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I cringe when Anna overtakes me at a run and dives into the snow, breaking its perfectly smooth surface. She laughs merrily, throwing snow in the air with both her arms and legs, and then squeals when some of it falls behind the collar of her jacket. My lips break into a smile but I quickly recover myself. I sheepishly glance up to the temple and press my index finger to my lips, urging her to keep quiet.
It’s been a month since I turned fourteen and Anna became a Mara one winter ago. The second and coldest month of winter has come. Koliada, Maras’ favorite holiday, has already passed. The sisters have made the round of all the neighboring villages, receiving gifts and making sure no evil spirits made a home there. Anna is too young for these outings and I was left behind to keep an eye on her. We were both disappointed and sulky because we weren’t allowed to dance around the bonfires with the others or visit village dwellings to sing carols and get treats in return. But sisters Irina and Kira were unbending and we have no choice but to stay put.
However, the sisters come back when the carols and bonfire-dancing give way, with the last glimpse of twilight, to the traditional worshipping of Veles, the God of Earth and Water and Livestock, when villagers ask for good harvest and healthy cattle. This is no place for Maras, so the sisters head back to the temple for a bit of rest. The temple keepers are busy catering to the sisters and Anna and I have a little time when we aren’t supervised, so she talks me into having a walk beyond the temple.
“Come on, Agatha! There’s a lake over there and its banks should be covered with cranberries. If we gather enough, we can even ask someone in the kitchen to make your favorite cranberry juice!” Anna is struggling to get back on her feet, still half-buried in snow. She is trying to get the snow out of her hair, but some of the strands are already wet.
“We mustn’t go so far, silly.” I come up to her and put her hair up so that it doesn’t cool down her neck and put her hood up, afraid she could catch a chill. “It’s after dark already. If someone notices that we are gone, we’ll be in trouble. Do you feel like dusting all the library shelves again?”
I grin as she wrinkles her pretty nose, cleaning is not something she enjoys. Irina tries to straighten her out by punishing her mischief with chores, but so far to no avail.
“It’s not far! I just want to show you something.”
She looks up at me with anticipation, fidgeting with impatience and the same time, I take my eyes off the blueness of her gaze and turn to the temple again. It towers over us, its grey walls almost black against the white woods. Only a few windows are alive with the orange light of the candles. Everyone else is already asleep in their beds.
I look beyond the temple, at the dark sky, and try to come up with an excuse. I want to say it’s too dark to go, but the moon is bright and the snow reflects its light, painting everything silver.
“Okay,” I yield. “Let’s go. But make it quick.”
Anna gives a skip of joy and sets off to the northeast, to the border of Serat. Her legs sink in snow with every step but she doggedly trudges on. I’m taller than her, so I move faster and I catch up with her in no time. I smile at her and take her mittened left hand in my bare right one.
We know the land surrounding the temple pretty well because we are not allowed to venture much further yet, so we’ve spent our time exploring all the paths in the vicinity. Now, even with the earth blanketed in snow, it’s easy to find our way. We’ve been walking for no more than ten minutes but Anna is breathing heavily. She puffs and pants, doing her best to show how exhausted she is. I know what she’s after, so I let her climb on my back and carry her for a few minutes. It seems to cheer her up, she’s riding piggy-back, happily swinging her legs and clasping my neck so tightly my hood falls back revealing my mane of dark hair. The crisp air touches the scruff of my neck but my little sister is rubbing her cheek against mine, so I forgive her for that, as well as her whining.
Now all I can hear is my own heavy breath and the crunching sound of the snow under my boots. There’s also an occasional hoot carrying from the thick of the woods, adding more magic to the night.
When we reach the lake, I put Anna down and we both sigh in awe as we take in the view before us. We’ve seen the lake in daylight, but never at night. The frozen lake stretches out in front of us and the bright disc of the moon is reflected in it like in a mirror. The cracks in the ice look like white and blue veins.
But with a happy cry of “Cranberries!” Anna breaks my reverie.
I obediently follow her in the direction of the berries. The sooner we gather them and return to our warm beds, the better. The night is beautiful but freezing. My toes are already numb with cold.
