Chapter 22

In the kitchen, Izryal devoured what was left of the soup Yvan had cooked, and Cerise was smoking again. Anya sat next to Yvan and offered him what was left of her vodka. Yvan took it and drained it before passing it back. Trajan watched the exchange, his eyes narrowing. He opened a cupboard and placed a bottle of vodka and an additional glass on the table in front of them.

"Okay, you two, where do you want to start?" Izrayl asked.

Both Trajan and Yvan looked at Anya.

"Ladies first," Trajan said, taking a seat on the other side of her.

"I want to know about Eikki and why you were watching over me when he died," Anya replied.

"I wasn"t stalking you," Trajan hurried to explain.

"Close enough," Izrayl grunted. "Eikki called on Trajan more than once to keep an eye on you. Hell, even I got dragged into that one time in Moscow."

"What do you mean Moscow?" Anya had always thought it was Eikki who had found her freezing to death in the park. He had taken her home to the farm, and she had never left it again.

"Eikki got a message to Trajan and me. He was freaking out because you had run away, and he had no way of protecting you. And where did we find you? Dying in a park with a group of Darkness operatives closing in on you," Izrayl said. He drained his soup and put his bowl down. "Man, that was a fight."

Anya dimly recalled a fight that night, but she had thought it had been drunks brawling.

"What is the Darkness?" Yvan asked. "I"ve been asleep a long time, remember? I have questions of my own about what the Powers have been up to. Baba Yaga was too interested in Anya for my liking."

"Wait, you guys have already messed with Baba Yaga?" Izrayl demanded.

Anya wanted more answers but instead found herself updating Cerise and Izrayl as briefly as possible on the past week.

Cerise swore. "This is so much worse than I thought, Trajan dear. You are lucky I owe you such a big favor."

"And I"m calling it in," Trajan replied.

"Back to the Darkness, please?" Yvan prompted.

"The Guardians of the Dark, they used to call themselves. Now, they are just known as The Darkness. They are run by an ancient blood sorcerer called Ladislav. Vasilli is one of his generals," Trajan explained.

"Of course he is," Yvan muttered, running a hand through his hair.

"The Illumination keeps them in check," Izrayl said with a cynical laugh. "Well, sort of. They like to think they are the do-gooder police of the supernatural world. Guardians of the Light and all that silly shit. Really, they are both the same. Both organizations want supernatural creatures and magic users on their side, just like the same crap the Powers pull in Skazki and the Otherworlds. The supernaturals that refuse to join either side are called the Neutrals, but it"s damn hard to stay that way; trust me."

"And what was Eikki?" Anya couldn"t help but ask.

"He was neutral to the core like Ilya. Most gatekeepers are, unless they get indoctrinated young. Why do you think Eikki freaked when you left the farm? You were under his protection there, under the wards that would keep you safe. I always wanted to know why you"d give that up for Moscow of all places."

"I didn"t know there were wards keeping me safe. Although, it explains a lot about what happened when I got to Moscow," Anya said, toying with her cup. "I left because I was feeling trapped living in the middle of nowhere. It"s as simple as that. The bus I got on was going to Moscow. I was there for maybe a month before all my PTSD symptoms came back. Do you think the wards would have kept them under control?"

"Undoubtedly," Trajan answered. "Eikki wanted you to feel as safe as possible, even if life was boring for a young woman. He was distraught when he realized you were gone."

"Oh, I know it. I was selfish enough to think I was doing him a favor by leaving. When I got back, I saw how much I hurt him and promised to never leave again," Anya said.

The nightmares had disappeared as soon as she was back at the farm, and now she knew it wasn"t just because she was home. If the wards helped keep her PTSD symptoms in check, it would explain why they had come back with such a vengeance once Eikki was dead.

"Your grandfather had good reason to panic," Izrayl replied. "In Moscow, the heart of the Darkness"s power, you were ripe for the picking. An untrained person with a touch of magic would be a prize worth fighting over, even if they had been told by Eikki that you didn"t have any. It"s not only that; Eikki was neutral, and they wanted him on the Darkness"s side. They could have used you to press him into service. That"s why Eikki reached out to us and called Trajan back to his duty."

"What duty?" Anya and Yvan asked at once.

"To watch over Ilya"s family," Trajan replied, glaring daggers at Izrayl.

"You were meant to be protecting Anya, so where the fuck were you when Vasilli attacked us?" Yvan demanded.

"I had gone to feed if you must know." Trajan"s eyes flashed red, and Yvan backed down. "I thought Anya would be safe for a few days under the farm"s wards. When I got back two days later, the place was burning with no sign of her and the stink of Vasilli"s magic everywhere. Her trail led to the forest and disappeared, so I knew she must have made it into Skazki. I panicked and sent out messages to Izrayl and Cerise to meet me here so we could track Anya down. And then you turned up."

"I had nowhere else to go. There was no one I could trust with Vasilli tracking us," Yvan replied. "What else was I meant to do? Leave Anya in the woods? I could never do that to one of Ilya"s kin."

"You knew Ilya, but you"ve never told me how," Anya pointed out.

