His tower was like a piece of hell. It bore almost no trace of Rhianon’s presence. And yet he hoped that somewhere in the gloomy corridors her azure train was about to flicker. He could almost see it. He wanted to see it. God and defeat had given him the gift of creating those illusions that colored his bleak world in bright but terrifying hues.

And now he imagined a hem woven with gold thread stretching over a cluster of black creatures crawling in disarray on the marble floor. Rhianon was above this chaos. A jumble of ghastly burned bodies, and bones must have been beneath her feet. And so was he. If she is even better than him, he belongs beneath her feet. He had forgotten his place. And now he was paying the price.

Madael violently knocked the gold cups filled with blood off the table. They rattled across the floor, scaring the infernal creatures away. The infected blood, and the blood that had been collected on the battlefield, stained the marble. Soon his servants would begin to lick it off, but for now they howled in agony, burned and hungry. Their hunger would not be satiated by a whole hackneyed army for lunch. In the winter, all his demons roamed the forests, tearing apart packs of wolves for meat. Hungrier than wolves they had fed on animals; now, with the blossoming of spring, they would need human flesh. Well, forward to the battlefield, he was ready. How many battles were not in the recent past, and he wanted more. His hunger for battle and death was now nothing to satisfy either. He wanted blood. Not to drink it, but at least to spill it, to see its color and destroy the pain inside him. He and God had once had an argument, violent and bloody, that continued to this day. Even defeated, he felt victorious in the contest. He was sure that since he was the most beautiful creature in the world, he had the upper hand. With the appearance of Rhianon, everything changed. As soon as he saw her, he knew he had to give up his pedestal. She was created as if in mockery of him. Yes, a more perfect creature than Dennitsa could illuminate even the human world with her presence. He is no longer the first. Praise the new dawn. It pained him at the sight of his own sunset. Even the angels in the heavens did not suffer for him as much as mortals rushed to die for the beautiful Rhianon. Truly she was a new lightning bolt, brighter than the former favorite of the god in the heavens. But she was created after him and in mockery of him. The god decided to replace him with someone else. Madael stubbornly refused to acknowledge the primacy of his own copy. She was only a reflection of him. She was a female parody of him, since on earth the most beautiful should be women, not men. There was no such distribution in heaven. There, everyone was equally as sexless. And no one fought for supremacy but him. The fairest among all, he found his followers. They, with the appearance of Rhianon, got the chance to see that their head was not and would not be the best and the only one. It was quite a tangible blow. Madael never suffered it. He followed the impostor everywhere, trying to find a single flaw in her, but he was only more convinced that she was better than him. Those who had thought him great could now die of fervor. His fallen angels had chosen him as their warlord, dazzled by his unique beauty and strength. They thought there was no one equal to him, and if so, they were not afraid to die for him. There was no one to replace him and he was the best. If he were gone, there would be nothing left to exist for. Where would there be another dawn? There’s a new dawn. It is a worthy substitute for him. With a heavy heart, Madael had to admit it. His subjects began to look at her with interest, even to adore her from afar.

Naturally, Madael’s dream was to get rid of the cause of his pain, but as soon as he got close to her…

He gripped the golden goblet so tightly that it nearly cracked in his fingers. The warmth of the blood, laced with poison, stung his throat so that he could have screamed. But he was used to physical burns. Something else was more tangible.

“A rose has thorns,” said a bard he had met on the road. In spite of his dark cloak and hidden wings, he recognized Madael, perhaps because he was a Fallen One himself, seeking the way to the Cathedral of Thunder. That is not important. The fact is that his phrase still rang in Madael’s ears, more poignantly than Arnaud’s perpetually whining flute.

“The rose has thorns…”

Or else he hadn’t guessed it himself. He kept repeating the phrase to himself hundreds and hundreds of times now. If he had said it out loud, his tongue would have broken.

