Rise of the Firebird (7 page)

“In that time, Yanka was clever and humorous and was more than happy to help the Illumination. After we had traded information with her, I often went back to Skazki. I could be myself with her and she soon became my confidant, my lover and my best friend. I, in my blinded foolishness, told her about all the things on my mind that were troubling me about the Álfr and about the magic that I was learning. She listened to it all with an open heart and a seemingly good soul.”

“I knew something terrible had happened in her past and occasionally I would see a faint glimmer of darkness that lay beneath. By this time, she’d already planted Vasilli in the Tsar’s court. She never told me she had a child.”

“Even the Illumination had no idea that she had Vasilli,” interrupted Ruthann. “None of their spies in Skazki ever reported it.” Anya sipped more wine as nervous butterflies beat in her stomach. She wished she’d sat next to Yvan so at least she had someone’s hand to hold and calm her down. Instead, she was sitting next to Søren, whose face had gone stone cold with his jaw clenched tight.

“I went backwards and forward to see Yanka for many years. I began to sense the darkness and anger growing inside of her. It worried and frightened me. She began to speak of it inside of her and the blackness that was creeping in. She spoke of blacking out for huge periods of time and waking up covered in blood with no idea at what she’d done. I had heard of Álfr marking and how an Álfr could put a piece of their soul into another being. Of course, I knew such things were forbidden without the council’s approval. I had to try because what made her Yanka was slowly slipping away from me. I convinced her to come with me to visit the Álfr. She was already one of the Powers, so an
elvianth
should’ve been easy to perform on her. Or so I thought.”

“To begin with, her time among the Álfr was joyous. She took lessons with our various elders to help learn more about her magic. It was of a darker strain, like Søren’s, and these teachers helped explain it to her. They also worked on eradicating her dark moods and I thought she was improving.”

“So if she was so great, then why did you all hate her?” Anya interrupted.

“Because,” said Søren, cutting Aramis off, “she was feeding our knowledge to aid the Darkness. She wasn’t changing at all. She used Aramis and his infatuation with her to spy and steal from us. When it became clear that Aramis couldn’t put an
elvianth
on her, she tried to escape. She succeeded, but only through murder, and Aramis left the Álfr to hunt her down. It had all been an act with her. Aramis was to bring her back to face justice for the murder she committed but he still thought that she could been saved from the madness that was eating its way through her. She was always one step ahead of him.” Søren couldn’t hide the sneer or anger in his voice as he continued, “Eventually, I found her before he did. The Álfr leaders had agreed to a pact between Vasya Melenko and us. We didn’t know how to kill Yanka because she was one of the Powers, but we could trap her. I knew that Aramis would never give up on his idiotic search for her or his equally idiotic quest to try making her good once more. We showed him a corpse of a woman, one that Yanka had burned alive when we were capturing her.”

“I left the Álfr,” Aramis spoke over him. “I gave up being
Dauđi Dómr
and worked with the Illumination in the hope that I could atone for not being able to save Yanka from herself. I hoped I could save others. When I learned that she was still alive, I felt like I could finally alleviate my guilt by making her well again.”

“You couldn’t to begin with,” Søren’s voice was a soft snarl. “You were beyond a fool to think that she could be magically turned good now. If there had been a way to kill her, I would have done it long ago. Your feelings for her be damned.” He stood up abruptly and stalked off through the trees.

“Do not think less of Søren,” said Aramis with his head bowed. “He has every right to be furious with me.”

“Why?” Anya asked when the rest of the people at the table remained silent.

“The murder that we spoke of Yanka committing was Søren’s wife. She was in the wrong place and when she tried to convince Yanka not to leave, Yanka killed her and…and their unborn child.” Anya felt the crushing weight of Trajan’s death at Yanka and Vasilli’s hands all over again. That Yanka had inflicted this same pain on Søren made anger burn through her.

“I’m sorry, I have to go after him,” she mumbled. No one called out or tried to stop her. It was no wonder that he was so angry with Aramis. As she walked, she felt whatever compassion or mercy she still had for Yanka and Vasilli burn away. How could they all share the same blood and be so different?

