The Usurper's Crown (72 page)

“I beg your pardon.” Ingrid’s voice shook. The Vixen’s mouth fell open, laughing. Her rank scent filled the place where Ingrid stood. The green fire illuminated only a small space around them. She thought this might be a cave, but she could not be sure. “I did not mean to intrude, I only …”

“I know what you want, little woman.” The Vixen nodded her head toward Ingrid’s feet. “And you have won it. I give it to you freely.”

Ingrid looked down. At her feet, in a small hollow of rough stone, gleamed a golden ball about the size of Ingrid’s fist. She picked it up, marveling at its great weight and cool smooth skin as it lay in her hand.

She was looking for what had been stolen. She was looking for a heart that had been taken. She knew that, although she did not fully understand how. In that same way of understanding, she knew this golden ball held what she needed.

“Why …” she began, and then she stopped. Questions might be dangerous here. They might be considered rude. The answers might have conditions she could not meet.

“Why did I take it?” The Vixen cocked her head. “Why do I give it back now?” She lifted one great paw and scratched her chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps one day when the Old Witch had gone about some errand, she left her heart behind, as she is wont to do from time to time. Perhaps someone crept into her window and stole it then. Perhaps they meant it as a joke, or perhaps they meant it in earnest, for without her heart, without knowing who held it or what they might do with it, how could the Old Witch go about her business? How could she even dare to leave the safety of her house?” The Vixen’s eyes gleamed dangerously. “For she has much power and many enemies, the Old Witch does.”

Ingrid swallowed again, and clutched the golden ball close to her chest.

“But perhaps there was a little man who aspired to divinity and I was asked by one whom I’m glad to have owe me a favor to stop his plans.” The Vixen grinned. “Perhaps I saw the future and it amused me to help it come about. Perhaps I just saw an opportunity to anger the Old Witch. It could be all these things, or none of them.” Her teeth were white, and very sharp. “What would you give to know the answer to that riddle, little woman?”

Courtesy is all where you are going
. Avanasy had said that to her. How could she have forgotten, even for an instant? Ingrid pushed the guilt away. This was not the time.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” she said, dropping a curtsey to the Vixen. “I am very much afraid that it is time for me to go.”

“Perhaps,” laughed the Vixen, swishing her tail back and forth. “Take care of what you’ve been given, little woman, and take care of your daughter while you can.”

“I …” began Ingrid. But she stopped. She meant to say, “I have no daughter,” but standing knee-deep in memories freshly brought back to her, she realized she could not remember when her time had last come. So much had been happening, she had completely lost track of her days.

Was she carrying Avanasy’s child? She could well be. One hand went automatically to her belly.

The Vixen threw back her head and let out a snarling, growling laugh that went straight through to Ingrid’s bones. “Go, little woman, get away with you, before I decide perhaps I’d like to keep you here.” Eyes and teeth flashed in the light of the green flames. “Or your daughter.”

Grabbing up her hems, Ingrid turned and ran. The Vixen’s growling laugh followed fast behind her, and she had no thought but to get away from it. She stumbled through the darkness, the golden ball held tight to her bosom. Gradually, she saw light up ahead; it was strange and diffuse, and certainly not daylight, but she followed it anyway, because she had no other guide.

At last, Ingrid stumbled out into the odd, pale light of the Land of Death and Spirit. Ahead of her lay a green meadow surrounded by the dark piney woods she remembered. Behind her rose a smooth green hill like a bubble from a pot of water. A single thorn tree grew from its crown, spreading its branches up to the sunless sky. She knew this place. She had been here before.

Ingrid saw no movement from the dark cave mouth from which she emerged, but she hurried on toward the piney woods anyway.

The only question being, which way do I go?
She looked around for the river, for her other self, and saw only the dark tree trunks in every direction.

Something pushed at her palm. Ingrid stared at her hand where it held the golden ball. The ball stirred against her and pushed outward, as if seeking release.

Slowly, uncertainly, Ingrid set the ball onto the grass. It glinted for a moment in the pale, greenish light, and then it began to roll toward the woods. With nothing else to do, Ingrid followed.

