Interlude 3.40: Snežana (Patreon)

The crackling fire in the hearth cast dancing shadows around the room. The lone unlatched window on the far-right wall invited moonlight inside, the wind waltzing with the curtains in a slow, mournful dance.

The blizzard had stopped, and for once in weeks, the northern sky was clear. It almost seemed peaceful.

And it was. But that peace was akin to the breathless hush that hung over the steppe before the hail stripped the pines bare. Perhaps even the metaphor was merely skirting the truth, for what was truly coming for them would be far, far worse.

"What is turning your thoughts so sour, sister?" A silken voice echoed from beside her.

"SSSSSSSSSSHHHH!" Snežana hissed through her teeth. "Didn't you yourself say talking might compromise this concealment, you whore!"

"Oh, the old vulture will be occupied for some time yet," Gweneth grinned. "She treats her lavender oils with religious devotion. And the panic churning behind your eyes was far too fragrant to leave untouched. I merely wished to partake."

Gweneth, who stood beside her, smiled with playful innocence.

Snežana sighed. Well, it ought to be fine. The Elder wasn't here yet. But she was taking those old fossils too lightly. Snežana knew how deceptive and manipulative those old farts had always been with her. Even she, as matriarch of their sect, now had to do a double take at how little she truly knew about them.

And recent events had been a pretty good indicator of how wrong her mental image of them had been.

The reason for reaching such a conclusion was simple enough. She now knew the full scope of what the elves had been planning. It was something Gweneth had managed to uncover, and combined with everything else, it simply made sense.

The elves had been planning to sacrifice the entirety of Varkaigrad. That was NOT a small-scale conspiracy. This had been planned for centuries.

The fossils were cruel, paranoid, and dripping with ancestral avarice, but they were not fools. Varkaigrad, with its millions of subjects, was their private hoard. Under any ordinary law of greed, those decrepit tyrants would have turned the sky red with forbidden arts before permitting an outside force to scratch a single gate.

Yet… and yet, they were actively feeding kindling to that bonfire of destruction. It simply did not make any sense.

Varkaigrad's destruction did not benefit any of them. Going this far just to kill Jade— a single dragon— made no sense. Even a fool could see they were never opposing the elves here. Something must have happened between them to make this whole sacrifice worth it. It was a move that would drop everything they had worked to build over centuries into a bloody meatgrinder.

And the worst part was that Snežana had to pretend to be oblivious—pretend she knew nothing, as she was supposed to in this whole game, play the role of their dutiful, oblivious puppet. But thanks to Gwen and her own strange methods of delivering information, she had become aware of it all.

Who could have guessed the whole city was just fodder to summon a portion of the literal Fae realm here?

Snežana knew she was spiraling at this point. Was there any fact that could help her? She was once again reminded, despite being powerful herself, how helpless she truly was.

Matriarch of the sovereign sect in Vraal'Kor, her ass. She had always known the title was in name only— the true power always lay in the hands of those fossils. And right now, there were not one but multiple such forces that would blend in to kill her if she dared raise her voice.

The other sect leaders already had arrangements to move chunks of their families and sects outside Varkaigrad. The nobility—at least most of it—had already begun slipping out in the shadows. Never enough to cause a stir at their absence, leaving just enough proxies behind that no one would question it.

And even those proxies… guess who they were. Elves. Once again. Their transformations might fool someone else, but not Snežana's eyes, not once she suspected something.

Who could have thought the entire Fang's Ascent was currently infested with those sanctimonious tree-humpers? They were leaving nothing to chance. They were terrified of variables.

The only ones who hadn't left or been replaced were her own clan's elders. Even she herself had received an order to leave, alongside Vernia. Those clever fools thought if they told her a half-truth, she'd be inclined to trust them and leave it all behind. But those fools still hadn't caught onto the real truth, that she might be aware of everything transpiring here. Even though her sources tended to be a bit… unorthodox.

