"Never love anybody who treats you like you're ordinary." Oscar Wilde

The prince rocked back and forth on his feet in the shadow, listening out for Marya's footsteps. He was anxious; she'd been so ready to agree to his plan that he was prepared for several eventualities. One, being that she'd run away entirely.

She wouldn't get far, he hoped. He'd posted extra watches tonight surrounding the forest, and his friend Aleksandr was watching him. For the second eventuality; that when Marya arrived, she'd attack him.

He was wrong about all his assumptions, in particular the one where he'd wait to hear her arrival. Sig was deep in thought, staring into the ongoing blackness between the trees, when, like a ghost, Marya stepped out beside him.

Sig blinked in shock, unprepared for her stealth. Immediately, he was on his guard— was she attacking with some sorcery?!— but his friend merely smiled, looking worn and afraid herself. Sig recalled that Marya had lied to him, that she wasn't his friend, but he couldn't help but feel concerned. Her boots barely rustled as she padded across the leaves, as quiet as an animal's approach.

Sig prayed he wasn't wrong about all of this. But he'd deliberately gone to the lake to watch Marya consult with Vasilisa and had seen the transformation of swan to girl. Although he hadn't been close enough to hear the conversation, he watched the tense argument between the two, Vasya frustrated and angry. He'd wanted to race down and wrap the girl into his arms and hurt Marya for what she'd done.

But Marya was a sorceress, and his father had told him how clever sorceresses could be. Running to Vasya would be exactly what she wanted; a confrontation in which she could beat him, no doubt with destructive magic, and Vasya would remain under her spell.

Sig prayed he was right about this man in the basement being able to help him and Vasya.

'Lead the way, Siegfried,' Marya said, her voice low. Was that true sadness in her voice? Or was the friend he thought he'd made a truly gifted actress as well as sorceress?

Not trusting himself to talk, Sig nodded and beckoned her follow him, back up the pathway out of the woods. Here the trees began to clear, the crowded lines of trunks becoming increasingly spaced out and less dense with every few minutes. Soon, the two were leaving the forest entirely, the moonlight shining overhead and the fortress looming high from the rockface beyond. In silence, the two trudged up the rock pathway towards the main gates of the fortress, where Sig had moved guards to stand out of sight, away from their usual positions, so that Marya would feel less threatened.

It had the opposite effect. 'This place is empty...' she remarked, a frown demarcating her forehead. 'I expected it to be busy...'

Sig could sense an unspoken question, but he didn't enquire further. Still in silence they continued to walk, their boots clacking along the stone of the fortress. He was desperate to ask whether Marya had been her before; the man from the basement had called her a koldunya, which meant she would have lived here at a very young age, before the attack on the fortress. How had she escaped and survived? Was her uncle, a seemingly genial man, a mage, too? Or an innocent?

The fortress dipped, leading over an old stone bridge towards the high walls. A large, gated door stood in semi-repair, one of the many tasks of the soldiers here to improve. Two towers beamed down upon them, the lights in the slit windows dark, and on the battlements, not a bracket burned with fire. Sig knew from plan that there were, in fact, at least thirty sentries stationed along those walls, lurking out of sight amongst the shadows.

Sig tried not to stare as Marya's gaze crept over those battlements, assessing. He couldn't imagine what she was thinking.

Marya was thinking about the spirits of the dead.

The fortress grew ever familiar as she and the prince stalked up towards it, from the safety of her forest and into a territory seemed like her childhood and her fears rolled into one. With each metre, she sensed her ancestors watching her, the koldun vicious and fearless, and demanding why enemies were on their territory. As they passed, their shadows seemed to rise from the earth they'd returned to, summoning a host of memories that came back to her, unbidden and unwanted.

Her mother, Tatiana, watching her teachers train her in combat, out there in the yard. The sun was high overhead, enough that Marya could feel sweat trickling along her arms and into her gloved hands. Tatiana would set several tutors upon her at once, to ensure she realised the necessity of her training. No sane enemy attacked a koldunya alone, Tatiana would shout, as Marya would stagger backwards, beaten and scared.

Then, on the battlements, Yana, the koldunya who looked after her and helped her with day to day growing up, played a game where they would stand close to the wall and guess what a word about the scenery they looked at. Yana always picked trees and mountains. Marya chose the white-tailed eagle and purple crocus flowers, and the glacier, far in the north, towards Skyrholm.

