Witches Burn at Dawn ✔

1. Yaroslava

Still disoriented, I wrap my arm around my shoulders, and pull my knees up to my chin, my back bumping into something. A tree. My gaze wanders across the surroundings, looking for a clue, for an answer to my million questions.

The moonlight's leaking through the tree branches, bathing slanted crosses and old headstones in phantom silvery shades. It's calm, the way the world of the dead never was for me.

A graveyard. The thought shouldn't shock me, but it does. I was in a house, an old dusty house, with books turning to ashes and the acrid smell of herbs. I burned. Nothing should have been left of me... How did my body survive?

Something's wrong.

Like an armor, like a foreign mechanism, my body reacts to my thoughts with a brief delay. My head's pounding, a strange taste on my tongue. Medicine? Blood? Bile? But what if this is how real death looks like? Real. My rescuer keeps surveying me, the night blocks me from seeing emotions on his face, but I know there are some. His shoulders rise and fall along with his steady breathing, he's definitely not dead.

I rub my arms with my freezing fingers. Such an ordinary move, but the goosebumps covering my skin under the thin fabric of the blouse reassure me I'm alive.

He interprets my shivering wrong.

"You're freaking her out," he says to his friends, without taking his eyes off me, without putting the knife away, or getting onto his feet. "Let me talk to her alone."

"And you're not freaking her out?" the girl argues, nervous.

"I'll explain her everything."

"But--"

"Laverna." His tone's low, unyielding. People speak that way when they know they're not to be disobeyed.

Laverna doesn't respond. I see her eyes run over my body, then she wrinkles her nose, and walks off toward a car parked outside the graveyard's gates. She's disappointed or annoyed or all at once.

The boy, however, doesn't move. Reluctantly, my rescuer averts his eyes from me to look at his friend with a wordless question.

"I'm not leaving you, Mir," his friend says. "What if she tries to attack you again?"

"Oh please. The knife's in my hands."

His friend hesitates. The muddy soil beneath his boots, next to my thigh, squishes as he shifts from foot to foot, stalling. For a moment I think he's going to kick me, simply because he can, because he thinks I'm a threat to his friend. No. With a grumble, he turns around and stamps after Laverna, his boots leaving the grass trampled.

I watch the two of them go, my chaotic thoughts soar with them for one more second. Do I want them to go? Do I want to go with them? Or do I want to stay with my rescuer? Truth is, I'm okay with any option as long as I breathe. Anything's better than darkness murmuring in my ears.

Mir continues studying me with cautious curiosity. We both sit on the ground, the hem of his coat soaked in mud, but he doesn't seem to care. His guarded expression tells me he's waiting for me to act. I should say something. Need to say something, but there're too many hows and whys on my mind, and I'm not even sure I want to know the answers to all of them.

Did you actually save me? If he wanted you dead, why would he bring you back, stupid? Where are we then? Where's the fire? The grass is green. Isn't it winter?

I meet Mir's eyes, he blinks, but still doesn't speak.

"Who are you?" I begin, and I don't recognize my voice. I try to climb to my feet, just to find my ankles tied, too. I stare at the knot, uncertain if I should ask to release me. Lift my eyes at Mir again.

"Depends," he says, ignoring my question. "Who are you?"

I stay mute.

"You can trust me," he repeats, showing me the rope that apparently was tying my hands a few minutes ago, and throwing it aside. "See? I trust you."

Liar. Not a hint of trust in his calculating gaze.

"If you trust me, then cut my legs free."

He wags his knife in refusal. "First, answer my question. What is your name?"

A gust of wind blows past us, reminding me how careless a night can be. I've never been scared of dying, but I was scared of living once. Now, looking at the rope marks on my wrists, I have to admit nothing of that is true--I dread both. My skin's meant to be crinkled and blistered after the accident, but instead, it's smooth, not ashen as one dead for a while is supposed to look.

Here's what's wrong.

My eyes dart around in alarm, and stumble across a hole in the ground several steps away, a heap of soil and...bones. Icy realization rushes through my veins. This isn't my body.

"Yes." Following my stare, Mir nods. "The bones are yours. I think." There's no apology in his voice; a simple, sad fact.

"How many years?"

"Three. Maybe, four."

Felt like a thousand. Four years of death, four years of damnation. Have I changed? Has the world?

"So, will you tell me your name?" he presses. "Or should I guess who we've awoken from the abyss?"

I lick my dry lips. Swallow. It doesn't help. "My guess is that you already know my name." The odd taste on my tongue is mostly gone, my mind clearer, but my throat now aches with thirst. The sign of magic used. "Yaroslava."

Mir's expression eases. If he wasn't controlling his emotions in front of me, he would have sighed in relief, I'm sure. The answer he wanted, the name he needed. Without a word, Mir flips the knife in his hand and starts removing the ropes at my ankles.

"So how did you do it, Mir?" I ask, watching.

"How? Or why?"

"Why."

A pause.

"Is it true what they say about you, Yaroslava? You're a witch, a criminal"--Is it a smirk in his voice?--"and so-called the Queen of the Dead? Don't you think the last title is a little pompous?"

Not if you know what I did before I died.

"Why?" I demand.

The rope snaps, I'm free. Mir stands up, fast, sharp, looking me squarely in the eye. He doesn't appear that tired anymore.

"Because, Fire Girl, I hope you want answers," for the first time, his passionless mask cracks, and I see so many feelings crossing his face that I can't grasp them all. Fear, regret, hurt, rage...A storm. "I hope you want revenge."

✦ ✦ ✦