HOW THE SHADOWS FEAST
v. what we hide in our shadows

the third night

❅          ❅          ❅

THE BLACK DOG WAS GONE. Not even traces of it in the snow betrayed the place where it had just sat, as though it had never been there.

Saskia stared at it, head spinning and in the hope this dreadful night would eventually reveal its secret to her. However, it reminded her once again that her power possessed her more than she possessed it—a curse haunting her but denying her to use it.

The world of ghosts showed itself to her; but whenever Saskia wanted to see, it mischievously chose to stay hidden.

There was nothing but the soft touch of wind on her cheeks and the strange whisper. "Do not fret about a dead man, desetnitsa. His soul is already safe in the underworld—and you are free. What else could you wish for?"

However, she did not dare to answer. Who—what are you?

It was the iron grip of the priestess's hand around her arm that shook Saskia from her lethargy.
"Go inside. Tell the others to seal their doors, burn their herbs, speak their prayers," Mother Gesa snarled. "And ring the bells."

"But what about yo—" Didn't she hear that voice?

"Go now!"

And Saskia did, bringing chaos with her to the convent.

When she reached Katinka, already praying in their cell, the convent bells began to chime. It was not the soft sound you would hear at night, the almost teasingly lovely sound of the hooved beasts of the twelve nights—the Perchten—but thundered through the night loud enough to reach the Fortress of the Order.

They never had to use it since Saskia lived here.

"What—"
Katinka stopped, her fists pressing to her mouth so violently her knuckles showed white. Staring. Eyes wide, teary, and dark like ink. They were locked at Saskia's feet, where, as she slowly lowered her gaze, a hound with coal-black fur appeared just like the one outside.

But half of its face was laid bare from any flesh as if it had withdrawn from his flew up to his head. From the mouth, hot smoky breath sprung, filling the room with the smell of something burning, ... something rotten. Its eyes were glowing embers.

This thing was dead.

And its mouth spoke with a voice coming straight from the darkest depths of the underworld, where only hellish creatures dwelled and no soul would ever go: "Your prayers were heard. Now you're the one to give."

While Saskia found herself frozen in place, Katinka let out a sharp scream as though the hound of hell had already sunken its bony teeth into her soft flesh. However, it did not even cross the threshold protected by white runes.

Instead, the creature lowered its head like in a mocking little bow and left with claws scraping over the stones, sending sparks flying.

"No... This can't be... This mustn't be...," Katinka sobbed hysterically, covering her tear-stained face into shaking hands. "Please, Perhta, make it stop!"

Saskia rushed to her, falling to her knees, and wrapped her arms around her sister's trembling body. Her cursed sister. The thought made her blood run cold.
"Shh. Everything is fine."

"No. They are here, Saskia. They are here," she cried almost unintelligibly, pressing her face into Saskia's habit, who softly stroked her head.

"Nothing can hurt you here, srnitsa."

"But this monster—"

Katinka was clinging to her like a drowning fawn, not knowing her last shelter was the hunter that would put the bullet to its heart. I am sorry.

"But, srnitsa, there was nothing," Saskia softly said and sank her teeth into her treacherous tongue that befouled her mouth, speaking lies Katinka swallowed in distress. Unseen tears streamed down her cold cheeks.

"Do not weep, my dear." If it was the demon's voice or her own, she could not tell. Perhaps they were the very same?

It was not Rogdai Saskia bemoaned most, not even poor betrayed Katinka, but her own rotten heart that leapt with relief.

For Saskia didn't have to endure her curse alone, bound to a strange prince anymore. These horrible things were what she had wished for. Maybe it was never the dark creatures she had feared, not the voice that whispered ugly truths to her now, but the cruelty lurking in her very own shadows.

❅          ❅          ❅

They found Prince Rogdai's men the next morning—all dead to the last, slaughtered by enemies that had not left any prints in the snow. Only some of their horses had survived, roaming the woods exhausted, with frozen whiskers, and hungry. Others had panicked and injured themselves, finding death at frost's hands, or fell into one of the ravines.

Beyond recovery, most of the men's remains had to be left for the hungry wolves, foxes, and crows to feed their young: Some lives nourished by others' deaths.

While they feasted, in all of Schwarzhain no one talked about anything else but the late Prince of Mavropol, who was laid out in the village's small chapel, already frozen stiff, and the tragedy that might come upon the villagers, soon.

Saskia pressed her ear to the wooden door to listen to Mother Gesa and Silvan von Winterthal talk, who had not left since last night.

"Bandits? The hooved demons?" the high priestess asked now, voice hushed by the door.

"No, they would've left prints," Silvan answered. "Something else. The Hunt itself mayhap."

"May the ground be light to them." Mother Gesa murmured a short prayer.

"It's not the only thing that occurred. Livestock was killed, fields ravaged."