Right now, the greatest threat to this whole thing was themselves— and that was why she was here. On paper, she had already left Varkaigrad. But figure seated beside Vernia in the carriage was Moryana, her familiar. They had dispatched one of the elders to actually verify whether "she" had departed. Too bad she had prepared for such a scenario. Sending Moryana away with Vernia had always been the plan. But if the elder had been following them, that just meant they had their suspicions and their eyes on Snežana— so her own subtle defiance hadn't gone unnoticed as much as she'd hoped.

The Spirit Hunt would end in just one more day… In just one more day, the lives of millions would be used as fuel to rend open the fabric of reality and summon what was probably considered the worst plane of existence to chart: the Fae realm.

And the worst part was that Snežana simply couldn't do anything about it. She knew she'd be snuffed out even if she tried to warn people. The elves were far too vigilant in this final phase of their plan. And if what Gweneth had told her was true— that the Elven Queen, a force beyond even the Gold core, was keeping watch over all this and would not allow any variables into the plan— then she had no choice but to watch the city she loved so dearly burn down, just because a cabal of ancient parasites in high towers had shaken hands on a price.

They had their justifications, of course. They always did. Monsters of that stature always possessed an immaculate, self-serving ledger to justify their butchery.

Snežana's heart ached for the people— and for Jade herself. She knew she simply wouldn't be able to turn a blind eye to it all. Turning her back while an entire civilization was fed into the furnace was anathema to everything she was. Even if her resistance amounted to little more than a speck of dust tossed into a hurricane, she would make certain the architects choked on the friction before the rite commenced.

…Even if it meant she would forfeit her life.

She had a plan, and before the Spirit Hunt ended, she would see it through.

"Or, I suppose, keep your secrets. I already know the shape of the idiocy you're contemplating." Gweneth's voice broke her out of her trance and spiral.

"You do?"

"We have known each other a mere decade, my dear sister, yet trust me when I say I know precisely which cogs turn behind that stubborn brow."

Snežana merely rolled her eyes.

"And whatever magnificent idiocy you are engineering," Gweneth continued, "I must intervene."

"Intervene against what?"

"Against you squandering your existence for a gesture that purchases nothing."

Snežana scoffed. "One never knows if an act buys nothing until the blood is spent."

"Except you do know. Not merely I, you know it intimately as well. You know, just how thoroughly futile it is."

"Then what is the noble alternative?!" Snežana snapped, her voice trembling. "Lounge by the hearth and twiddle my thumbs like a coward while those sanctimonious abominations butcher an empire? That is intolerable!"

Gweneth shook her head and chuckled. "Are you entirely certain you didn't whelp her yourself? The resemblance in temperament is truly uncanny."

Snežana stayed silent at that.

"Well, I know you still haven't told me the truth, and I have no idea why you're hiding Jade's origin from me as well. I've figured out you were involved— not just you, but your daughter as well. She had the exact same face as Jade. How curious."

"You already know the reason why—" But Gwen continued uninterrupted.

"Yeah, I know the reason she had a half-drakkari form resembling Vernia's. It doesn't take a genius to figure out the use of such a morph seal. Further, I know you were the one who left her behind with your 'dead' consort. Quite the story— he used to be red core before Svetlana shattered it, wasn't it? You both were the same rank, but something happened in between that I'm not privy to yet. Something you're still hell-bent on hiding."

Snežana sighed. This wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation. "What would it change, even if you knew?"

"Firstly, it would placate my ravenous curiosity, for which no greater recompense exists beneath heaven," Gweneth purred, counting the points upon slender, pale fingers. "Secondly, it might illuminate the origin of this entire nightmare. At present, my own uncovered story holds only scorched blanks where the dragon’s lineage ought to sit. A dragon whose mere breath sent tremors through your clan’s decrepit elders and the Elven throne alike. There is an ancestral debt buried beneath those scales. And since it serves as the root of the very cage I am laboring to dismantle, enlightenment might just preserve our hides. Weigh the merits for a second."

