HOW THE SHADOWS FEAST
x. death of a fawn

fifth night

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ORPHANED, THE DINING HALL SEEMED MORE LIKE A GRAVEYARD. The long table looked like shambles to fill the Wolf's growling stomach. Silvan was the last one to sit at it when Gesa entered and sip his wine, face thoughtful, when Gesa entered.

"May I have a word with you?" the high priestess asked.

The prince's gaze flicked to her, before resting on his cup again. "Of course. Speak freely. We are alone."

Gesa wrung her hands uncomfortably. "You know you never gave me a reason to doubt your decisions. I won't start to do it now. Still, I don't understand."

"You mean your cursed girl?" Silvan von Winterthal asked lips twitched up into a smirk that displayed nothing but dismissal of any concerns.

"Yes." In her opinion, there was nothing left to be said. The objection was clear enough.

Tilting his head and raising his brow, Silvan looked at her, resembling more the boy Gesa had known than the soldier he had become. "Isn't saving her reason enough? That was what the dead prince came for, after all?"

In his dark innocent eyes, lay a mischievous glint she had not seen since he had been a boy of thirteen, still playing youthful tricks. Now, however, on this grown man, it appeared unsettling and wrong. Like a demon bathing in the light of a halo.

"If you are concerned about her, you could have had her married to one of your men." You have responsibilities, first and foremost.

"I see ..." Slowly, he swirled his goblet. Some kind of danger Mother Gesa could not quite grasp simmered in the wax-redolent air. "What times are we living in if Sons of the Order marry cursed women and even Daughters of Perhta turn to demons?"

Not quite understanding yet, Gesa listened, ignoring the dark foreboding resonating in every word.

The silver goblet came down to the table with a violent clunk. "These Wolf Nights are different. If there ever could be a time to turn a curse into a blessing to us, it is now. I fear not all my men will survive—and I fear for your Daughters, too. We already lost one."

Lost. Something about the way the prince said those last words alerted Gesa. "Lost?" she repeated flatly.

In his eyes, she could only read a weak imitation of repentance that made Gesa's blood freeze. It gave more answers than Silvan intended to, betraying something very dark that spoiled his soul from within.

For the powers of the curse he feared and detested, he was ravenously hungry, too.

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The candle she had lit just yesterday had already burned down.

"Aren't you going to bed, daughter?" Mother Gesa asked, watching her carefully from the entrance of the chapel.

"I am not tired," Saskia answered. Shrugging, she turned back to the candles, lighting two of them with whispered prayers.

In fact, the idea of returning to an empty cell was too dreadful to even think about it, still. Staying here and praying until the morning light would fall through the colored glass seemed to promise a more peaceful night.

The high priestess let out a hissing breath before choosing her following words with more caution than usual. "So, you will leave the convent?"

"As you wished it," Saskia said, not even the ghost of contempt in her voice. Nor in her heart. Somewhen, she didn't know exactly when or how or why, the young priestess had come to terms with the others' disdain.

Possibly because without Katinka nothing was left holding her inside these walls. Her sister had been the reason Saskia longed to make them and all their inhabitants her home. Although, she quite obviously failed miserably at that. With her missing, they might as well loath her, send her out to freeze in the snow, and sigh in relief when she was gone.

Surprisingly, Gesa shifted uncomfortably, as if this truth had somehow been a s secret to stay undiscovered. For this, she hadn't put much effort into hiding it.

"I wanted you to find the light," she responded unfamiliarly softly. Remorseful, even. "But I failed you."

Saskia's heart jumped. The little motherless girl inside of her ached to fall to Gesa's knees to cry into her black habit and feel her hand—benign for once instead of castigatory—to caress her hair as her mamitsa had always done.

However, struck too often with whips and words, this girl had turned into a woman too hardened and askant to lower her guard. A burned child could not warm itself by the flame that had scorched it once.

Thus, she answered as a perfectly demure priestess: "I promised to be a good daughter—to the Bright Mother, you as well as my father. He wanted to see me married. You wanted me to be gone. So, I will fulfill both of your wishes."

"You never cared about others' wishes. Why start now? I don't know how you convinced Prince Silvan or what game you are playing. But I hope you know what you're doing because this is about all our lives."

Until the past few days, Saskia had prided herself on her honesty. An honesty, that was not only fueled by rebellion but the true ideal that speaking your mind—even if being on the wrong track—was better than silently swallowing your thoughts and feelings down.

Maybe it was the better choice now, too. Gesa had become some kind of a mother to her, after all.

