(Irina's POV)
So now I had a beautiful heavy set of ermine furs, splendid enough for a tsarina to wear. I’d left them heaped white and soft in the corner of the room, and almost as soon as the maids had closed the door, I had the fur coat on, and then the heavy cloak, and the muff. I couldn’t wear the fur hat and the crown together, but I didn’t want to leave the hat lying there, making the rest notable for their absence, so I stuffed it into my muff.
Then I went to the tall mirror that hung upon the wall and looked at myself there, standing in the whirling snow of the dark forest. I stepped up to the glass, a bitter cold radiating against my face. I shut my eyes and took a step, terrified of every outcome: to meet only hard glass against the end of my nose, and no escape, or to go through, and find myself alone in the night, in another world, where I might never be able to get back.
But no glass met my face, only winter, biting at my cheeks. I opened my eyes again. I was alone, in a forest of dark pine trees covered with snow, surrounding me endlessly in every direction. The sky was a dark grey overhead, a late-evening twilight without any gleam of stars, and it was so bitterly cold I had to hold my muff against my lips to keep my breath from freezing my face. Thin flakes of snow drifted around me, pricking my skin like tiny needles. It wasn’t merely a cold winter night, or even a blizzard; it was a gnawing, unnatural cold that tried to creep directly to my heart and lungs, that asked what I was doing here.
The door opened as I watched, and I drew taut as a bowstring, but an instant was enough to be sure: Mirnatius (tall and full-grown and even more beautiful, with his black hair and light eyes that looked like jewels shining out of his Tatar-dark skin, and his mouth full of even white teeth, and with the crown and his golden robes) did not see me. He came into the room smiling wide and hungry, and only brightened when he saw the room apparently empty. He shut the door behind him and put his back to it, leaning against it. He reached down with one hand, not even looking, and locked it deliberately, the click coming to me faintly distorted, as though I heard it from underwater. “Irina, Irina, are you hiding from me?” he said softly, hot glee in his voice as he drew out the key and put it into his pocket. “I will find you…”
He began to look for me—behind the fireplace screen, underneath the bed, inside the wardrobe. He even came to the mirror, and I flinched back as he came directly towards me, but he was only looking to see if there was a space behind it. When he drew back, the smile was at last fading; he went to the window and thrust back the curtains, but he had chosen the room carefully: there was only a small window, and it was shut tightly.
He turned back with anger beginning to twist his face. I wrapped my arms around myself, the cold biting at me, while he began to tear apart the room. Finally he stopped, panting, with the curtains torn from the bed and half the furniture overturned, in baffled rage. “Where are you?” he shrieked, a terrible inhuman scraping in his voice. “Come out, and let me see! You are mine, Irina, you belong to me!” He stamped his foot so heavily the massive carved bed trembled. “Or else I’ll kill them, kill them all! Your family, your kin, to me they’ll fall! Unless you come out now…I won’t hurt you…” he added, in a suddenly wheedling tone, as if he really thought I would believe him. He paused, waiting a moment longer, but when I didn’t appear, he burst into a wild thrashing paroxysm, no longer searching, only smashing and tearing things like a mad beast savaging the world and itself at the same time.
It went on and on, until he screamed suddenly in fury and hurled himself into a fit on the floor, beating himself against it, his whole body convulsing with foam around his lips. The violence of it lasted only a moment, and then he just as suddenly went limp upon the floor, his mouth slack and his eyes staring empty. They seemed to look straight at me, unseeing. I stared back at them for what felt like long dragging minutes before they blinked.
Mirnatius rolled onto his belly and pushed himself first to his knees and then wincing climbed to his feet. His clothes were rent and hanging loose from his shoulders, and he looked around himself at the wrecked bed and the room he had torn apart. The hungry light had gone out of his face; he only had a look of wary confusion. “Irina?” he said, and even lifted the torn coverlet to look beneath it as though he thought I might have suddenly appeared in the meantime. He let it fall and even went to the window and looked at it again, as though he didn’t remember having made sure of it only a little while before.
Still with a baffled expression in his face, Mirnatius strode across the room to the fireplace and said out loud in front of it, as though he expected an answer, “Now you’ve really gone and put me in it. A duke’s daughter! And you didn’t even leave a body. What did you do with her?”
The flames roared high and violently, a splash of sparks flung out into the room. He ignored them, and where they fell on his skin, the small scorched marks vanished as quickly as they marred him. “Find her!” the flames said, in a voice all of hiss and crackle and devouring. “Bring her back!”
“What?” Mirnatius said. “She wasn’t here?”
“I must have her!” the fire said. “I will have her! Find her for me!” It rose to the same
shrieking note that had come from his lips only a few moments before.
“Oh, splendid. She must have bribed the guards to let her go. What do you want me to do about it? You’re the one who insisted on my marrying the one girl in the world who’d run away from me! I was already going to have enough to do just placating her lord father for some tragic and unexpected accident; it’s going to be a bit more difficult if she’s vanished.”
“Kill him!” the fire spat. “She is mine, they gave her to me! Kill them all if they’ve helped her to flee!”
Mirnatius made an impatient gesture. “Don’t be foolish! He was delighted to hand her over in the first place; he won’t have squirreled her away himself. She’s run for it on her own. To the next kingdom by now, most likely. Or a nunnery: that would be marvelous, wouldn’t it.”
The fire made a noise like water splashing on hot coals. “The old woman,” it hissed, and horror caught in my throat. “The old woman, you didn’t want her to see. Fetch her! She knows! She will tell me!”
