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The night had never scared Arkady when he had been young. 
To the contrary, the darkness and the woods had always been a safe haven when true danger lurked in the Bessmertny's estate: His father's wrath.
He could not remember the reason for his anger on that particular day ten years ago - maybe Arkady had broken a vase, maybe he had stolen honey cakes from the kitchen again- but it did not matter. For he remembered exactly how the count had raised his hand.

The next thing he knew,  he was running out of the estate as quickly as his short legs had been able to carry him.
Away. Just away, where no one could follow him. Where he was safe.
So he went into the woods. The endless, dark woods that stretched for miles, the same woods from which sometimes hunters did not return, no matter their rifles and horses.
Arkady went deeper than the peasant boys dared to go when they made their bets, deeper than Count Bessmertny when he went hunting.

Arkady finally collapsed in the thicket, panting and shivering, while a red sun was sinking on the horizon. Night soon followed, but he did not move.
The boy did not want to go home. He was more scared of the monsters that awaited him hungrily behind the large, glowing windows and drawn curtains than of the rusalka wanting to drown him in her stream.

So he waited and waited as the forest around him grew colder and the shadows crept towards him. There were no stars and no moon on the nightsky above him.
Yet, no Rusalka or Lezhy came for him, but their housekeeper and his former nurse Tatiana.
She stumbled into his view, crying and cursing as she saw the child.

"You are here", she sobbed and fell on her knees. "Oh, thank god and all the saints, thank god! We thought- I searched everywhere- I feared  he took you too and-" She stopped herself.

Tatiana put a woolen shawl around his shoulders and pulled him closer.
The housekeeper hugged him tightly until she remembered the creeping darkness.
Immediately, she lept to her feet and ushered the child forward.
Arkady stumbled with stiff limbs, but followed her guide as they returned home. The boy did not know if he hoped that Tatiana knew the way back.

"What did you mean?" he finally asked with pale clouds emerging from his lips. "That what took me? What he?"

Tatiana had looked at the child. That boy with that strange eyes, whose shadow she had never seen.
"It's only a foolish tale for old crones who have seen too many winters."

"But it frightened you", Arkady insisted.

"It is as scary as it is foolish. It is about the deathless one."

Suddenly, the child's eyes glowed with excitement. He stopped on the frozen ground.
"Koschei the deathless? And Marya Morevna? Tell me, Tatiana, please."

"There is no victorious Marya Morevna in this tale, child. And no brave Prince Ivan", she only stated blankly. "There is no peace and joy in its end."

Somehow the child sensed a strange gravity in her words, so he  stood there motionless, only asking:
"Tell me, Tatiana, please."

There was something in his voice, something in his posture, something in his eyes - and suddenly Tatiana felt scared.
She felt her own mouth move and her voice speak, even though she did not want them to.

"It is something the servants and serfs tell each other", she heard herself speak and regretted every word. "About the Bessmertny family and your fath- and the Count."
She sighted.
"The Bessmertnys never were bogatyrs and boyars, they themselves were serfs of the knyaginya Marya Morevna once-  and they  should have remained so.
But one day, as the Count's forefather was fetching wine, he found a prisoner in Morevna's cellar."

"Koschei. Bound with twelve chains like in the myth", Arkady whispered, while the wind started howling and screaming above them.
Tatiana felt herself nod.

"Like in the myth", she said. "The prisoner begged Bessmertny- who did not have that name yet- to give him water. He was so thirsty. But Bessmertny was a cunning man. He knew that the man in chains was no man at all.

"So he struck a deal. He would bring him water, freeing the chained man, only on one condition: Koschei should lift him and his family in a status high enough that one they, he could marry a Princess.

"Koschei agreed. And as Bessmertny brought him the twelth cup of water, the deathless sorcerer broke his chains and returned to his old power.
As he stood there, more shadow than man, he promised:
"I will make you a noble man and your grandchildren's children will marry a Princess. But as your title is mine, she will be mine too. Therefore, her son will be your tribute to me."
Then, the sorcerer vanished.
With that the noble house of Bessmertny was born."

Apruptly, Tatiana's lips closed, she shook her head, than grabbed Arkady's hand and  marshed off towards home.
They did not speak again that night.

Arkady thought about the golden comb that always laid on Count Bessmertny's nightstand. They said that it once had belonged to Arkady's mother - the Princess Avdotya Golitsyna.

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It was a miracle that Petritsky was not dead - pushed from the top of the fortress, shot in his stupid grin or skinned alive by Krassotkin himself. Luckily, the kapitan had been frozen by  burning rage. Long enough for Arkady to grab Petritsky by his arms and drag him out of Lovushka.

"What were you thinking?" Arkady hissed as he dragged the limping and only half-conscious man down a forest path towards the bottom of the valley. "It was completely irresponsible!"

Petritsky only blinked at him and smiled.
"But it was so much fun!"