Ah… Snežana wished she could tell her— or anyone, for that matter. She knew she had saved Jade somehow when she was just hatched from her egg; the circumstances mattered not. Only that she had promised a being she would keep her mouth sealed about it all.

She would still mourn the day it took that being's persuasions for her to finally snap and take this step. That mountain-like, gigantic scaled body and those amber eyes were still burned into her memory. It was because of that being, after all, that she was able to save Reiner after Svetlana shattered his core. And Jade, who was already half-dead at that point— a fate that would have left both of them hollow cripples forever. It was because of her that Snežana saved herself from the guilt that would have killed her, being a selfish bystander in all this. And it was to the same being that she promised never to reveal anything to anyone. Even though Gwen deserved the truth, there was no version of it Snežana could give her without revealing the external help she had received. How, when she was a red core, she managed to betray and fool the gold-cored elders and do what she did.

And further—"Let's not pretend that your own closet is devoid of bones, Gwen."

Gwen just smiled, like she always did. It offered neither confirmation nor denial. One could never tell whether she was parsing something or was merely amused by the dust motes dancing in the dark.

But it seemed Snežana would be free from Gwen's nagging soon enough. The heavy silk drapery separating the bedchamber from the private bath parted with a rustle as the elder stepped out. She was draped in little more than a sheer linen wrap, and despite being centuries old, the fossil didn't look a day over her twenties. Aging slowed considerably after reaching red core, even more after reaching gold, but all the other elders had still aged; it didn't pause entirely. Yet for some reason, Svetlana had simply skipped that part.

The old witch had more than a few secrets.

Beside her, Gweneth pursed her lips, looking ready to let out an appreciative wolf-whistle. One murderous glare from Snežana was enough to choke the impulse in her sister's throat, leaving her wearing a look of exaggerated innocence.

Even though no one was speaking after the Elder emerged, she knew the question in both their minds was the same.

Was this spy session even going anywhere?

And it seemed it was going nowhere indeed.

Snežana and Gwen both knew— not merely suspected— that the elders had been working with the elves all along. But they were seeking proof. There would be some kind of hint that something was going on. Yet even after shadowing her every step, with Gwen's clones watching the other elders for the same, nothing had emerged.

It all felt pointless. After a few more minutes of watching, Snežana was finally about to suggest they look for another angle of attack as to find out why these two factions— who hated each other's guts— might be cooperating. That was when it happened.

The moon dimmed its light as if something was siphoning it, slowly turning crimson right before her eyes. Snežana herself was struck with awe, feeling little to no presence from it. Not even mana.

Soon, an elf stood before the window as the moonlight turned silver once more. Dressed an immaculate white wool, with luscious black hair falling all the way to the ground, he held slender hands in front of him. A soft smile graced his beautiful, feminine face, even as his crimson eyes remained predatory.

"Ah," the elf murmured with a soft voice as he swept his gaze over Svetlana’s half-dressed frame. "It appears I have chosen an untimely hour to call."

Svetlana didn't seem surprised. Her lips parted in a venomous smirk.

"Don't play the bashful youth, Ismay," she mocked softly. "Your timing has always been as deliberate as your breath."

The air suddenly shivered with a smell of sulphur and before he could move, a glowing, flaming dagger was at his neck the next instant, Svetlana standing right beside him. "Drop the charade. "How dare you show your face within my quarters without an escort?"

"A predictably impassioned greeting," Ismay chuckled

Moonlight turned crimson before reverting to silver once again as flame-dagger plunged downwards, slicing cleanly through the glazed porcelain of an ornate floor vase instead of him.

“I merely anticipated something warmer than a blade across my collar…” The elf named Ismay stood right behind her, whispering in her ear, “just like old times.” His pale fingers settling intimately over the curve of her bare hips, pulling her back against his chest.

All while Snežana felt her stomach turn to lead. She wanted nothing more than for the floorboards to open up and swallow her whole.