Mirnatius grimaced, as if in distaste, but he only said, “Yes, yes. It’ll take a day to send for her. Meanwhile I suppose you’ll leave it to me to persuade everyone to believe a story about my darling new wife running away in the middle of the night? And what about this incredible ruin? You’re going to have to give me a month’s worth of power to fix it all, and I don’t care how parched you are.”
The flames roared up so high they filled the fireplace and climbed up into the chimney, orange light leaping over the tsar’s face, but he crossed his arms and glared back at them, and after a moment a grudging tendril of flame broke off from the fire and stretched out towards him. He closed his eyes and tipped back his head, parting his lips, and with a sudden whiplash the tendril plunged down into his throat, a glowing heat illuminating all his body from within, so that for a moment I saw strange shapes lit from inside him and a tracework of lines shining beneath his skin.
He stood tense and shivering beneath the flow of flame, until at last it was severed from the fire and the last trailing end vanished down his throat and the light faded slowly away. He opened his eyes, swaying in a helpless, drunken ecstasy, flushed and beautiful. “Ahh,” he breathed out.
The fire was dying down from that roaring height. “Find her, find her,” it still crackled, but low, like embers crumbling. “I hunger, I thirst…” and then it crumbled in on itself and died out into silence, the flames going out and leaving only hot coals in the hearth.
Mirnatius turned back to the room, still smiling a little, heavy-lidded. He raised his arm and lazily swept it in a wide gesture, and everywhere splinters leapt back into smashed furniture and frayed threads began to weave themselves back into whole cloth, all of it dancing and graceful beneath his hand. He was smiling as he watched it all, the way he’d smiled as he prodded the small dead squirrels in the dirt.
When he finally let his hand languidly sink to his side, as smoothly as if he’d been on a stage performing, the room might never have been touched, except by an artist’s hand: the carvings on the bed had grown more intricate, and the mended coverlet had a pattern embroidered in silver and green and gold that the curtains echoed. He looked round with satisfaction and then nodded and went out of the room again, singing softly to himself beneath his breath and rubbing the fingers of his hand lightly against each other, as though he still felt the power coursing there within them.
(Margreta the chaperone's POV): “Magreta,” she (Irina) said, without looking at me, “was he always so beautiful, Mirnatius, even as a boy?”
“Yes, always,” I said. I didn’t have to think about that; I remembered. “Always. Such a beautiful child, even in his cradle. We went for the christening. His eyes were like jewels. Your lord father hoped to ask for the fostering of him—your mother had no children yet, and he thought perhaps the tsar could be persuaded to think it was better than the house of a man with many sons. But your mother wouldn’t hold the baby. She only stood there like she was made of stone and didn’t lift up her hands. The midwife couldn’t even set him in her arms. Oh, how angry your father was.”
I shook my head, remembering it: how the duke had shouted, telling her that in the morning she would go and hold the child, and speak of his beauty, and say how sad she was not to have one of her own; and all the time Silvija had only stood silently with her eyes downcast before him, saying nothing—
And then it came back to me suddenly, as a drop of oil floating up to the surface of water, that he had shouted and shouted, and when he finished, Silvija had looked up at him with her silver eyes and said very softly, “No. There is another child coming to our house who will wear a winter crown,” and he had stopped shouting and taken her hands and kissed them, and he had said nothing more of fostering the prince. But then Irina had not been born for another four years. I had forgotten all about it by the time she came.
Irina stood looking out at spring, my tsarina with her winter crown and her hawk father’s eyes, and her face was still so very pale. I squeezed her a little, trying to comfort her, whatever had wounded her so. “Come inside, dushenka,” I whispered softly. “Your hair is dry. I’ll braid it, and you should sleep a little. Come lie down on the couch. I won’t let anyone come in. You don’t need to go into the bed with him.”
“No,” she said. “I know. I don’t have to lie down with him.”
She came inside, and after I braided her dark hair, she lay down on the couch and I covered her. Then I went into the hallway and I told the footmen out there that the tsar and tsarina were very tired from their gaiety and were not to be disturbed, and I went inside and took the green dress to the window, to finish my sewing in the spring air.
...
(Irina's POV) On this side of the mirror, I had my father’s name and power at my back, and a tsarina’s crown on my head. If we were lucky, and our two monsters destroyed each other, most likely even Mirnatius’s soldiers would listen to me at first, for lack of anyone else to obey, and my lord father had two thousand men of his own to stand behind me. He still wouldn’t care what I wanted any more than he ever had, but we would want the same thing, then: to preserve my neck.
I didn’t share those details of my planning with Mirnatius. I only told him a little more, of how the Staryk were stretching the winter to strengthen their own kingdom. “Your demon wants me for my Staryk blood,” I finished. “How much more would it like a pure-blood Staryk, and their king? If it agrees, I’ll bring him to you, and you can save your kingdom and feed your demon all at once.”
“And why precisely should I believe you?”
“Why do you think I keep coming back? It should be clear to you by now that I don’t have to, and that you can’t stop me from going, either. Do you really think piling still more guards on me will do any better? If it would, why would I take the risk?”
He flicked his fingers out long and dismissive into the air. “I have no idea why you would do any of this anyway! Why do you care if the Staryk freeze the kingdom? You’re nearly one of them.”
Irina had turned her head to look behind at the river disappearing behind us. Her long dark hair was stark against the white of her furs and beneath the silver crown, and snowflakes drifted onto it from the trees and gleamed on its length like small clear jewels. The twilight behind her caught in her pale skin, and she gleamed with it so one realized suddenly she must have Staryk blood, somewhere in her line; in her glittering silver she could have fit into this kingdom as though it were her own.
