HOW THE SHADOWS FEAST
viii. the wrath of the scorned

the fifth night

❅          ❅          ❅

"HELL HAS NO FURY LIKE A WOMAN SCORNED," her mother had once said, but Saskia had never quite understood. Not until now that she desperately wanted—no, needed—to win a man's heart.

If he has any.

For there was only one safe way out of the convent and only one person who held Katinka's fate in their hand—Prince Silvan von Winterthal.

Before the snow melts, you will crawl into the jaw of a wolf...

When Prince Silvan entered the convent, however, he graced Saskia with the utmost disregard a man like him could only have for someone who deeply offended him. And an offense it must have been to see his advances met with cold rejection.

"Your Highness," Saskia whispered softly with a little courtesy, giving him the loveliest expression she could manage as she lifted the white veil from her head traditionally wreathed in winter rose.

After all, one of the feast's appeals was to gaze upon what otherwise stayed hidden.

But his eyes rested on Sister Franka who with a—truly enamored—smile greeted him. "May I accompany you to your seat, Fürst?"

While part of Saskia couldn't have been happier that he did not dare approach her again, the one that made decisions felt the opposite.

They streamed into the dining hall, but Saskia did not accompany them. Her heart pounded fast, thinking about what she was about to do.

Only Mother Gesa, who was immune to the charms of princes, their power, and wealth, noticed Saskia's hesitation and turned back to her.

"Aren't you coming, daughter?"

"I'll wait here."

Seeing the doubt lining Gesa's forehead, Saskia quickly added, "To welcome our last guest. Prince Anyan von Jakona wants to attend our feast as well."

"What a seldom joy to have such an honorable pilgrim with us today," she said, slightly relieved.

"You know him?" Saskia asked, voice and eyes a little too prying. Those dove-blue eyes of yours can hold no secret, her father had teased her as a child once. Never had she hoped so much for him to be wrong with that.

A frown chased the ease from Gesa's face again. "I do. He's a hunter. For the first time, he came here last winter to bring us rich offerings and left shortly after. Why is that of interest to you?"

Saskia shrugged. "I just found it strange. No one else would visit this place during the Nights of Smoke."

Mother Gesa seemed to accept this answer. However, not enough to not let a warning follow. "Let your sister's fate be a lesson to you that the dark you seem to fancy is dangerous."

The dark or the Wolves hungry for prey?

"Stay away from it, or it will devour you," she said. Bathed in the flickering candlelight that made her habit appear like a night sky filled with a thousand stars, she almost looked like Perhta herself: The bright mistress, familiar with the dark, too, that had to follow her every step as there was no light without shadows.

"Yes, Mother," Saskia muttered, fists clenched.

The high priestess pressed her lips together in a tight line. "Last night you lost a sister, but I lost a daughter, too. I don't want that to happen again."

With that, she turned on her heel and strode towards the hall that was already filled with laughter, leaving Saskia shaken to the core.

Beneath that grand habit beat a loving heart that would rather grieve in secret than grant absolution. Could her dark curse truly be more sinister than this holy torture? Passed on from mother to daughter in the name of a goddess who never spoke it left nothing but fear and shame that spoiled all true faith?

At least, Silvan had been right with that.

When Anyan von Jakona, the demon, emerged from between the trees, Saskia could feel his presence calling to her like a shepherd to a lost flock, the moon to the sea. Where there once was a soul, tainted as it was perhaps, now was a wounded thing. Not more alive than the hellish hound with its bones laid bare. Cut in half and eviscerated it longed to be completed again.

The feeling scared her. Perhaps there had been a soul to lose, after all.

And it now belonged to a demon.

Crimson sunset behind him that trenched the pale crescent moon into blood, he came on his beautiful horse as though he were the lord of this place. There was something different about him: a darkness melted away in daylight. Or maybe it only shrouded it as the grey clouds hid the sky.

Only when they were close to the door and the prince had dismounted did the dogs whine and the grey show fear. It almost shied, which made her master click his tongue. "Sh, be still, Rusa. We will not stay long."

Rusa? Like the white mare from the myth that drowned?

"Why am I still alive?" Saskia said instead of greeting him.

In a gesture already uncomfortably familiar to her the demon tilted his head. However, this time it was not out of some ridicule but confusion. He did not know about the prophecy?