You have to be strong. One must rush into battle. It reminded his conscience, if only he had one. He knew that the rules of his long game on earth were subject only to force and sword. He and God played with human lives and felt quite comfortable. What are humans? God and his punished lover can spin them as they please. They are as soft as clay and pliable and trusting. You don’t need a sword with them if you whisper something in their ear. But Madael liked the sword better. He was meant to be a warrior. The game went on, the men were pawns, he was a force among them, and surely the Almighty was the moving hand that decided everything. He did not agree with that. He’d rather have him and God as equals. Some played white, but he always played black. He had yet to assert his rights.

“You are a rose!” He whispered, leaning over the empty, clawed table, where bloody wine dripped and bones piled after feast. The rings on someone’s nibbled finger bones still glittered, just like the ones she liked to wear. And why was he the only one who found it so difficult to say her name. Why is it a rose and not Rhianon? A rose has thorns. He touched his hand to his heated forehead, brushing the disheveled hair from his temples. It was like scarlet gold, still pure with just a touch of something dark. His wings were already almost entirely black, but the bouncy strands of hair still twisted like gold worms. His eyes were still blue and his skin lily-white, too, except that the mirror was a burnt monster instead. There, beyond the mirror’s edge, a charred, incredibly evil and terrifyingly ugly creature lived and moved on its own. What if, shattering the amalgam but one day, it would burst into the outside world and swallow it whole. Absorb even the beautiful golden image of the still-existing Madael. He did not want to become that charred creature. But had his hour already come? What taboo had he broken to become this scarecrow? He wanted to be himself, but there was nothing he could do.

“Only not to break his taboo,” his conscience told him, and the sword clutched in his hand said otherwise. He may be a devil, but he has honor, and his own desires and desire for freedom, even if the shackles never fall, he must be free in his choice.

If he becomes as burnt and embittered as Asmodeus, the fragile line will be broken, the balance between sun and darkness will disappear. The world will cease to be a field of ruthless play between the god and his first warrior. Everything around it would become irrelevant.

He pressed his fingers to his forehead, trying to hold back his tearing consciousness. So this is how people go mad, long and painfully losing their own sanity. He had helped them so far, his subjects whispering to them to speed up the process. He himself made sure that the pain inflicted on people was as full as possible. He watched the pains of others and still he himself was in more pain.

Is it funny? People did not lose what he had lost. By falling, he had lost himself. Or on the contrary finally gained independence? Or maybe he was just taking the first step. As Rhianon would have decided? But here was Rhianon again. Could he not live and think without proclaiming her his chief advisor? Without her there was nothing to live for. If only the misery he was leading here could be called a life. He was the lord of worm gold, black creatures, and spilled blood. Alone in his tower, or rather surrounded by an evil entity, among whom he was alone all the same. And always will be.

Once he lost his loneliness, and his virginity, and his impregnability. It was all for a mortal girl. He dug his claws deeper into the marble tabletop.

“Damn you, Rhianon… and bless you. It was as if there was nothing but you…”

He didn’t say the words out loud, but they burned with fire in his mind. Like the fiery symbols scorched on his body and soul. They didn’t go away, the pain didn’t subside. The suffering didn’t stop for a moment. There was only one drug to take away the agony – the body of an earthly princess. He would do and give anything to have that body back in his bed. Let her only pretend she still needed him, and then she would get everything she wanted from him. He can give her anything, after all. He has enough power to do that. But what does she want? Why did she leave? No matter how hard he tried, he could not get through to her mind.

Black creatures crawled beneath his feet, and he didn’t care. He didn’t even rush to disperse them. The ashy traces of their touch remained on his golden sandals and immediately disappeared. Madael stared into the void.

“Well, do you like being betrayed?” Asmodeus’ flattering, luscious, and invariably insidious voice was like a serpent crawling in ashes.

Madael did not react at all to the mockery. His handsome face furrowed slightly, but he remained arrogant, even as he habitually crossed his arms across his chest and stepped forward, watching with pleasure as the servant staggered away from him.

“There is merit in this, the desire for revenge is an interesting feeling, and it will be even more interesting to get satisfaction from it,” one fling of his hand and his golden nails clenched forcefully on the black dried throat. His servant wailed. His burnt skin hurt as it was, and this touch stung even worse.

He gripped the writhing thing for a moment, then tossed it away from him.

