Page 26 of Her Blind Deception (The Dark Reflection #2)

Chapter Twenty-Six

T he ground was spongy beneath my feet, the sound swallowed by a thick layer of moss and rotting debris. I clutched a satchel with my most critical belongings—namely a little food, a dagger I’d swiped from Cotus, the blood stone necklace and my mirror—tightly in my hands and the heft of it tugged relentlessly at my arms. The forsaken mirror was heavy. It only half fit in the satchel. There was no way I could carry it far.

Dawn was barely scratching at the dark sky and Cotus was still asleep by the fireplace in the cabin. I had always intended to leave him there. Whatever the outcome of this journey into the Yawn, I didn’t want him witnessing it. I just had to hope he would stay as long as it took for me to return, because it would be a long walk back to the nearest village. Especially towing this outrageously huge mirror along. Couldn’t Draven have enchanted a nice hand mirror instead? No, of course not, that wouldn’t make nearly half the statement of forcing me to look into my mother’s mirror every morning to see my entire face with perfect clarity. I highly doubted he would ever prioritise my convenience over drama.

It became clearer with every step that there was absolutely no way I would be able to keep carrying it. I was still able to see the cabin through the trees and already my shoulders were burning. I staggered along for a while longer, looking for a landmark, finally coming upon a huge dead tree. Its trunk was bleached white, split in the centre so that the two halves of the tree were leaning away from each other, and the branches were barren of leaves. It was easily recognisable, and I fell to my knees among its roots.

Peeling the satchel down, I exposed the glass of the mirror. The sight of the dark forest behind me in the glass made me shiver, especially when my own face came into view, so I closed my eyes while the magic chilled my skin, and when it was done, I gently wedged the mirror into the crevice between the two halves of the tree. Gathering some undergrowth, I packed foliage around it, which ended up looking strange in comparison to the stark white tree trunk.

I wondered for a moment whether I should chance taking one of the horses with me. Then I could have it carry the mirror. But I didn’t like horses and they didn’t like me. I didn’t trust them, with their flickering ears and rolling eyes and wicked bite, and I certainly didn’t want to give one the chance to toss or trample me. Not out here, where no one would find me. No, the mirror would be fine here. I wouldn’t leave it for long. I’d need to be back to renew the glamour, after all.

It didn’t take me long to find the river. It really was little more than a ribbon, fast-flowing and holding hardly any space in the foliage above. I walked until the sun was high in the sky, though less and less light fought its way through the forest canopy to the ground below. The trees of the Yawn stretched their branches high overhead, seeming to glare down at me as they rustled their leaves in warning. I almost thought I heard whispering just beneath the sound of the wind sweeping through foliage. Cease , the trees seemed to threaten. Flee . They clutched stones and boulders in their enormous tangles of roots and I imagined those same roots reaching out of the earth to grasp at me as well, to pull me down and hold me, to keep my bones as mementos to display to the next human stupid enough to walk in places they were not welcome.

Without warning, I couldn’t see the river anymore. I stopped, stared around me, then carefully traced my steps back. But all I saw were trees, trees and more trees. There was no sign of my footprints behind me, no hint that I’d just passed through. That couldn’t be right. I must have gotten turned around. I tried striking out in another direction, paying careful attention to the ground, trying to pick up a trace of my path as my fear slowly rose. I had to find the river.

My eyes were fixed on the ground, so I didn’t see the first skull until I almost ran into it. I leapt back, my skin crawling, staring wide-eyed at the putrid thing. There were still scraps of withered skin and matted hair clinging to partially exposed bone, and the hollow spaces that had once housed eyes gaped at me. It was speared on the end of a pole stuck into the ground, its body nowhere in sight.

The wind turned on me in that moment, and the foetid stench of decay filled my nose and mouth, making me gag as I clapped a hand over my face and stumbled onwards. But I only encountered another, and then another, until the forest around me was full of them, heads teetering on poles in the dirt. They were in various states of decomposing, some just white bone with nothing left of their flesh casings, some disturbingly whole. I moved past those the quickest, my eyes fixed firmly away from faces that were still recognisably human. Some had tumbled from their perches and lay rotting on the ground, and others still were accompanied by crude, wooden signs painted with lettering.