Anya came to a small clearing that lit up with tiny lights as soon as she stepped into it. A tree stood in the middle of it and was heavy with small white flowers. They floated softly in the air as a light breeze lifted them from their branches. It looked very similar to a cherry blossom tree, and the flowers delicate, sweet scent filled the air where they fell. Anya smiled in delight as the little blossoms drifted through the air and settled on her. She spun and twirled, sending them sprinkling around her.

“She loved them too,” Søren’s voice broke the moment and Anya stumbled in surprise.

“Yanka?”

“No, Väliä, my wife.” He stood metres from her, his fists clenched into angry balls.

“I could never understand why you hated me so much when we first met. Now I do. I’m so sorry, Søren.”

“I did hate you. I wanted to taunt and terrify you as much as I could. I would’ve killed you if they had let me because I’ve killed her in my dreams over and over again,” he admitted as he slowly walked toward her.

“And now?” Anya asked in a whisper. Her heart was pounding hard in her chest from the fear that he’d still want to carry out all that he spoke.

“You are not her, so it would be wrong to take my revenge on you. Besides, you have every cause to hate her as much as I do.” He reached over and began to pick the white blossoms from her hair.

“I hope you don’t think I’m going to betray you or the Álfr like she did. I will leave here this minute if you do.”

“Calm down, I
know
you are nothing like her. I knew after your first visit among us. Ruthann looked into your mind and saw no deception in you. If I have made you feel unwelcome or uncomfortable, I apologise.”

“Having someone walking around that looks like the person you hate can’t be easy.”

“I’m starting not to notice it as much. You have a completely different soul and way about you. You are capable of love. It shines out of you sometimes. The way you are with my brother, the way you want to take away his and everyone else’s pain away, even if you don’t realise it. That’s why you came after me tonight. You wanted to try to alleviate what I’m feeling. If nothing else, that makes you a completely different being to Yanka. You wear all your emotions on the surface. You are guileless.” Anya stepped back from him and sat on the ground among the fallen flowers.

“Your words mean a lot to me,” she said, twisting the blossoms between her fingers. “I worry that I’ll end up like her, and that I will give up the fight the way she did. I worry that I won’t be able to stop her and that she’ll kill everyone I love until I join with her.” Søren lowered himself next to her.

“That will not happen,
Elenya
. You’ll never be like her. The people who you have around you will make sure of it. They will stand by your side and defend you, though it is you that will end up saving us all. We didn’t have you last time. This time, we can do it.” He took her face with his hands so that she would look into his eyes and said, “We’ll stop her once and for all. I swear, we’ll have our revenge for the pain she has caused.”

Anya felt magic and emotion mingle and move toward her face where he touched her. Her power flowed into him and for once, she didn’t try to stop it. Søren’s own magic rose to meet hers and tangled around it. His eyes went wide as she placed her hands over his and black threads of magic came out of them and moved around his arms. Anya didn’t know how she was doing it or how she could stop it. Unlike the time she’d accidentally linked with him in New Orleans, she wasn’t terrified.

“How are you doing this?” he asked breathlessly.

“I don’t know. Don’t be afraid.” She sent her power into his body, much as she had done with Aramis. Memories swarmed her and she glimpsed a woman with rich black, curling hair laughing as Søren twirled her amongst the same flowers they now sat in. There was the warm light of love in her eyes as he brought her close and kissed her. Anya pulled out of his head quickly and opened her eyes. The threads of magic had disappeared.

“I shouldn’t be here,” she said and quickly let him go. “I shouldn’t be in this place ruining your memories that you lock so tightly in your heart.”

“She wouldn’t have minded. She loved this place and she wouldn’t deny its beauty to anyone. Selfishness wasn’t in her nature.”

Despite his words, Anya still felt like she was intruding. She still could feel the all-encompassing, fierce intense love of both Søren and Väliä. Anya had loved Trajan but she suddenly felt like it was a pale thing compared to what she had just experienced. Søren’s eyes bored into her and she realised her cheeks were wet with tears.

“I don’t know what you saw or how you got into my head to begin with,” Søren said as he dropped his hands from her face, “but I trust you to keep it to yourself.” He got to his feet and backed away from her before melting into the trees.