“Me first, not you,” he reminded her, then looked away. Let the wretch crawl back into its hole. The creature crawled back down its hole. The black bodies began to coil themselves in a tangle of writhing black bodies, snaking across the floor, but not under his feet any longer, beyond the empty space that had cleared. The emperor needs honors. He is their king still. This thought gave him pep. He even tasted the bloody wine left in one of the goblets. It tasted disgusting and at the same time somehow appealing.

Asmodeus crawled to the side, scrambling over the tangle of strangers’ bodies, even uglier than he was.

“And what if she were to be the first,” he remarked venomously.

“Well, then there’d be nothing left of you,” Madael grinned. If the servant had meant to hurt him, he had done so wrong. “My copy could be fierce. Her cruelty need only awaken.”

Asmodeus hissed in annoyance as he crept away. Good riddance. Let him sit in his hole, climbing the world, whispering and doing evil, or raping golden-haired girls and boys again. Madael didn’t care about the mischief of his subjects, but he himself had no idea how symbolic the last words would be. His smooth forehead furrowed for the first time in thousands of years. What if, without giving much thought to the meaning of what he said, he happened to be right?

Rhianon looked at the sleeping children. Were there any marks on them? The dragon could have burned the symbols into their smooth skin, just as he’d burned them into the walls of houses, fields, even the ground. There was nothing to destroy them afterward. Grass could not sprout again where the ground had been touched by dragon fire. It was alarming and frightening. People tried to avoid places where such symbols remained. The poisonous vapors emanating from the burnt areas could affect many. Rhianon herself was more sober about it all, but she couldn’t deny the existence of magic. She remembered how the creature conjured at the hearth and how the flaming symbols hung in the air. What did they mean? After all this time, she should know by now. Having lived with Madael long enough, she’d learned to understand the hisses of the angelic language, but what about the signs they left behind. They should have made sense to her, too.

Two dark-haired baby heads and one redhead rested on the grass. Rhianon already knew the children’s names: Marla, Shon and Quentin. They only remembered their names. They could have spent hours in vain asking what the dragon had done to them, or to their playmates. Marla only remembered that someone had approached them while they were playing in the yard. His shadow blocked the sunlight… and that was it, not another word could be got out of her. Her freckled face wrinkled, tears welled up in her eyes at every question. Did she remember nothing, or did she not want to remember? The boys didn’t answer questions at all, just huddled together fearfully. The dragon was gone, but his shadow still hung over them as if he would not let them speak. Its presence was still felt close by. There may have been some magical power nearby, visible only to the bewitched children, but it still restrained them better than any chains.

There was still something left of the chains, by the way. No matter how hard Ferdinand’s knights tried, they couldn’t free them completely. They had yielded somewhat since the dragon’s disappearance, but Rhianon could still see the thin, thick ring of iron jammed into the girl’s wrist.

Marla was asleep and as if she felt no pain. Or maybe she was just used to the iron hoop. Rhianon decided that her powers were enough to undo the iron with her bare fingers. Her new powers, springing up as if from nowhere, allowed her to do things she’d never thought possible before. She guessed at the source of these powers, but she preferred not to speculate about procreation just yet. The supernatural fruit fed her from within. Perhaps by carrying the supernatural seed within her, she herself ceased to be human.

With just one light squeeze of her hand, Rhianon effortlessly unfolded the steel ring without even waking the girl. Marla only moved slightly in her sleep. A scratched part of her neck flashed under her reddish curls. Rhianon noticed that the arm where the hoop had been worn was very red. She didn’t need to light the lamp to see the scarlet rash on the baby’s delicate skin and anything else that looked like a burn.

Carefully, with her fingertips, she touched the scorched mark. It was a symbol. It was a familiar symbol. Already familiar images flashed through her mind, so distant and yet vaguely recognizable. Fighting among the clouds, swords striking like lightning, carnage, screams, broken wings, severed arteries and fire reflected in the azure-blue, ethereal pupils. Hell and heaven became one in that instant, equally engulfed in flames. Only there was no hell at that moment; only after the battle would it begin to unfold below. Perhaps further away, perhaps, where the earth would emerge later. Rhianon didn’t know the exact location, and she didn’t want to know.

