DARJA
These idiots.
These narcissistic, arrogant, ignorant fools. Every last one of them so focused on wishing some fairy tale into existence they couldn’t see the devastation in front of their faces.
They would see it though. Soon.
“On stage,” I growled to Sofi. “Now.”
Sofi nodded and pushed past her mother and Eliise Tam, who stood there stupidly, not even trying to stop her. Behind us, I could hear Stephen and Jared arguing, but I couldn’t be bothered to care. Let them figure it out.
Sofi climbed the steps that led onto the stage as her mother and Eliise finally moved to where our father lay crumpled on the ground. I couldn’t care about him, either. It was less than he deserved.
I phased up to the stage and took my place next to Sofi. Her hair fell in wild tangles over her shoulders and tear tracks streaked down her face, but her jaw was set and her shoulders were straight and strong. She strode toward the mic and flicked it on, ignoring the squeal of feedback that cut through the milling crowd.
They turned questioning gazes up toward the stage, and I wondered if they were surprised not to see their fearless leader coming to console them.
“You’ve been tricked,” Sofi said, without any introduction. “Your beliefs and your superstitions are real. But they will kill you. If you don’t stop this—stop the magic—you’ll be dead before you ever see a harvest.”
There was a rumble of outrage from the townspeople, mingled with outright laughter from a few.
“My father is not who you think he is. The magic is not some gift to you from our ancestors, to do with as you please. Until now, you thought it was a myth.” Sofi’s voice cracked, but she carried on. “But you went on with the rituals anyway. You murdered innocent girls, even when you thought the magic was a made-up story. You killed…for what?”
A cry of protest went up from the crowd, but Sofi shook her head. “You have blood on your hands. All of you.”
“They were willing,” came a woman’s voice from the back of the gathered townspeople. “They chose this.”
Sofi scoffed. “Did they? Are you certain?”
Several women in the crowd nodded. A few looked frightened, but most were just bewildered or angry.
“Why don’t we ask one of them?”
Sofi looked to me and I nodded at her. A hush fell over the townspeople. In spite of their outrage, they couldn’t help themselves. They wanted to see more magic.
Disgusted, I reached my hand out to Sofi as we spoke the visibility spell in unison. The magic, angry and raw, had ebbed after Mirtel and Aggie’s spell, but I could feel it again, jittering up through my feet and humming across the bond Sofi and I shared. I could also feel the remnants of the magic the two of them had called up when working their spell. I grasped at it, too, pulling it into me and adding to the energy Sofi and I were drawing up. We’d never cast the spell on more than one person, and I knew it was going to take some effort. Together, we opened our arms wide, as if bringing the crowd into an embrace.
We raised our voices together to finish the spell, and a gasp went up from the crowd. It had worked, then.
“See,” Sofi said into the mic, gesturing at me. “See what your rituals have done. This is Darja…my sister.”
The crowd erupted in chaos.
“Yes,” Sofi snarled, “it’s her. The girl you murdered in the name of your religion. And she wasn’t the first. Not by a long shot. Darja,” she said, looking over to me. “Were you a willing sacrifice?”
I laughed mirthlessly. “Not even close,” I said, and my voice elicited more gasps and shouts from the crowd. “I was drugged. I was taken from the koolis and brought to the ceremony against my will. They put me on the pyre, and they let me burn.”
I looked out into the crowd, meeting as many eyes as I could. Most of them quickly shifted their gaze. “You let me burn.”
I could hear more dissent coming from the townspeople, excuses and explanations, all of them meaningless. Just as I was about to speak again, I saw a figure approaching from the side of the stage.
“It’s all true.” Ms. Kross shouted her words as she dashed to my side. “I gave her the drugs. I put her in the car, and I marched her into the fire. I let this happen.” She paused for a moment, gasping over sudden sobs that shook her shoulders. “I made this happen,” she finally said, her voice hoarse and thick with tears.
“Amazing.” We all whirled around at the voice, soft and calm, even reverent. Eliise had made her way back onto the stage, Sofi’s mom hovering right behind her.
“Darja,” she said, stepping closer and raising her arms toward me, “what a gift you have given this town. Your sacrifice brought our magic back to us.”
I shook my head, too dumbfounded to speak, but Eliise continued on, turning first to the crowd. “I’d like to ask the younger members of our town to defer their questions for now. I’m sure this is a very confusing time. Your families will be able to explain once we’ve got this resolved. There is nothing to fear.” She turned back to me then. “And that’s because of you, Darja. You gave us back our birth-right. And we know now, why it worked this time.”