"Because I want to save Katinka," she said, turning around. "I thought if I help Prince Silvan protect Schwarzhain, perhaps there is a chance for her—"

Saskia did not know what she had expected. Perhaps surprise or punitive silence. Some kind of kinship, a mutual feeling for each other's pain, she didn't dare to hope for.

However, she was sure to have seen exactly this in Gesa's grayish eyes—right before she hit her. Cool fingers collided with Saskia's cheek, sending her to the ground and a burning sensation through her flesh.

But it was her chest she inevitably pressed her hands against, as if the blow had hit somewhere there.

"Stupid girl, Katinka is beyond redemption."

Shameful tears stung in Saskia's eyes when she shook her head. "No. I know her and—"

Gesa's trembling hands seemed frantically in need to hold on to something but found nothing, so they hung in the air half a fragile threat, half a crooked benediction. In her eyes, shone tears, as well.

"She is dead."

❅

According to legend, the desetnitsa was always connected to fate. And death. Some even called her that. As smrtnitsa, she would wander from one house to another, in search of a warm hearth, and punish those who would not grant it to her. In her own dwelling, she kept candles to foresee the span of other's lives.

Perhaps there was some kind of truth to it, because the one Saskia had lit for Katinka in her last sleepless night, was extinct. And death she had brought to many.

Guilt was a snake dribbling fresh poison into her heart each second and whispering words of wicked wisdom into her ears. I should have died there in the snow.

All of the feasting and laughing this evening suddenly turned even more vile. Did none of the sisters know or did they simply not care? That Silvan was a heartless man even more so than this demon was, Saskia had already understood. However, the true nature of his cruelty she had yet underestimated.

In the face of this tragedy, he did not shy away from making his bloody sacrifice calmly, celebrating an engagement, and defiling Katinka's memento with his vicious words.

It was an ugly and evil thought, but perhaps Saskia should've taken Silvan's sword and killed him after all. Better than being trapped with him and Anyan as well for nothing, with all-consuming rage in her blood and the wish to burn away each patch of skin Silvan had touched.

But if he had been the murderer, Saskia had been his blade.

"How strange to finally walk into the house of the one that cursed me," a familiar voice behind her back sighed. "What our mighty Perhta would think if she found me in front of her effigy?"

Saskia turned around, looking daggers at him she wished she truly had to pierce him. "You tricked me. You lied to me!"

In her own ears, all the desperation sounded ludicrous. How could she even be surprised about the deception of a demon? If to learn only one thing from the tales and legends then it was to never trust a devil with no heart enough to make a deal with him.

Not that she had trusted him, truthfully. The moment their pact was sealed, Saskia had considered her soul lost to him, forever bound and haunted. It was the risk that she was willing to take. But naïve as she was, she realized at this moment she had trusted Anyan enough to still hope for Katinka's life.

But hope was a wretched thing with eyes blind to even obvious betrayal and a mouth so thirsty for affirmation it would gladly swallow beautiful lies.

Saskia wanted to smash her fists into Anyan's torso, curse him, and fall down at the altar crying and screaming for forgiveness all at once. However, all her rage and despair only culminated in a croaked, barely audible: "What have I done?"

You swore it to yourself, so monstrous you have become.

To her dismay, Anyan more than anything else seemed almost blasé about her wrath. At least, he could have had the decency to laugh at her foolishness and dwell on his victory.

Soulmates can bring you back from the brink of death and tear your soul in half, Gesa's words came fresh into her mind with the blazing desire to do just the latter and turn the power he held over her against him. But Saskia did not know how to.

"I only told you half the truth," Anyan said, the soft melody of regret in his voice he had no right to use at all.

"Half the truth?" Saskia had to restrain herself from yelling, her nails engraving bloody crescents into her palms. Even though she didn't know why she should be caring anymore if anyone could hear them. Silvan would be furious and surely not hesitate to end her life. So what? "We had a deal, demon. Katinka's freedom for yours."

"And that she still can get."

Was he mocking her? "She is dead," Saskia blurted, her voice turning seamlessly into a sob.

Anyan reached out for her but was wise enough not to touch her. The hint of concern swept over his face, furrowing his brow, though it somehow looked unnatural there as if he was a stranger to emotion. It was enough of another blatant lie. "There are ways to change that. Don't weep—"

"I am sick of others telling me not to cry when I have all reason to!" she sniveled, slapping away his outstretched hand.

Still, Saskia abhorred to do it in front of the very creature that caused her pain—or at least, steadily poured oil into the fire she herself had started. Hands shaking, she covered her face and let herself sink to her knees. "And I am sick of all these lies, too."

