The dinner table was miraculously untouched, and ready to serve the family. They’d set a place for him and Balan.

He edged around and found the lower half of Hana’s father in a short hall leading to the parent’s room. Illarion only recognized the man due to the ornate watch which had spilled from the pocket.

Hana was in her parent’s room, sprawled on the bed. Throat a red ruin from a massive bite. She was wearing the silver medallion with the image of a tundra lily engraved on it. He had given her the jewelry as a token of his love. As he sobbed, he gripped the charm in his fist like a talisman to ward off an evil he hadn’t truly believed in an hour before. He let the medallion drop back to her chest, then closed Hana’s eyes and kissed her forehead.

He expected the worst from the cradle. He couldn’t look, but he had to. He couldn’t stand not knowing.

One deep breath.

He looked into the tiny bed . . . and found it empty. No blood. Nothing.

This struck Illarion as worse, somehow, than the rest of the violence. He returned to Hana’s side and pulled a blanket over her still form.

“Goodbye, Hana,” he whispered, then left the house. Forever.

He leaned heavy on the shovel as he walked down the main thoroughfare. He made only two stops on his exit from the only home he’d ever known. Both homes with newborn children. Both bore empty cradles. The children weren’t dead. In his soul, Illarion knew they’d been taken. The stories and superstitions had been right. If the other stories were just as right . . . the dead had been let off easy in comparison to those poor children.

The elders spoke in hushed tones about the dark things that had lived here before their ancestors had come to this land. The fairy world had retreated from mankind, but they were still out there, watching and wrathful. They were not to be trifled with or disrespected. Their traditions were designed to appease the unseen, yet Ilyushka must have offended them somehow.

Night fell quickly this far north. The encroaching darkness would render him effectively blind. But he had to move. He had to get away from the death of his home. He fell to his knees and retched, partly from what’d he’d witnessed, and also because the poison in his wounds had reached his stomach and was twisting his guts into knots. He peeled back his coat and bloody shirt to check the wound, but the foul odor of the poison made him gag. It was tearing him apart.

Illarion pushed himself back up. The nearest village was a two-day walk south. That was his only hope. He stuck to the road to keep himself from getting lost and turned around. One foot in front of the other. Over and over again.

When Illarion collapsed, the last thing he remembered seeing was a raven land on the ground next to his face. The bird opened its beak, but instead of cawing, Illarion heard the voice of his dead friend.

Do you believe in fate, Illarion?



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