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Chapter 19: Writhing, Dark, and Hungry
Anya grew like a spring shoot, twelve harsh Russian winters old. The winds molded her into a birch: tall and slender, with skin pale as the white tree's bark. Her hair came to her waist, black as onyx, and Elizaveta took to braiding it with blood red ribbons. It swung so beautifully as she danced the khorovod, a circling peasant dance of song and turning seasons, with village youths. She was like a fishing lure cast into a valley of dreams: one had to watch their feet lest they step on Anya as she ran mad-dash through the world.
It was the anniversary of the dozen year truce between Tsar Vladimir the Bent and Tsar Dmitri the Bountiful – two brothers as different in disposition as night and day. Liliya and Elizaveta cooked for days on end, harvesting the finest caviar from the rivers for stuffed blini, and Morozko was in charge of the vodka freshly brewed from the potato fields behind the inn. Anya took it upon herself to decorat
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Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 20: Warm Like a Furnace
Anya flourished in school, deftly walking the realms between man and spirits. Keeping the secret of her family was like breathing. She felt like a visitor to the Earth, a cast-off ship of dreams, left to travel the world with sails the lapis blue of things forgotten.Anya often pondered forgotten things, like her beloved nechist and how they had faded from Russian memory, relegated to the realm of myths. No one in America knew of Baba Yaga, and in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where Morozko took her to parks and museums, why, there were no gods at all. Anya wondered if, when the Zoryas shone down on Russia, if their starlight was tears at being forgotten by their humans they so so loved. Dmitri never spoke of when the borders between Buyan and Earth were open, and as Anya grew, her monstrous family took her less to the human world – only Morozko.“So what are the virtues of birch venik? Of oak? Eucalyptus?”
Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 21: Rising Taiga Sun
Twelve years old, thirteen winters passed – finally fourteen and with her moon’s blood upon her. Anya now danced sky clad at Witches Sabbaths. From her bloody feet, finally, fern flowers sprang in fragrant gore red blossoms. She pressed them and made tinctures and potions out of the mashed fronds and roots. Summer turned, and she was between childhood and womanhood, of two ages, belonging not quite anywhere.Anya’s first day of high school had dawned. She wore a pleated white skirt, a blue blouse and had plaited her long black hair back in a French braid and secured it with a red velvet bow that Elizaveta had sewn.She stood in front of Liliya’s vanity in the vila’s windy room at the top of the inn’s lookout tower, perfect for planning strategic maneuvers and defending Tsar Dmitri’s kingdom. The room was all white birch bark, its walls lined with sabers and long swords, whips, and arrow
Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 22: Greyback
“I am on the cheering team now, Greyback, and now I do backflips like Wonder Woman!” Anya said as she raced on the back of the great silver vucari. The looming gray wolf with golden eyes barked with laughter. They came to a witches’ hollow where warmth never fled the land despite the harsh winter cold and fern flowers always grew fever-bright and splendid.Anya picked some and made a flower crown for the vucari. He lay beside her, and with her witch-light and pine kindling and birch branches, she started a bonfire.“As you grow, so does your magic, and as your magic grows, he grows hungrier in the darkness, waiting to catch you like a moth to a blinding light. Never go to the deathless lands, dear Anya,” Greyback growled, twitching his ear.Anya leaned against him. “You always speak of awaiting danger. Baba Yaga says that you are the woods come to life, dear Greyback. I think you are m
Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 23: In My Wooden Bones
Dmitri woke Anya in the hidden away bedroom in the banya bright and early one Saturday morning come spring.“Da? Ugh. I was out late last night cheering on the Friday night game. Please let me sleep just five more minutes.”“Anya, you are spending so much time with your friends and young men, I fear that you are forgetting your family. That is why today, I am taking you out hunting, just like old times!”“But daaaa, it is nighttime-Dmitri chuckled, a quiver of arrows over his shoulder, handmade bow in his broad blue hands. “No, my dear, it is eleven in the morning, one of the best times to catch game, when prey are lazing. Let your old man take you on a hunting trip like we used to before you grew too busy with high school and football games and homework.”Anya groaned, burying her face in her pillow. “Five more minutes?”&ldq
Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 24: Sorely Needed Peace
Winter turned to spring, spring to winter, and round again like a carousel until Anya entered her sixteenth year. She ripened like an apple, rosy-cheeked and freckled with curves that her sarafan clung to. Her hair reached her waist, a thick black rope perfect for braiding, or perhaps for hanging a man by his own liar’s throat.Baba Yaga glanced up from her simmering chicken kiev, surveyed Anya, and clucked: “Annushka, you are not so little anymore, no longer a dumpling, more like a choice cut of elk. Like a sprouting white birch, you have grown too fast. Soon cherti will come seeking your magic rich blood.”“Whatever do you mean?” Anya asked, pausing from stirring a bubbling potion of rosemary and rue. “I have never met a cherti that was not bound to you or another witch. I have yet to attract a wild one. Why would my familiar come now?”“They are the denizens of Hel
Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 25: Snow Dress
Anya settled under the covers that night in her small makeshift bed at the foot of Morozko's. She stared at the ceiling, her firebird feather hung from the rafters to light the room as if by slow-burning moonlight. Morozko's breathing was measured, the bannik asleep.“Kolya?” Anya said.“Mmm?” he stirred.“Kolya.”“What is it?” he said, groggy.“How do you know if you really like someone?”Morozko rolled over under wolfskin blankets and yawned. “I do not know. I suppose there is a certain ache in your chest. A feeling of moths in the stomach: night things roused in your gut. It is a simple thing, really.”“I do not think it is as easy as you make it out to be.” Anya sighed. She fluffed her pillow, seeking a comfortable position. “Have you ever liked anybody?”Morozko exhaled heavi
Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 26: Wide Open
Anya's haphazard family ate lunch late that Saturday, the inn beyond the world bustling in preparation for Dmitri's annual noblemen council. Leshys of all types, stout and slender, with ram's horns and boar tusks, bear teeth and wolf skins, laughed heartily over vodka and a roaring fire. Their attendants talked rowdily. The harvest was drawing close, and it was a time for celebration.Anya's nerves were on edge: her shopping excursion with Morozko was in an hour. It could either go uneventfully or horribly, terribly wrong. She hoped for the former but anticipated the latter.Morozko gave her a hard look across the oak-hewn dining room table but said nothing. The others finished eating, the table cleared, and it was just the two of them left. Morozko picked at the remnants of his fish while Anya slowly sipped her water.She cleared her throat: “So. Ahem. Well… I guess we can go n
Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 27: Sidekick Business
She rose from the bed, pulling Morozko hastily after her.Morozko looked at her skeptically. “Have you not any care for caution? For consequences? There are monsters out there, cherti familiars and vucari and nechist waiting to devour you. Do not romanticize travel. It is a dangerous undertaking – getting lost, having your horse broken, your money stolen – everything about it, why, it is treacherous.” Morozko changed out of his kaftan into red jeans and a white cashmere sweater with embroidery of horse-backed Perun and Veles, flanking Mother Mokosh. He turned from Anya to give them privacy.Anya laced her combat boots over her leggings. “Oh please. You said you had a restless heart. Well, your fern flower juice infected me with wanderlust.” Anya zipped her leather jacket. “If you are really so worried, you can be my sidekick. I will promote you to sec
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- Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 48: Happy Ending
- Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 47: Promenade
- Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 46: Falcon Wild
- Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 45: Gardens To Tend
- Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 44: A Goddess Is Born
- Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 43: Even Gods Can Be Killed
- Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 42: Ivan Tsarevich
- Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 41: Lion in a Cage
- Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 40: Glazed