"When we met at midwinter I, received a prophecy."

"A prophecy?" A spark of interest lit his eyes. "What did it tell you?"

While Saskia had shared her soul with Anyan she preferred to keep her secrets to herself. One sleepless night in the chapel—for she dreaded the idea of returning to a lonely cell—made her wary again.

For the first time in months, she had truly prayed to Perhta, even though Saskia wondered more than ever if she would hear her. Or perhaps she did so just because of that.

After all, he was an enemy's enemy, not a friend.

"That I would find a soulmate in a devil with no heart," she recited the part of the prophecy that had already fulfilled itself. "I should have died there, so why do I live?"

Anyan shrugged, stroking his mare's pale forehead. "For you, some things may be different. You're a desetnitsa, after all, a tribute to the gods."

"Then a very dark god must have claimed me."

"Is there truly so much shame in being a predator in a world of sheep?" he asked, voice as soft as a winter breeze.

Neither did Saskia answer nor allow herself to let the words sink in, lest not further fall under the demon's spell. The lies he spoke sounded all too appealing. All she had done and would do was for Katinka and her alone. Their pact went only as far as that. After that, Saskia still wanted to possess enough humanity to be worthy of atonement.

"Is that why you haunted me? Because I am a desetnitsa ... and your soulmate?" she asked instead, eyes resting on that hand she touched last night. It had not felt alive. Nor dead, however.

When Saskia had touched her mother's cheek the last time before they put her to the grave, there had been a damp cold to it that had eradicated everything human about it. She had not looked like mamitsa anymore as well.

With skin like winter air standing still or a last dying breath caught Anyan, however, had not even seemed as if from flesh and bone. His touch—cool and soft and fleeting—did not feel like death but merely the absence of life.

"Yes."

Saskia forced herself to tear her gaze away. "What do you need me for then?"

"Just now? To enter the convent. I cannot do so without your help," Anyan said, shooting a displeased glance at the runes.

"But the hound... the voice?"
Hadn't he entered the convent last night? However, when they met again, he could not cross the circle—if this hadn't been him lulling her into a false sense of security.

"There are ways. Part of me can pass your protections. When the circle is broken; when there's a mind, which calls out for me."

Saskia shivered. Did I?

"However, I cannot in this guise, and we don't want to scare away our pristine little prince with a demonic hound entering Schwarzhain's most holy place, do we?" The smirk that carved mockery into Anyan's features curved his pale lips into a crescent moon. A very wicked one that looked at the world only with malice.

It was this expression that should have reminded Saskia of his demonic nature, but strangely enough, it made him appear all the more human.

"Is that all?" With the cold air, biting disappointment seeped into her lungs. "And what for? Silvan von Winterthal? Why even care if some man claims to enact godly judgment?"

Anyan's face softened to a more innocent amusement. "You have a habit of asking many questions—and doing so quite late, vranka."

Before Saskia had the chance to protest about this audacious sobriquet, the hunter suffocated her chagrin as he continued to speak. "I need him to break my curse."

Saskia wanted to ask what kind of curse this was but she did not dare, lest she not regret all decisions she made the past hours. At this point, there was no turning back.

Forgive me, Mother Gesa. I will have to disappoint once more. But it's to save an innocent sister and daughter, Saskia thought as she blew out the candles and smudged the runes at the door to invite a creature from the shadows to walk in Perhta's light for once.

❅

Fifth Night's Feast was the time they celebrated the advent of the heat. As each night of the twelve represented one month, the fifth was the one winter finally gave way to spring's warm touch, coming out a victor from their annual battle. It was the time to pray and bring offerings for the warmth to come soon, crops to survive the frost, and new love to bloom.

Today it was almost as cheerful as last year, despite one of the sisters missing, and it made Saskia sick at heart how quick they were to forget and brush over the fact Katinka Goldhirsch had been dragged away from among them to rot in some cell of the fortress and await a fate maybe even more terrible than that.

A few, like Philomena, seemed to have lost appetite, answering their guests politely but without any glee. Most, however, appeared like they didn't want to think about it. Even though Saskia wondered what hurt them more: Katinka's own pain or the thought she could have betrayed them.

As Anyan set foot into the hall, the entire building seemed to react: greeting him with frightened flames, recoiling from the shadows more than they did from the light, the protesting scream of door hinges, and finally, the winds surrendering sigh.

