There was only darkness. At first she thought she was back at Esopia, but there were no other dragons looming before her here.
Instead, she was standing at a crossroads. Above her head, multiple signposts pointed in all directions, though there was nothing else to be seen on the horizon but the ever-present night.
Tala looked up at the signposts—all wooden and rotting, like they had been there for hundreds of years. She read the faded words on each.
GO EAST, AND FIND A PRINCE’S SOUL.
GO WEST, AND FIND A DRAGON’S CURE.
GO NORTH, AND FIND YOUR PUNISHMENT.
GO SOUTH, AND FIND A KINGDOM’S RUIN.
“What is all that supposed to mean?” Tala asked aloud, irritated. She was done with riddles. She was done with having to figure out what prophecies meant. Her Makiling abilities meant that she wasn’t supposed to be beholden to any, and yet here she was.
Agimat felt reassuring in her hand. If she had lost her blade somehow, she wasn’t sure what she would have done next.
A prince’s soul. Surely that meant Alex?
And where did they even point to? There were no roads here, and the ground was so black that she couldn’t see where she was treading. The vastness of Buyan stretched on for miles. Was a curse placed on the land itself? she wondered. The Snow Queen had certainly thought her home would be as pristine as when she’d left, that it would at least be habitable.
Unless this wasn’t Buyan at all.
She took a step toward the east.
A young boy lay huddled on the ground beside her before she could take another. His knees were drawn up to his face, and he was shivering rapidly. He also looked familiar.
“Are you okay?” Tala asked, reaching for him.
Her hand passed effortlessly through the boy’s blond hair. The boy didn’t notice her and continued to sob.
“You cannot stay here,” another voice said. Tala turned, only to realize that the words weren’t directed at her. A woman stepped out from the darkness, knelt down beside the sobbing child. A hood covered her hair, and she looked younger, but there was no mistaking the old woman who worked at Simeli Mountain—Messinda, the former Baba Yaga.
The young boy—it was Alex—shrank back at the sight of her.
The woman shook her head. “I’m not the Snow Queen, boy. And if you don’t want to die at her hands, then you must hurry and come with me.”
“She hurt Father,” Alex whispered.
“I know, darling. And we shall make sure she doesn’t hurt anyone in your family again, least of all you.” The woman pulled the boy along, and Tala followed. She’d hardly taken two steps before the scenery around them changed again, and they were now back at Maidenkeep, this time standing before the Nine Maidens. “Follow my instructions carefully,” the old woman said, guiding Alex up the platform and into the center of the towering spelltech. “Think of winter, boy. Think of the frost, of everything in Avalon swallowed up by it. Imagine it spreading across your kingdom.”
“But why?” Alex asked, shivering. “Isn’t that bad?”
“It sounds like it would be, but this is to protect your people.”
“Won’t they die?”
“Not if you use this.” The woman rapped at the side of one of the Nine Maidens’ columns. “It will protect everyone from the Snow Queen. She hates warmth, you see. She despises the sun. And once she sees that everything has been covered in frost, she will leave you and your people well alone. Can you try?”
The boy lifted his small shoulders. “I can,” he said, and he sounded a lot more like the Alex Tala loved.
“In shifting ice a prince you’ll kiss,” the Baba Yaga said, “and the first shall be forgiven. The sword rises twice from palace stone, and the second shall be forgiven. Pledge your love to the blackest flag, and the third shall be forgiven. And then, my dear, and only then, shall you lift that which was forbidden. Remember these words, boy, for they shall save your life one day. Now, go and think of the frost, and save your people.”
And then the boy and the old woman were gone, and in their place stood Alex as he was now, with the Nine Maidens surrounding him, imbuing him with their magic—far too much magic, far more spells than he could possibly hold on his own. And as Tala looked on, terrified, she saw the magic warping him, withering his bones as if determined to suck the very life out of him until there was nothing left but a husk.
“No!” She leaped, passed through his form like she was the ghost, like he was the one real thing in this place and not her. She tried again but with the same results. Alex burned before her, and she could do nothing but sob as he was rendered into ash.