...
then Irina said slowly, “The demon said I would quench its thirst a long time. It wants me because…I am cold.”
“Because you have Staryk blood, and Staryk silver,”
...
“Are your people such fools, then, to unwitting give Chernobog power over you?” he said contemptuously. “You will be well served for it. Do you think he will be true? He clings to the forms for protection, but when he sees a chance to slake his thirst, he abandons them again without hesitation. When he has drained us to the dregs, he will turn on you, and make your summer into desert and drought, and I will rejoice to think that you have brought yourselves low with me and mine.”
...
Silver coins were going out with the water like leaping fish, tumbling away between the shards, a treasure that was nothing next to the water itself: that clear cold water that was life, all their lives, draining to slake a thirst that had no end. Chernobog would drink up the whole realm and all the Staryk in it, and then he’d go back to Lithvas and suck everyone there dry as well. Even if the Staryk king hadn’t told me, I would have known. I recognized that urge: a devouring thing that would gulp down lives with pleasure and would only pretend to care about law or justice, unless you had some greater power behind you that it couldn’t find a way to cheat or break, and that would never, never be satisfied.
It turned and with a great sweep of its smoking arm it struck away the mirror and the table over; the glass shattered everywhere, and the crown rolled over the floor beneath the bed. Irina moved for me; she pushed me away towards the door, but the demon went darting quicker than we could, in a sudden violent rush over the floor despite its dragging feet, and blocked our way. It stamped on the floor heavily, and a little of the flame glowed red again in its thighs and down to a few spark-flickers deep in its feet, hot coals being stirred to wake a fire. “I am so thirsty, I am so parched!” the demon said, a complaining crackle. “I must drink deep again! I wanted to linger, Irina, on you! How long I would have savored your taste! But at least weep for me once, Irina sweet, and give me a measure of pain.”
This autumn (mid-September) will mark the release in Spain as Un mundo helado of Spinning Silver, a quality Slavic historical (early-modern) high fantasy with Snow Queen elements (such as magic mirrors, a possessed brooding young man who is not himself... and yet another Rule 63:d winter royal as the leader and ruler of some white-walker-style winterfolk!!) in which we have, aside from the Slavic and Andersenian inspiration, also several counterpart cultures -- Lithvas for Lithuania as a subordinate oblast, the whole empire of Roson (of which Lithvas is part) for Czarist Russia, the royal monarchy of Svetia for Stormaktstid Sweden (SQUEEEE!! There is even the lingonsylt, and even the conflict counterpart!! ***mentioning how merchants from Svetia complain about the tariffs (indicating that Svetia's ruler would be happy to raid the northern ports)*** To quote Irina herself: "I had sat silent at my father’s table with my eyes on my plate, listening to his answers. They (the dignitaries) never spoke straight out, and he never answered so, but he would hand them a platter full of freshbaked pastries made with the tart, small-berried jam that came from Svetia, and say idly, “We see a great many merchants from Svetia in the markets here. They always complain of the tariffs,” by which he meant the king of Svetia had a great fleet and a hungry eye on our northern port.), and a khanate of pillaging riders in the eastern steppes for the Tatars and/or Golden Horde, as well as a counterpart French dignitary, Lord Reynauld d'Estaigne, Mirnatius's cynical advisor.
The Staryk are the frightening, powerful fey beings who seem more ice than flesh, from a sort of parallel world, a world where it is always winter (think ice elementals/"white walkers"). There are some physical overlaps between their world and the Russian inspired reality, and they are a royal monarchy currently ruled by a Staryk King.
Meanwhile, in the czardom of Roson, at the end of the regency of Archduke Dmitri (the late tsar and crown prince having died mysteriously of violent fevers, and the underage reigning tsar being the spare to the throne, Mirnatius, the suspiciously-beautiful-as-a-flower royal bastard of the tsar's mistress), Irina is the dark-haired, icy-blue-eyed eldest daughter of a remarried warlord turned nobleman, the governor-duke Erdivilas of Lithvas, and his late first wife Silvija, of Staryk descent, from whom he wrested the province in a war (leading to his reputation as an "upstart crow" at the palace of Koron, the imperial capital). Due to her modest appearance and to growing up in the shade of stepbrothers, our at first introverted shero Irina has focused on cultivating her intellect, becoming quite cultured and well-read for someone of her age and gender... but when her lord father buys her a lavish chain necklace made from Staryk silver, she turns from a bookish plain jane to the fairest in the land, and even attracts the attention of the tsar—a sensitive and artistic yet dashing young man who never wanted the crown in the first place, royal bastard spare to the Roson throne as he was, but just a troubled yet talented portraitist and fashion designer (IRINA'S POV: Not quite an hour passed, and then he abruptly called a halt mid-forest and ordered a footman to bring him a drawing-box: a beautiful confection of inlaid wood and gold that folded into a sort of small easel, and a book of fine paper inside. He waved the sleigh onward and opened it. I caught glimpses from within as he turned the pages, designs and patterns and faces glancing back out at me, some of them beautiful and familiar from the dazzle of his court, but on one page a brief flicker of another face went by, strange and terrible. Not even a face, I thought after it had vanished; it was formed only roughly with a few shadows here and there, like wisps of smoke, but that was enough to leave the suggestion of horror.