I spot the blood-red berries in the snow and can almost feel their taste on my tongue. If we gather enough, we can make not only juice but also sugared cranberries and maybe even a cranberry pie.
“Agatha,” Anna says in a dreamy voice, “what’s a morok?”
I wheel around and look at her in bewilderment. I’ve no idea where she has heard the name from. I was told about Moroks only in my second year as a Mara.
“They are Shadow’s servants,” I answer cautiously.
“And what’s a shadow?”
“The Shadow is the place where the most rotten souls go, but it is also the darkness that rules that place.” I check if the berries are hard enough. But they are already frozen, so they shouldn’t mess the inside of our pockets. We have no baskets with us.
“Where did the Shadow come from?”
I pluck a handful of cranberries and toss them into the pockets of my cloak, taking my time to ponder the answer.
“There are a few legends, and only those who have already moved on and met the Goddess know which one is true.” I finally say, evasively.
“Come on, Agatha, tell me at least one!”
“And then you’ll be too frightened to sleep and will recoil from every shadow on the wall,” I snort, watching her shaking the snow off a fir branch to shower herself in snowflakes.
Anna keeps pestering me for a few more minutes and I cave in.
“Okay, there are various legends out there. But most of them are incomplete. One says that Morana’s own shadow rose after it was stepped on by the dead. The most popular legend though is the one where Morana grabbed her own shadow and cut it off to help her deal with rotten souls: those of the greedy and selfish and other evil. And the Shadow has been following our Goddess ever since, separate but forever connected to Morana.”
Somewhere in the middle of the story, my sister stops fooling around and starts listening closely.
“So, Moroks are evil?”
“As far as I know, they aren’t. But even Kira doesn’t know what they are hiding beneath their masks. And she’s the eldest.” I almost whisper.
“Sister Yana says everyone is afraid of Moroks and if you look one in the face, you’ll die.” Anna whispers back.
Of course. Yana loves telling scary stories. Although, what stories can you tell that are scary enough to frighten a Mara, who kills evil spirits herself? But Yana managed to do just that. She told Anna about Moroks.
“I don’t know if that’s true. Irina has warned me that if you meet a Morok, you should hide. And whatever happens, don’t try to look under the mask. So, you should do the same. If you see a Morok, do as you’re told and hide.”
I keep cramming berries into my pockets, when I suddenly hear her laughing. I turn to her but Anna’s not there. It takes a while to find her in the dark but I finally spot her on the frozen surface of the lake. I freeze with horror and the berries spill out of numb fingers.
“Look, Agatha! I saw some boys doing it a winter ago, before you came. They taught me a little.”
Anna is standing thirty feet away from the lakeshore. She starts running, picks up speed and pushes herself forward to slide on the ice… but tumbles over, laughing like crazy. I notice that I’m shivering, not with cold but tension.
“Anna, come back! Come back here!” My voice is squeaky and unfamiliar. I tell her to come back but I can’t move a muscle, as if it is me on that ice.
I was still in my third year as a sister when I was told never to set foot on the ice of that lake because it’s never thick enough to take the weight of a person. But Anna hasn’t been told that yet or she has but the warning has fallen on deaf ears. I’m standing as close to the lake as I dare, praying for the ice to be thick enough to take the weight of a slim girl.
I shudder when she stands up and falls down again, landing on her backside and sliding even further away from me. Her laughter carries all the way across the lake.
“Anna, come back here, please!” I cry again, trying not to sound too scared. If I step on the ice myself, I’m sure it will crack.
“It’s not so slippery here,” she yells back with disappointment and takes a few steps back towards me. We can both hear the sound.
Anna looks down. From her feet snake-like cracks start sprawling in all directions. She bows her head a bit and takes another step, slowly this time. The next cracking sound is almost deafening. I watch her with my heart in my mouth. She looks up at me and the fear in her eyes is unmistakable. Her lower lip starts to tremble. I throw back my cloak and stand there in my light caftan.
“Anna! Run to me!” I try to yell but my voice cracks like ice and I hope I’ve managed to say it loud enough for her to hear.
She does and she dashes to me. When she’s nervous, she becomes even more awkward. She manages three steps but the ice is really cracking now, big pieces come loose and the dark water splashes on the surface. Anna slips on the water. I don’t wait to see what happens next and bolt forward, carefully maneuvering between the cracks, leaping from one chunk of ice to another.