And then she was back, staring blankly back up at the signposts like she hadn’t taken that first step.
“No,” she said again and then took a step in the opposite direction, toward the sign that talked of a dragon’s cure. There was another shift, and this time the dragons they had encountered in Esopia lay dying, mutilated, their chests torn.
A version of her stood over them, weeping, distressed, with a bloody heart clutched in her hands, and Tala realized what she had done.
Your species have hunted us for eons, our heads for trophies, our wings for spells. You use our hearts to destroy your own kind in battles we never wanted.
She took a step back in horror, and the vision around her dimmed and disappeared, leaving her alone with the signposts once more.
“This isn’t real,” she said aloud and took a step southbound.
Now she was in Avalon, but at the same time, she wasn’t. Nothing remained of the castle or of the surrounding city. What lay before her were smoking ruins—nothing she could identify as the kingdom she’d grown to love.
But she knew the Snow Queen’s mark. The cold wind that blew over the now-desolate landscape carried with it faint sounds of the woman’s laughter. Whatever Buyan magic powered this spell, she knew it was showing her what it would look like if they lost.
She planted her feet north.
Here was another version of herself, weak and bleeding, fighting the Snow Queen. Through the haze of battle, she watched as she finally cut the woman down with Agimat, only to fall over herself moments later, breathing her last mere seconds after her opponent did.
She forced herself to move to where her body lay, kneeling down beside it. Even in death, grief and anger were still evident on her doppelgänger’s face.
She reached out tentatively with one hand. This time, her fingers connected with flesh. Her body was still warm, her wounds still damp with blood, still trickling out of her.
“Is that it?” Tala asked aloud, to herself and to no one at all. “Are these the only options I have left? Sacrifice myself, or sacrifice everything else?”
Her corpse faded, and the signpost that remained provided her with no other answers. The winds had gone.
But with their absence came a bird’s song. It was loud in the vastness of all this empty space, and Tala spun, trying to figure out where it came from. It echoed around her, its melody sad yet hopeful all at once.
Tala took out her tamatebako, now gleaming with a soft shimmery light, as if whatever was inside was bright enough to pulse through the wood.
It opened easily in her hands, this time without any urging from her.
The music burst forth from the box; within it, a shadow spread its wings and chirped. Tala felt something heavy and familiar settle on her head, though there was nothing she could see. “I missed you,” she said, and the adarna cooed again.
The tamatebako tucks a part of your soul away, the lady of the Ryugu-jo had said, to bring out when all else seems lost.
Dexter talking. Schlemihl’s theory about the tamatebako was that it’s possible to use it to house part of a person’s soul to revive them after death, but only Buyan technology has ever been successful at it.
The adarna’s music continued, and Agimat responded. As Tala watched, it began to split into two distinct weapons—arnis sticks. Both lengthened and took on the solidness of hammered steel, designs flaring out on one side of each that soon resembled bird’s wings similar to the adarna’s but with a tinge of gold.
She felt stronger. The constant jostling of thoughts in her head that whispered and cajoled her to wield the sword against Avalon’s will whenever she tried to use it had finally fallen silent.
Wonderingly, Tala studied her new Agimat and then turned to the signpost, now knowing what she should do.
The sticks cleaved effortlessly through the post, the wood splintering from the force. The darkness around her shattered as if she had been standing within a mirror, and this time it was a very different spelltech that stood a few meters away.
It looked so very different from the Nine Maidens. Where the Nine Maidens’ columns had been slender and smooth, this was an asymmetrical mishmash of obsidian spikes and protrusions that turned it into no known shape, only vaguely cylindrical. Magic was crackling all around it, as if it had already been activated, so Tala retreated to what she hoped was a safe distance.
It was taller as well, perhaps a hundred feet, and shot up into the sky above—
There was a sky above her now, just as blue as it was back in Avalon. She was in a forest again, though much more overgrown and denser than the one in Wonderland. The Alatyr—for surely this was the Alatyr—had not been well tended. Vines twisted along its irregular corners and grew over the platform it stood on. Moss grew along its base.