"I did not lie." The hunter's fingers touched her shoulder in an absurd gesture of sympathy, and this time Saskia lacked the power to even jerk back. "Your fawn still can be saved. I give you my word."

Lies. Lies. Lies.

Saskia forced herself to look at him. "Of what worth is the word of a demon?" she asked acidly.

His inhumane touch felt light on her collarbone, radiating no warmth that could seep through her habit, reminding her of the falsehood of Anyan's very form and shape. Did she even know if this was his true face and not that of the hellish hound or something worse, even?

The moment, the hunter drew back Saskia was not even sure she had felt it anyway. Examining the room as if for the first time he strode across the chapel. The dark wooden banks and the box with donations seemed of little interest to him, however on the stained glass showing pale memories of gods, heroes, and their deeds his gaze lingered.

If there was anything Saskia had ever loved about the convent then it had to be this.

"You hate the Order and your convent, yet you are quick to speak in their tongue. Who was it who caused your fawn's end?" Anyan said, halting only for a short time in front of the window that displayed Goldenhorn fleeing from Jarnik through frost-glazed ivory. "Was it me or was it them?"

"What kind of freedom do you have to offer, anyway? The same you granted Prince Rogdai?"

"You feel for him." Anyan looked almost taken aback. A strange kind of expression for a demon who seemed to have sunken his claws into her mind so deeply there was hardly a place to hide in it anymore.

"Of course I do! I did not want to marry him—yes. Perhaps I even felt reckless relief over his end for a second. But I am not as much a monster yet to be pleased with it."

Not such a monster like you, she silently added, almost hoping he would read that thought.

The demon let out his disapproval in a sharp breath. "What a waste of compassion and grief."

At present, he stood in front of the statue at the altar, his finger tracing Perhta's marble chin with a strange kind of melancholy written on his face. Although he—the one she had cursed—dared to enter her sanctuary, her face stayed stone-cold.

His hand fell back to his side. "And believe me I would know. Ages ago I was just like him. A young foolish boy thinking the entire world and its dangers was an adventure to be mastered. I did respect nothing but myself and laughed even at the gods. I paid the price for it as did Prince Rogdai. We all have to face our errors sometimes."

So will I, eventually.

Saskia chewed on her lip, trying to stop it from speaking her thoughts. What a vain endeavor.

"What is this great entire truth you chose to deny me?" she asked eventually, stupidly giving once again in to her despair. For what else could she receive than more beguilement? She truly had to have a taste for playing with heartless creatures, getting her own heart hurt.

When Anyan slowly turned around and crouched down in front of her, his healthy eye glowing from hungry hope as well, Saskia immediately regretted it.

"Death is hardly the end of everything, vranka. The borders of the underworld are not unbreachable. Not during the Nights of Smoke." His fingers closed around one of the winter roses wreathed around her head, plucking one of the crimson petals, and let it rest on his white palm like a drop of blood. "There is a way back."

Saskia felt her heart stop, then leap in shock as the meaning of his words dawned on her. Instantly, she sprung to her feet.

Before the snow melts, you will pluck a flower ...

"Goldenhorn's blood ..." she whispered.

Anyan smiled as his fist closed around the petal. "Exactly."

"That was your plan all along? Hunt down Zlatorog, kill him, and take the flower that blooms from his blood? You are not cursed. You are mad."

As mad as Saskia herself, because while her mouth protested still, her mind had long come to a decision. There was no idea wild enough that it could stop her hope from digging its claws into it.

"It would give us both what we desire, wouldn't it?"

Frantically, Saskia shook her head. "And punishment, pains infernal?"

"What of them? You would not have to endure them alone."

Not alone. Those were too beautiful and dangerous words to listen to. On her tongue, testing them, they tasted sweet and warm like mulled wine. Saskia spat it out with her next question: "Do you truly not fear facing the consequences of your errors again? Not even Jarnik could get away with it."

Saskia's gaze flicked towards the stained glass where he was caught in his haunt for eternity. Perhaps he was the first one mad enough to shoot the divine animal and despite being himself, Perhta and the other gods chastised him, banishing him to the underworld.

Anyan shrugged. "I lost the ability to fear long ago. To truly hate and love, too."

You don't have to remind me of that. "Your heart ..." Saskia simply said, while letting herself fall on the last bench in the row. It gave a protesting creak, telling her she did not belong.

"It got lost."

"But you had one?" The suspicion slipping into her voice felt almost unjust, but she could not stop it.