Anna is first to go under. She squeals and falls into the water, her head disappearing beneath the black surface. I dive in right after. A rasping shriek escapes my lips as soon as the icy-cold water touches my skin. I spot my sister’s cloak billowing on the surface, find her and pull her up to the surface. Anna is sobbing uncontrollably. Her teeth are chattering and she’s beating against the water with one arm, the rest of her body must have gone numb from the cold.
The water is freezing and it seems like I’m being stabbed by a thousand knives. But my fear pushes me forward and I steadily move towards the end of the lake, pulling my sister behind me. When I reach the shore, I haul her onto the hard surface first and crawl after her on all fours.
My fingers are stiff as I strip Anna of her soaked clothing and wrap her into the only dry thing we have left, my cloak. She keeps sobbing, shivering from the cold and the shock. I’m not much help as I’m shivering all over too. But the fear of almost losing my sister is more numbing to me than the cold.
Irina is teaching me not to succumb to fear, to act, no matter what. And I try to heed her now.
“A… nnna… ppput… yourrr… arms… a… rrround my… nnneck.”
I help her onto my back and try to set off towards the temple again. But my legs don’t cooperate, my knees begin to buckle and pain shoots right through me. Anna does what she’s told, for once, and clutches my neck, almost suffocating me.
I manage about five feet but my breath is heavy and wheezing. I’m freezing, my numb fingers can hardly keep Anna in place… but I see Irina rushing towards us and tears start running down my cheeks before I can stop them. My sobs turn to wails, even louder than Anna’s, as I fall into the soft snow and let Irina run the rest of the distance.
5
Yarat. The capital of Araken.
So many years have passed and the landscapes have changed. My memories help me to orientate myself a little and I realize that we are traveling northwards. I see some new villages that have sprung up, a few roads have widened and the outlines of the woods are different to how they used to be. Some places I used to know are just nowhere to be seen. We are moving along this unfamiliar road and I recognize a couple of places, while all the rest are completely new to me. But I’m happy to learn that Araken still exists and Yarat has remained its capital. Even though, when I was alive, I only visited it twice. The first time, all Maras were asked to attend the new king’s coronation and the second time we came to rid the woods from evil.
We, Maras, do not belong to any kingdoms and do not serve any kings. The woods adjoining our temple are considered Maras’ territory and are situated right on the border between two kingdoms: Araken and Serat. An ocean washes the western borders of the countries and on the east a mountain range creates another natural border. No one crosses the mountains and no one comes from the mountains. Maybe the world ends there or just people.
Maras do not take sides or have favorites; we help those who need it. Whether the people of Serat have needed us, or the citizens of Araken, we rush to their aid. But I’m glad it was the Prince of Araken who raised me from the dead. If it had been the heir of Serat, I would have broken his neck before he even breathed a word.
“Your Highness,” I address the prince after a few hours of our monotonous journey, “if you don’t mind me asking, why are you so interested in Maras?”
“Where should I start?” the prince drags out with a smile; he’s probably flattered that I spoke to him first. “My mother died when I was young, just five years after my little sister was born. The king, I mean my father, was not particularly interested in my upbringing and I spent too much time with nurses and my siblings, my little sister and my elder brother Nikolay. My brother loved reading to us and his favorite tales were those of Maras and Moroks.”
“A questionable choice of bedtime stories,” I put in.
“True. That’s what any adult would have thought. But we had a choice between you and goblins.”
“What’s wrong with goblins?” I ask, nonplussed.
“Well, they are awful monsters, for one.”
“They do look weird because of the skulls instead of faces, but they are pretty harmless.” I object.
“You call those thugs harmless?!” Daniel looks at me like I’ve gone mad. “I’ve heard they can be up to ten feet tall; their horns look like tree limbs and their eyes are blood-red.”
“Well, the blood-red eyes are nonsense,” I shrug. “More often than not, they don’t have any, just a bare, animal skull where the face should be.”
“Even better! Empty eye-sockets definitely look more harmless than red eyes,” the prince snorts.
