By the second, the room seemed to darken. Flakes of marble sifted down from the statue, dusting my hair and shoulders. I lifted my head, biting my tongue to keep from crying out. Cracks spiderwebbed across the statue’s face.

Horror filled me as I looked down. On my own arms, the inked symbols were flaking away by the second. I didn’t have much time left. No wonder the past warriors had carved the symbols on their weapons and armor—engraved in metal, they would have likely withstood far more abuse than simple ink.

Step by step, the room grew even darker still. The drapes frayed into piles of rotting silk, dappled with mold. Even the gilt carvings in the high ceiling flaked away until the exposed wood began to rot as well.

Edging around the side of the statue, I caught a glimpse of Koschei drawing deeper into the room. He traced his fingertips across the statue of Tsarina Yelena, the first empress of Kosa, and she crumbled beneath his skin.

“Bogatyr or koldun,” he said. “There isn’t much difference, you know. And how is being spoiled any worse than being blessed? It is how you use your gifts that counts. For years now, the bogatyri have gorged themselves on the blood and sweat of the common man like ticks. Like parasites. And now they have the hubris and arrogance to deride my gift as evil when they themselves have committed sins innumerable. You have seen that, haven’t you?”

I swallowed hard, tightening my hold around my knife. His words worked their way inside me, burrowing deep like a blood worm, and all I could think about was my mother holding me close, pressing me against her body as a man set afire strode through the forest, hunting us.

Tomochka, whatever you do, don’t make a sound.

So, I had hid under the thornbush, biting my own arm to keep from crying out. And when she had started screaming, I had run and not looked back.

This time, I would not run. This time, I must fight.

“Would you like to know how I became what I am today?” Koschei asked, eroding a second statue’s face and arm in an instant with a touch as light as any lover’s. Chunks of marble rolled across the floor.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to hear it. If my own power had emerged after seven years of struggle in the wilderness and after losing both my mother and Vanya, I hated to think what he had gone through to be granted his.

“It was in the trenches of Teykhst, within the Edge. The Grozniy troops had pushed us back as far as Shteynov to the south and Kupalo to the west. Death did not divide us in those days—it surrounded us on all sides. Teykhst was...different. We had managed to keep the Grozniy troops at bay by the time the 7th Bogatyr Regiment arrived; they were not involved in the actual fighting at that point. Too valuable. Not like us common men within the 12th Infantry Regiment. We bled in the trenches. We suffered. We died. We came back.” His rolling timbre filled my ears, as low and somniferous as a chant. “So, we saw bogatyri fighting for the first time, and when there was a lull in the battle, we saw the way in which the 7th Bogatyr Regiment prevented the resurrection of us lesser beings. By burning the wounded and the dead alike, including our own. That would have been enough. That would have been enough, but then we were given an order. Go into Teykhst and raze it to the ground. Burn all cropland, kill all cattle. If anyone resists, they are traitors and they must be slaughtered.”