"Yes. A long time ago I was almost human, vranka. But there is no bearing a curse like this and having a heart, too."

"I thought you the great Master of the Woods and Wolves, kuzha?" Not some unwise man, Saskia added in her thoughts but something about the look in his eyes told her he heard it still. "Or would you prefer Hündchen?" she asked teasingly.

"That would rather fit your new fiancée." As fast as it appeared the jeer vanished again from his voice and face. "This is my curse. To be bound to this place and this alone in the realm of spirits, unseen except for these twelve nights, and to desire nothing but hunting and hunting and hunting. Tirelessly and if not for you perhaps to the end of time."

Never had Saskia seen the existence of spirits as lonely.

The gospodarchek looking at her curiously when she talked to him while bringing her offerings.

The rusalka singing and dancing, for the first time, having an admiring beholder who would not find a cold death on the river bed trying to catch her.

The ghost braiding her hair at night, whispering into her ear like to a lost daughter that had not followed her into this other world.

Stop feeling for a demon, Saskia chided herself. This was a strategic alliance, alone, and she would certainly not fall for some woeful tales aimed at melting cold mistrust from tender hearts. He would have to find another—more foolish—maiden to lament him.

"For me?"

Anyan sat down beside her, making them almost look like normal people—a prince and a priestess—who met during prayer.

"Since you are here, I can think of something different for the first time, again. Walk among men even. The power of soulmates I assume." Nothing about his smile was sincere. "Although this is a curse in itself. Now I realize my prison."

"What happened?"

You should not want to know, she reminded herself. Whatever tragic story he might have had, he clearly had done something horrible enough to be punished like this. On the other hand: What had she herself or Katinka done to be cursed?

"I angered the gods out of pride. The wish to be more than what I already was. Out of love mayhap, too. If so, then it was the reckless and selfish kind that tends to bring more misery than happiness. At least, I had the erroneous wish to impress the one I courted. A tale as old as time." He waved his hand dismissively. "There have been quite many similar ones told, that is. Though I don't think they are worthy of that."

When Katinka tells them they are. Perhaps, well versed in all those legends, she would have known better what to do now than Saskia.

For a long time, there was a silence too peaceful.

"What makes you think it will be different this time?" Saskia finally said, looking at the Bright Mother, secretly hoping for her to answer instead.

"Nothing," Anyan confessed as if to the goddess as well.

Confused, she turned to face the demon. "Then why would you do it, anyway?"

"For the same reason you agree to help me."

Saskia wanted to disagree, despite being painfully aware that Anyan was right about that. Turning back was not an option.

"The conviction that there isn't a destiny worse than this one and the bane of hope," he said.

Preposterous to reason, Saskia could not deny the ghost of a kindship tried to take root in her. Perhaps they were not all that different.

And before she could hold herself back the following words had already slipped from her mouth. "I will see you."

Anyan's gaze flicked to her, inquiring.

"If we cannot break this curse. If the Nights of Smoke end and you will vanish for everyone, you don't have to endure your punishment alone."

"To share the burden of such a curse alone is a pact worth making." Again their hands touched in a silent agreement that together they would do the maddest thing there is: Slaying a godly animal and wishing for something else to happen then their cruel ends.

Once more, Saskia looked the statue in the face, almost expecting her to stare back in anger. However, this Bright Mother at least did not care for the sins committed by her daughters. When she turned around again, the demon was gone. However, there at the altar lay the crimson petal. Withered and dead.

❅

Saskia had decided to leave the little house spirit an offering before finally going to sleep, more an excuse than anything else, for she knew it could not stay here. "I am sorry, dedek, but you will have to find yourself a new home, soon."

Still, when she left the chapel, she thought from the corner of her eye to see it curl in the form of a white snake around the marble feet of Perhta's statue as though thanking Saskia and the Bright Mother alike to be able to protect this place again.

Without Katinka, the cell was unbearably cold. And even worse—all of her little belongings seemed to stare at Saskia in silent judgment. From the place where she had always knelt praying in front of the tray with burning herbs, the small wooden effigy of Perhta glared at her as though she wanted to tell her You do not belong to her.

Rightfully so. For Saskia truly did not. Whatever good had been inside these walls, she had poisoned with her recklessness.

Now truly alone, Saskia fell to her knees and wept. Face pressed into the bed sheet, she tried in vain to suffocate her sobs.

_______

And I slipped in a little "Demon"-quote. I just couldn't stop myself...
Now as you see—the stakes are rising, drama arrived, and so does my panic to finish. But we're quickly heading to the end!