Chapter 7

7

T wo people stood at the boundary of the property. Both wore garments of gray and bright egg-yolk-yellow. Finn's nightmare had come to life.

Roman reached for his binoculars.

The one on the left sported a layered robe with the familiar hood and yellow over-robe. The hood was up. The face within it was solid gray, painted with some sort of pigment. A narrow vertical stripe of bright yellow bisected it, running down the forehead, over the bridge of the nose, and over the lips and the chin. Impossible to say if it was a man or a woman, young or old.

A dead ringer for the asshole in the dream, although the yellow fabric was much less luxurious, and the hems of their robes and hood had just begun to fray. Probably the younger model of the other priest, still doing fieldwork.

The priest carried two weapons: the same curved knife Finn saw in his vision and a weird-looking axe that hung on their left hip, with a shaft made from a twisted tree limb. The axe handle was wrapped in a braided cord and terminated in a narrow, brutal axe-head, less a blade and more a wide spike.

The person next to the priest was taller, with broad shoulders, their garment layered, but fitted tighter and cut simpler, more a knight's tabard than a priest's robe, caught just above the hips by a plain black belt. An ornate black scabbard hung from the belt, holding a sword with a black handle. Their cloak was plain and gray, and a long, yellow sash dripped from underneath, its edges tattered. A gray half-mask guarded the face within the hood. The eyes above the mask were dark and cold under thick, brown eyebrows.

A priest and a knight. Magic and melee, both covered.

Behind the odd pair, Wayne and Fulton waited, looking unsure. Fulton leaned on a makeshift cane made from a freshly cut sapling. The flight through the woods must've ended in a rough landing. Heh. Wayne had developed some weird-looking bumps on his face. They seemed to be oozing pus. What do you know, the little bird still packed a punch even with one head.

"The priest has the same knife as in my dream," Finn said.

"And what does that tell you?"

"The knife is ceremonial. It's used in sacrifices. They have the kind of religion that makes their priests carry sacrificial knifes all the time."

Smart kid. Morena had chosen well.

Wayne opened his mouth.

Roman focused, pulling the sound to himself.

"So, like I was saying," Wayne explained, "The boy is inside, and the priest took out half of my team."

The gray and yellow duo showed no indication of having heard or cared.

"He is packing serious power," Fulton said. "I wouldn't recommend going in there balls to the wall."

The knight unsheathed their sword. A straight double-edged affair, about three feet overall with a thirty-inch blade. Good for cutting and thrusting.

Here we go. "Finn, go to the back room where the fridge is. Turn left. There is a box sitting on the second shelf, looks like a pirate chest. Bring it to me."

Finn took off running.

Behind the knight, the priest raised their hands. Magic snapped between their fingertips, an invisible, jagged line of power. The priest stretched it, shaping it, their movements practiced and complex, almost hypnotic, a blend of martial and ritual.

"What's the plan?" Fulton demanded. "Do you want us to back you up? Do you need auxiliary support?"

The magic gained color. It wasn't a glow or a radiance. No, it was viscous, a kind of ichor or plasma stretching between the priest's hands, a bright, shocking yellow that smudged and hung in the air. It felt like nothing Roman had experienced. Divine and yet not divine, filtered through human magic, but not limited to it. Alien. Unnatural.

What the actual fuck…

The knight spun in place, twisting and turning, their hands snapping into well-practiced forms. Yellow plasma sheathed the knight's sword.

Finn rounded the corner, slid across the floor, and thrust the chest at him.

They would need to be outside for this. Roman swiped Klyuv from its spot against the wall, stuck the staff into his armpit, and took the chest. The front door swung open in front of him on its own. Roman stepped onto the porch, sending a spike of power through each foot as it touched the floorboards. The skulls on the posts burst into blue fire, rattling their jaws.

The knight and priest paused.

Now you know what you're dealing with. Walk away and live.

The priest twisted, spinning their yellow ichor. The knight started forward, slow, deliberate, unhurried.

It's like that then? Fine.

Roman set his staff down, planting Klyuv into the porch boards. The staff remained upright, held by magic. Klyuv's vicious eyes rotated in their orbits. The wicked beak gaped in a silent scream and clacked closed, crushing imaginary bones. Darkness poured out of the spot where the staff met the floor, spreading along the ground, blanketing the front yard in a foot of evil fog.

The knight took two more steps, untroubled. The darkness swirled around them, clinging to their boots and pants.