Arkady knew he should not be angry with Petritsky. Under normal circumstances, he might have laughed with his comrade. But now he could not. His mind was plagued by the monster of last night, by the sight of Petritsky's empty bed and the worries gnawing on his soul. Only so he could find out that Petritsky had spent the night drinking himself nearly to death.

They finally stopped after the forest path opened into a small glade. Still, Arkady could barely see anything, for it was covered in the steam of hot spring, natural for this area. He could hear the water gurgling.

And as Petritsky stood there on the shore, unbottoning his shirt and starting to undress, Arkady snapped:
"Fun? I nearly died last night. You could have died last night. One man did indeed die last night. Don't you see what is happening? How- How can you just stand there, drink and laugh and pretend this is all just some game of cards?"

He was still speaking when Petritsky did not only drop his shirt, but also his pants.

Cheeks burning with shame, Arkady looked away.

For a moment, Petritsky remained silent.
But as he spoke, the joy in his voice was gone.
"You ask whether I see what is happening, but maybe I have already seen too much." Petristky clicked his tongue in disgust. "I have witnessed the death of this priest- officer that came before you. I have witnessed Krassotkin's horror. How he burns and kills and tortures. Every night, I hear the screams of the tormented ones locked up in this fortress. I drink and smoke so I forget. If only for a brief moment."

"The tormented ones in this fortress", Arkady repeated. "The- The drekavac? You've heard it, too?"

"What? No." Petritsky shook his head. "There are humans in these walls, my pretty friend. Krassotkin's spoils of war."

"His spoils of war?"

"He has special men to get them. The ones he trusts, I suppose. And for some reason, the kapitan has not yet succumbed to my charms." He only managed a weak smile before his face hardened again.
"They are mostly girls. Only god knows why he needs them. Or why he needs so many. I've never seen one come to the surface again. And trust me, I've been here for a long while, Arkasha."

Arkady bit his lower lip.
"You- You must be joking. You are still delirious! I should fetch you some cold water. Something to eat, maybe."

Petritsky opened his mouth as if to protest, only to shut it immediately.
Something changed in his face. He uprightened himself a little as if he had just heard something.

There it was!
Finally, Arkady heard it, too. A faint melody, soft and quiet like virgin snow. Only a faint voice, yet sweeter than any of Tatiana's honeycakes.

Petristky's lips twisted into a smile as his eyes found something in the distance- yet, Arkady could only see steam.

Smiling, Petristky made the first step into the hot water.
"My my, I always knew the Circassian beauty was a foreign one, but I did not expect that. Nevertheless, I am the last man to complain."

"Wait- What are you-"

It was already too late. Petritsky was shoulder deep into the water and strolled into the mist.
With horror, Arkady realised that he did not only wander deeper and deeper into the pool, he was pulled by something like a puppet on a string.

Arkady threw away his jacket and abandoned his heavy pistol. In a fit of panic, he followed Petritsky into the water, only armed with his shirt, trousers and his thin officer's sabre in one hand.
The fabric on his chest was immediately damp as he entered the steam.

"Petritsky!", he shouted and heard a splash. Finally, he saw the shape of the other officer.
He was standing there, where the water was high enough to reach his chin  and stretched one hand out to something- no someone- on a rock in the middle of the lake.

In an instant, Arkady froze.
He remembered Tatiana and her stories about the rusalkas all too well.
Beautiful women living in lakes and rivers, spirits of water themselves after they had drowned, and combing their long hair.
Yet, one should not underestimate them - or one could find themselves  at the bottom of a lake, never to be seen again.
This one sitting on the stone was naked and yes, it resembled a woman - but only somehow.
Her beauty had paled, even if there probably had been one, only ravenous hunger. He saw it in her gritted, sharp teeth, he saw it in her burning eyes, he saw it in her hollow chest. The chest of a starved being.
But now she had found something to satiate her. Petritsky.

She lifted her claws for one final strike. To drag him deep beneath the surface. In the next seconds, Petristky would be a drowned man.

"No", Arkady screamed with the entirety of his soul, but he was too far away, Petristky too far gone-

Arkady's voice hit the rusalka like a whip.
She let out a scream that cut into his marrow, then her gaze fixed on him. Her eyes pierced Arkady, then, she hissed and disappeared into the water with a splash.
What had she even been doing here? Here, in this part of the world?

He barely cared. The young noble swam to Petritsky as quickly as he could.
As he saw the man there in the water, his skin was as pale as a corpse's and his eyes were widened in horror.
It was as if Arkady had lifted a spell that had been put on him.

The two of them dragged each other to the shore, spitting lake water and crawling on their knees. They were soaked in mud, water and their own sweat.
With limbs like warm butter, Arkady gasped, greedily sucking in every breath of cold air, and raised his eyes - only to stare directly in the barrel of a gun and the face of a Circassian.

Behind him, he heard a familiar voice snarl:
"What do we have here? The young lord with his pretty face, wet and half naked?"