Is what you’re seeking worth your head?

I pushed on, taking sharp, quick breaths, as though I could somehow outmanoeuvre the stench, and was the creaking and shuddering of the surrounding trees unusual? Were they grabbing at my flesh more than normal trees might? No, now I was letting fear make me stupid. The severed heads were bad enough without me inventing other things to be terrified of. But I could have sworn they were leaning closer, their branches inching out to swipe at me, the undergrowth stretching up and gripping my skirts with a little too much energy.

Then a branch really did dip down, right before my eyes, and graze its fingers through my hair. I ran.

The forest whipped past, tearing and clawing at me with greater ferocity the faster I went. I didn’t know where I was going, every step found more trees, more undergrowth, more sharp fingers clawing at my skin, the satchel thudding against my hip, weighing down my arms. My lungs burned. My legs screamed. My feet were caught by the roots pulling from the earth to scrabble at my ankles, sending me stumbling, sprawling. I twisted, clutched the satchel to me as I fell, lost it as the wind was knocked from me and I lay gasping for air I couldn’t catch, the trees drawing closer.

‘Finally you arrive, wretched girl. ’

A head popped into view above me. A sunken a pair of beady eyes gleaming above a hooked beak of a nose, mouth twisted into a scowl that seemed to draw all the wrinkles and folds of her face into it. I blinked up at the old woman as I gulped at my breath like a fish on land, unsure whether she was a hallucination. Something poked at my side, and I realised she was prodding me with her foot.

‘Now you lie there like Taveum isn’t nipping at your heels. Well, I’m not waiting for him to catch me while you rest.’

She vanished from my line of sight. I struggled to push myself up, still clutching at my stomach, to see that she had turned her back on me and was about to disappear into the trees.

‘Wait,’ I wheezed, retrieving my satchel and struggling to my feet. ‘Come back.’ I staggered after her, but for an old woman she moved fast. Before long, she’d been swallowed up by the woods. ‘Stop!’ I called into the trees, picking up my pace as I recovered my breath. ‘You can’t just leave me here!’

The tree line broke, and suddenly I was faced with air, space, sunlight, a rough clearing ringing a house with a long, pointed roof and a sandy path curling towards a rough-hewn door. And there were chickens. Everywhere. They roosted in window boxes and scratched at flower beds, their broody clucking filling the air, along with their smell.

The woman stood on the path, turned to me with her hands on her hips, and with a spark of recognition, I knew her as the woman who’d bent down to me all those years ago. I approached her warily.

‘What cheek, telling me what I can and can’t do.’ Baba Yaga peered at me, her amber eyes too sharp and bright for her weathered face, and a wicked leer split her mouth. ‘I could eat you,’ she said gleefully, then she sniffed the air between us and scowled. ‘But you stink of magic.’

I released a captive breath. ‘My name is—’

‘Rhiandra Tiercelin,’ she cut in. ‘I’m not so old that I don’t remember that knock-kneed scarecrow of a girl who hid in my pantry when your mother came to see me. Or is it Beaufort, now? Or the wicked queen of Brimordia?’

I knew she was rumoured to know things she couldn’t. But that didn’t stop the feeling of exposure crawling over me, like I’d been caught without my clothes on. I tried to ignore it, focus on my purpose in seeking her out. ‘I came here because I need your help.’

‘But it is not an empty womb you seek.’ She waggled a crooked finger at me. ‘Who gave you that pretty face, girl-queen? And what did it cost you?’ When I didn’t respond, she snorted. ‘Stupid girl, fooling around with Koschei. And now you want Baba Yaga to fix what you have broken,’ she grumbled as she hobbled along, pushing stray chickens out of her path with her feet.