A ring of yellow plasma formed behind the priest, eight feet tall, and it hung there like a wagon wheel with the familiar irregular spoke arrangement.

Roman flicked his left hand. A giant bone hand erupted from the ground and backhanded the knight. The warrior flew backward a few yards, flipped in the air, and landed on their feet just outside of the boundary. The mask cracked and fell off, revealing a man in his late twenties.

Nice acrobatics.

Roman opened the chest. Black soil waited inside. He dipped his fingers into it, scooping a handful. It was soft like powder, slightly moist, and cold to the touch. Its magic licked his skin, cold, ancient, terrible, unknowable, and unfeeling, the magic that was there before humans and would be there after they passed.

Finn recoiled. "What is that?"

"Soil from the border between Nav and the Void. Whatever you do, do not step off the porch."

Roman barked an incantation, snapping each word, and tossed the handful of Nav dirt into his yard. It sank into the fog, and he felt it burrow into the ground. Otherworldly magic spread through the ground, sliding just under the surface, awakening things he'd buried years ago. He could feel it rush through his yard, widening in a ring around his house, a magic field just under the fog.

Across the yard, the priest crossed their arms and threw them to the sides, as if cutting an invisible enemy with their hands. The yellow wheel behind the priest rotated toward the house, launching gobs of ichor that stretched and snapped into slender swords in midair.

Roman jerked his arm up. The bone hands burst out of the ground in front of the porch, shielding them from the yellow barrage. The giant fingers shuddered under the bombardment. Bone splinters rained onto the porch.

The magic Gatling gun kept firing.

"Should I…?" Finn offered.

"No."

The kid packed a truckload of power, but without training, he used it on pure instinct. When he unleashed his magic, he would do exactly what he'd done before—he'd sink it all into one terrifying burst and then he would be tapped out. They had to save it for the right moment.

Chunks of bone pelted the ground. The yellow blades kept coming, slicing into the bone shield with a hiss. The left ring finger broke, then the right index finger, falling to the ground. Roman could see the lawn through the gaps, and the flashes of yellow around the attackers.

Fuckers. It would take a lot of bone to regrow the hands.

Ancient magic shifted underneath the fog. Almost there.

The glow of the knight's sword split into eight lines, like thin ribbons emanating from the blade. They wrapped around the knight. He charged, unnaturally fast, covering ten yards in a blink.

The moment his foot touched inside the magic field, the lawn yawned underneath him. It was as if the solid ground itself had sprouted a mouth and opened wide, its edges studded with razor-sharp bone teeth. The Void hungered for life and magic. It would devour anything it touched.

The warrior leaped up, drawing a circle with his sword as he twisted in the air. The earth jaws followed him like a great white shark breaching and gulped him down.

The left bone hand shattered. A glowing sword shot through the gap. Roman yanked Finn out of the way, and the blade sank into the front door, which melted into a blob of magic that sizzled like acid.

Roman bared his teeth.

Two knots of magic coalesced just under the surface of the soil and sped toward the priest, leaving trails in the fog.

The priest continued twisting their arms, oblivious, focused on their spellcasting.

The ground in front of the priest crested in twin waves, fanged mouths sliding within it.

The priest jumped straight up. Simultaneously the wheel fell forward, and the priest passed through its center. The wheel spun, its edge chewing at the ravenous dirt. Above it, the priest hovered in midair, waving their arms, throwing the yellow plasma back and forth in a complex frenzy.

And they could fly. Great, just great. What's next? Fire-spitting?

The mass of soil that had swallowed the warrior burst. He sprung free, swinging his sword in a wide arc, no worse for wear. Shit.

"That's not good, right?" Finn asked.

"It's not great, kid."

The priest jerked the knife from their belt and stabbed it downward in a wide arc. The yellow ichor flew off the blade and bit into the ground. A phantom mouth sank red-hot teeth into Roman's stomach and tore out a chunk of flesh. The pain was raw and hot, and it took all of his will not to clamp his hand over his actual gut to check himself.

An eight-foot-wide chunk of the magic field vanished from Roman's mental horizon, its edges burning with pain. A hole had formed in the fog, revealing a circle of bare ground. Thin yellow tendrils sprouted from it, like the tentacles of some upside-down jellyfish. The wheel slid forward over them, carrying the priest with it.

The priest stabbed the ground to their right. Agony blossomed in Roman. Another chunk of the fog vanished, more tentacles slivered out, and the warrior moved onto them and ran across the thin tendrils as if they were solid ground, leaping in front of the priest onto the rim of the wheel. It was still spinning, and he should've fallen off, except his feet didn't touch the edge. He hovered six inches above the glowing yellow monstrosity and clamped his hands together. Thin red vapor emanated from his body, flowing upward and turning bright yellow.

