years ago,” began Queen Dagmara, “the evil crept in. It came from below ground. It was as if hell had opened beneath our feet. It started with small monsters—with nocnica and psotniki. I was concerned, but my husband reassured me. He said it would get better.” She paused. “He said I was too beautiful to worry.”
Queen Dagmara’s lip curled. It was somehow elegant. It was an expression learned in schools and in ballrooms and in worlds lit by more than moonlight and shaped by more than fear.
In a different life, Ren might have learned the same expression.
“Then came the strzygi,” murmured the queen, still staring out the window. “They came in such numbers, out of those pits. Evil spirits, wandering my world and hurting my people. They grew so numerous, and so quickly. They gathered like fog below the foundations of our kingdom. And they destroyed us.”
Ren waited, silent.
“And no one did anything,” continued Queen Dagmara. “My husband tried at first, but not very hard. He said there was nothing we could do.”
What have the humans done? the Baba Jaga had asked. They have given up.
“But I loved our kingdom, Irena,” said the queen. “I loved our village, with its Sunday markets and its houses, with their yellow and blue paint. I loved celebrating Christmas Eve with you and your father, and our villagers. I loved that castle.”
Her face had become clouded, her lashes low on her cheeks. It was almost as if she was looking back seventeen years, into a world that Ren could not imagine existing. Beauty and color, she had learned, were for other cities. That warmth, that feeling of being home: that was for the magic halls of Hala Smoków.
That was for the Baba Jaga’s cabin.
Those feelings were not for an angry village. A besieged castle.
“I tried to save us,” said Queen Dagmara, and turned abruptly to face Ren. Her eyes were the most piercing gold. “But no one listened to me, because I was just a queen. And then came the Dragon. She warned me that ours would be the first kingdom to fall. The first battleground in a great war, a war that might sweep across this country, if we did not stop it here. I decided to go with her. Together, we would raise an army. We alone would fight. We would save this kingdom.”
Ren stopped pacing.
“You listened to a dragon?” she demanded. The words came out harsh, spitting. “It’s the worst evil—”
“When you met the Wolf-Lord in the river,” said Queen Dagmara smoothly, “didn’t you notice that the Dragon burned the psotniki in the trees? Or later, that she only burned strzygi? Filled those pits with flames? Did she not follow you every step of this journey?”
Ren stopped dead.
“And through all these fires,” continued Queen Dagmara, “did you ever burn?”
Ren was reeling. She gathered her wits only enough to sputter:
“It’s a dragon!”
Queen Dagmara smiled.
“You’ve been talking to Wolf-Lords.”
She got to her feet. The gown chimed, and Ren took a step back. The Dragon had never touched her castle. Never hurt her animals. Never even the village.
“The Golden Dragon is not evil,” said Queen Dagmara, closing the space between them. She was much taller than Ren, almost as tall as Lukasz. “She was made by something else. We don’t know what exactly. Perhaps something trapped down there, in hell? Or maybe she was born from darkness and just couldn’t bear to live in it.”
This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be real. Lukasz’s brothers couldn’t have died for this, for nothing. . . .
“You destroyed my forest. You destroyed this kingdom—and Hala Smoków. They all went to save you, and your Dragon killed them.” Ren could barely speak, she was so angry. “My brother is dead because of you.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” replied the queen evenly. “The Dragon gave me a chance to do good.”
She waved a hand. A small, clipped gesture that she seemed to think could negate thousands of ruined lives. Could negate eight brothers. Her dead brother. It was the gesture of a woman who had spent most of her life waving away servants. Giving orders and having them obeyed. A woman who had been born into power, and who had never truly had to fight for her life.
“I was the queen of this kingdom,” said Queen Dagmara, when Ren did not speak. “And still no one listened to me. You don’t know what that’s like, Irena.”
Ren threw up her hands.
“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t know what it’s