Saskia seated herself at Anyan's side and as close to Silvan as she could. But the only glance he ever shot her was more for the hunter than herself. It was not a very favorable one.

And the curiosity he raised among the others only seemed to spoil the dark blue of his eyes more, for this prince did not allow anyone beside him, much less to lay claim to his throne.

"Where are you from, lord?" Philomena asked him with the friendliness of a shy filly. Her eyes traced the path of his scar as if thus she could fathom its story.

Anyan offered her a deceitfully polite smile. For a second, Saskia feared his appearance in the sacred candlelight would be a telltale sign he was neither that nor even a human.

Now, his presence did not shy away from the flames, however: their shine touched his skin and hair, bathing them in a warm light like sunset on snow. How is this possible? This sudden change was even more unsettling than his inhuman nature.

"Far away, Sister. The lands of the longest winters and shortest summers you can imagine."

"I heard you will go to the forests soon, lord?" Saskia asked when she was tired of watching Silvan savoring his wine and devouring fruits drowned in honey before licking its reddish juice from his fingers with the relish of wolf running his reddened tongue over paws dipped in fresh blood.

"We all will," a chestnut-haired callow youth they called Vitus answered quickly with a proud smile and shining eyes.

"Yes, the beasts are angry. It's time to hunt." The prince's voice was so slick with high-handedness steeped in the red wine he was drinking that it made Saskia sick.

"That sounds dangerous," Franka said, leaning towards Silvan all too obviously, and he seemed to enjoy himself, having a Daughter of Perhta so blatantly cling to him.

Perhaps this was what truly made them so attractive to those men. More than the sweetest of the peasant girls they got involved with or the most charming baroness. The priestesses knew best how to worship.

"It will be, Sister," Vitus again answered. But neither Saskia nor Franka had eyes for him, though for different reasons. However, both came down to Silvan von Winterthal.

"But what are such dangers to a Prince of Wolves, right?" Saskia asked, washing down the acrimony the words left on her tongue with a sip of wine almost immediately after having spoken them out loud.

"Exactly." Silvan looked merely displeased as if those words from her mouth somehow tasted like sweet grapes turned foul.

"May I join your hunt?" Anyan asked. "It's what I came for, after all."

It was just now that Saskia realized he hadn't touched any of the food.

Shrugging dismissively, Silvan longed for the meat. "If you wish so and do not mind the perils of cold, stain, and demons ..."

"Let me assure you, demons do not scare me. I have seen much worse." A ghost of a smirk crept into the hunter's face, but it was accompanied by a malicious shadow clouding his eyes, much darker than vengeance. "And you, Prince Silvan?"

The one addressed stiffened, losing the last air of nonchalance about him. Now he did not look like a prince but a wild beast cornered and ready to leash out.

What are you doing? Saskia thought but took her chance to lean closer to Silvan. "That's just envy speaking," she whispered. "I know you do not need it. Still, I will pray for your safety, my lord."

"If that was what you did for your sister and this Morotenyan prince, I would prefer you keep me out of your prayers, Sister. They seem to bring misfortune. Orisons spoken by a cursed tongue quickly turn into curses anyway."

This time, Silvan's contempt managed to pierce her heart like a vicious thorn. Saskia could not care less if the marvelous Prince of Wolves found her agreeable or not. But those words and their wicked verity, wrapped illusively into a velvety tone, that lay hidden within them hurt.

After all, this was what the prince wanted. To make her feel all the outraging pain of being scorned. He could not begin to understand how well he had succeeded.

Saskia's heart screamed with rage. Indeed, she had never felt the fury of a woman scorned eating through her veins like fire. But less so, she knew how easily one burned themselves on it.

I have been so silent here in the author's note. But I want to take the chance to ask what you all think about the story so far. What is your opinion on the characters (and characterization), the worldbuilding, the pacing, and the prose? Does it work?

To be honest, I'm slightly panicking because of the lack of time, while still being in the beginning of the third act. Plus, I am genuinely unsatisfied with the novella prose-wise so far, feeling I could do better.

But constant, exhausting struggle aside, I'm happy to announce I reached the third milestone! Meaning, one of the last hurdles to qualify for the finale is out of the way!

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20 137 words

milstone 3 ✓