Chapter Text
The girls have gathered in Alina’s suite by the big fireplace, very giddy and giggly at this stage of the evening. Genya was the one they had to thank for obtaining all those treats from the kitchens of Grand Palace, including a giant samovar full of mulled wine. (“Who would ever put mulled wine into a samovar?” asked Marie, to which Genya promptly answered, “Clearly, no one. That’s why a samovar is perfect to both smuggle the tsar’s wine and brew it with spices while you’re inconspicuously carrying it.”) Nadia and Marie were impressed, of course, and to Alina’s utter joy, they dropped all remnants of their condescending air, fully admitting the Tailor to their circle.
It’s a good thing she allowed them to convince her to go with their plan, thinks Alina to herself. She hates being in the center of attention, so, naturally, she didn’t initially like the idea of celebrating her first month upon arriving at the Little Palace. But Marie and Nadia managed to keep it private and quiet and cozy, and thankfully she insisted on inviting Genya. Her friends accepted her help in planning Alina’s party and bounded over it.
“What should we do now?” Nadia asks.
“I know, I know!” Marie claps her hands. “This is where we start telling horror stories in turns! The way we did at clandestine birthday parties back when we lived in that old dormitory wing!”
“Aren’t we too old for that, Masha? Horror stories are for little kids. How old were we, eleven? Twelve?”
“It doesn’t have to be a children’s story,” Genya winks, unexpectedly coming to Marie’s support.
So it begins. Nadia goes first, choosing some morbid tale about a seminary student who was asked to spend three nights at a nobleman’s family chapel praying for his late daughter. The narrator spares no juicy detail when describing the luscious beauty of the young lady, who of course won’t just keep lying in her open coffin like a decent corpse should but rises from the dead to harass the miserable man in his protective salt circle. Alina is blushing to match a Heartrender’s kefta, and Genya is laughing her head off when the heroine—or, rather, villainess—starts touching herself very explicitly.
“Nadia, you’re so lucky it was some poor dude and not you in his place!” says the Tailor. “He almost made it through three nights, and we all know you’ll jump out of the circle at the first opportunity!”
“Hell yes, Genya! And I would love it, every minute of it!” Nadia completely ignores the fact that the dude in question was rather not made love to but tortured and torn to pieces by myriads of fiendish creatures summoned by the evil lady. “It is such a shame that this job was offered to a gay priest-to-be, who could never enjoy this!”
Then it is Marie’s turn, and her pick is some dreary ghost story. There’s some woman in white, some wind to extinguish the candles, some tragic story of love and jealousy from the past, and to be frank, it’s not that entertaining, to say the least. Or probably narrative skills aren’t Marie’s forte. Or both. Genya and Alina listen politely, but Nadia snaps, barely waiting till the end of the story.
“So that’s it? Shame on you, Marie, that’s exactly what I meant when I voiced my doubts! Just some flickering lights and a sad, pale figure? Come on, we are big girls here, we can stomach something mature! Something really dark, really lecherous.”
Alina freezes, hearing these words. She was going to tell a similar story herself, a local superstition from Keramzin. It wasn’t much of a tale, just a “don’t go to that well at the edge of the woods at night, a White Lady has been appearing there, it must be the Polnochnitsa who will grab you and eat you alive” thing. No, she will be mocked as a child if she goes with this. She’s not a child anymore, she is already eighteen, the same as Nadia and Marie. But she can’t remember any other story to tell the girls... unless...
Something really, really dark, Nadia says? Really dark and really lecherous?
“I think the darkest story out there would be the story of the Black Heretic,” says she, and the others cheer enthusiastically.
“Wow!”
“That’s so daring!”
“That makes sense! Who to tell a Black Heretic horror story but the Sun Summoner! Is it about the creation of the Fold?”
“Oh no,” she answers, “the Shadow Fold was created ages ago, who am I to know about it? I’ll be telling you what happened to the man afterward. Or...” the story takes shape in her mind, she is slightly frightened by her boldness, but this, this is what is going to bring her respect and admiration from her peers. “Or rather what happened to the ones who were unlucky to meet him. The ones who were unwise to summon him.”
She promptly silences the girls with a finger to her lips, so they don’t distract her with their exclamations and starts the tale.
“There was a girl, for there always is a girl at the beginning of a story. This one was young and beautiful and had plenty of suitors, and her name was... Oksana,” she spends some time looking for a good name, for she doesn’t want it to be traditional Elena or Vasilisa, the wise and the beautiful. Well, her girl will be very beautiful, but apparently not very wise.