I trailed along after her, muddling through what she’d said and trying to ring sense from it. ‘I’m sorry, you are Baba Yaga, aren’t you?’ She only grunted in reply. ‘Could we go back a minute?’ I continued. ‘What exactly do you think you know about me?’

‘That you’re bumbling and vain and stuck in bog you’ve muddied yourself.’ She opened the lid of a pale on the ground, dunked her hand into it and pulled out a fistful of seed. ‘So stupid for someone who thinks herself so clever.’

‘Okay, so you clearly think you know something about me,’ I began, feeling off balance and scattered by the thought even as I tried to reign in my indignation. Vain I would wear, but stupid ? ‘Maybe enough that you think you can criticise some of the decisions I’ve been forced to make recently.’

‘Not forced, iaral, ’ she said, speaking a strange word I didn’t understand, but had to assume was just as unflattering as everything else she’d said . ‘Chose. You chose to lie and scheme and kill for that pretty mask. You had other options,’ she said. The chickens clucked themselves into a frenzy as she cast the seed into the dirt.

My temper was rising like heat under my skin. I didn’t know this woman. She didn’t know me. But she knew things about me that she shouldn’t. And now she was casting judgement on me before even giving me a chance to explain myself.

‘Options?’ I repeated, almost snapped. ‘Like what?’

She looked at me and gestured to her face. ‘Remain ugly,’ she said with a cackle, before turning and shuffling towards her cottage. ‘You think ugliness is such a curse that you made a magical deal without knowing where it would lead,’ she continued.

I followed after her, grinding my teeth. Yes, she knew far more about me than she should. ‘There’s no place in this world for an ugly woman, especially not a poor one.’

We entered her house and she bent slowly to place her pail on the floor by the door. The room was warm, furnished with a pair of grubby armchairs, a table littered with leftover crumbs, a fire crackling in the grate. Bunches of dried herbs were strung from the ceiling, flavouring the air with a medley of rosemary and lavender, chamomile and sage, and the rough-hewn shelves lining the walls of the kitchen were stocked with hundreds of dusty jars containing all sorts of powders and liquids, neatly labelled with lettering that dipped and curled .

‘You have been under the thumb of men for too long,’ she said as she straightened, rubbing her hands together. She moved into the kitchen and began rifling around, taking pinches from several jars that she scattered into a clay mug. ‘They have filled your head with tripe.’ Taking the mug in hand, she wandered over to the fireplace and scooped a ladle of liquid from a pot suspended above the coals, pouring it into the mug while swirling it rhythmically.

‘Maybe so, but I’m actually not here for advice. I need your help,’ I said, trying to keep my tone even, like it was a request rather than a demand. ‘I can pay.’

‘Pah. What need have I for your riches?’ She jabbed a finger at one of the armchairs by the fireplace. ‘Sit.’

I frowned, not wanting to move any deeper into the room, but when she drew her bushy brows together, I did as she commanded. Sitting on the edge of the chair, my skin crawled at being so close to the fireplace, and she thrust the mug into my hands. ‘Drink.’

Sniffing the liquid cautiously, I screwed my nose up at the bitter, herbal smell. ‘No thank you.’

‘Drink,’ she repeated, her voice harsh, her eyes steely.

The last thing I wanted to do was offend her in her own home. Was she to poison me? What would be the point? I braced myself and took a sip, coughing at the vicious flavour. Baba Yaga nodded, as though satisfied, before lowering herself into the chair opposite me. She leaned forward, her hands gripping the arms of the chair, the firelight dipping and weaving across the crevices of her face.

‘What did you promise him?’

‘Who?’ I asked, and the look she gave me made my cheeks heat with shame. I knew who she meant. A shiver ran over me as my body remembered his hands, his lips, the press of him against me. I felt as though he’d marked me and her shrewd eyes could see it.

‘Koschei,’ she hissed. ‘You reek of him. That magic on your face would have come at a pretty price.’