“And you should, because that’s where you might have to look for your lover,” came a nasal voice from behind her, with a slight hint of hoarseness. Without even turning around, Rhianon already knew who she was going to see. Of course Fate had come out of the ground again. He seemed to be hiding in every bush, in every bush, in every hill, in every subterranean inch of the road she walked, and only came to the surface when he wanted to tease her.

She wasn’t interested in him right now, so she only gave a careless sniffle in response. She was much more interested in the sleeping children. Had the dragon scorched the marks on all of them with his fire? And why would it do that? Then his plans were frustrated, the sacrifice had not taken place, and the children were alive but marked. She knew that the dragon’s flame was capable of destroying living matter. Flesh is no exception. If these unfortunates are alive now, that doesn’t mean they won’t feel sudden fatigue and the call of death the next day. The dragon’s poison may work slowly, but it is still devastating. If these children are poisoned, it was better not to save them. Why drag bodies into Vinor that might start decomposing while they were still alive?

Besides, they were behaving strangely. It was as if their minds were trapped somewhere far away, away from the machine-moving bodies. What if a dragon still possessed them, held their minds and their wills captive. Just as in the afternoon, during a halt, Rhianon caught Marla drawing some signs on the ground. Only not the kind of signs the dragon had burned on her body, a little different. How could a child of five or six remember something so complicated? And a scholarly old sage could have been confused by it. All the scientists and connoisseurs of the sciences and even the stargazers in the royal court are, after all, only human; the possibilities of their minds are limited. Rhianon knew only one kind of creature who knew everything and nothing is a mystery to them. It was the angels, whose head to this day was Mastema, and therefore the dragons that lived in the caves full of books belonged to them. Some of them might have forgotten what they once looked like and still be shocked in front of a mirror. Are they forgotten as quickly as moments of bliss? Hardly, dragons had always seemed too wise to her.

And now Rhianon was staring at the marks scorched by dragon fire on living flesh, and she was growing uneasy.

She tried not to think about what awaited her. The children reminded her of that. She knew what happened to pregnant women. It was different with her. Her belly still hadn’t rounded, though her conception date was probably a long time ago, probably as far back as that first night in the angel’s tent. Yes, it must have happened back then. It was as if she’d felt the flow of fire, not seed, inside her. Since then it was as if some power had entered her, dwelt in her, and began to change her perception of the world. By producing a supernatural being, Rhianon herself ceased to be human. She could see and hear differently than humans, she could easily learn magic tricks, understand the language of birds and beasts, and hear the voices of spirits. Her sense of smell was also heightened. She could spot a mouse in the grass a hundred paces away, or recognize tiny pixies on a flower from afar. The magical world opened up to her completely. It was everywhere: in the grass, in the trees, in the water, in the air, in the sunlight, and, of course, in the dark. On every blade of grass a lovely young creature, like a dragonfly in size, could flutter. Rhianon was fascinated by the supernatural world, but she tried not to forget her main problem. Fire had always lived inside her; now, besides fire, something crushing was maturing there. Childbirth can be extremely painful for humans as well, and what happens to the one that gives life to a supernatural being. What if the newborn actually kills her? What if it doesn’t? If she returns to Loretta and gives birth to a child who has no father, will this child turn out to be strong enough to strike fear into everyone. It is the child of a fallen angel. If it will not protect her from gossip, the same remedy remains – fire. It is not for nothing that by nature she is given the ability to ignite so easily and ignite everything around her. It is her only self-defense. And she must defend herself. Everyone in Loretta is against her. And there are only enemies in the world, except for Ferdinand. He turned out to be quite nice. It’s worth seeing if he’ll last. Whether his attitude toward her will change when she asks for his help?

Rhianon sat down on the grass next to the sleeping children and rested her chin on her knees. She didn’t want to have a child. She had never wanted one. But fate had seen it her way. What would happen now?

“I can’t sleep, either,” Ferdinand approached her, sleepy, rubbing his eyes and trying in vain to brush his fingers through his tangled blond hair. He sat down beside her on the grass.