Fox sat in the library sipping her coffee as she read off the glowing screen. It was well past midnight but she was still awake and on a roll. The last two days had been quiet. Nobody was speaking about what had been revealed to them at Ruthann’s dinner. Anya especially had gone into her shell. Fox wanted to stay out of everyone’s way.

All of Ilya’s prophecies had been scanned and dated in the computer, but Fox still liked her quiet corner of the library. The Álfr that she encountered in there knew the true meaning of silence and never bothered her.

Ilya wrote in a perfect copper plate hand. On the nights that had obviously been rushed, his writing was still legible. It was written half in English and half in Russian, so Fox was putting together a list of the more complicated paragraphs for Anya to translate for her. Some of the pages were journal entries. Others were full blown prophecies predicting cars, computers and nuclear weapons. Small sketches sometimes appeared in the margins and on scraps of paper. Fox caught herself thinking about what kind of man he had been. To be able to glimpse so much and not go crazy would’ve been hard work.

“You can’t sleep either then?” Fox looked up from the glowing screen as Anya’s faint outline appeared in the doorway.

“I’ve started reading all the documents and it’s more gripping than any novel,” Fox said as Anya sat in the empty chair beside her. “How are you holding up?”

“I can’t sleep without dreaming.” Anya twisted a large dented locket over and over in her hand.

“Trajan?”

“Sometimes, mostly Yanka killing everyone, but that’s my crazy imagination hard at work.”

“What’s that?” Fox asked, trying to think of a way to change the topic.

“I thought you might like this. I rescued it from the rubble of my farmhouse. It is Ilya.” She handed the locket to Fox who opened it carefully. Inside was a small painting of a man with long fair hair, a trim goatee, and grey green eyes.

“I can see where you get your killer cheekbones from,” Fox commented. “He’s pretty damn cute for a prophet. I thought he would have scraggly hair and be crazy looking.”

“He was pretty sane considering he was Yanka’s child,” Anya yawned and rubbed her eyes. “I wonder if he knew his mother was a psychopath.”

“I’m sure he did. I might find something written about her in all of this.”

“I doubt she would have stayed in the real world long. Long enough to make some poor farmer, who conveniently has gates to Skazki on his farm, fall in love with her. It wouldn’t surprise me if falling pregnant with Ilya really messed up her plans. He would’ve been dumped with his father and she would have disappeared back through the gates for good.”

“She’s ruthless enough to do something like that. He would have been an adorable kid to leave behind. Here’s hoping we can find the answers that we are looking for in all of this mess. He was a very smart guy to hand it over to the Álfr and he did it for a reason. Until we can find out, you can help me translate some of this.” Fox handed her a bunch of printouts and a pen.

“Are you missing home at all?” Anya asked as she began writing notes.

“I miss junk food and the shop. I haven’t been out of New Orleans for a while so this break will do me good. I get bitchy when I have nothing to do. It’s okay for the fitness freaks who can burn the boredom off in the gym.”

“You have plenty to keep you busy now, thanks to Søren,” Anya looked hesitant for a moment before turning her attention back to the printout.

“It was pretty cool of him to let you know all Ilya’s writings were here.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Can I ask what happened between you two the other night?”

“I accidentally fell into his head and saw something I shouldn’t have. He hasn’t spoken to me since and I haven’t tried to find him. I feel bad enough as it is that Yanka killed his wife. He absolutely loathes her and I’m a painful reminder. Besides,” she added with a mirthless laugh, “in the fucked up state of mind I am in at the moment, I would say the wrong thing and piss him off even more.”

“He’ll get over it. I know what it’s like to have someone jump into my head uninvited and I felt a bit violated. Give him a few days and he will come around.”

“Or he’ll try to kill me for being so presumptuous.”

“I doubt it. Despite his better judgement, he likes you. You might have scared him the other night. The first time Mama Lya jumped into my head, I felt like there was no safe place in the universe.”

“I didn’t mean to do it and what I saw… it was a beautiful memory, Fox.”

“It was a memory he must’ve had locked up and you reminded him of it. He has to deal with it again. It probably gave you a bit of a shock to see underneath that very cut, very cold exterior of his too.”