YAGA | ✓

SEVENTEEN

•••

SHE HAD worn so many faces that this one felt like no other. But tonight, tonight was the night that the face had resembled someone that she knew, tonight was the night that something had changed. Because tonight, the blood on her hands was not innocent. Milena hasn't meant to kill the witch, only carve her up, make her less beautiful in any way she could. Truth be told, even with blood pouring from her chest, Yaga Izeva was still heart-stoppingly beautiful. The clothes she wore were stained, ebbing crimson liquid from her collar to her thighs, but the colour of the blood only brought out the red in her hair, the white of her skin.

Milena didn't know what she'd been expecting - it seemed as if the only enemy that could ruin Yaga was time itself. And for her, it passed so slowly that time was not time at all, but the one thing that Milena couldn't defeat, no matter the forces on her side. So instead, she had set her sights on not destroying the witch's beauty, but rather destroying her power. It would a slap to the face for everyone - from the villagers hellbent on condemning her, to Yaga herself, forced to build herself up with skills she did not possess.

Lena slid the knife back into her holster, changing faces to assume Nevena's golden curls and blue eyes. The traces of Dimitri's features were rapidly fading away, leaving only a clearer tone to her skin and broader shoulders, narrowing as she pulled the cloak on. She hadn't needed to tie him up or kill him - his absence to attend his father's funeral in the neighbouring village where his aunt lived was enough. The opportunity was a perfect one, a prime time to strike if there ever was one.

Another dagger pinned Baba Jana to her walking chair by the throat, a vicious tear nearly slicing her head clean off. Years of hunting in the forest had taught Lena well, she considered. There was only a slight difference between the stench of an old woman's rotting flesh and a doe's, unnerving her as she stalked over to Yaga. Her lips curled into a smirk, malicious in appearance as in intent, and she wondered whether the witch was as scared as her wounds permitted. Or perhaps she had achieved some sort of strain of immortality simply to spite Lena.

It wouldn't have surprised her at all.

She put her lips to Yaga's ears as she had when they'd entered the house, the shattered floorboards groaning beneath her boot-covered feet. Nails cupping the witch's cheek, she dug them in with a force that would leave bloody crescents, her voice a hoarse whisper.

"I told you to tell the truth, Yaga."

"You..." Yaga coughed up a splutter of thin blood, a wavering line falling from the corner of her mouth to slide down her chin. "You will never win, Milena."

Lena slapped her with all the strength her body could over.

Yaga groaned.

"I'm sure about that, my dear." She smacked her fist against the slashes in her chest. "You should go get checked out, da?"

"You know-" Yaga panted. Lena could tell she was going to faint any moment now. "I always knew that you were evil."

Milena's lips pressed into a thin line, a blood-streaked blonde eyebrow arching. "I would say the same for you. I suppose you were right, then, weren't you?"

She closed the door of the room behind her, the wind battering her body as she let the cloak flap around freely. It was a strange sensation, feeling the cold wind flow around, but a pleasant one at that. When she looked over her shoulder, she could see the bloody handprints on the glass of the window, despite the curtains being drawn.

Kissing her teeth, she swept her gaze across the street before wiping the blood from her face, leaving it only on her hands.

You're too soft, she thought furiously, cursing herself, but continued on, breaking into a run. She didn't want Yaga dead. Fetching a medic was foolish, but at least it wouldn't add to her crimes.

Why did it matter anyway? she asked herself, coming to a screeching halt just before the road twisted onto a larger street.

Actually...

She had another idea. One that shifted the healing over to someone else, so she wouldn't feel like some sort of saviour. One that made it more of a matter of natural selection rather than man and monsters. Remembering how Yaga had successfully brought the foolish village girl's child practically to life, she turned on her heel, sprinting back as quickly as she could to the old woman's house. Her hand gripped the doorknob, turning it as quietly and quickly as she could, all while making sure that there were no witnesses.

She stormed into the room, seizing a matchbox from the mantle and throwing logs in from the pile next to the fireplace. Once the fire had started, Lena realised that the room held a look of something that had once been grand, but had faded away into disrepair and mould. A pile of tarot cards lay on the chipped table, one reading "The Magician" settled on the top of the deck, as if it had been placed there rather than ended up in the shuffle. The woman on it, with fanned out amber hair in a halo, and colourful robes dancing around her.

"The Magician, da?"

"That's what she called me," Yaga said weakly from her position on the rickety chair. It must have been sheer willpower keeping her conscious - in the square, she'd collapsed after only a few whippings. If that was the case, there was a lot of determination coming to light that Milana hadn't known was possible from her.

Milana released a bark of laughter. "You? You were no magician, my love. You were mundane."

"I no longer am, though. I may be many things, but mundane is the least of my worries."

"No, but the stab wounds in your chest should decidedly be on your list of worries." Lana stood up. "Give me your coat."

"Why?"

Without responding, she wrenched the coat off of Yaga's body and threw it onto the floor by the fire. She would never admit that she was helping, but she knew, undoubtedly, that she was. For a moment, she stared at the fur, before taking a rag, as filthy as it looked, and dunking it into a bucket next to the worktable, the water within so icy cold that she recoiled. Taking the rag out of the water and twisting it so that the excess dripped into the bucket, she set it on Yaga's forehead, soaking the tendrils of orange hair that clung to her skin.

"Stay awake. Stay alive," Lena commanded, prodding her shoulder.

Gnawing on the inside of her cheek, she began to peel away the blood-soaked tunic on Yaga's chest, along with the underclothes beneath. Then, she folded her arms, satisfied with her work, and lack thereof.

"Heal yourself."

And then she left, for good this time.

Without looking back.

•••

The entrance to the tavern loomed, dark and sudden, in her vision, its windows glowing with the glare from the firelight, music travelling from the half-open door to the tidings of the street outside. Residents around had their shutters drawn, trying to block out the noise as best as they could so that they finally could get a good night's sleep, but the noise only drew the solitary figure of the young woman in.

Her golden hair was a moonlit platinum, silvery in the night, with rouge applied carefully on her lips, making her bright eyes appear even bluer than they already were.

If it hadn't been for the hideous scar running down the side of her face, she would've been blindingly beautiful, in a way that made you want to stop and stare. But it was there, dark and shiny and apparent from all directions. But despite her own bitter thoughts, her own self-consciousness, that was not what stopped the barman or any of the patrons from flirting with her.

It was the clear murder in her dazzling eyes, the blinding rage of a hunted animal painted on her lips, and the disgusted scrunch of her otherwise perfect nose.

No-one spoke to her because of the death in the air around her.

•••