"What's happening?" Finn demanded.

"They're feeding on my consecrated ground. Consuming the magic to fuel whatever the hell that yellow shit is."

Throwing more dirt at them would do nothing. It would just give them more magic to eat. He had to bring down the priest and the wheel. It was the only way.

Roman swung his hand, clawing at the air. Dark missiles tore out of the fog and streaked toward the priest.

The warrior shifted his stance. The line of yellow above him snapped into an eight-foot-tall sword dripping with magic. The sword sliced through the clumps of darkness, sucking them in. The missiles vanished.

Fuck.

The priest spun around and stabbed again. Pain, hole, the wheel sliding forward.

They were in deep shit.

There was always the other option.

No, anything but that. What was the point of making grand pronouncements if one didn't follow through? He had his pride. He'd meant what he said—he was done. He had gotten this far on his power alone, and he wasn't tapped out yet. There were still things he could do.

He began chanting low under his breath.

Magic appeared at the end of the driveway, so bright, so potent, so radiant, that for a second, he faltered.

The pair on the wheel felt it too. The warrior slipped to the side, trying to keep Roman and the newcomer in his view.

A cloaked figure strode toward his house.

The mercenaries pivoted toward it.

He knew this magic. It felt so achingly familiar, so right, like coming home after a long, terrible journey and finding the fire lit and the table set. It hugged him, and he had to fight the urge to step off the porch toward it.

The figure lowered their hood. A woman. A lovely woman with dark blond hair put away into a braid.

"That's my sister!"

Sister… Gods took her away… The pieces fell into place. "Your sister is a Vasylisa?"

"Yes. Is that important?"

Damn it, Finn.

As long as Slavic neopagans existed, there would always be a Vasylisa. She was the heroine of countless folkloric tales, a woman with magic and secret knowledge, blessed by the pagan gods. Princes fought over her, dragons and evil undead kidnapped her, wandering heroes battled her for the privilege of her hand and the keys to her domain. She was the frog princess, the Amazon warrior, the guardian of the fire bird and the golden apples.

The first one showed up shortly after the Shift. When she was killed, another one manifested the powers and took her place. There had been several since, always one at a time. He'd met the previous Vasylisa years ago, and the meeting had been seared into his memory.

In the pantheon of Light and Dark, Vasylisas walked on the border, choosing their own path, an expression of female power and knowledge, heirs to both witches and warriors. They settled disputes when Slavic gods got in a tiff, they acted on prophecies to prevent disasters, and removed threats to the cosmic equilibrium. Some were stronger, others were weaker, but none should be taken lightly.

And they came in two varieties, Prekrasnaya and Premudraya. The Beautiful and the Wise. The first one was enchanting, alluring, and irresistible, relying on magical charm and manipulation to make armies kneel and entice powerful people to do her bidding. The second was a creature of deep magic, a sorceress with offensive powers, unpredictable and sharp.

And looking at her now, Roman had no idea which she was.

"Is she the Beautiful or the Wise?"

Finn made a face. "She's my sister!"

Damn it. Roman resumed his chant.

The Vasylisa didn't even look at the two mercenaries. Her voice was cold. "Leave."

"What the fuck…" Wayne sounded resigned. Clearly, the man was at his limit for weird magical shit happening. "Who the fuck are you, lady? What are you doing here?"

The Vasylisa looked past them, straight at Roman. Their stares connected. He was full-on chanting now, building his magic into an intricate net and twisting it like a rubber band. She looked at him like they had met before, but for the life of him, he couldn't imagine why. He would have remembered her . Absolutely.

Please be the Wise, please be the Wise…

"Look here," Fulton started. "I've had just about enough of this bullshit. I'm a level III pyro. I don't know what—"

The Vasylisa unsheathed a sword. It had a double-edged blade about thirty inches long, with a wide, shallow fuller and a simple copper cross guard. It looked like something that came out of the Kievan Rus' burial grounds, an artifact from 1,200 years ago when the Varangian army of Viking mercenaries clashed with the Khazars over control of the fertile Eurasian plains.

The priest whirled. Long strands of yellow ichor stretched upward from the wheel's rim. The wheel spun faster, and the strands of yellow spiraled up, forming a protective lattice around the wheel.

The Vasylisa's sword burst into white flames.