Beside her, however, Gweneth’s eyes were sparkling with delight.

She opened her mouth with an ecstatic grin.

Snežana clamped a hand violently over her lips and glared with a gesture of not-a-word. She did not need Gwen to spell out that her proud, venomous, elf-hating mother might be bedding one of their kind.

But even though the room was charged with that kind of illicit tension, thankfully for her eyes, the display ended there. But if that wasn't a sign that there was certainly some kind of history between them, she didn't know what was. Further, the elf seemed to be really powerful.

Snežana was able to read the waves of magic to know what she was doing, but she knew he would give her a hard time figuring it out if they were to battle. She could set her domain up and fight at an advantage, but she knew when not to pick her battles. This seemed like one of those instances. And yet, if the opening presented itself—

"Are you calculating how to murder that creature?" Gweneth’s whispered from behind. "You're bearing your teeth, and god help me, I pray you aren't grinning about that fiend and your moth—"

Snežana clamped her palm over Gweneth’s mouth a second time, grinding her teeth.

"Bold of you to show your face within these walls," Svetlana spat, glaring venomous fire at the elf as she broke the contact.

"And yet, all I have received are these delightful, playful displays of petulance."

"Trust me, Ismay. I have far more than playful displays in reserve."

"Then why stay your hand?" The elf’s tone sharpened. "Someone of your station comprehends the exact architecture of what we are building here. I would pity you if you remained blind. And yet... merely an idle flick of a dagger. It seems my court was not the only faction led by fools. You are finally tasting the futility of your own stubbornness, are you not?"

Svetlana bit her lip and yet stayed silent. She offered no defense, nor did she raise her blade.

"You were ever the last to yield," Ismay continued, circling her like a velvet-clad wolf. "Yet your paralysis speaks volumes. Striking no ward-stones, assembling no vanguard, even spiriting your spawn beyond the perimeter before the final horn. That is not the conduct of a matriarch preparing for war. You lack the appetite for martyrdom, Svetlana. You merely possess too much vanity to sue for terms. If these token threats are not a sign of your compliance, I cannot imagine what else they represent."

"You always did delight in hearing your own tongue wag," she muttered.

"Does that make the diagnosis false?"

She stayed silent.

"Precisely," Ismay chuckled, though the mirth died in his crimson pupils as his head tilted toward the partition. "Before we consummate our arrangements, however, I must harbor the hope that you were not so monumentally careless as to permit unwanted eyes and ears at our reunion."

He said it as Snežana's blood ran cold. She looked at Gwen, who went entirely rigid, the playful glint in her eyes vanishing instantly.

Svetlana showed no surprise. Her lips curled into a cold, cruel sneer. "Oh, don't worry. Those two have been shadowing my footsteps since dawn. Some offspring are simply born with a deficiency of intellect. You grant them an escape hatch, and they invariably find a way to fashion it into a noose." Her voice turned growly, crimson scales erupting on her body as her form morphed. She kept talking, "But fret not, Ismay. Even if our original designs were doomed to failure, the gamble yielded a harvest far sweeter than we anticipated."

Truth be told, Snežana herself had never seen her mother take on her beast form. But right now, as her body morphed, the features evolved into a scope far beyond what was possible through that simple transformation. The manor shook to its foundations as a titanic, draconic abomination crammed itself into the chamber, crushing furniture and cedar panels to splintered dust.

Gwen's grip tightened on Snežana's shoulder. "Oh dear. Now that was an anomaly even I failed to account for."

"Crippling that nascent abomination before its shell could harden proved an exquisite boon," the dragon’s maw parted as an inferno of molten lava glowed beneath those jagged, obsidian fangs. "And I intend to ensure that the filthy outsider— and my own ungrateful blood— behold that stolen glory for the final time."

The air ignited.

That was the last sight Snežana registered before the walls blew outward in a raging storm of crimson fire, and the world dissolved into pure hell.