I sat up straighter and met her gaze squarely. ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about. The magic I wear was given to me by my husband, the king of Brimordia.’

Her eyes widened and she froze, staring at me as though I was stark naked and standing on my head. Then, without warning, her face cracked, and she burst into maniacal laughter. She rocked back and forth, clutching her stomach, shoulders shaking as her cackles rattled the stillness of the hut.

‘What’s so funny?’ I demanded.

Her laughter gave way to a fit of coughing, and she hacked into her hand, her face still somehow gleeful, before spitting on the floor. I curled my lip in distaste and moved my foot away from the slimy globule.

‘King, you say?’ she said finally as she wiped the tears away from her eyes, still chuckling. ‘If Koschei is king, then you have been very naughty, my girl. What havoc a little beauty can wreak.’

I bristled like a cantankerous hen. ‘I’m no girl, so I’ll thank you not to call me that. I‘ve long been a woman and I’m your queen.’

She waved her wrinkled hand dismissively. ‘You are a girl. A woman would not be so ruled by vanity that she’d tear the world apart to satisfy it as you have done. And you’re no queen of mine, nor of any creature you’ll meet in the Yawn.’ She sat back in her chair, the humour falling away from her face as she contemplated me. ‘Show me what you keep in your bag,’ she said. ‘Show me what sludge you have brought me to scrub.’

I considered refusing as I grit my teeth against my injured pride, but this was the whole reason I’d come to find her. I had no choice but to tolerate her scorn. Plunging my hand into my satchel, I withdrew the apple and held it before me. Baba Yaga sucked her teeth as she inspected it, then carefully plucked it up by the stem and held it aloft with the very tips of her fingers.

‘Whose death will this bring?’ she asked, her eyes fixed on the apple, her brows drawn.

‘I thought you’d already know.’

She shifted in her seat, frowning. ‘This is twisted in too many of your husband’s threads. He is a blight on the future I can’t see through, so you’ll have to tell me the old-fashioned way.’

‘I’m supposed to give it to Princess Gwinellyn,’ I said, my smarting pride settling into shame at the thought of Gwin. ‘I was hoping you might know a way to break a deal bound with magic.’ I leaned my elbows on the arms of the chair and cast my gaze to the ground as I spoke, my shoulders slumping. I’d never actually admitted to my deal before, and it left me feeling drained.

‘Why break it at all?’ she asked slyly. ‘Too squeamish to get blood on your hands?’

‘She’s always been treated as an inconvenience. If I end her life for the same reason, that will be all she ever was.’

‘Ah. So it’s about you. She’s a mirror and you can’t bring yourself to break your own reflection,’ she chortled.

‘She just deserves better.’

Baba Yaga didn’t speak for a long time, and when I chanced a glance up, it was to see her pulling herself to her feet and dumping the apple on the mantlepiece.

‘Time for a nap, iaral,’ she said when I caught her eye, and she began hobbling towards a door behind her armchair. ‘I’ll not alter my day just because some entitled chit stumbled into my house.’

‘Wait,’ I cried, jumping from the chair. ‘Are you going to help me?’

‘I’ve not decided,’ she said without pausing. ‘But I find a clean house puts me in a mood for helping the unfortunate.’ She shut the door behind her with a click and left me standing before her fireplace, gaping at her final comment, still reeling at the speed of the conversation. That hadn’t gone at all the way I’d planned. She hadn’t really even given me a chance to plead my case. She’d already known it. And what did she want me to do now? Clean her house? I looked about at the dim cottage, at the soot stains around the fireplace, the dust coating the many jars and shelves of the kitchen, the dirt ground into the rug, the grime on the windows. I wanted to scream at the opportunistic old woman. It was a manipulative play, to suggest I needed to grovel for her favour while promising me nothing. I might scrub her house from top to bottom and wind up with nothing to show for it.

I rolled up my sleeves, muttering strings of curses under my breath. I had nothing to bargain with, no leverage to move her to where I needed. I had to play her game exactly as she demanded it.