The sunlight burned my eyes as I peeled them open. I blinked rapidly, squinting against the harsh glare, and lifted a hand to shade my face. My thoughts were fuzzy, and my body felt weak and tired. I decided that there was no need to open my eyes. I could just lay there for a few more minutes, ignoring the cool stone beneath my back and the dull throbbing pain behind my eyes. Sadly, that wasn’t to be.

“Ionat!” Viora’s voice spoke loudly, dragging me up from the pleasant, soothing darkness behind my closed eyelids and into the harsh sunlight. I sighed and pried open my eyes, blinking until they slowly adapted to the glare of the sun’s face magnified by the glass ceiling of the Altar of the Sun.

“Viora,” I mumbled, sitting up slowly so the pounding in my skull didn’t turn into stabbing pain.

“It’s good to see that you’re awake,” the woman said, moving into my vision. She was dressed as usual, in her gold-colored robes, and her saffron eyes looked both cheerful and concerned.

“I’d love to say that it’s good to be awake,” I grumbled. “My head disagrees, I’m afraid.”

She nodded solemnly. “Spell backlash,” she replied.

“What?” My head was still a little foggy, and the aching in it wasn’t really helping.

She walked up to me, holding a clay mug of something that smelled mildly astringent. “Drink this,” she instructed. “It’ll help.”

“What is it?” I asked, sniffing it curiously.

“Moon drop flower extract with ground sun lotus seeds and a drop of wild honey,” she said. “It should dull the pain a bit.”

I sipped the drink and made a face. It had a bitter, acrid flavor that was only slightly offset by the sweetness of the honey. “Needs more honey,” I croaked, coughing at the sudden dryness in my mouth.

“I’ll let Petronela know your opinion,” the Sorvaraji laughed. “She’s only been making it for five decades. I’m sure she’ll appreciate your thoughts. Now drink, and I’ll explain.” I braced myself and took another swallow, forcing myself to make it a large one. If it would help my headache, I was all over it, but sipping it wouldn’t make the experience any better, just longer.

“Last night, you somehow tapped into the Altar of the Sun and used its stored magic,” she explained. “Don’t ask me how, because I don’t know. You didn’t cast a spell in any way that I understand it, but somehow, you still cast a spell that drove the hungering off and laid a shield over the village. When the mooncursed fled, the spell broke, and the energy you were channeling fed back into you as spell backlash.”

“Is that bad?” I coughed, forcing down another swallow. My head ached, and while my thoughts were slowly clearing, fog still shrouded my brain and made it hard to concentrate. “And can’t you heal it?”

“No, it can’t be healed, I’m afraid. The pain you’re suffering comes from too much magic pouring through your mind at once. Adding more magic to that would just make the pain worse, not better. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

“Have you had it happen to you, too?”

“It’s actually quite common among acolytes of solar magic,” she laughed. “Almost all of us try to cast a spell that’s too complex or complicated for us at some point. When our visualization of the spell-form fails, the energy rebounds on us and punishes us for our hubris.”

“Well, it sucks,” I observed pithily, taking another drink of the almost finished tankard.

“I’m guessing that it’s somewhat worse for you, I’m afraid. I don’t know how you cast that spell, but the effects were beyond anything I could do, and the more powerful the spell, the worse the backlash.” She snorted derisively. “Also, most of us don’t draw the entire charge of an Altar of the Sun to power a single spell and have it backlash on us. Really, Ionat, you’re lucky to be alive.”

I handed her the empty cup, and she walked over to put it on her desk. “And now, we have to talk about what you did. Ionat – you turned the hungering. How?”

I thought for a moment, recalling the evening and the battle for the village. I remembered everything with perfect clarity, and nothing in my memories suggested that I’d cast a spell. I hadn’t done any of the things that Viora described. I hadn’t drawn power, or forged intent, or turned it into a spell-form. I didn’t even really remember releasing power, although I supposed it must have been flowing through my axe.

“I have no idea,” I finally sighed, rubbing my temples. “I don’t really remember casting one.”

“Can you describe what you do recall?” she asked intently.

“Emelina died,” I said tiredly, feeling a sudden stab of pain in my heart at that. “I think that started it. When I saw her fall – heard them eating her…” I shuddered.

“You were angry,” Viora guessed quietly, but I shook my head.

“No. I was – determined. Determined that no one else would die. I wasn’t going to allow it.” I looked into her eyes and saw the pain and understanding there. “I wasn’t angry, or grief-stricken. I didn’t feel anything, in fact. I just realized that I had a job to do, and I would do it.”