He stopped at a blank page, near the end. “Sit up and look at me,” he said sharply, and I obeyed without arguing, a little curious myself; I wondered if the magic would hold, when men looked at a picture of me. He drew with a swift sure hand, looking more at me than at his paper. Even while we glided onward, my face took shape quickly on his page, and when he finished, he stared at it and then tore it out with a furious jerk and held it out to me. “What do they see?” he demanded. I took it and saw myself for the first time with my crown. More myself on the page in his few lines, it seemed to me, than I had ever seen in a mirror. He hadn’t been unkind, though utterly without flattery, and he had put me together somehow out of pieces: a thin mouth and a thin face, my thick brows and my father’s hatchet nose only not twice broken, and my eyes one of them a little higher than the other.
My necklace was a scribble in the hollow of my throat and my crown on my head and the thick doubled braid of my hair resting on my shoulder, a suggestion of weight and luster in the strokes. It was an ordinary unbeautiful face, but it was certainly mine and no other’s, though there were only a handful of lines on the page. “Me,” I said, and offered it back to him, but he wouldn’t take it. He was watching me, and the sun going down was red in his eyes, and as it lowered, he leaned in and said to me in a voice of smoke, “Yes, Irina; you they see, sweet and cold as ice,” caressing and horrible) whom Irina discovers is possessed, against his will, by a fire god turned demon who wants to consume her, thirsty for the ice-elemental blood she inherited on her mother's side (and of which heritage her icy blue eyes and translucent white skin are proof: ). Using mirrors to teleport to and fro between the czarist palace in Koron and the wintry Staryk realm, Irina must play a careful game (as the new provincial and future queen) at court in order to preserve her life, and to act for the good of her country, which is slowly being swallowed up by a cold, dark, bleak winter.
Irina is the daughter of a province-governor duke, a girl whose lord father Erdivilas is constantly disappointed that she is not beautiful and may not make a good match, and whose stepmother Galina and stepsiblings treat her with coldness... yet Irina finds herself somehow moving out of her provincial fortress, into the courtly decadence of the royal palace, and marrying the tsar himself, a strange young man whose cruelty she has witnessed when they were children (due to an incident involving then-Prince Mirnatius getting cross and some red squirrels standing in the path of his fury). The tsar, however, is not an ordinary young man—not even an ordinary spoilt young noble who sees his fiancée/wife as a doll he can play with at will. He has his own demons to bear, literal magma in his blood vessels, and Irina must find a way to not just save herself from him but also her people from his rule. Using all her intuition and smarts to find ways out of the situations they are trapped in, as well as save many others, human and Staryk alike, from. The game of thrones and the threat of a new ice age entrap Irina, the unhappy first-born daughter of a local lord who plots to wed his eldest child for power to a dashing but sinister young tsar… If Irina, Mirnatius, and the other narrators are each a silver coin, then tallying up their respective stories is a fine trade for the single, golden story they create.
Narrated in half a dozen different voices, cunningly paced, and very atmospheric, with a number of touches that make its story breathe life, this novel seems to be about women changing powerful, capricious men so that those men might love and/or value them.
Tsar Mirnatius, while possessed (and thus, being not himself), approaches the woman he marries with insults and threats, and demands that his queen be useful to him, over and over, treating her like a doll or a lump of clay, before the end of the novel—when, since he's now a changed man and his true self, the reader is supposed to look upon the continued relationship with Irina as somehow a triumph for these two, a happy ever after ending.
- Bigger Bad: Chernobog, the demon Mirnatius's mother bound him to in utero. It's powerful enough to threaten all of both the Staryk --winterfolk-- and humanity. Causing an eternal winter was the Staryk King's attempt at starving it to death.
- The Dandy: Mirnatius, and by extension anyone in his inner circle, is known for never wearing the same outfit twice. It's because Chernabog has a habit of destroying his clothes, and being seen as vain is the easiest way to explain where all of his outfits go—in truth, most of Mirnatius' clothes are made with magic.
- The Tzar, Mirnatius, is in one of these Mephistophelian deals, although eventually we find out that he was not the one who made the deal: his mother the royal mistress was, selling her unborn child for the demon's power. He is forced to share his body with a fire god turned demon who uses magic to manipulate those around him and who got him the throne by killing his father and beloved trueborn half-brother.
- Death by Sex: Chernabog consumes anyone who tries to sleep with Mirnatius, so Mirnatius goes to a lot of effort to keep his bed empty.
- I Did What I Had to Do:
- Irina takes no joy in the fact that her plan for saving the kingdom from an eternal winter means that all Staryk, including innocent children, will be devoured by Chernobog. Knowing that Mirnatius had no say in being bound to it, she is also not joyful at all when planning to out him as a witch and burning him at the stake.
- I Have Your Wife: Mirnatius decides to threaten Irina through her chaperone Magreta. Irina manages to delay through Reverse Psychology, and then hides her through the mirror.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Mirnatius never wanted the throne and loved his half-brother; he would have been happy living a life devoid of politics in which he could be an artist. Chernobog had other plans.
- Reluctant Ruler: It becomes clear over the course of the book that Mirnatius is far more interested in beauty than anything resembling statecraft. He did not want the job, nor did he want his half-brother to die, but Chernobog had different ideas.
- Rescue Romance: It's implied that Mirnatius falls in love with Irina after she tricks Chernobog into leaving him.
- The Snark Knight: Any passage narrated by Mirnatius is dripping with condescension, sarcasm, and asperity, frequently referring to his 'beloved tsarina' and his 'beloved master' Chernabog, and with no small amount of withering disdain for his own situation.
- Spy Speak: This is how the Duke Erdivilas speaks to other nobles who are testing his support for a rebellion—he'll reply by mentioning how merchants from Svetia complain about the tariffs (indicating that Svetia's ruler would be happy to raid the northern ports) or that the Khan's son sacked to the east, reminding the people courting him that there are a great many external threats that would happily fall on a kingdom in civil war.
