Rhianon-2. Princess of Fire and the Winged Warrior. Natalie Yacobson

the tiny creature was gone. It had disappeared, as if it hadn’t appeared at all. But after its departure the moonlight shone just outside the window.

      «Here we are,» Orpheus commented. «This is where you wanted to be.»

      «There’s nothing beyond this window,» she commented, not seeing anything but the clearing and the bridge that had sprung up over it. It led nowhere, and there was no river, not even a ditch to span it. But the bridge itself was beautiful. Rhianon couldn’t help but notice how exquisitely the railings were gilded and how finely the ornate carvings had been chiseled on them.

      «This is the spot,» Orpheus said. «They seem to have been waiting for you.»

      Rhianon closed her eyes and imagined the couple in their elegant black robes. What would she say to them if she saw them here on the road, waiting for her for some unknown reason? And wouldn’t the horses have bucked at the sight of the mysterious strangers? Considering that they were already used to Orpheus, it was unlikely. But Rhianon herself could not get used to the fact that the world around her was becoming unusual. It was no longer the world she knew. It was a whole universe, hidden from human eyes, in which anything was possible.

      Rhianon looked at the star in her hand. Neither end of it was so stretched out anymore as to be different from the others. So they really did come. There was nothing around, no palace, no chateau or rotunda, not even a shabby shack. And still the girl got out of the carriage. It was as if the bridge was waiting for her. And she went in its direction, leaving Orpheus to soothe the disgruntled snoring horses.

      «Your Highness,» a voice came unexpectedly, and before she had even set foot on the bridge, she saw the very young man from the masquerade in front of her. The dainty black clothes matched his platinum curls. This time he wore no mask and was visibly pale. More pale than a dead man. And at the same time his voice was pleasant and his manners courteous.

      He was not blocking her way to the bridge, but he seemed to be the one deciding whether or not she could set foot in that territory.

      «No! No!» She noticed another dwarf nimbly gesticulating on the other side of the bridge. He was darting in one place, waving his arms as if he wanted to block the way for them both. «She’s not allowed in here. She belongs to him, not us. Wake up, Clive, he’ll burn us all if you let her in here.»

      The young man reacted in no way to the dwarf’s obsessive cries. He stared at Rhianon, and though his face was expressionless, she sensed that he was on her side.

      «I have it,» she held out the glittering star to him without knowing why.

      «I know,» his bloodless lips parted in a faint smile. «And there are special rules today. You keep your pass. Come along.»

      He held out his hand, which Rhianon touched reluctantly. Her skin was white as if it had been dusted with flour or chalk.

      «Headless!» The dwarf muttered angrily before she ducked into the shadows.

      Maybe she thought he meant it twice, but she didn’t. Rhianon tried to see the dwarf’s red hat in the darkness, but she could not. The darkness seemed to swallow him up. Orpheus, on the other hand, was not a step behind her now. He stayed close to her train as it slid across the bridge. He stayed just beside her train as it slid across the bridge. She and the young man in black seemed deliberately oblivious to each other.

      «I have a right to be here, because I am your personal spirit, and here it is like a shadow,» Orpheus’ laughing eyes informed her triumphantly, but he himself was trying to keep quiet now. He really did stick close to her as an inaudible and invisible shadow. Except that, unlike the shadow, he was too bright. His red hair and motley attire would have stood out sharply even in a fairground, let alone here.

      Rhianon stopped wondering where they were going. She had barely set foot on the bridge when the outlines of towers and bastions appeared in the distance on the other side of it. She could see the silhouette of a somber building, with its beautifully curved parapets and almost tracery of interlocking pediments, colonnades, and covered galleries. It was not even a building, but an entire city. It was an empty city. The dead silence ahead made her uneasy. Could it be that all those towers and bastions, even the basement below them, were completely empty. Or so it seemed. The sheer length of the building ahead made her wary, not to mention the fact that there must have been an immense space beneath the floor. She noticed staircases swiftly descending at times, wide and narrow, grand and spiral, half-covered by some dark living creeper, or simply hanging in the dark space without any visible support. She blinked quickly to get rid of the feeling that it was all a dream. Everything here was dark: the passageways, the carvings on the doors, the ampel plants that seemed to move on their own. Candles flickered on and off in sconces or large floor chandeliers, adding to the sense of blackness. At any rate, they only brought out black objects from the gloom. Rhianon only couldn’t tell what materials were used here. What was it, black wood, black stone to upholster the few pieces of furniture?

      «It’s easy to get used to,» she heard Orpheus’ insistent voice in her head. «The fiery letters, which appear and disappear on their own when you ask questions, are best seen against such a background.»

      Rhianon squinted at him. Of course, his lips weren’t moving, and he wasn’t saying anything out loud, but the words were coming out.

      Suddenly the sound of music caught her attention. In one of the opened doors she noticed a harpsichord. And it seemed to be playing by itself. She would have thought it was the wind pressing the keys, but of course there was no wind. Why would there be any wind in such a confined space?

      Rhianon imagined a girl in a gorgeous black dress sitting on a pedestal in front of the harpsichord and playing it. And beside her, of course, would be her gentleman, also dressed in black, correcting the sheets of music on the easel. For a moment she thought she saw those two, the same couple from the masquerade, but of course they were no longer masked, and the faces under them were as pale, bloodless, and expressionless as those of her companion. Is that how everyone here becomes? Does the power gained through magic drain all the joy of life from them? Is this the price of knowledge? They say one must sell one’s soul to gain the key to forbidden knowledge. And what happens then, will what you buy be worth its price, or do forbidden sciences merely open a gateway to darkness. Rhianon felt out of place here. She didn’t like the darkness around her and the rustles that echoed within it.

      «It won’t always be like this, you’ll get used to it,» Clive didn’t whisper the words to her, but they seemed to sound to her alone, while his fingers gripped her hand harder and harder. He didn’t seem to want to let her go, but he already knew that she would soon want to leave.

      She remembered the execution and the way the blade cut through a defenseless neck. The magical pendant was powerless to preserve flesh from the fatal blow. Maybe, by stepping in here, she was setting herself up for the same blow. There is a difference between physical strength and the evil energy hidden within these walls. The second is even worse, because it is more insidious and much stronger. Rhianon felt the crushing emptiness with every cell of her body. Maybe Orpheus had been right when he’d told her that a stroke of the blade was merely liberating. Here, on the contrary, she felt as if she were shackled. The darkness seemed to try to take her captive and never let her out again. Rhianon struggled to breathe in the stinking air and felt a flame build up in her chest. In a second she’d breathe out a trickle of fire into the darkness. She didn’t want to burn her companion, but the flame was bursting out. She couldn’t hold back any longer.

      «Calm,» he turned around just as the air next to her heated up, «there’s nothing to defend yourself against, you can live here in peace for centuries without even noticing that they’ve passed, because nothing disturbs the silence.

      «And so you can live here quietly side by side with the living and the dead?» She asked without knowing why. «And not even know that someone who died a long time ago is now keeping you company?»

      «Yes,» he admitted simply and unashamedly.