Down in the cellar the only light came from Omar’s sword and it revealed that while the ceiling had remained intact, one of the walls had toppled into the room, dropping several large stone blocks onto the legs of the white-haired woman stretched out on the pile of carpets in the center of the space.
As Omar moved to deal with the stones, Wren knelt beside the woman’s head, gently stroking her silvery hair back from her wrinkled face. “Yaga? Can you hear me? We’ve come to take you out of here. And there’s someone else here. Omar. I mean, Grigori. Grigori is here, too.”
Yaga sighed and her eyes opened halfway. “Grigori?”
Omar continued clearing the rocks. “I’m here.”
But the old woman didn’t look at him. She looked up at Wren and said, “I’m tired, little sister.”
“I know. You still need more sleep.”
“No, not that.” Yaga shook her head. “I’m tired of all this. I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to slip away into the quiet places, the dark places, and sleep forever.”
Wren glanced at Tycho and Omar, who could only give her sympathetic looks in reply. Wren said, “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means I’m ready to die now, you silly girl.” Yaga stared up at the ceiling through lidded, unfocused eyes.
“What about your son, Koschei?” Wren asked.
Do I tell her that he’s already dead? He was her entire world yesterday, but now, everything has changed.
Omar paused in his work and glanced at them.
“He’s a grown man,” Yaga whispered. “And I’m a grown woman. And this is my life, and my choice. I want to die now, please.”
Wren leaned back and looked at Omar again. “What should I do?”
He took half a step back, his face lined with age and worry in the harsh light of the seireiken. “Do whatever you think is right. Stop asking me. She’s talking to you, not me.”
Useless.
Wren looked down at Yaga again. “All right.”
Yaga pulled the necklace from inside her dress and pressed the little golden heart into Wren’s hand. “Take it.”
Wren looked at the sun-steel pendant. “I can’t destroy this. I can’t release your soul. We’ll need Omar’s sword. Your soul can rest in the seireiken.”
Yaga grimaced. “Is there no other place? Your ring, perhaps?”
Wren glanced down at the golden band of Denveller and she thought of the eight valas already in there, and what it might be like to have Baba Yaga among them.
“My ring? Not one of your bracelets?”
Yaga laid one of her thin hands on Wren’s arm, and she smiled. “Your ring.”
Wren nodded. “All right.”
The last time someone gave her soul to this ring, she bit off the end of her own tongue and smashed her bloody face on it.
She held out her hand with the ring toward the old witch. “Right now?”
“Right now.”
Omar pushed aside the last of the stones and gently moved Yaga’s broken legs up closer to where she was sitting. The old Rus woman winced and pressed her hand to her foot for a moment, and then exhaled and opened her eyes. “It’s fine now. Thank you, Grigori.” And she turned her back to him.
“Well, I guess I’ll just need a small cut, a little blood,” said Wren.
“Don’t be squeamish, child.” Yaga took one of the small bird skulls dangling from her necklace and ripped its beak across her open palm, releasing a small red sea into the center of her hand. “Quickly!”
Wren shivered as Yaga reached out and wrapped her bloody hand around Wren’s fingers, and the ring of Denveller. As the blood faded into the golden ring, the old woman’s face went gray and slack and she fell over on her blankets, dead. Wren looked from the body to the ring on her finger and back again.
“Mistress?” she whispered.
“Am I your mistress now?” Yaga cackled from the ring, and her face shimmered out of the shadows for a moment, and then vanished again.
“Is she in there?” Omar asked.
Wren nodded. “It’s done.”
“Almost.” Omar picked up Yaga’s necklace from the carpet and held it over his seireiken. The pendant glowed white hot, and then faded to dull gray, and Omar slipped the dead metal into his pocket. “It was only a tiny shred of her soul. It won’t matter much to her that it’s here in my sword with me instead of in your ring with you.”
“Are you sure?” Wren asked.
Omar shrugged. “Remember, there’s a shred of my soul in your body right now, keeping that fox of yours under control, and I’m not suffering much for it, am I?”
“I guess not.” Wren stared at her ring for another moment and finally let her hand fall to her side. “It’s sort of sad. For two months, all she wanted was to see her son again. But they missed each other by a few hours, and now they’re both dead, and never had the chance to say goodbye.”
“Not exactly.” Omar held up his seireiken. “He was here. He saw the whole thing.”
“What? You mean you killed him?”
“I did.” The Aegyptian sheathed his bright sword and crossed the shadowy cellar to the bottom of the stairs. “And that shred of Yaga’s soul in here with him will leave them some small connection for the rest of time. It’s more than Koschei deserves. But Yaga… I can’t help feeling I owed her more than this.”
Wren looked at Tycho, who could only shrug and offer his hand, and she took it and followed him up the stairs into the light.
Chapter 27. Peace
Wren stood in the wasteland of broken stone and drifting smoke that used to be the Palace of Constantine and gazed up at the three enormous skyships hovering above the two cities.
“I see flags,” she said, peering up through her blue glasses at the bright sky. “Blue flags flying from the ships.”
“Imperial banners,” Omar said. “I suppose that means Darius bought them, instead of making some sort of unholy alliance with Marrakesh. It’s a good sign, actually. If they were flying Mazigh flags, it would mean the war was spreading across Ifrica as well.”
The one airship still cruising over Constantia began dropping bombs over the distant harbors to the north of the palace. Wren watched the tiny black specks tumbling through space and the bright flashes of fire on the ground and the small clouds of dust and smoke rising from the waterfront.
Across the river, the other two airships were slowly circling the burning district near the shore, chasing each other like a pair of sharks around an unseen school of flying fish.
“What happens now?” Wren asked.
“More fighting,” Tycho said. “Followed by some negotiations, skirmishes, alliances, betrayals, more negotiations, and eventually a ceasefire, if we’re lucky.”
“And if we’re not lucky?”
“They take Constantia.”
“Oh.”
Omar cleared his throat and the others looked at him. “I have to find someone,” he said. “She was in the palace, and I suppose she left during the evacuation, but I somehow doubt she’s hiding in some shelter somewhere. I have to go. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He gave Wren a long worried look. “Stay safe.” And he strode away.
Wren glanced at Tycho. “I wonder who-”
“It’s Nadira,” Yaga said, her tiny voice whispering from the Denveller ring. “He’s looking for Nadira, the Damascena. But he won’t find her. She left before the bombs began to fall and I don’t think she’s coming back. But let him go. He needs some time alone.”
“I’m sorry about Koschei,” Wren said.
“No, you’re not,” the ghost said. “But thank you for saying it.”
Wren looked at Tycho again and saw him staring at her. “It’s all right, I’m just talking to… you know, her.”
He nodded. “Well, I guess we should be getting back to the cistern to tell the Duchess what’s going on out here.”
Across the courtyard, a couple of the Hellan guards emerged from the shadows with ropes and shovels. The sounds of the bombs falling and exploding echoed across the city.
“More hiding?” Wren took a few steps toward the distant airships. “More of this? More things burning and people screaming?”