I can’t help but giggle and the sound is strange and unfamiliar. I seem to have forgotten how to laugh and the giggling is strained and a far cry from that beautiful resounding laugh I used to have.
But he’s right. I am used to goblins and knowing that they are just wood spirits protecting animals and plants, I take no notice of their eerie appearance. For common people, they must look sinister.
“Well, I guess they might look a bit fearsome,” I cave.
“A bit?” the prince calls back and his lips break into a smile when he hears me laugh again. “As we’ve agreed on the monstrosity of goblins, I shall continue my story.”
I nod waiting for him to speak.
“My sister didn’t mind either way as all tales were horror stories to her. But as you might have guessed, I am not a fan of huge wood… spirits. So, I chose the tales about you. What can be more fascinating than beautiful girls who bring merciful death?”
“Outlandish princesses?”
Daniel waves my taunt away and continues with the story.
“I wasn’t wrong. I listened, enraptured, to every story. I was totally fascinated by them! I asked my brother to tell me the same stories again and again and I never got tired of them. Brother had not expected such a reaction though, otherwise he might have kept the stories to himself. The most popular one, apparently, was where Mara Silvia defeated two demons on her own to protect a group of innocent children.”
Silvia. I’ve heard the story, too, even though it happened long before I was born. Everyone’s heard it. Demons are huge monsters and you’re lucky if you can beat one, but two…
“To be honest,” Daniel goes on, “the stories that I loved the most were the ones about you and your sisters. I truly admired the last Maras and your bravery in the face of what happened to your sister Anna.”
My cheerfulness is gone like it was never there. That’s what my sister’s name does to me.
“There’s nothing to admire, Your Highness,” I say drily, “there is nothing romantic about death.”
“Well, it may be small consolation, but then I believe you would agree that walking the earth again is quite an improvement on lying in it.”
I turn my head a little to catch a glimpse of Morok, who’s following us at a respectful distance. He’s sitting very straight on his black steed and looks straight ahead. He doesn’t fidget or look around. He positively looks like a statue.
I lean sideways, a bit closer to Daniel so that my voice doesn’t carry.
“Your Highness, how come a Shadow’s servant is helping the Crown?”
“It is said that Moroks appear where and when they are needed, so it is useless to seek them out,” the prince answers mysteriously. “After Maras were gone, common people had it particularly bad and they hoped that Moroks would step in to do Maras’ job. But they just vanished. Some people say they left because of you, but no one knows the real reason.” Now Daniel leans towards me. “You can’t really ask them, can you. Moroks are not really big on conversation.”
I try to stifle a giggle and just nod in agreement.
“Some say that Moroks are people too and they need to pay for their food. And who can pay more than the king himself?”
“Morok is working for you for gold?” The idea seems ridiculous at first, but come to think of it, I can remember occasional stories about Moroks running errands for the Crown and not out of the goodness of their hearts. Maras see taking gold for their work as unbecoming. We’ve never asked for pay, people used to make offerings of their own volition.
“They are sometimes called hired shadows now,” Daniel’s voice is no more than a whisper. “Some people say that times have changed and the Shadow has lost the last shreds of its dignity.”
I keep silent and contemplate his words.
“The Shadow’s never had dignity.” The flat but loud voice from behind startles us both. Morok must have come closer during my conversation with Daniel and overheard part of it, if not the whole thing.
He says no more but for a while. And Daniel keeps silent, too. I pull myself together and decide to ask him the last questions that have been on my mind since I was raised from the dead.
“Does Serat still exist?”
“Unfortunately, it does.”
“Who is ruling it now?”
“The younger son of the late king Aleksey, Severin Lasnetsov.” The prince looks almost pensive now. “Actually, it should have been the eldest son, his name escapes me, but he died when he was still a child.”
“What are the relationships between the kingdoms?”
Daniel cocks his head a little and gives me a searching look. I tried to keep my voice steady while asking the question but I’m not so stupid as to believe he won’t suspect the reason for my curiosity.
“Araken and Serat are at war. After what they did, my ancestors had no choice. At the beginning, it was a full-fledged war, but now it has turned into a protracted conflict. There are occasional clashes on the border but no real battles. However, we keep a close eye on the enemy and shoot on sight whenever anyone crosses the border from Serat.”