“Was this all a test?” Tala asked aloud and, as expected, received no answer.
She wondered where the old palace of Buyan was, where Koschei had once ruled. Save for the mirror and the Alatyr itself, there was no other indication that the place had ever been inhabited by humans. There was no stonework lying about that would have suggested the foundations of a castle. All she could see was the woods.
Yet even without other spelltech around, the Alatyr was dangerous on its own. The magic sparking off its surface was more than Tala had ever sensed from the Nine Maidens. Avalon had chosen restraint over unchecked magic when they had crafted their spelltech. They had feared a repeat of Buyan’s folly. Tala could see why Avalon would not want the Alatyr unleashed on the world.
But if the Nine Maidens had been built in the Alatyr’s image, then Buyan’s spelltech, too, would have to be controlled and directed. Koschei had lost his humanity with every use, and that had eventually corrupted him. Tala wasn’t sure she wanted to be the one to follow in his footsteps.
The shadow adarna on her head had fallen silent. Tala poked at it cautiously. Her hand passed through the shade like it wasn’t even there. “We’re going to have to hunt for your corporeal form once this is over,” she muttered. It chirruped again. She’d never even noticed that the adarna had lost its shadow after the Ryugu-jo.
There was a mirror beside the Alatyr, easily the biggest she’d ever seen—twenty feet tall and ten feet wide. Most of the glass was missing, though there were no shards littering the ground. Mirrors often had a distinct feel to them, a taste of smoke and heat that told Tala they were used for portals, for traveling. This was different. It was hard to describe, but it was like sampling something that shouldn’t have had that flavor, like bread suddenly tasting like fish for no reason.
It felt like the Deathless curse.
This was the mirror that the Snow Queen used to enthrall her victims. She had collected enough of its pieces to bring back with her before Buyan had disappeared, enough to have used it frequently over the centuries.
Tala returned to the problem of the Alatyr. The Nine Maidens had been configured in such a way that only those from the Tsarevich bloodline could use it, and she wasn’t sure if the Alatyr had been set the same way, if only Koschei’s descendants could control it.
But she didn’t have a spell-negating agimat for nothing.
She could die. That had been very clear to see in the visions.
The adarna hopped off her head, but its shadow hovered close to Tala. Agimat gripped tightly in one hand, Tala began to circle the stone monument, probing for anything within its spell-riddled surface that could give her an opening, any weak point that could provide her with an idea of what to do next.
She dodged on instinct, avoided an icy projectile that swooped past her and shattered harmlessly against the obsidian. She raised her sword just in time to parry the Snow Queen’s second blow, jumping back to put more space between her and her unexpected foe.
The Alatyr flared to life without warning. Tala saw something emerging from the remains of the mirror, heard the playing flute. She stepped back, horrified, as a figure in black stepped out, garbed in the same black armor and sword she’d seen inside the Ryugu-jo.
Koschei.
“You hate him,” she choked out. “Why would you—”
“I needed him to complete the portal into Buyan,” the Snow Queen said, triumphant. “I killed him before, and I can do it again. But none of you will leave here alive!”
Tala’s arnis stick struck back at the Snow Queen’s ice sword, and the other swung to catch her unaware by the knee. The Snow Queen was used to proper swordfights and seemed at first highly unequipped to deal with fighting against two weapons, though she soon rallied.
There was no one else to watch them fight. Ice climbed up the trees wherever the Snow Queen missed, bursts of unraveling magic suspended in the air causing small earthquakes when their weapons drew too near. There was a desperation to the Snow Queen’s fighting now that Tala hadn’t seen previously; she had lost her Deathless, and she was being painted into a corner as the Avalon forces gained ground. More importantly, the Snow Queen had lost Kay Warnock for good. The Alatyr was her last recourse.
“You could have been my daughter,” the woman rasped, no longer cold and emotionless but anguished. “We could have made the world better together.”
“Reviving your tyrant father is not my idea of making the world better.”
“And you think your king, with his history of traitorous ancestors, can do any better?”