Fulton gaped at the sword, grabbed Wayne by the arm, and yanked the mercenary leader aside, out of the way.

She was still looking directly at Roman, and he read an unspoken communication in her gaze.

Hit them at the same time.

The last tendril of Roman's magic slid into place.

He opened his mouth.

The Vasylisa raised her sword.

Roman spoke the last word of the incantation, sinking his magic into it. "… pogibi !"

Perish!

The curse tore out of him, a line of deep darkness vibrating with flashes of purple, streaking forward like a serpent's tongue. His magic, his raw human power, shaped by his will into a weapon.

The Vasylisa also struck. Blinding fire slid off her sword, cut across the ground, and tore into the dead center of the wheel. It cleaved through the yellow lattice. The ichor met the white fire and sizzled, burning into nothing. The rim of the wheel split with a magic crack. It careened and crashed.

The warrior leapt off a fraction of a moment before the slash had hit, but the priest missed their chance by half a second. Roman's dark lightning bit into them, jerking the pair into the air. The priest convulsed, screaming in a high-pitched voice. The yellow tendrils vanished. The wheel melted into nothing.

The warrior dashed toward the Vasylisa. She met him head on. They clashed, pale fire and yellow ichor flying.

The priest twisted in the air, still twisted by spasms. With a sharp jerk they yanked their dagger from its sheath.

"No, you bastard!" Roman roared.

The priest stabbed themselves in the heart.

Magic geysered out of their body, a torrent of lifeforce, blood, and power, all surrendered in an ancient, forbidden bargain. The torrent broke into a yellow fog, swallowing the priest. A deafening rumble filled the air, like the sound of an approaching tornado.

"What's happening?!" Finn yelled.

"The asshole sacrificed themselves! Something is coming!"

The blast of noise vanished, abruptly cut off. Thunder pealed. The yellow fog winked out of existence.

A colossal figure towered above the lawn. A beast, a horrible zoological fractal of terrifying body parts: snapping turtle jaws, crocodile teeth, six narrow, yellow eyes glowing with mad fire, a body twisted together with muscle, sinew, bone, and chitin into a semblance of a lion or maybe an ape… There were no words in Roman's vocabulary to adequately describe it.

It opened its mouth. Gobs of yellow ichor fell onto the trees, and yellow tendrils spiraled out from the splatter, choking the pines. A bellow rolled out. The wave of alien magic hit Roman. He thrust Klyuv out and braced, gripping Finn by the shoulder.

It was like trying to hold back a raging river. Instantly, he knew that nothing in his arsenal would touch it. He was almost spent. It took all of his remaining power to shield them from its roar.

At the other end of the lawn, the Vasylisa screamed, her voice completely silent, drowned out by the wall of sound. Fulton's mages had linked their arms into a circle around the rest of the mercenaries, trying to protect them with their combined power. One of Wayne's snipers, caught outside of the circle, made a desperate break for it but exploded from the inside out in mid-step, drenching the snow with gore.

The beast shut its mouth, looking around.

Roman had no choice. He would have to swallow his pride or everyone around them would die. This thing would kill Finn, the Vasylisa, him, the mercenaries, and then it would move on to Dabrowski and Schatten, and then to the outskirts of the city.

He had to buy time to bargain.

"Finn, ask Morena for the wail!"

The kid blinked. "What would a whale do? There is no water!"

"For fuck's sake, kid! Don't you know anything? The scream! Ask her for her scream!"

Finn looked up, whispering.

The colossus shifted its weight. The ground trembled. It hadn't even taken a step yet.

Finn's eyes rolled back into his head. His mouth opened.

An unearthly wail ripped from Finn's mouth, a raw, overpowering sound of pure anguish, the cry of a goddess abandoned, tormented, and betrayed by her family. The sheer potency of it was stupefying. It hit the colossus, and the creature staggered back, stunned for a few moments.

Roman shut his eyes, seeking the familiar darkness.

A figure loomed before him, his presence more than any human could endure.

I need help.

Silence.

If you don't help me, the boy will perish. She will be angrier.

An image of the fir tree abandoned in the snow appeared before him.

Yes, fine, I will drag the tree.

The unfathomable power that was Chernobog reached out and touched him.

Roman was back on the porch. Power filled him, spreading from him like a dark mantle. It coalesced, and he felt the familiar weight of Chernobog's spiked crown on his brow.

Finn, who had doubled over, jerked up straight with a startled gasp.

Roman was Darkness, eternal and ever-changing. The end of all things. The Final Cold.