“I like to look at the stars, too,” he said immediately. She doesn’t know how he could see the stars through the foliage. He must have followed Rhianon’s gaze to find a patch of black-blue sky between the larches.

“Do you like night skies? It’s a beautiful sight, I admit.”

“And what is beautiful about it?” She became angry, involuntarily. “Once upon a time, these poetically beautiful skies had been torn apart by a hellish battle. And now its echoes still echo through the skies. The war is gone, but the pain remains…”

Could he understand her? Rhianon shivered. She was no longer expressing her own thoughts, but his, Madael’s. She shouldn’t speak his words to mortals. None of this is for mortal ears at all. But Ferdinand tensed. It was as if he understood something.

“It terrifies me, too, to think that one day a dragon will fly across this sky, even if it shines like a treasure trove of gold, but it’s still dangerous and will burn all our crops.”

“Have you ever seen a dragon in flight?”

“No,” he said, a little taken aback by the question.

“I have,” Rhianon said, remembering the valley, and the swirling, colorful bodies, wriggling like jewels in a treasure house.

“And you were still alive after that?”

“Yes,” she told him the truth without hesitation. Perhaps one day she would regret it. Who could confess to evil spirits and stay alive after that, if not a witch. Perhaps one day Ferdinand will draw conclusions from her words. Just because of the fire inside her, she could be declared a witch. In Loretta they did not do so only because Conrad needed her. Had he not had a son who wanted her, Manfred would undoubtedly have taken the opportunity. How easy it is to declare an heiress a sorceress and get rid of her once and for all. But no, Conrad’s young blood had been roused and plans had to be changed.

Manfred saved her life for nothing. That is what she will tell him when she kills him. Every time she clutched the weapon in her hands she imagined slitting his flabby throat. The thought was as sweet as revenge itself. It was sweeter than the apple of paradise, sweeter than Madael’s lips… even nicer than an angel’s embrace. Revenge always comes first. Everyone must get what he deserves and there is no mercy for his enemies. Madael himself had fought to defend his independence and avenge his forced fetters, he should have understood her. He was only the first to set the example – you cannot tolerate any oppression over yourself, not even the oppression of a deity, and now every strong man in the world was following in his footsteps. What can you do, the world is set up so you have to follow the devil’s example to survive in it and become strong.

That’s what Rhianon was going to do. No one, not even Madeel himself, could stop her.

Her shoulders trembled a little with inner tension. She was already preparing for the fight and everything inside her trembled. Ferdinand interpreted her gesture in his own way.

“I must have a warm cloak in my saddle-bag. I will fetch it to you, my lady, to keep you warm.”

Rhianon gestured for him to stop.

“Leave it. I’m not cold.”

“But…”

He was taken aback when he saw the beautiful lady lift her fingertips and a flame flicker above her fingernails. At first it might have been an illusion, but gradually the flame took shape and hung like a hot ball over her palm. Now it would be unnecessary to remind her that it was quite chilly in the woods at night, and her shoulders were bare. Rhianon proved that she could warm herself.

“I don’t need warmth, especially human warmth.”

It would be a trifle for her to make a great fire in the evening. But she watched coldly as the others piled brushwood and searched their surviving luggage for drones, flints, and splinters of flint. They could not find anything. She had to sleep without the warmth of a crackling fire. Rhianon felt no remorse for refusing to help her knights. She had no intention of demonstrating her abilities in public. Why should she need to be called a witch? Some people were already mistrustful of her because they remembered her coming out of the woods, alone, without a horse and no retinue. A noblewoman should not be alone in the woods. Not a princess, or rather a queen. She needs companions, chaperones, ladies-in-waiting, bodyguards and pageboys. And it’s not customary for ladies to walk. It’s easy to step in light satin shoes on impassable forest roads. No one, after all, knows that for her it is now nothing to overcome long distances at the speed of the wind. People who meet her must have many questions. Where are her attendants, where is her carriage, her servants? To all this she could not give an honest answer. And even when she could, no one must know who she had spent the last months of her life with. Fairies’ company, life in the company of unearthly creatures, and embracing the devil were not adventures worth telling everyone about. It’s better to keep it a secret so as not to compromise herself. But what if the descendants from another world following her, already by their mere presence near her, will brazenly compromise her in front of people? A queen followed by an impostor… Rhianon wondered. Before the deadline it was forbidden to tell anyone about her friends, but Ferdinand had been so honest with her. She didn’t want to lie to the man who had laid his soul bare before her, and yet she cautiously glanced in the direction where Fate had appeared recently. She wondered if he was still there, waiting for the moment when he could come at her again with his threats and incitements.