- Wham Episode: Chapter 10. The marriage chapter in which we learn that the tsar is harboring a demon that wants to devour Irina.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Played with. The Staryk King is more of an Anti-Villain, sacrificing humanity to save his people from Chernobog, but Miryem calls him out on how even that justification is flimsy at best as nobody knew that Mirnatius was harboring a demon when they crowned him king, and would have burnt him at the stake if they'd known. Unbeknownst to either of them, Mirnatius has no say in harboring a demon or becoming king, but Chernobog went ahead and killed his family against his wishes. She also reminds him how the Staryk were pillaging human villages well before Chernobog came to power. He ultimately admits she was right and enters a contract to stop their pillaging if Chernobog is defeated.
- Winter Royal Lady: Irina becomes this thanks to the jewelry made of Staryk silver. Others looking at her describe her pieces as having "winter around her throat" or on her brow, and her own clothing (unless Mirnatius fancies it up) is usually in shades of grey or blue.
- World's Most Beautiful Woman: Irina looks like this to all without magic when she wears the jewelry forged from the Staryk silver.
- Worthy Opponent: The Staryk King is not displeased at all when he realizes servants practically empty the third vault. Instead, this trick is what finally makes him respect. Then, when Irina succeeds in their plan to bind him and allow Chernabog to feed on him, he bows to her, because they're doing to him what he had been doing to them, and have defeated him fair and square.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something:
- The duke Erdivilas won his position through battle and still trains his men daily to be prepared against threats from abroad and from the Staryk.
- Irina, once she becomes tsarina, sets to work immediately both on the demon problem and the political problems of Lithvas, knowing that the country is a few bad decisions away from civil war. She notes that technically her job just to produce a tsarevitch, but very few tsarinas actually confine themselves just to that.
- The Staryk King rides out personally to deal with thieves, conduct raids, and make deals with mortal girls to get gold. After Chernabog's defeat, he also rolls up his sleeves both to act as a healer and to do reconstruction work on the mountain.
- Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Magreta, Irina's nursemaid and chaperone, narrowly avoided this as a younger woman when the present duke, Erdivilas, seized his seat—the former duchess Silvija (Irina's late mother, whom the usurper Erdivilas married to claim the province) locked the women of her household in a cellar chamber for their protection. By the time they were found, the soldiers were too tired from battle to do anything but bring them to the duke. He instructed that they be let alone, because "we don't always need to be brutal."
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: Three different cases of this leads to multiple days being saved!
- Firstly, the Staryk King tasking with turning his silver into gold results in her having it turned into jewelry and sold. This jewelry winds up in the hands of Irina, and its magic allows her to use mirrors as portals to the Staryk's world. She's able to hide there from a demon her husband harbors which intends on devouring her life force.
- There is a cabin that turns out to be connected to the Staryk's realm as well, and some of the things they make and food they cook wind up in the other world's reflection of the cabin. This winds up saving Irina and her nanny when they're close to dying in the cold. They also are in the perfect place to find their younger brother when they're stranded in the woods.
- And on top of all of this Irina winds up returning the favour, as they meet up in the Staryk's realm and hatch a plan to save the world and get the demon to leave Irina alone by feeding it the Staryk Lord. Things don't work out as planned, but ultimately Chernobog is defeated and the Staryk Lord stops his raids on the human world.
- Out, Damned Spot!: After a guilt-ridden Irina returns from unleashing Chernobog on the Staryk, her nursemaid tries to help her wash her "filthy, bloody" hands, clearly invoking this trope.
- Parental Substitute: Magreta gives Irina all the affection of a mother. Initially she started caring for Irina after her mother's death so she would stay useful enough to be employed, but she quickly came to love Irina as though she was her own daughter.
- Parents as People: Irina's father, the Duke Erdivilas, is a fair ruler who focuses on the big picture and refuses to be courted into rebellion, but he views his daughter largely as a waste of resources because he can't give her a dowry and she's not beautiful enough to tempt any high-ranking lords into marrying without one. She muses that he can give his daughter to an unpleasant and troublesome marriage because he put himself through unpleasant and troublesome battles to attain his own position.
- Missing Mum: Noblewoman Irina lost her mother Silvija to childbed. Irina's father the Duke Erdivilas remarried the then-childless dowager Galina, and with two healthy young sons he pays little attention to a fairly plain daughter not likely to snare a useful marriage.
- Marry for Love:
- The Duke of Visyna, Irina's father Erdivilas, loved his first wife Silvija—although Irina believes that he's annoyed by this fact, because it went counter to his usual practice of doing nothing without gaining something in return.
- Kissing Cousins: Ilias is in love with his cousin, Tsar Mirnatius. Mirnatius is well-aware of this, but isn't interested.
- Grey and Gray Morality: Both sides are willing to commit genocide to save themselves from Chernobog; the Staryk and their king don't care if their Endless Winter kills humans because, as far as the king knows, they willingly made Chernobog their tsar. Irina opens a portal for Chernobog to the Staryk kingdom, because the Staryk have been starving her kingdom to death and this handles both problems—the Staryk will die, ending said winter, and she'll have enough time to trap and destroy Chernobog. She's more regretful than the Staryk king, mostly over the deaths of the children, but less willing to negotiate.
- Guile Hero: All of the protagonists. Irina realizes that she's been married to a literal demon, but manages to keep herself safe long enough to talk pragmatism and sense into him and makes a much better tsarina than he is tsar.