“Oksana was loved by her parents, her friends, her suitors, the whole town. So she grew up probably a little spoiled,” Alina’s voice is a bit wistful as she speaks. If only she could be a wealthy heiress, loved and cherished and even spoiled a little bit. Or not just a little bit. Those who have it all tend to be spoiled, they don’t appreciate what they have, they are never satisfied. Alina senses a wave of envy and anger building inside, and why not yield to it? After all, the story is in her hands, so why not give this imaginary brat hell to pay? “She believed that she would get everything she wanted. Everything she would ask for. And probably that was true, for she did get what she asked for in the end.”
Marie and Nadia nod eagerly. Genya is just sitting back, all three of them waiting patiently for Alina to continue.
“I’ve mentioned already that Oksana had suitors galore. She was not merely the wealthiest heiress in their town but also the most beautiful girl you can imagine. Poems were written about her golden curls and bright blue eyes, gifts were given to her, yet her heart remained pure ice. She enjoyed toying with both suitors and friends, she easily insulted anyone, knowing that as the burgomaster’s daughter, no one would be able to counter her.
“She refused all marriage proposals until every eligible bachelor in the area had proposed to her at least once. So that day, when she sent a Kerch merchant’s son packing, a handsome lad with good manners and Kerch gold in his pockets, her mother was furious.
“‘Are you out of your mind, girl?’ she shouted at her daughter. ‘So Mijnheer Van Straaten isn’t good enough for you either? Who are you waiting for? Who do you think is going to take you now? The Black Heretic of the Fold?’
“The town lived in the shadow of the Fold, though its inhabitants chose to ignore its looming mass as they went around on their daily errands. Still, whenever something went wrong, they would not blame some minor evil spirit, as other Ravkans would do, but blame it on the Black Heretic himself. He seemed the right one to be cursed and to be used for cursing the others.
“Yet Oksana was not used to reprimands, and her temper was easily provoked. ‘Fine,’ said she, ‘let him be my bridegroom. Yes, let the Black Heretic come and take me!’ she jumped like a child throwing a tantrum. ‘Let the Black Heretic take me! Let the Black Heretic take me!’
“Her mother and her aunts stared at her in sheer horror, but there was no thunderclap, the Fold didn’t expand to devour their town, the sun was still shining high in the sky, so after a while, they just forgot about Oksana’s words.
“But they were right to be worried. Such words should not be spoken lightly, for you never know who might hear them. And the Black Heretic couldn’t resist coming, not after having been summoned thrice.”
Alina makes a pause to sip some mulled wine for her dry throat and decide what will happen next. She already knows the idea in general, but... Will she not die of shame when speaking about those things?
“As soon as the town hall clock struck midnight, Oksana’s bedroom window was thrown open. A dark cloud, blacker than black, flew in, shadows spreading all over the place and dissipating a little to reveal a tall figure in the middle of the room.”
“Was he handsome?” asks Marie.
“I don’t know. Nobody was there to witness it,” answers Alina. “I guess, his features were hideous and deformed.”
“Oh no, that won’t do!” protests Nadia, and two others join her.
“Hideous doesn’t make any sense,” Genya adds, “he was the General’s great-great... I always forget how many generations it was, anyway, his great-grandfather. Why can’t we say that he was as handsome as the General is, for the sake of this story, at least? After all, as you say, nobody was there to witness it, so ’tis no big deal if we make such an assumption,” she winks.
Alina chokes on her drink, sweet mulled wine suddenly stale in her mouth. She just... if she had only thought of it in time, she would never dare make up a tale about the General’s ancestor! Especially a tale like this...
“I suppose you are right,” she says in a strained voice, “we can assume that he was very handsome indeed, delicate features and all. Probably not unlike the General.”
She pauses, trying to overcome a sudden wave of vertigo.
“What happened next?” Marie urges her, poking her forearm.
They won’t let her leave it. She has to tell the story so that they are happy. So that Nadia doesn’t laugh at her for chickening out of telling something mature.
“He walked to Oksana’s bed and leaned to brush a lock from her face, waking her.
“She opened her eyes to see the most beautiful man in the world kneeling beside her bed. ‘You asked for me, milaya. So I have come to take you.’”