The crowd waited with baited breath. They apparently did not know why it had worked.
“It must have worked because you weren’t given a choice. The blood sacrifice must be made out of pain, out of betrayal. All the others—they gave their lives willingly to our cause, but we didn’t know then that their gift of life could not raise the magic. I am sorry, my child, that you had to go through this horror, but your death has brought new life to all of Vaikesti.”
The crowd began to cheer. I watched, disgusted, as several women fell to their knees, their arms raised in reverence. Some were weeping. Others began to pray in the old tongue.
“Bullshit,” I shouted, and I could feel the air pulse around me. “None of them were willing. None.”
“Now, Darja,” Eliise began. There was a smile on her face, but her eyes were sharp and piercing. “You weren’t there when the others made their sacrifice. How could you know? The Ceremony has been one of Vaikesti’s dearest, most protected secrets for decades. I can see how you might think that—”
“I don’t think anything,” I bit out. “You’re murderers! All of you. And the last time it worked, she wasn’t willing either. She wasn’t—”
“The last time?” Eliise cut in sharply. “You mean it’s worked before?”
I couldn’t control the feeling that surged up inside me. And I couldn’t begin to explain to her what Aggie and Mirtel had done—what they had given up—to save these ungrateful sycophants.
Sofi was looking between us worriedly. I knew she could sense the magic that was building in me, knew she understood that I was on the precipice of doing something we couldn’t take back. I also knew she wanted it, too.
“They have to learn,” I said to her between gritted teeth.
“Are you sure?” she asked me in a hushed voice. I nodded.
“They have to understand what they’ve done.”
I raised my hand and the binder rushed toward me in a whoosh. I caught it deftly and then pushed it out between us, hovering in the air, pages flapping until it landed on the one I wanted. The one I’d seen at the lake house, but hadn’t pointed out because it seemed too extreme. Too punishing.
“This one,” I muttered to Sofi, and she nodded.
In front of us, the crowd was coming out of its stupor. Most were watching the scene play out before them eagerly, too stupid to understand what was about to happen. They stood there like cattle to the slaughter. Electricity crackled in the air around me. I lowered my hands, palms down toward the ground, and drew in as much magic as I could. The sky darkened as heavy clouds gathered. The sunny day turned to twilight, cloaked in shadow.
“Girls,” Eliise said warningly. Her voice was light, but I could hear the strain beneath it. “I don’t think we need to—”
“Oh, we need to,” I said, drawing up more magic than I’d ever held before. Lightning shot through the sky, and a rumble of thunder silenced the murmurs of the crowd.
I thought of Mirtel, of what she had been through, forced to exist as an outsider among her own people, a victim of their selfishness and recklessness. Branded the town crazy lady, shunned and cast aside, when all the time, the magic lived in her. It lived in her because Aggie had died.
Aggie had…
The clouds burst then, a downpour of rain beating against the people of Vaikesti, who did nothing but watch on, wide-eyed and awed. Frightened, maybe, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
I would give them something to fear.
“Darja,” Sofi said, and I nodded at her.
“Now,” I said, bringing the book closer.
“Now,” she echoed, and we began to chant.
There was power inside me, flowing between us, building like a storm as we recited the spell, building to a crescendo as I looked out over the townspeople—the people who had taken my life, and the lives of two of the people I most cared about—and I screamed the final word in a whirlwind of fury and rage.
Lightning split the sky and the rain fell like a curtain of iron as the magic erupted from us in a roar that shook the very earth. Eliise stumbled to her knees, and to my right, Ms. Kross held on tightly to the PA speaker. I couldn’t make out much in the crowd, but I could hear the screams of hysteria and confusion.
The magic flowed out of us for another moment, and then it was gone, leaving me completely hollow. No more anger. No more vengeance. There was nothing inside but emptiness.
Sofi wavered as the magic ebbed, holding onto the mic stand to keep her footing. The clouds still lingered, but the rain stopped. There was no more electricity in the air. Just a smell of ozone and ash.
The crowd was in chaos. I glanced at the wooden boxes and saw the plants they had grown had all withered to brown husks, the boxes themselves singed black along the edges. And in front of us—the field was charred and gray, not a blade of grass or a wildflower spared, as far as the eye could see.
We had done it. The land that Vaikesti was built on—the land that built Vaikesti—was dead. The blight had spread farther than I could have imagined, turning the rolling hills of farmland in all directions a sickly shade of gray, as the newly emerged crops wilted, shrunken and stunted.
The land was destroyed. The town was in devastation. They would not recover.
I smiled.