She nodded slowly. “But you must have called on the sun’s power,” she said encouragingly. “Honed your intent to destroy the hungering…”

I smiled sadly. “I kept thinking of working in the forest with Emilina, actually. I tried to recapture the rhythm we’d shared together. The hungering were trees, and I chopped them down.” I frowned. “I could feel the sun on my back, though, the same as that afternoon, even though it was night. Was that the altar’s magic I felt?”

“Probably,” she nodded, pursing her lips. “But you never drew on it? Never thought about driving the mooncursed back? Never imagined what that would look like in a spell-form?”

I laughed. “I couldn’t begin to picture something like that, Viora. No, I just focused on hacking them down. I know that I was focusing power into each attack – swinging the axe got easier the longer I did it, not harder – but I just wanted them to come to me so I could cut them down. It was like a challenge; I think my mind was daring them to attack me and leave everyone else alone.”

“And then?” she asked.

“They refused the challenge. I felt it when they decided to run.” I closed my eyes. My headache was starting to recede, but my skull still ached. “It felt like something in them broke, and they just wanted to get away from me as quickly as possible.” I shrugged. “Then whatever was happening stopped, and I could barely stand up, much less fight.”

She looked at me for a few moments before sitting down at her desk and rubbing her eyes. “The spell backlash,” she said simply. “I had hoped…” She shook her head.

“I heard you talking about turning last night,” I said as the recollection filtered through my fuzzy thoughts. “Something about it being lost.”

She nodded. “According to our legends, before the fall of the Himlenrik Empire, every true follower of the Sun could turn the mooncursed,” she said. “And yes, the stories specifically say, ‘true follower of the Sun’, and no, they don’t explain what that means.

“According to the stories, though, true followers of the Sun could break the hold the moons have over the land during a close moon,” she continued. “Somehow, that’s what you did. I felt it when it happened. Moarte’s influence fled the village, and without it, the hungering couldn’t survive here. And if the stories are true, that forbiddance will hold for the rest of this close moon.”

She looked at me seriously. “Do you understand the significance of that, Ionat?” she asked quietly. “If I could learn how you did that, I could protect this village from the close moons…forever.” She shook her head.

“I wish I could be more helpful,” I said sincerely. I did; it sounded like an ability that could fundamentally change how the village dealt with close moons.

“I know that you channeled magic, Ionat. I felt the power flowing through you, and the cold stone of the altar beneath you confirms that you drained it dry. But according to everything I know about magic, you didn’t cast a spell. At best, you gathered power to yourself.” She smacked her hand on the desk, her face clearly frustrated.

“And yet, you did cast a spell! I watched it happen, and I sense the damage in you from the backlash! How could you cast a spell and not cast one at the same time?”

“Any thoughts, Sara?” I asked silently.

“Sorry, John. You did something last night, for sure, but I’m still trying to work out how you did it. Somehow, you just wanted it to happen – and it did. According to what I’ve read of the magic in this world, that shouldn’t be possible.”

“I’m sorry,” I spoke aloud with a shrug. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“I’m not upset with you, Ionat. I’m not upset at all. I’m – elated. I saw a lost ability of the ancient Empire used right in front of my face. If it happened once, it can be replicated.” She laughed. “Part of me was just hoping that you’d somehow discovered a lost spell-form and managed to empower it. If that were the case, it would be a simple matter of recreating the spell-form and intent, and committing it to paper. Of course, it won’t be that simple.”

I didn’t say anything, but I agreed with her. If whatever I’d done was a simple matter of creating a spell, it probably wouldn’t have been lost for however long it had been lost. Some enterprising scholar or experimenter would have recreated the spell eventually. Obviously, it had to be more complicated than that.

“We have time to work it out,” she said at last, rising to her feet. “At least, we have a few days while the close moon lasts. In the meantime, Vasily asked me to bring him to you once you awakened – although I suggest you clean yourself, first.”

I looked down at myself and couldn’t help but agree. My shirt and pants were slowly repairing themselves but were still in tatters. A crust of dried blood coated me, some of it rusty red but most of it jet black. I had to smell like death, quite literally, and now that I knew what I looked like, I felt disgusting.

“Where can I bathe?” I asked her.

“I’ll show you the bathhouse,” she smiled. “While you’re cleaning, I’ll dig up some clothing for you and see if one of the weavers can repair yours.”

The bathhouse was an open, wooden building with a stone floor pierced by a pair of metal drains. When I entered, a woman probably in her thirties was standing within, totally nude, filling a bucket from one of the spigots that Vasily had pointed out to me around the village. I quickly spun and turned my back to her, but the woman laughed lightly.