- Heroic Bystander: The chambermaid in the Duke's manor who dumps an ash bucket onto Chernabog to finally extinguish him.
- Good Is Not Soft: Irina is extremely empathetic, caring even about dead squirrels, and would lay down her life for her people. Or, if she must, condemn the people of a different kingdom to genocide.
- Genre Savvy: When Irina learns that magic exists and that her husband gets away with whatever he wants with the help of a demon, she reminds him that unless he can snap his fingers and make money and goods this will do him little if there's a famine or he runs out of money. She also suggests that if his powers have a limited range he'll be just as vulnerable as anyone else to stray arrows on the battlefield. Her refusal to take anything from Chernobog save for his word that he wouldn't harm her or anyone she cared for results in his banishment from her kingdom.
- Endless Winter: The Staryk's world is like this. Their King's goal is to do this to the human world as well, as the colder Earth is, the stronger the Staryk King's ice palace is.
- Exact Words: Irina asks nothing from Chernaborg, only that he leave "me and mine alone." Because she is the tsarina, this means that he can't touch anyone in the country of Lithvas. That also includes her husband once he leaves his body, because her rights to him as his wife legally override his mother's contract.
- The Chessmaster: Irina. The young Tsarina habitually thinks numerous steps ahead and focuses on maneuvering those of enough power to be useful into arrangements of her... not so much liking as convenience.
- ... the plan with Irina to feed the Staryk King to the tsar's demon Chernobog. ... when the Winter King tells her that the reason he had her transmute all that silver to gold was to trap spring and summer within it, causing the unending winter that is freezing Lithvas to death.
- Jerkass Woobie: Even if one ignores that 'feeding people to the demonic source of his arcane power' thing; Mirnatius is a rude, hostile, selfish, cynical layabout that neither knows how to run the kingdom he stepped over the bodies of his father and half-brother to gain nor particularly cares. It is steadily revealed over the course of the book that not only did not not want the throne at all but the fire demon who happily tortures him into compliance and engineered his rise was forced on him before he was born out of wedlock by his own mother. In utero. "“Oh, I will slake my thirst, I will drink so deep,” it muttered. ... I couldn’t so much as twitch without agony, and my throat was raw as though I’d drunk broken glass, but of course that had nothing to do with anything truly being wrong. The demon seems to feel the need to keep the terms of the original bargain for beauty, crown, and power, no matter how the circumstances have changed, and I suppose leaving me festooned with scars wouldn’t fit. But it’s grown quite adept over the years at managing to produce the sensation of lingering damage without leaving any actual marks behind."
- AND FURTHERMORE A PAIR OF YAOI GUYS... <3 ROYAL YAOI GUYS... THE BRUNET SENSITIVE GUY ARTISTIC YET DASHING, BEAUTIFUL AS A FLOWER (IRINA'S POV: We’d never spoken of it since, but I knew Magreta hadn’t forgotten any more than I had. We had gone back to Koron, four years ago, for Archduke Dmitir’s lavish funeral. Mirnatius had commanded the attendance of most of the nobility, presumably to make clear that he no longer had nor required a regent, and he’d made them all swear fealty over again to him personally. We’d been there for two weeks. Mirnatius had stood as chief mourner: he’d been sixteen then, tall and full-grown and even more beautiful, with his black hair and light eyes that looked like jewels shining out of his Tatar-dark skin, and his mouth full of even white teeth, and with the crown and his golden robes he might have been a statue, or a saint. I watched him through the faint haze of my fine veil, until his head turned in my direction, and then I quickly dropped my eyes and made sure I was small and insignificant in the third row of princesses and dukes’ daughters), AND WITH THROAT-HEART ISSUES AND A SPLIT PERSONALITY THAT ARE ACTUALLY POSSESSION ("“Oh, I will slake my thirst, I will drink so deep,” it muttered. ... I couldn’t so much as twitch without agony, and my throat was raw as though I’d drunk broken glass, but of course that had nothing to do with anything truly being wrong. The demon seems to feel the need to keep the terms of the original bargain for beauty, crown, and power, no matter how the circumstances have changed, and I suppose leaving me festooned with scars wouldn’t fit. But it’s grown quite adept over the years at managing to produce the sensation of lingering damage without leaving any actual marks behind.")... AND UNREQUITED LOVE ENJOLTAIRE STYLE --PLUS ILIAS, the unrequited lover without the artistic talent (Mirnatius lacks the words to criticize his poems; maybe they are Vogon-level? Thus spoke the tsar himself: "And this while Ilias, who has been trying his best to worm his way into my bed since even before he’d worked out what he wanted to do once he got there—the quantities of horrible poetry he’s inflicted on me don’t bear describing—stood there and looked as though he wanted to burst into tears."), HAS THE SAME COLOUR SCHEME AND PHYSIQUE AS ENJ ("there was one pouting and rather splendid young man standing at the side of Mirnatius’s aunt Felitzja, an old woman in lavish brocade drowsing by the fire. He was very evidently the cosseted child of her old age, and if he wasn’t as beautiful as Mirnatius, at least he’d taken his tsar and cousin for a model when it came to dress, and he was tall and broad-shouldered.
Ilias bowed over my (Irina's) hand with remarkable coldness, despite my silver, which was quite
obviously explained when he looked at Mirnatius next. Mirnatius was more interested in a
critical examination of the wide panels of Ilias’s coat, which were embroidered with two
peacocks with tiny glittering jewelled eyes. “A handsome design,” he told his cousin, who
glowed with appreciation, and threw me another look of violent and miserable jealousy.