She followed the ball into the darkness that gathered under the pine trees. The thick carpet of needles should have crunched underfoot, but did not. She followed the ball across the narrow brook that ran silently over the rounded stones that lined its bed. The water did not wet her shoes or the trailing hem of her skirt.

She followed until the trees turned from pine to oaks and maples, and she saw the lone, crooked birch tree that spread its branches as if to bar her way. The golden ball rolled unhesitatingly beneath it, and the branches sagged, defeated, to let Ingrid past.

Ahead stood the fence mended with bones. The cat perched on top of it, ears alert. The bone gate swung open for the golden ball, and Ingrid followed. She was owed for this and that knowledge removed her fear as she stood in the torn and savaged yard before the house on its scarred and taloned legs, turning and with each step gouging up great chunks of mud.

The golden ball stopped and Ingrid waited, her hands folded neatly over her apron. Slowly, the house stopped its restless turning and knelt so that its splintered steps touched the ground and its door could fall open.

Baba Yaga stood in the doorway, leaning on her stained pestle. Eagerly, the golden ball skipped up the steps and hopped into her hand. Baba Yaga caught it firmly in one skinny claw. With the other, she rapped on it with her knuckles. The gold cracked open and fell away. Inside lay an egg, smooth and white and gleaming. Baba Yaga cracked that too. The white spilled away leaving something red and blue and pulsing in her crabbed hand. Baba Yaga looked at the thing hungrily for a moment, then tucked it inside her tattered black robe, as if she were tucking away a full purse or a precious locket.

When she drew out her hand again, Baba Yaga smiled, a rictus grin that exposed all her black iron teeth. Ingrid shuddered but held her ground. The Old Witch set aside her pestle, and did a thing Ingrid had never seen her do before. She walked down the steps of her house.

As she came nearer, bone-thin and bent, her eyes nearly as hollow as a ghost’s, Ingrid felt her nerve fail her. Her knees began to shake and she wanted more than anything to run away, but she could not. Baba Yaga held her pinned with her dark gaze.

The Old Witch stood before her now. Ingrid should have been able to feel her breath, but could not. She smelled a dry, musty scent, like old dust, like bones.

In a single, swift motion, Baba Yaga kissed Ingrid on the mouth. Ingrid staggered back, only just keeping her balance. Her mouth filled with the tang of cold iron.

And she knew how to cage the Firebird. She knew it like she knew her own name. She could forget everything else, and she would remember this, she was sure of it.

Ingrid thought to stammer out her thanks, but one glance from Baba Yaga silenced her utterly.

“You have been paid your price, now go. I have business to which I must attend.” There was a quality in those words that made Ingrid shiver. She was about to speak up to say she did not know which way to go, but the world around her was already fading. She did not feel herself being dragged, so much as all that was around her seemed to be rushing away, wrinkling, like a cloth pulled from a table. She screamed, because she feared another long fall into darkness.

Ingrid woke.

Chapter Twenty

She might not have moved at all. She was in the burned forest on the hillside. Lien knelt beside Peshek’s wracked body, but … Ingrid blinked and looked again. Peshek was ruined no more. His skin was red and blistered, but no longer blackened. His breath did not rattle in his chest as he lay on the scant bed of coats that had been spread for him. He would live. She could tell that in an instant. Her first sight returned to the world was that Peshek would live.

“Magic.”

“And neatly done,” replied Lien. Ingrid jumped. She had not realized she had spoken aloud. “She is powerful, your empress.”

Ingrid’s first instinct was to say, “She’s not mine,” but she stopped those words. “Where are they?”

“I sent them down,” he nodded toward the pass where the smoke still hung heavy in the air, “to see if any lived yet there.”

Ingrid swallowed hard. “I must find them.” Her blood rushed in her veins, and she knew the sensation to be from the knowledge the Old Witch had given her. She must pass it on and quickly. This was not a secret she was meant to hold.

“Then we will go.” Lien stood. “You have your answers?”

“I do.” Despite the need for movement that sang inside her, she glanced down at Peshek where he lay, dead to the world. “Shouldn’t you stay …”

“All that can be done for him has been. We will return.” His voice was stone. He was making his choice. He could not worry about Peshek, because his niece was in a danger he knew better than any of them. Ingrid wanted to berate him, but could not. She just tucked up her hems in her waistband and started down the hillside toward the center of the devastation.