“I’m so sorry!” I said quickly. “I didn’t realize someone was in here…”

“Come, outsider, there’s plenty of room for both of us,” she told me. “And you appear to need cleaning as badly as Tedor at the end of a high summer’s day!”

“Isn’t there a men’s bathhouse?” I asked.

“Ah, so that’s your concern. No, Borava is too small a village for such luxuries. If you’re uncomfortable, you can wait outside until I’m finished, though.”

I considered walking out, but the simple fact was, both Viora and Vasily were waiting for me. Plus, I felt utterly revolting. I turned back around and glanced at her. The woman had taken her bucket and stood off to the side, scrubbing her body with what looked like a white rock. She dipped the rock in the water and rubbed it across her skin. As she saw me looking, she raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“Of course, while men and women bathe freely together, it’s still not considered polite to stare,” she said meaningfully.

I jerked my gaze away and began to undress. “Sorry about that.” I considered explaining more, but I couldn’t think of something that sounded reasonable without making me look like an idiot. “Sorry, lady, but I was just seeing how people took baths in this world,” felt like a really dumb thing to say. Instead, I spotted another bucket sitting beside the spigot and set it beneath the spigot, lifting the lever on top so water splashed into the wooden pail. A shelf behind the spigot held more of the white stones, and I grabbed one. The stone felt smooth and oily, and it left a sheen on my thumb when I rubbed it across.

“I’m Estera,” the woman spoke a moment later.

“Ionat,” I replied without looking at her. I closed the tap as the bucket got close to full.

“I know,” she replied. “After last night, everyone in the village knows your name.” She hesitated. “You might want to dump a bucket over yourself, first. Wash away as much as you can before you scrub. It’ll go faster that way.”

“Thanks.” I lifted the bucket over my head and poured it onto my hair, bracing myself for the chill. To my surprise, it wasn’t freezing. It was cool, but not as cold as I’d expected. The water sluiced over my head, running across my face and down my back and chest. I looked down and saw reddish puddles swirling down the drain. She was right; I had needed that.

“Is it true what people are saying?” she asked as I refilled the bucket.

“It depends on what they’re saying,” I laughed.

“That you’re a true follower of the Sun, and that what you did made the village safe for the rest of this close moon. Is that true?”

“I don’t know about a follower of the Sun,” I laughed. “Viora says that the village should be safe now, though.” I took the stone and began to scrub my chest. The stone was slightly abrasive, despite its smoothness, and the layers of sweat, grime, and blood there peeled off swiftly, revealing several scabbed-over wounds from hungering claws.

“Thank you,” she said after a moment.

“I’m glad I could help.” It felt kind of awkward, standing there naked, talking to a naked woman about saving her life. A moment later, it got more awkward.

“Your back is filthy,” she declared. I heard her footsteps on the wet floor as she walked over to me. “Let me clean it for you.”

“I can do it,” I protested, trying to turn away from her, but she grabbed my shoulders and held me in place with surprising strength. I could have broken free if I wanted, but her grip was powerful.

“Just relax, Ionat. This will only take a moment.” I felt her stone scrub against my back, her hands rough and calloused as she held me in place.

“So, what do you do in the village?”

“I tend the sun-wheat fields,” she said. Her scrubbing paused. “Did you get these last night?” she asked. A moment later, I felt a sting as she pressed on one of the gashes in my back.

“Yes, and it hurts when you press on one like that,” I complained.

“They look older,” she observed, removing her finger and resuming her scrubbing. “Like they’ve been healing for days. Did the Sorvaraji do that for you? Usually, she heals wounds completely.”

“I don’t know. I passed out right after they brought me into the Altar of the Sun.”

“Hmm. Well, they don’t look infected.” She stopped and stepped back. “There. You can do the rest yourself.”

“Thanks,” I muttered.

“I noticed you missed the morning meal. You must be hungry.”

I hadn’t really noticed, but my stomach was growling a bit. “I could eat,” I admitted.

“I’ll find something for you. For the Savior of Borava, the cooks will have something, trust me.”

I heard the rustle of cloth as she dressed, then her bare feet on the stone as she left the bathhouse, and I relaxed a bit. For a moment there, I’d thought she was going to offer me a happy ending or something. My stomach growled again, and I decided that just then, the food was a more welcome offer.

I scrubbed quickly and rinsed myself with the bucket, then replaced the bucket and soapstone. My clothing was gone, but a coarse, cream shirt and brown pants lay in its place, and I quickly dressed. Viora waited for me outside and looked me up and down as I exited the bathhouse.

“Much better,” she said approvingly. “Come, Vasily is waiting.”