“Probably not,” Tala said wearily. “You think my little corner of the world is unimportant. But we are all here, fighting for our right to have our own little corners because they matter to us.”
Another ball of ice came hurtling toward them. It missed Tala completely and crashed into the Snow Queen, sending her skidding away.
Ryker was already channeling another sphere of ice to lob. “How did you get here?” Tala shouted at him, stunned.
“I was close enough to get sucked into Buyan without meaning to.”
“I should have let you die that day,” the Snow Queen told him, venomous.
“Not too long ago, I would have wished you had. But I’ve learned to like myself a little better since.” Ryker dodged another icicle, moving away from Tala so that the Snow Queen was forced to defend herself on two opposing fronts. “Stop this, Mother. You know you can’t win.”
“You no longer have the right to call me Mother, ever again. And after all I’ve done for you, you ungrateful boy!”
Ryker moved again, and Tala saw that he was once again wearing the thrall collar. “I don’t owe you anything,” he said. “You never cared for me. I was only there to aid your plans. That’s not what family does.”
“How would you know what family does?” the Snow Queen shrieked. “My own father used me as an experiment! He kept me alive only because I could revive him if necessary! I gave you the world! I gave you power without demanding fealty like I had done with my other maidens! I looked at you as the son I never had, and you betrayed me just like all the others!”
“I never betrayed you, Mother,” Ryker said, anguished. “I was trying to save you.”
Tala saw then what Ryker was doing; he had angled himself far enough away so that the Snow Queen’s ire was now fully focused on him, so that she would not notice the small portal that was steadily growing near where the Alatyr stood. Alex, she thought, using Ryker’s collar to track them.
But the relief was short-lived. As if finally sensing the magical disturbance, the Snow Queen’s eyes darted to the growing port, rage twisting her features. The now fully formed Koschei was already striding toward the opening, his great sword prepared to thrust through it.
Tala wasn’t close enough to stop him, but she was close enough to the Alatyr to adopt a new strategy. She threw herself onto one of the columns and plunged Agimat right into the rock.
And then she was someplace else entirely again.
It felt like she was shuffling through several different lives in only a moment, all flashing before her eyes. She saw dragons there, teaching men the ways of magic. She saw them building the Alatyr. She saw them using the Alatyr to try and make the lives of those around them better, eventually giving up their own in the same way countless Avalon rulers had—their strength sapped and poisoned by magic beyond what their physical bodies could withstand. Some died abruptly; many succumbed after long, agonizing illnesses.
She saw noble leaders, frustrated by the constant sacrifices expected of them, using the Alatyr for other purposes—for immortality, for power—until in the end, those were the only things they remembered to want. She saw Koschei, the last of that line, falling under that same spell.
Not all sacrifices are willing, the dragon had said. Koschei had sacrificed others in his place. Tala watched as good men fell, many who opposed his reign, others even more innocent. She watched his daughter turn to Avalon in the hope of saving him still. She saw how the Snow Queen had killed her father herself, dooming Buyan forever even as she wept in Kay’s arms. Tala could feel the woman’s loss, her anguish and her guilt like they were her own.
Tala was not Koschei’s descendant, but something in her Agimat had broken through, like a wrench had been thrown into the cogs to stop a machine from working, disrupting it long enough for the Alatyr to blaze into life before them all and—
Oh.
Was this how Alex felt every time he commanded the Nine Maidens? Like everything that was powerful and grand was right at his fingertips, like he could spin the world on a different axis if he wanted to? Tala was used to magic having little effect on her; to suddenly be its conduit, to be at the center of the most powerful thing in the universe, capable of doing anything within the realms of her own imagination—it was a stunning, exhilarating place to be.
Self-preservation took over then, and she pushed the magic away out of instinct.
“Look out!” she heard someone shout, and she turned just in time to hear a heavy, very sickening thunk, like a knife going through bone.
Ryker stumbled back, and Tala saw the icicle that had been shoved through him when he jumped in front of her, protecting her from the Snow Queen’s strike.