“Yay!” exclaims Marie, and Nadia adds in a sing-song voice, “Someone is getting la-aid!”
“No, girls, it’s not so cheerful... It’s a horror story, after all!” The reminder is for Alina herself as well. Something terrible will happen to Oksana because terrible things would always happen to the proud, vain, haughty, and naughty children in the stories the matron read to them back at the orphanage. If you did something bad, you deserved the bad things that would follow.
She braces herself, trying to find the words, to find the courage to articulate the naughty bits.
“His dark gaze seemed to penetrate her soul as he continued speaking. ‘Three times shall you have me, sweet Oksana, and three times shall you come for me.’” There is always three of something in fairy tales and legends, and she tries to make her story feel like a real legend. So now she needs to elaborate... and while she has never experienced it herself, she has been listening to other girls talking and couldn’t help noticing a specific pattern in their stories about particularly good lovers. “‘You shall have my fingers, my mouth, and my cock. And you’ll be pledging yourself to me every night, so when you come for me for the third time, you’ll be mine forever. Your body, your will, your life, mine shall they be.’
“The words barely registered at first because his hands were moving on her body, and she felt liquid flame flowing under her skin along their trail. But then the meaning of his speech burned in her mind, and horror overtook her. She struggled to get away, but he held her in place, pinning her against the sheets. She opened her mouth to scream, but his hand moved to muffle all the sounds. Before long, another hand traveled to her thighs and...”
She pauses, noticing that something is amiss with Genya. The Tailor is sitting rigidly upright, clenching her jaw, an unreadable expression on her face.
“Go on!” Nadia says impatiently. “He touched her where? And how?”
“Oh please, Nadia, do I really have to?”
“Yes, you do?” Her friend puts on her most innocent smile. Alina closes her eyes, bringing a hand over them.
“Anyway, no matter what she did, he touched her there, and Oksana came. And then he made her fall asleep, turned into a shadowy cloud, and flew all the way back to the Fold.”
Nadia pouts, but Alina ignores her. She can’t make the story any more explicit, she just can’t.
“Hey, you say he turned into shadows? How come that’s possible? The Grisha don’t do that, it’s against Small Science!” Marie says.
Alina is immediately protective of her tale.
“We know that the Grisha don’t do that, but this is an otkazat’sya legend! I am just telling it the way I heard it, that’s all! You know how stupid their superstitions can be, especially the ones against the Grisha!”
This tiny confrontation brings her the spirit she needs to continue the tale.
“Oksana slept late, but that was usual for her. The next day her household marked how distracted and drowsy she was, but they were too happy to have a break from her usual peevishness, so nothing was said or done.
“The next night, the Black Heretic paid her another visit. He had his shadows hold her limbs as he kneeled in front of her on the bed and brought his mouth to her core. Tears welled up in her eyes as she tried to fight the feeling, but a third of her was his already, and she could not withstand him even before that. So the second night ended much like the first one.
“This time, Oksana didn’t leave her bed at all, and when her mother saw how pale, weak and lethargic the girl was, she called for the doctor. The old man, however, could find nothing wrong with his patient, merely advising some bed rest. Her mother’s heart was uneasy, though.
“Oksana dreaded the impending nighttime, unable to voice her fears to anyone. She was screaming internally, but no sound left her lips. She could barely move, it felt like her body wasn’t hers anymore. For that was true, now only a third of her was left in the body.
“She trembled as he approached, begging him with her eyes, already knowing that nothing would save her. The Black Heretic finally claimed her, and her world turned black.
“That night, a girl could be seen walking from the front porch of the mayor’s house all the way throughout the town and to the Fold. The girl was pale as death, a mere ghost of the proud and beautiful Oksana, and if anyone looked into her eyes, the glassy emptiness inside would scare them to death. Nobody ever saw Oksana again. She was the first, but, alas, not the last among foolish women who dared summon the Black Heretic.”
The room is silent for a while.
“Oh, dear...” Marie whispers.
“This was so, so intense! I think I like it!” Nadia says, looking around. “So... there’s only Genya’s story left?”
“Oh no, I’d rather pass,” Genya is quick to say, “It’s past midnight already, and we don’t have a day off tomorrow. I guess all of you are as tired as I am.”
The atmosphere is uneasy, so the girls gladly agree to bid each other good night. Alina is afraid she won’t be able to sleep, yet she falls into slumber fast enough, waking in the morning with a hangover and no memory of her dreams that night.