Saskia's heart skipped.

"But—How?"

"You know what this means, Mother. The creatures of the dark are angry," the prince said. "These Wolf Nights will be anything but peaceful."

Wolf Nights—one of the other many names people had found for the twelve darkest nights. Saskia had always wondered if the Order had borrowed its own from it: An Order of Wolves created for the Wolf Nights.

"I noticed. Strange things are happening in the convent. Coins disappeared. Candles extinguish. Some seem to have lost their minds ...," Mother Gesa spoke in a low voice, every word oozing concern.

Steps could be heard from inside, boots on stone.
"I know this is a sensitive subject, and I will treat it with the utmost discretion and respect, but is it possible that any of your daughters broke the rules accidentally or ... went astray from the light?"

She will throw me to the wolves, Saskia thought. Who else could it have been but the cursed girl? And at least partly, Gesa would be right with that. It had been her who went out at night, and maybe without her knowledge, she even let in the ghost.

Sharp teeth pierced the inside of Saskia's cheek, suffocating her fear with pain. A metallic taste prickled her tongue.

In the room, Gesa let out a soft sigh. But whatever she said drowned in the noise of steps and murmuring from down the hallway. Instantly, Saskia jumped back from the door and ran to her cell.

This time, Katinka's prayers died the second Saskia entered the room, withering away quickly as the flowers on the hillsides in autumn. And even more shockingly—her dark eyes appeared just like them, too.

They looked at Saskia almost dead from a face paler than a shroud and bruised by a sleepless night. It was not fearlessness but an absence of fear she met there as if it had burned itself out, leaving nothing but ashes of emptiness. Saskia could feel it pierce her heart.

All the unsaid hung in the room heavily like the smoke, and Saskia feared to choke on the truth the next second.

"Why didn't you tell me?" was all Katinka said.

"I—" Saskia swallowed, her throat tight. Despite knowing she meant her former engagement—the least of all her problems now—Katinka's eyes seemed to look into the very depths of her soul. And Saskia was more than afraid of what her sister would find there. "I wanted to but I did not know how."

"Why?"

Now, Saskia could not find the right words.

"Was that the reason why you acted so strange the past days?" Katinka asked.

A shy nod was everything she managed, but even the little gesture felt like a betrayal. Yes. And the prophecy. And the blue-eyed demon. And the ghost. And—

There was a tight line about Katinka's lips and a shadow in her eyes Saskia had never seen before as she uttered her next question: "The Prince of Mavropol's, your betrothed's death ... you do not happen to know anything that could have ..."

Saskia's eyes widened. "No. No. He must have traveled at night, against better judgment."

The words seemed to hit her like a slap in the face, and with painful terror, Katinka jerked back. "I'm sorry, Saskia. I did not mean to ... But this hound, this voice—" She interrupted herself with a vigorous shake of her head, as if solely speaking of it was too blasphemous to even think about it. "Gods, am I going mad?"

I truly am a monster.

But at this point, she didn't know if telling the truth wouldn't have been even more cruel. Either way, Saskia had to protect it; she had to protect them both, too. Unlike Katinka, she did not trust Mother Gesa and even less so the Prince of Wolves to do so if they ever learned what they saw and heard.

Softly Saskia clasped Katinka's hands. "No, the Nights are unnerving you, and your fear played a cruel trick on you. That's all. Prince Rogdai's death is horrible, but in the convent, we are safe. Perhta will watch us. Prince Silvan and his men will."

This, Saskia hoped, was no lie. They would endure this Nights of Smoke, too, and better so, hidden in the convent, while Silvan von Winterthal fought the monsters outside.

And I will be a better daughter of Perhta, I promise.

❅

Still, with the night Katinka's fears came, and Saskia felt her lie stiff and trembling beside her.

"Now don't think about it anymore, srnitsa. Come, better tell me the legend of the River Lady again," she said, smiling.

Katinka had told it in Saskia's first night in the convent, a midwinter, when her frantic tears wouldn't dry. Her favorite one, she had called it. And what better time for tales was there than now?

"It's been such a long time. I have already forgotten," Katinka mumbled.

"Then I will tell it," Saskia said, ignoring her sister's lie.

"So, this is what they say about the river of Schwarzhain: There once lived the most beautiful girl in these valleys of the Winter Mountains. Though she was just the daughter of a peasant, even counts and princes wanted to wed her. However, ..."

Saskia hesitated.

"Jerica," Katinka said. "Her name was Jerica."

"However, Jerica was not easily impressed by furs and jewelry and thus, never agreed to marry one of them.

"One day, there came another prince they said was not entirely human, of the gods even. Neither his riches nor his lands or power Jerica was interested in. But he stayed in Schwarzhain one summer and one winter until the next summer again, and his bravery, politeness, and righteousness slowly won her heart. To be sure about her feelings ... What did she do again? I don't remember."

