Mavra Kedrovna is a corpsewitch and nobody knows.
Cursed with the ability to control blood and reanimate corpses into upyrs, she's been confined to a convent alongside other young women for their protection amidst the Happenings; a series of disappe...
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♥ THESE BLOODLESS HEARTS. v. a gift from the dark ——————————————————
On those first nights between the wedding announcement and the harvest, Mavra cried.
First, it was for Darya and her foolish mistake. Then it was for Yara, who would soon be half-abandoned. Finally, it was of anger. A violent, flaming anger that flared when any of the convent girls came to rouse her from a bed damp with tears.
They tried to comfort her first, to assure her Darya would call for her the very evening she arrived in Serkadom. They asked she pray for Darya's safe passage. For Rokodin's, too, so that Darya would be protected and remain in good spirits. In response, Mavra sat up and turned so quick that her braid whipped the first girl across the cheek. Her tongue lashed the second, then the third.
In all her wraith, Mavra insulted their families' choices to send them to safety in the convent. She screamed how she wished the upyrs would come drag them away so she wouldn't have to bear their twisted sympathies.
Mother Ustya came in to empty the room and thrashed her then and there.
Mavra bore the sting of ten lashes and the sear of barbed words with a raised chin and clenched jaw. Though she did not cry, she bit her lips bloody.
Afterwards, she locked herself inside for self-preservation and did not question it until the still evening in which Yara howled from the other-side.
"Mavra, come out," the girl-child pleaded. Her fingernails scratched the door like a desperate stray. "Come out, please. Please, Mavra. The Mothers, they said if you have to give Darya for her journey to bring it to the altar."
Mavra lay sprawled over the mattress flung to the floor in a fit of frustration. Blank eyes watched the flame dance across the ceiling as the candle below it turned to a pool of wax.
She said nothing.
"Please," Yara whimpered. "I have no one."
Mavra's lips trembled as words fought to free themselves from her mouth. Little footsteps retreated from the door's far side. Only then did Mavra rise to latch it and the window.
She slid down the wall between her and Yara's empty beds. A heavy face fell into arms crossed atop knees drawn close with shame. From beneath the smothering of her own skin, she sang.
That haunting language of the corpsewitches tumbled from her tight throat. Her pitches were weak, her pleads with Roz's darkest forces hushed. The tide of shadow around her surged like a turbulent sea towards the ceiling. The candle dampened itself without a breath.
"Come in," she whispered to the dark. "Your kind are welcome here."
Something grey and thin replied to her offering with a choked sob. It clawed itself in through the window. Hisses arose when it darted through the streak of moonlight, draped skin flapping. Blood dripped out of veins splayed open like tree roots when it staggered closer and closer yet.