It was a long walk. The wind blew hot and heavy with ash. It was difficult to breathe without coughing. The stones were black with ash. Ingrid’s eyes and lungs burned, but she kept slogging forward, the strength of the secret she carried urging her onward. Lien paced quietly beside her, and she was very glad for the presence of another being.

Then, at last, they crested the rise, and looked down on the real horror.

The army had been caught in the blaze with nowhere to flee. Men and beasts had died where they stood, and now were nothing but char and black sticks that once were bones. The stench was unspeakable. Ingrid’s hand went immediately to her face, and she had to choke down her bile.

“Come, mistress,” said Lien, but even his voice shook. “Come. We must keep going.”

And they did. They waded through the ash and ruin. Ingrid blocked her mouth and nose with her apron held crumpled in both hands. It brought only a small measure of relief. Heat nibbled at her skin and horror nibbled at her mind.

After what felt like hours, they were at last able to see Avanasy and the empress, the only bits of color in a world gone black and gray with death. They stood near the far edge of the worst of the destruction. This must have been the head of the procession. Medeoan looked down at something, frozen, unmoving. As they came closer, Ingrid could make out a hand, an arm, sticking grotesquely out of the soot and char that had once been a man. It was as burnt and as black as all the rest of the dead Ingrid had tried not to see, but Medeoan seemed transfixed. She did not look up as Ingrid and Lien drew near enough to see the gleam of a golden ring on the dead hand, which must have been what attracted Medeoan’s eye to it in the first place.

“I believe,” murmured Lien, “the empress has found her husband.”

“So.” Medeoan spoke to the blackened limb, and her voice was as cold and brittle as glass. “This is where you’ve ended. Your plan worked and brought war to Isavalta. Are you happy? Are you pleased with how well you’ve succeeded?” Her skin showed white where tears had washed the ash and grime away from her face. “Did you know where I was? Did you even care? Did you spare me a single thought once I was no longer an obstacle?” Her voice rose and sharpened, becoming at last a scream. “I loved you! I gave over an empire to you and you gave me nothing but vicious, vicious lies!”

Medeoan lifted her robe of blackened silk and aimed a swift and vicious kick at the pathetic remains, shattering them into flakes of ash. Then she turned away, and Avanasy put his hand on her shoulder.

Ingrid found a small piece of herself that had not been numbed by her smoldering surroundings and felt pity for the young woman. To be so betrayed … could even what she saw now be worse than that?

At last, the sound of their approach reached Avanasy. He looked around quickly, and when he saw Ingrid his face lit up with a joy incongruous to see in the midst of this burned world, but even so, her heart answered with an equal joy.

“I knew you would find your way!” he cried as he wrapped his arms around her, covering her soot-smudged face with his kisses. “I knew, I always knew. Oh, Ingrid …” They kissed, long and deep then, and when he pulled away, Avanasy looked startled.

“Did the Old Witch give you what we need?”

Medeoan had come up behind Avanasy, her face cold as stone. Whether it was from the devastation of her people, or from what she had just seen between Ingrid and Avanasy, Ingrid could not tell.

“Yes,” Avanasy answered for her, his voice thick with wonder. “Yes, she did, and Ingrid has given it to me.”

“I would have warned you, if you had given me a moment,” she said, an odd gaiety taking hold in her now that her burden was lifted and Avanasy was before her, whole and sound.

“What must we do?” demanded the empress. “How do we begin?”

Avanasy’s eyes flicked back and forth, as if he were drawing out some deep memory. “We need a forge, or a crucible. We need gold and blood to shape the cage, and …” He froze and, under his coating of grime, he paled. “Mortal breath.”

Medeoan bowed her head. “Of course,” she sighed. “It would be so, for such a thing, it would be so.”

Despite the heat, Ingrid shivered. “I don’t understand.” She had carried the knowledge inside her, yes, but she had been a vessel only. It was Avanasy who knew what these things brought from the Silent Lands meant.

“Mortal breath.” Avanasy was not looking at her. He was looking at Medeoan where she stood, turned away, her arms wrapped around herself. “Is the last breath. The dying breath.”