“I think he was mad at me last night,” I said as I followed her, recalling how he didn’t want to carry me into the altar.

“Not mad, scared,” the woman corrected. “He recognized what you did, and it frightened him. Some of the stories of the Himlenrik Empire don’t paint the nicest picture, after all, and if you were somehow a hidden holdout of that fallen land…” She laughed. “Although how you’d have stayed hidden from the Vanatori for a thousand years is something of a question.”

I didn’t ask the obvious questions, but I hoped that Vasily was still willing to let me read through his library. I missed a lot of context, there, I felt reasonably certain.

I looked around the village and frowned as I saw that most of the homes were damaged in some way. Broken windows yawned in many, and doors bore cracks or claw marks. I pointed to a house whose door seemed to have been torn from its hinges. “Did that happen last night?”

Viora nodded. “Now, you see why Vasily was so concerned,” she said. “The undying won’t violate the sanctity of a home – they aren’t driven enough to push through the pain of violating the Sun’s Peace – but the hungering will, especially when they’re drawn by blood. They’ll drag omeni from their homes if they can and feast on them.” She pointed past the house, to the edge of the village, where most of the people seemed to be gathered. “That’s why the village will spend the day re-digging a trench to protect us from the hungering.”

“I thought you said the village was safe for the rest of the close moon?”

“I believe it is, yes, but believing and knowing are two different things. We know that we can hold the village with a ditch and earthworks; we hope that they won’t be necessary.”

Vasily’s home was the largest in the village by a fair margin, with only the Altar of the Sun being bigger. The door opened into a well-furnished room surrounded by dark wood, with thick furs draped across the floor. It was by far the fanciest thing I’d seen in this village, but I supposed that being the Elder, Vasily probably had to occasionally entertain people from outside the village. This room would probably serve that purpose well.

“Vasily!” Viora called loudly. A few seconds later, a door in the far corner opened, and the old man hobbled out, still limping slightly. I wondered why Viora hadn’t healed him, then remembered that thanks to me draining the altar of power, she probably couldn’t. It would no doubt need some time to recharge.

“Sorvaraji,” the elder spoke. He hesitated. “Ionat.”

Viora literally rolled her eyes. “Vasily, don’t be a fool,” she sighed. “Ionat is not a Totkriger from ancient Hilmenrik. He’s not a risen scion of a long-dead order.”

“Then what is he?” Vasily demanded softly before looking at me. “What are you, Ionat?”

“A man, just like you,” I shrugged, not really lying. I was a man, after all. “One who doesn’t know how he did what he did but is happy that he pulled it off. After all, most of us are still here today, right?”

“True,” Vasily sighed. “Sorvaraji – Viora, if he’s of the ancient Empire, and the Vanatori discover him…”

“It’s not possible, Vasily,” she said firmly. “You know that as well as I – better, probably, since you’ve read more of the Empire than I have. Could a fragment of Hilmenrik have survived, hidden, here in Vutana for a thousand years? If it did, could one of its members have walked freely through the land without setting off any of a thousand magical alarms? And would those still hidden have let him simply escape their grasp?”

“No,” the man sighed. “It’s possible that an enclave of Imperators survived all this time with the aid of powerful magic, but not that Ionat could have walked through the Darkwood to here safely, or that the enclave would have let him leave.” He looked at her. “But how else could it have happened?”

“That’s what I’m working to find out. I mean to discover the answer to this riddle, Vasily.” Her face was set as she spoke. “However, that’s not why I wanted to speak with the two of you.”

“The augury?” Vasily asked.

The woman nodded, then turned to me. “How much of what I said do you remember?” she asked.

In truth, I had a near-perfect recollection of her words. “‘Three moons in the sky, but joined as one’,” I quoted. “‘A hunter seeks the ties that bind, shackles of silver to tame the brown. His clumsy hands cannot hold the reins of power, and the forest suffers from his carelessness. Seek the heart of the Darkwood; he hides there from the sun’s face. Beyond our woods, a greater menace gathers. A higher hand moves along with the dance of the moons, to the ruin of all. He seeks to tame the heavens themselves, placing the sun beneath his feet. His eyes turn skyward…’” I shrugged. “And that’s where you stopped. You said that he saw you, and everything went wrong.”

“That should have been impossible,” she said slowly, shaking her head. “However, we’ll get back to that.” She looked at both of us. “As you know, Vasily, and may know, Ionat, auguries are imprecise at best. The Sun tells us what we need to see, which isn’t always what we want, and it gives vague impressions, not specific information. Here’s what I know, though. There’s a Lomoraji in the Darkwood, somewhere near its heart.”