...
And this while Ilias, who has been trying his best to worm his way into my (Mirnatius's) bed since even before he’d worked out what he wanted to do once he got there—the quantities of horrible poetry he’s inflicted on me don’t bear describing—stood there and looked as though he wanted to burst into tears.
Ilias is in love with his cousin, Tsar Mirnatius. Mirnatius is well-aware of this, but isn't interested. SO... IS ILIATIUS THE NEW ENJOLTAIRE...? even after both of them have married their respective wives, and Vassilias and Irinatius become the canon straight pairings (plus I also respect and even see myself in Irina)--- <3 THE WORST THING IN CANON IS THAT ERDIVILAS QUEERCURES ILIAS AT THE LATTER'S WEDDING!! >:( IRINA'S POV ONCE MORE:
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Furthermore in October we finally get A NEW TWISTED TALE RELEASE IN SPAIN, aside from the start of the A Tale Of series releases!! (uncorks... no, pours out the spearmint tea; Muslims are tea-totallers!). Now does that mean that there are more Twisted Tales in store? (Or will A Whole New World be the last goodbye that leads to Russian read-novel-online sites?) Nous verrons, nous verrons!
A WHOLE NEW WORLD
A Tale Of... series
UPDATE: now I know that he was speared or lanced in the upper back, run through the ribcage; the tip of the blade protruded from his chest; during close-quarters combat upon the decisive battlefield (his wife watched this in real time, scrying through the magic mirror, in utter shock). If that did not strike the heart or the spine, at least it must have lanced a major artery. So sad for someone who was so attractive and kind-hearted yet so concerned as a warrior-royal -- reminded me a lot of Gustavus Adolphus if you ask. (insert a lot on the character study)
Something about husbands, fiancés, and love interests in girl-power-themed historical fantasy -- especially injuries, poisoning, and other disabling/lethal conditions -- just makes me get a kick out of their altered helplessness.
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A NEW SNOW QUEEN STORYBOOK by Luna Scortegagna:
There will also be the Spanish translated release of this Italian version with adorable animesque illustrations and crenelation wherever it can be --in shattered sorcerers' mirrors, frosted windowpanes, rococo carriage windows, night sky...
- I took her (the bride, gorgeous blonde princess Vassilia) upstairs to the great bedchamber with the balcony open, and sent all the servants away, and told her softly that there must be an heir for Lithvas sooner rather than late, and it might not be enough for Mirnatius to marry; I let her draw her own conclusions. And then he and my father came in together, with Ilias trailing sullenly behind, and I held Vassilia’s hand while Mirnatius said, as cold as ashen coals, “The joys of the nuptial state are so many, we have decided to bestow them more widely; Ilias, dear cousin, allow me to present to you your bride.” He stood beside me in the church with his mouth twisted in cynical amusement all the time. Vassilia was happy, with cause—I had given her the golden dress, so splendid she looked more like a tsarina than I did, and she was marrying a handsome young man who would bed her that night with at least some modicum of care. My father had seen Ilias’s sullen looks, and while my servants had been helping Vassilia dress, he’d taken him out onto the balcony and told him that if he meant to be a fool about the matter, we’d find another man. And if instead he behaved like a man of sense and made himself satisfactory to the great heiress he was about to marry, he could stop being his mother’s lapdog and be a prince and a ruler of men in his own right when his father-in-law Ulrich (the governor of counterpart Poland, since his unnamed oblast is way larger than Lithvas, ten thousand soldiers at his command, and has huge rock-salt mines under ground) died. When they’d come back into the room, Ilias had kissed Vassilia’s hand and made a reasonably successful effort at compliments. It turned out that even great passions could be satisfied by other means. ... I looked at Vassilia and at Ilias, who was leaning over to her and whispering and making her blush, and I envied her as much as ever she might have wanted, now when I couldn’t let myself dream anymore, even half unwilling, of warmth in my own marriage bed. That was the only thing I could do for Mirnatius. I wouldn’t pretend to offer him kindness. I wouldn’t ask him again for gratitude or forgiveness or civility. ... Ulrich saw the other men of Mirnatius’s family settling themselves in the room on the other side, and Vassilia smiling at Ilias, who had drawn her arm through his and was kissing the tips of each of her fingers in turn, both of them flushed pink with wine and triumph. I MEAN... so basically a guy who is as old and military-experienced as your dad-in-law calls you a mama's boy, tells you that being a mama's boy is not the right way, and one has to be a man and bring forth offspring and fight wars to be a worthy successor once your dad-in-law is gone... and wham, you're straight and cooing with your arranged bride!! WTF did the author do to canon Ilias??? AT LEAST R GOT TO DIE BY ENJ'S SIDE, NONE OF THEM GETTING A GIRL, CHIDED BY PARENTAL FIGURES OR NOT, BUT HOLDING ONE ANOTHER'S HANDS... why, MISS NOVIK, WHY DID YOU CURE YOUR GAY??
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Furthermore in October we finally get A NEW TWISTED TALE RELEASE IN SPAIN, aside from the start of the A Tale Of series releases!! (uncorks... no, pours out the spearmint tea; Muslims are tea-totallers!). Now does that mean that there are more Twisted Tales in store? (Or will A Whole New World be the last goodbye that leads to Russian read-novel-online sites?) Nous verrons, nous verrons!
A Whole New World: What if Aladdin never found the lamp?