Ferdinand would have been shocked by this dwarf alone. But luckily he wasn’t around at the moment. That’s who really follows her around like an evil fate. She wished he’d just left her the pendant and disappeared on his own. But no, he had to torment her with vile remarks. Now she had to live with the constant tension of knowing that an unwelcome companion might appear out of nowhere at any moment. Considering that she now had companions, it was very uncomfortable.

“You are unusual.”

Rhianon shuddered at these quiet words addressed to her. Ferdinand must have blurted it out spontaneously, not wanting to hurt her at all, but everything stirred inside her.

“As unusual as those burned at the fires of the Inquisition?” She even laughed, short and bitter. The laughter echoed dryly through the leaves. “I can burn anyone myself, and you can see that. Are you afraid of me?”

She looked directly into his eyes, even in the darkness they were dazzling blue and clear. What an open look for a man who has to hide his political games. Does he look at everyone or just at her? Involuntarily she thought about it. Just one effort and she could read all his thoughts. Even an open book is not as accessible and easy to read as the human mind had become to her. And yet she was in no hurry to look into his mind. Perhaps it was because she herself was frightened to discover such insincerity?

“I admire you,” he leaned so close to her that he must have felt the heat of the fire emanating from the ball in her hands. His brow furrowed painfully, but he tried not to suppress the look of pain. Rhianon noticed the beads of sweat protruding on his smooth forehead. He wasn’t just hot around her, he felt threatened, but he didn’t pull away.

“You could be adored.”

“In spite of the fire?” She looked at him feignedly – innocently, and meanwhile the ball of fire above her palms began to grow in size and even hotter. Just as easily she could squeeze the solar core in her fist, just as she had once held in her hands the heart of Dennitsa, once in love, but still like a red-hot fire. What is it to her to crush the soul of a mortal king? It is a simple game, not an effort. Only she didn’t want to hurt Ferdinand at all. She felt that he was already hurting – his whole life before he met her.

“The women in Vinor are afraid of fire themselves,” he frowned. “I tried to tame the Inquisition. But my father always said it was necessary. It is necessary to keep the people in fear, and the unholy are far beyond the borders of the kingdoms. For this there is religion and its monstrous spawn: dogmas, rites, witch trials.”

“And yet in the king’s palaces the astrologers take refuge. They’re as important to you as your advisers.” Oh, how easy it was to read his mind. Ferdinand didn’t even catch her at it, didn’t ask her how she knew that. But he tried to justify himself.

“They are useful, the Inquisition almost not. The fires of the mortal martyrs don’t shut the magical creatures out of the forest…” he paused and looked expressively at her.

Rhianon understood and nodded. Meanwhile, the fireball in her hands had grown to the size of a child’s ball. If she hurled it forward, the flame would be enough to burn down a house or start a forest fire.

The fire was hot, but it didn’t burn her palms. Ferdinand, on the other hand, felt hot, almost to the point of pain. Let him know what it was like to be in a furnace. Rhianon grinned wryly.

“I am fire,” she whispered confidentially. “The element of fire is in me. Sometimes I think so. But I’m not going to turn innocent people into martyrs, only my enemies.”

“I’ve seen how those diabolical creatures, the dragons, react to you.”

She nodded.

“You don’t think I could burn them more, do you?”

He only shrugged.

“Maybe there’s something different about you.”

“Not looking for a halo over my head or hooves and a tail under my dress. I don’t have a martyr’s crown or devil’s horns under my hair. And I hope I never will.”

“So who are you?”

Now she shrugged her shoulders. To confess would be to break the fragile trust that had developed between them.

12 Weiter

Rhianon-6: Mistress of Magical Creatures

Shine and Shadow

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