Vasily gasped, but I kept my face carefully neutral. I didn’t want to give anything away, and while I didn’t know what the word meant, the fact that it ended in ‘raji’ suggested a connection to Viora’s profession. Vasily’s reaction implied that the connection wasn’t a happy one.

Viora nodded. “I see that Ionat guessed this,” she said solemnly. “Yes, Vasily, a worker of lunar magic lurks in the Darkwood, and it’s his influence that’s somehow stirring up the creatures within.”

“Could he be using bestial magic?” Vasily asked in a troubled voice.

“On that scale, during a close silver moon? I’d deem it impossible.” She glanced at me. “Then again, it wouldn’t be the first impossible thing I’ve seen recently, would it?”

“The silver moon makes it harder to use bestial magic?” I asked.

“Yes, when one moon is close, it diminishes the power of the other moons,” she said. “Currently, workers of death magic are rampant in the land, while those who use blood or bestial magic are at their weakest. That means it’s likely that the Lomoraji is a user of death magic. He must be driven from the Darkwood.”

“If only it were that simple,” Vasily sighed.

“Why isn’t it?” I asked. “Once the close moon ends, Renica, Serghei, and I can go find him and kill him, or at least chase him away.”

“It’s likely that the Lomoraji emerged because of the close moon, Ionat,” Vasily explained. “Once it passes, he’ll go into hiding – and all Lomoraji are very good at hiding. If they weren’t, the Vanatori would have wiped them out centuries ago.”

“You can’t travel the Darkwood during the close moon, and once it ends, he’ll vanish.” She sighed. “That’s always been the difficulty with dealing with the Lomoraji. You can only find them when they’re at their most powerful – and we’re at the greatest disadvantage.”

“We could summon the Vanatori to aid us,” Vasily suggested.

She shook her head. “The altar is empty, Vasily, and without its power, I can’t cast the summoning. It’ll take at least two days for it to recharge.”

“You could hold a gathering. Call upon the villagers’ faith to empower you.”

“And then there would be no power for the Highsun blessing. If the old stories are wrong and the hungering return tonight, do you want the villagers facing them without that blessing?” She shook her head. “As it is, I can’t cast the sanctification spell, and you know what that means.” Vasily’s face was troubled, but he nodded slowly.

“What about the rest of the augury?” I asked after they were silent for a few moments. “‘Shackles of silver to tame the brown’? That ‘higher hand’?”

“The first is beyond my understanding,” Viora admitted. “In my vision, I saw the Lomoraji standing over the brown moon, wrapping it in silver chains that turned brown from the blood dripping from the moon. His hands were clumsy, though, and the chains kept slipping, releasing the moon’s blood to flow through the forest.” She shook her head. “Perhaps the Lomoraji has another of his kind in thrall, a bestial practitioner who’s being tortured or enslaved. I can’t say.

“And as for the second…” She hesitated. “I couldn’t really see. There was a man, that I knew, but looking at him was like staring into the sun itself. He stood atop all three moons, crushing them underfoot and using the pieces to build a cage around the sun. Before I could see more, though, he turned toward me – and saw me watching.”

She shivered. “It shouldn’t be possible. During an augury, I’m not actually present to witness what I’m seeing. The sun is, and it shows me what it knows, but it protects me from direct harm. Somehow, though, this man reached through the sun’s eye, down the connection between us, and attacked me.”

She shook like a leaf in a windstorm as she spoke. “I’ve never felt such power,” she admitted. “He swatted my spell aside, then poured power into me, trying to destroy me and everything around me. As he did, I heard him speak in my mind.

“He said, ‘Death is all that waits for those who reach too high, Sorvaraji. None can interfere with the Solvamasra.’” She shuddered. “Then, Ionat disturbed the circle, severing my connection and saving us all.” She smiled weakly.

“Solvamasra?” Vasily echoed. “I don’t know that word, Sorvaraji.”

“Neither did I, Vasily. It took me most of last night and this morning to find it in my books. ‘Solvamasra’ is an ancient term, one from before even the Hilmenrik Empire. It means ‘Ruler of the Sun’.” Her face turned pale, and her eyes were frightened as she spoke. “Vasily, whoever this man is – he intends to place himself above the Sun itself!”

My stomach twisted at her words, but I didn’t need her confirmation to know that this had to be why I was here. It almost had to be. As far as I could tell, the people of this world worshipped the Sun as a god, and it was at least as powerful as one. Now, it seemed like some guy was trying to make himself into more than a god, and the Sun was worried enough about it to show it to Viora – and, in all likelihood, to me. I shivered slightly as I thought about that.

How the hell was I supposed to fight a god?