"We"ve been a bit busy, Anya, and I didn"t want to scare you more than?—"

"Well, we aren"t busy now. I want the whole story right now, so out with it, Tsarevich. Eikki had your egg. How does my family know you, and how do you know Trajan and Izryal?" she demanded.

Anya"s brain was spinning, but she didn"t want any more secrets and confusingly vague comments that they kept giving each other because of their history.

"I would like to know that too," Cerise said, tapping her scarlet nails on the table. "More to the point, I want to know precisely how deep the shit is that I"ve just landed in."

Yvan refilled Anya"s vodka without looking at her. "It all started when I met Izrayl for the first time. It was after the quest for the firebird, and I was living back in the palace. I was out hunting when Izrayl first found me. He scared me half to death. Of course, I knew volk krovi existed, but I had never actually thought they lived in our forest."

"Vasilli had been stealing our children to use their blood in his magic," Izrayl growled, his eyes growing feral. "We knew the youngest of Vyslav"s sons had more sense than his father, so we approached Yvan about it."

Yvan leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. "Since Vasilli and Dimitri had disappeared after killing me and lying to my father, I had been worrying that without anything to check him, Vasilli would fall deeper into his fascination with dark magic. I also knew that he would be too powerful for me to stop alone and that I would have to find someone with the power to match him."

"The only person we ever knew in history powerful enough to take on Vasilli was Yanka," Izrayl continued when Yvan had been silent for too long. "It took us six months to find any trace of her, and she was apparently dead. That was when we crossed into Russia and found Ilya, her son. We first met Trajan there too."

"I was visiting Ilya for the first time since we met in Greece," Trajan explained for Anya"s benefit. "He had seen me feeding off someone on a beach and had never met one of my kind before. We became friends easily, and he offered me a place to stay whenever I wanted it."

Izrayl shot him an annoyed glance. "Stop interrupting! As I was saying, even though Ilya was ridiculously talented, especially when it came to prophetic visions, he didn"t have half the strength needed to fight Vasilli. He told me he"d had a vision, a terrifying prophecy, that only the firebird and one of Ilya"s bloodline could defeat Vasilli, but it had to agree to do it willingly. The bird was stubborn as shit and hated that it was still captured. Before we could convince it to help us, Vasilli had attacked the palace and bound the firebird"s power until Yvan interrupted the spell and died along with the firebird."

"I"m interested to know how my egg ended up with the Ven?l?inen"s," Yvan said. He was looking queasy and frustrated. Anya could understand not wanting to dredge up a painful past, so she reached under the table and took his hand. He didn"t move it away, so Anya left it there.

Trajan rested his arms on the table, his gaze swapping silent confirmations with Izrayl, who nodded. "Izrayl went to Ilya to tell him what had happened to you, and it was right when I had come to visit him. Ilya convinced me to help him find the firebird"s egg, and as payment for releasing me from Eris"s servitude forever, I led him to the Greek Otherworld to the temple where a firebird"s ashes go to be remade. On that trip, Ilya spoke again of his reoccurring vision he had of the firebird fighting Vasilli. He had seen it fighting with a woman who looked exactly like Yanka. But with Yanka already dead, we assumed it would be a future descendent of his."

Anya"s stomach fluttered nervously as Baba Yaga"s words came rushing back to her. You look like her, you know. Yanka. The same eyes, same white hair. Same magic, I wonder?

"And then what happened?" she asked, her voice cracking.

"Ilya was murdered. I never found out who did it, but he must have seen it coming," Trajan continued. "He had charged me with hiding his son Ahti and his mother, and when I returned to the farm, he was dead. Ahti was sixteen, so Ilya had a chance to teach him the gates magic. Ahti returned to the farm and took Ilya"s mantle as the gatekeeper."

"Then many, many years later, you were born," Izrayl"s voice rumbled. "Eikki knew about Ilya"s prophecy, and even as a young child, you looked like Yanka. Naturally, he grew worried and crossed over to tell us about you."

Trajan nodded. "Eikki didn"t have copies of Ilya"s prophecies, so he was never sure of the vision"s precise details, but he was cautious about it. He took one look at you in your crib, born with Ilya"s white hair and green eyes, and decided to tell your parents everything. They didn"t believe him, and your father didn"t have a drop of magic in him, so he never understood Eikki"s concern. He wanted to raise you like a normal human. He insisted on keeping you as far away from Eikki as possible. It wasn"t until you were nearly six years old that they decided to visit the old man, the first time since you were a little baby."

"And then they crashed the car," Anya whispered, her hand going to her chest where a ball of pain was growing.

"When your parents were killed, he blamed himself completely. Eikki decided he wouldn"t let the same thing happen to you. I believe guilt stopped him from teaching you, rather than the threat of Ilya"s prophecy. Eikki asked me if there was a way to suppress the magic already inside of you. That was when I made the decision to come and see you for myself."

Trajan smiled a little at the memory. "He was concerned about your lack of fear of me. Not only were you unafraid, but you also took an instant liking to me. I tried to tell him he had to teach you to protect yourself, that the line of gatekeepers couldn"t end with him, and that it could be your destiny to stop Vasilli once and for all. He has caused havoc for far too long now. If he and Ladislav got hold of the firebird"s magic or yours, the Darkness would start a war with the Illumination for dominance and tear the worlds apart again. The Illumination has had the upper hand on them for centuries, and they would love a chance to change that."