Marya looked at that spot where Yana and she had taken turns to guess what the other was thinking of, mere months before Yana would be killed by the end of the koldunya.

She never saw Yana die. Perhaps it was for the best. But even so, looking up at those stone walls, Marya wanted to apologise. Why had she, alone, survived, out of the many koldunya? It wasn't a question Marya often asked anymore. A younger version of herself had asked those questions, haunted by dreams of flames and screams, and been promptly shushed by Aloysius.

'Come inside,' Prince Siegfried says, his voice soft. The great doorway rolls open at his touch, and Marya frowns again at the lack of guards, the silence of the palace. A great foreboding was rising within her, a panic that couldn't quite be quelled. Any hope of the prince not wanting her dead was rapidly diminishing.

Wrapping her arms around her body, Marya stepped through the doorway. The hallway whispered to her, in the words of long-dead koldun.

Daughter, daughter, they hissed. Traitor, traitor.

She wasn't a traitor. Was she? How could you betray what didn't exist anymore?

You let us die, traitor child, they said, their voices mingling as many and one. You let the legacy of the great koldun die.

Her footsteps were light against the stone floor; torches lined the halls, igniting their path. Marya remembered the ways all too well, she'd run along them so many times. Her life here hadn't been kind, but there had been fun amongst the fear.

Now, there was only fear, and hundreds of echoing voices watching her.

Kill the prince, kill the prince, take back the kingdom.

Don't trust him, foolish koldunya.

Marya wondered when her mother's voice would join in, louder and more cajoling than the rest, but she didn't recognise the tone. She must have disappointed the great koldunya far more than she'd realised; she wouldn't even return from the dead to taunt her and taunting her had been a favourite pastime of Tatiana's.

Their chanting only grew louder as the prince led her into the central passageways, where no natural light hit. Then, another left, beyond the stairs where Marya had raced Grigory, a boy, three years her senior, and who was never as cruel as the others. A softness was in him, just like Marya. He'd cried, especially when he'd tried to kiss her, and she'd laughed in his face.

Grigory, like Yana, like Tatiana, was dead. Marya felt sorry for the boy whose kiss she'd laughed off so heartily, a boy who had probably never been able to kiss anybody in his life, ever.

Suddenly, Marya knew where Prince Siegfried of Illychia was leading her, and she nearly turned back.

The dungeons. He was taking her to the dungeons. Far below light, and surely impenetrable to most sound and escape, Marya wondered if her blind faith had ran out. Her feet faltered on the stretch of stone, heart pounding in her chest.

Prince Siegfried glanced back when he realised she'd slowed, giving her an almost challenging stare. After all, a plain country girl shouldn't understand where he was taking her; knowing and being fearful was almost admitting to guilt. But Marya also knew that by not admitting it, she might well die.

Run away, little koldunya, like you always do.

Run away.

Perhaps your child will be worthier.

Perhaps we will wait until then for revenge.

Marya's fists balled. If she stopped now— if she ran— what would she do? Where could she go? Vasya couldn't stray from the lake, and the prince wouldn't rest until he'd captured both her and a magical swan girl. Her uncle, Aloysius, was unpredictable; all she knew was that he wanted, some way or another, to take the prince's throne out from underneath his king-in-waiting's backside.

If she ran, she would never find a way out. She would lose Sig entirely. She might lose Vasya. Perhaps, in a mad reality, she would run away alone, to a village life, and never breathe a word of magic again. Maybe she would end up as a woodcutter's wife, content and ageing, with children of her own. Cursed, spawned children with koldun blood that would signal further war, further anger, further revenge.

It ends here. Marya had stopped asking why she alone had survived, the last of the mightiest mage race in history. The last koldunya. Now, she wondered, if she might be the one to end the bitter struggle between the koldun and the royal bloodlines. The prince would have to see she meant him no harm. The prince would have to be won.

She would have to be brave.

She might die.

Stop, foolish child. He awaits below.

Marya was fully expecting an ambush; one of Prince Siegfried's commanding officers, even his father, the king. The floor itself seemed to tremble with excitement as she stepped forward, steeled to her fate.

The prince's lips flattened into a hollow smile, extending a false hand. It touched the small of her back in a way she'd have previously swooned at, but now, cold ice tingled where warmth should have been.

'I loved you, Sig,' Marya whispered, and she felt those fingertips jolt in surprise. Alone, she descended the steps into blackness, to await her destiny there.