The beast sighted him. It took one massive step forward.

The words dropped from Roman's lips:

"CHERNOBOSHE, LORD OF NAV, MY GOD, AID ME IN MY HOUR OF NEED."

A black bow appeared in his hands. He drew it, and a black arrow formed in his fingers, sizzling with power.

Roman fired.

The arrow sliced into the creature, ridiculously small, a needle piercing a giant.

There were few absolute truths in the universe, and yet one of them always endured, for it was woven into the very existence of reality: change was constant. From the moment the Universe was Born, it began to Decay. And Chernobog was the personification of that Decay.

The arrow sank into the creature. A brown stain spread from the wound.

The beast jerked and fell apart, collapsing into gobs of putrid flesh. Chunks of its body rained down, disintegrating into dust as they fell. Another moment, and there was nothing left. Only the empty yard.

At the mouth of the driveway, the Vasylisa cut the warrior's head off his shoulders. It bounced and rolled to her feet.

The mercenaries fled. This was no structured retreat; no, they turned and ran, a pack of panicked human animals fleeing for their lives, down the driveway and out of sight.

Everything was still.

Roman let go of the bow. It hung in the empty air for a moment and then dissipated like the fragments of a nightmare.

The Vasylisa stepped over the dead warrior's head and strode to the porch. He watched her come. Her magic was a muted light, hidden now, drawn inward. She was in her late twenties, half a foot shorter than him, and moved lightly on her feet. She was like a snowdrop flower that bloomed through a snowdrift in the bitter cold: strong, beautiful, captivating.

She walked up the steps and looked at the crown still on his head. Her eyes were very blue.

Suddenly he realized he stood in front of her in a torn, stained sweatshirt, old sweatpants, and Eeyore slippers.

"You invoked."

"I had to."

"There will be hell to pay."

She knew. No surprise there. The Wise Vasylisas knew a lot of things. All of the gods talked to them, for the Vasylisas were their instrument for preserving balance. Perhaps Morena had told her.

"It's not the first time," he told her.

"But this time it's because of my family."

Roman reached up and touched the crown. It melted into smoke, and a gust of wind carried it off. Letting go of the power was like taking off armor after a hard battle. He felt tired and calm.

She turned to Finn. "I told you before, running from these things only makes it worse."

He raised his chin.

"When the offer is made, either accept or reject it," she continued. "This neither-here-nor-there waiting to make up your mind comes with a price."

"That's fine," Finn said.

"No, it's not. You're not the one who'll be paying it. He will." She nodded at Roman.

Finn spun to Roman. "What is she talking about? What price?"

"You will see." The Vasylisa turned to Roman. "We will come with you."

"The Glades don't discriminate," he said. "They won't spare you. There is no need."

"You will be going through it because of my brother. I will go with you. It's the least I can do. He will come too. It will be good for him. He needs to know the consequences of his actions."

His mother's voice popped into Roman's head. Karma.

"Do you know me?" he asked.

She raised her eyebrows. A dangerous light sparked in her eyes. "You don't remember me, do you?"

He shook his head.

"Andora," she said. "Dora the Dud Explorer. Dora the Minus. I was three years behind you in the Veshnevski Academy. We had a class on runes together."

Oh gods.

"You guys went to school together?" Finn asked.

She narrowed her eyes. "I didn't have any powers back then, because the previous Vasylisa was still alive. I wasn't Slavic, I didn't speak any of the languages, and our family wasn't part of the community. I just started having strange dreams and then some manifestations happened, and the Witch Oracle found me and convinced my parents that I should be educated in Paganism."

He remembered her now. In fact, the memory was crystal clear, branded in his brain.

"Other kids were mean," Andora said. "But Roman was the meanest."

He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

"He turned my pencils into snakes. And my shoelaces."

Somehow, he found his voice. "I was an unhappy kid. My magic was unstable. It was all snakes all the time. I couldn't control it."

"I had very long hair," she said. "It was the only thing about myself that I liked at nine years old."

Roman wished he could fade into the porch boards.

"He turned my braid into a poisonous viper."

Finn stared at him.

"It bit me. I almost died. And nobody could turn the snake back into my hair. They had to cut it off."

"I'm sorry," Roman squeezed out. It was a long time coming.

"Not yet. But you will be."

She smiled at him. Ice shot through him from his neck all the way to his feet.

"But not today. Today you saved my brother. I will collect that debt another time. We need to go to Nav now. You have a tree to drag."