"What do you mean, tear the worlds apart again?" Yvan asked. "What has Vasilli been doing all this time?"

Izrayl laughed bitterly. "You missed the last two world wars, but the Darkness kicked off both of them. The supernatural war was going on behind the real one. Humans were puppets or cannon fodder as the Illumination and the Darkness fought for control of the human world. They have had a tentative peace treaty since the "50s, but it"s only a matter of time before they kick off again. They can"t help themselves, and if Vasilli gets the firebird"s magic? It"s guaranteed."

Anya took a big mouthful of her vodka. She didn"t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry that a whole world existed in the shadows that no one knew about. She hit her mental wall and started to laugh, a mirthless sound that made the rest of them pause.

"So what you"re all trying to say is because of some vision Ilya had years ago, you think I"m going to be able to have enough power to defeat Vasilli for good? I"m not trained to act normal, let alone be able to act magical. I don"t even know how to control the gates on the farm!" she argued. She wasn"t prophecy or hero material.

"If Vasilli were sure you are the woman from the prophecy, he would"ve grabbed you when you first met. Because your magic was so dormant, he mustn"t have thought you a big enough threat to worry about. He"ll realize soon enough," Izrayl said grimly. "He"s always been smart and vicious. He"ll figure it out, and then you"ll be hunted more fiercely than Yvan and the firebird ever was because of Yanka. She was so powerful that tsars, gods, and kings from all of the Otherworlds sought her counsel."

"It must have been Yanka in the dream about the tsar. Tuoni said that memories are lost in the blood flowing through my veins," Anya said with a sudden realization.

"What dream?" they all asked at once.

"The one I was having when you woke me because I was sending out a signal or something," Anya reminded Yvan. "I was dreaming about Yanka and a battle."

"How could you have let such a thing slide past your attention?" Trajan reprimanded Yvan.

"She never told me what it was about! We were in Baba Yaga"s forest, and she was sending a beacon in every direction. All I could think of was getting her out of there as quickly as possible," Yvan replied.

"Tell us what the dream was about. It"s important," Trajan said.

"I dreamed I was her," Anya tried to explain. "She was predicting the outcome of a battle for a tsar who had kidnapped her. She told him the army would win, but she didn"t say she foresaw his death. He let her go, and then I was on a hill with Tuoni. And then Yvan woke me up. I don"t know who the tsar was."

"I do. It was Yvan"s great-grandfather," Trajan said.

Yvan froze. "What are you talking about?"

"Ilya"s prophecy has bothered me for centuries, so I researched Yanka as much as I could. Most stories say she was the daughter of a king. Her sister was sent to marry your great-grandfather as part of a peace treaty. The tsar had wanted Yanka, but her father refused to give her up because of her magical gifts. When the tsar went warmongering once more, he must"ve captured Yanka and forced her to predict the battles for him. I"m only guessing, though. There"s no way to verify it because none of the stories were the same."

"He raped her," Anya added quietly. "That"s why she hated him so much."

"Did she fall pregnant from it?" Yvan asked quietly, his hand clenched in hers.

"There"s no way to know. I"m sure if she had fallen pregnant, she would have aborted it. None of the stories mentioned a bastard child," Trajan said.

Yvan buried his head in his hands and groaned. "I don"t think I can take any more of this. My mind feels like it"s splitting apart."

"Good to know I"m not alone," Anya said, patting his back. Tears were building up in her throat, and if she drank any more, she knew she would spend the next day throwing up. Her head was spinning with so much information that she regretted demanding they tell her everything at once.

"We"ve been running for days, and I can"t…I can"t do this anymore without sleep," Yvan said and got up.

"I agree with Yvan. I"m going to bed," Anya replied. She was exhausted, emotional, and wanted to be alone.

"Well, I"m getting drunk," Cerise said, grabbing what was left of the vodka bottle.

"Do you have everything you need?" Trajan asked, his dark eyes filled with worry.

"I"ll be fine. Thank you, everyone, for telling me," Anya said, getting to her feet.

Yvan put a steadying hand under her elbow as she swayed. "Let"s go, shamanitsa, before you pass out on the floor," Yvan said, helping her up the stairs.

"What a fucking night," she slurred.

"I have a feeling tomorrow isn"t going to be any easier."

"Can"t you lie to me for once?"

"No. You"ve been lied to enough, and that"s why life is so hard now," Yvan replied, ever the voice of reason. When they got to her room, Anya hesitated and then hugged him awkwardly.

"Thank you for not leaving me in the forest," she said, into his chest. "What happened between Yanka and your grandfather doesn"t matter. You"re still my friend. Nothing they did can change that."

Yvan"s shoulders relaxed, and his arms slowly went around her. "Thank you, Anya. For what it"s worth, I"m glad it was your house I hatched in."

"Even with Vasilli chasing us and weird prophecies and me having no idea what to do about my magic?"

Yvan let her go and reached for his bedroom door. "No one said friendships were meant to be easy."