Katinka turned to her. "She went to a crossroads at midnight, of course."

And saw a blue-eyed demon, Saskia thought, shuddering.

"Oh, right. Jerica and her friends slipped out of their houses on midwinter midnight to the crossroads in the woods, where legend says you might catch a glimpse of your soulmate. And really! In the pale moonlight, there appeared a man. It was her sweetheart.

"It doesn't take much to shower me in your riches. I want a proof of love,' she said nonetheless, for she did not entirely trust in all his virtues.

"Then I shall bring you Zlatorog himself. Out of his golden horns, I will make you our wedding bands, and with the flower that blooms from his blood, life and love eternal,' the mysterious prince answered. Ignoring all warnings of the demise that awaited everyone attempting to hunt down the legendary animal, he went off to the mountains."

Saskia interrupted herself once again, shaking her head. "I will never understand such men."

"The things we do for love," Katinka answered, shrugging.

"Rather silly pride," she scoffed. "But well... Most would not even find the magical creature, but he—maybe because he had some magic himself—did. With his musket, the prince shot, and the bullet pierced Goldenhorn's heart. From its blood, a red flower grew.

"The prince wanted to take his trophies home. But he could not. Fear clasped his chest, and he knew punishment would await him for killing this animal of gods. All of a sudden, the hunter turned into prey. The hounds of the underworld ripped him to pieces and took his soul with them. In his stiffening hands lay the blood flower.

"Dear Jerica found his gun first, carried down into the dale from the clear river. Fearing for her beloved, she started to pray to Lady Perhta to bring him home safely. Then there came his coat—torn and bloody—, and Jerica knew all hope was lost. And finally, there came her dead prince's body, and she cried at the river bank.

"How could I be so foolish to demand such a proof for his words?' And out of lovesickness and guilt, she drowned herself in the cold river.

"However, as many souls dying a troubled death, hers left her old body but not this world. They said she turned into a rusalka or mavya, and thus called the river Mavya. Her tears and those of many other girls bemoaning foolish youths who lost their lives in the impossible task of shooting the sacred animal—their bones crushed in some crevice or punished by godly powers—earned the place its name. Tränental. Valley of tears.

"Until now, Jerica is wailing for her beloved at the river in summer, haunting Schwarzhain in winter. And whenever someone drowns, people will whisper to themselves that the lady of the river took them in her loneliness."

❅

When Katinka had finally fallen asleep, Saskia slipped out of bed and into the stable, where they brought the black mare.

She seemed to have calmed down a little after her wild ride, now more exhausted than afraid. Still, the horse's ears pricked when Saskia stepped in.

"Shh, shh," she whispered, slowly drawing nearer and offering her the porridge she had brought with her. "You are safe here."

"What's your name?" Saskia asked, her heart beating quick and anxious, and as the mare merely watched her, she already started to feel foolish. Yes, they said, in the Nights of Smoke animals were able to speak sometimes. But why would she, among all people, be graced with the lucky honor to experience this? Why would—if she could—the mare decide to speak to her?

Sighing, Saskia turned away.

Polnoch.

The voice did not resonate exactly in the air but more in her head. Soft, warm, shy.

Saskia froze, slowly turning back. "Midnight. A lovely name to fit your beauty," she answered, a smile hesitantly tugging on her lips.

To this, Polnoch shook her mane in pride.

"What happened to you, Polnoch?" Saskia asked, softly placing her hand on the horse's head.

"They came out of nowhere. My master would not listen that I did not want to go on, and then it was too late. They killed everyone... And then I ran and ran and ran... But the other horse was faster."

"Other horse?"

"Yes. It was strange. It smelled dead. Of frost and smoke."

Saskia's heart pounded fast in her chest. "And did you see its rider?"

"No. I could only hear him talk. You came to take what does not belong to you, he said, and then I smelled the blood." The mare snorted in distaste.

"Polnoch, who were they? Bandits?" Saskia asked, even though she knew whoever answered her prayers was not human.

"No. Demons. The Wild Hunt. The master of wolves."

Thus, the third night ended with the unnerving message of a horse.

On the fourth night, they took Katinka.

I know, at this point Saskia won't win the prize for the best friend of the year, yet. Gaslight gatekeep girlboss...and gaslight some more I guess :'D

I have a soft spot for occasionally horrible characters as you probably can guess.

And it seems like I somewhat get into the story more and more. Late, but at least it happened, so I hope I can finally write and edit faster and publish on time. Anyways, I hope you're doing better with your onc entries!

(Not me mixing in yet another literary Easter Egg with Jerica, a little reference to the epic poem "Zlatorog" by Rudolf Baumbach)

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13 863
Milestone 3 ✗