Instead, Jafar is the one who finds it and makes the first wish... for a coup d'état. Deposed from her rightful throne, the once Crown Princess Jasmine decides to stop the now power-drunken usurper and put an end to his reign of terror, not for claiming what is hers by right, but for the welfare of her subjects. The revolution she starts alongside Enjolraic streetrat and rebel leader Aladdin, however, threatens to tear the Sultanate of Agrabah apart by civil war...
A WHOLE NEW WORLD
- King of Thieves is referenced, with Aladdin's father having left the family in search of a better life for them and Aladdin's mother dying while her husband is gone, resulting in Aladdin becoming a streetrat. However, it is stated that pet monkey Abu was a gift from Aladdin's mum, while Aladdin: The Series establishes that Abu left a circus of thieves to join Aladdin.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: Iago the macaw is nowhere to be seen after the prologue in A Whole New World. This is because he was killed as sacrifice, so that Jafar could see into the future.
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A Tale Of... series
- Bloodier and Gorier: The book has its fair share of blood and light gore, especially in the Queen's nightmare sequences.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: The Queen slowly becomes this trope as ..., the death of her husband in battle, and the encouragement of the Odd Sisters converge upon her.
- The Good King: The Queen's husband/Snow White's father is this. (Unfortunately, the Odd Sisters are his cousins.)
- Lost in Imitation: Just like the original film, it takes from the 1916 adaptation (a theatrical version) of the fairy-tale. The King died in a war and the Huntsman is given a Sadistic Choice between his life and his own children's. The Odd Sisters also could count as expies of their Macbethan counterparts.
- Psycho Serum: When the Queen hits emotional rock bottom and finds herself wavering over whether she should destroy her stepdaughter altogether, the Odd Sisters give her a potion (created from their own spit) that both deadens her emotional pain and lingering affection for Snow White and makes her completely ruthless and willing to kill.
- Rescue Romance: In Fairest of All Snow White meets her prince when she falls into the courtyard's wishing well and he helps to save her from drowning.
- Royal Blood: The Odd Sisters are/were cousins to The Good King of Snow White's kingdom. Circe notes in The Beast Within that the four of them do indeed come from a royal lineage.
- Uncertain Doom: The Huntsman's fate in Snow White is never revealed, but in Fairest of All the Queen stabs him when she learns of his deception, so he may or may not have suffered Death by Adaptation.
- Warrior Prince: The King in Fairest of All; during Snow White's childhood his kingdom is at war with another and at one point he and his family have to flee the castle through secret passages during an enemy attack. Some time afterward, he dies in battle.
- Les Yay: The Queen and Verona have their fair share. They consider each other sisters and they're just as close as the Queen is with her husband. After the King dies, Verona becomes a Living Emotional Crutch to the Queen. The Queen also becomes quite jealous when Verona finds a husband.
The King
- Doomed by Canon: He never appears in the original film. He's killed in battle halfway through the book.
- The Good King: He's a good and just king. He's also a Good Parent to Snow White.
- The Lost Lenore: To Queen Grimhilde. His death leads to her spiralling into a depression and leaves her open to emotional manipulation.
- Messy Hair: After coming back from the war, his wife notes that his appearance has changed, including his hair now being unkempt.
- No Name Given: He is just "the King".
- Official Couple: He marries Grimhilde early on in the story.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: He decided to join the war effort instead of staying put in his castle.
Verona
- Doomed by Canon: She's the Queen's best friend but never appears in the film. The Queen banished her to another kingdom after she became jealous of her.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Verona is the Queen's sweet and friendly lady-in-waiting. She has hair the colour of "milk-and-honey".
- Rags to Riches: After being sent away to a far-off kingdom, she ends up marrying a lord.
- Romantic Two-Girl Friendship: She's the Queen's closest commodore and they talk to each other almost as if they're equals. Their friendship comes to an abrupt end when the Queen starts growing jealous of Verona.
- World's Most Beautiful Woman: She surpasses the Queen as the most beautiful woman in the kingdom after the King's death takes a toll on the Queen. The Queen ends up shipping Verona to another kingdom in order to get around this issue.
Queen Rose
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: She's described as nothing but kind.
- Meaningful Name: Rose is shown to have loved flowers.
- Missing Mum: She died of an unspecified illness when Snow was an infant.
- Posthumous Character: She died a while prior to the book. Snow White has no memories of her.
- The Tragic Rose: One line mentions that her name was "Rose". She died prior to the story.
Snow White
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
- A justified example in that the book shows Snow's reaction towards her father's death.
- Future books mention that Snow is plagued with nightmares due to her childhood experiences.
- A Child Shall Lead Them: Implied. By age fourteen, both the king and queen were dead. Snow was the only royal left in the kingdom. Snow is shown as a queen into adulthood, showing that sometime or another she became queen.
- Cheerful Child: She was an adorably cheerful child, even after her father's death.
- Creepy Child: The Queen has nightmares of Snow White where she's a dead child with no eyes who is coated in blood.
- Death Is a Sad Thing: She doesn't initially understand what the Queen means when she says that her father can't ever come home again.
- Friend to All Living Things: Deconstructed. The Queen, at least, believes that Snow has gone mad in her grief to the point where she talks to woodland animals for comfort.
- Full-Name Basis: "White" is her surname, yet she's rarely just called "Snow".
- The Ingenue: She's pure and innocent.
- Parental Title Characterization:
- As a toddler she referred to her step-mother and father as "Momma" and "Daddy" respectively, showing that she loved them both dearly. As a teenager she switches to calling the Queen "Mother" to signify their distancing relationship. As an adult she uses "Momma" in private when talking to the mirror, showing she's come to terms with her past.
- Her biological mother is always referred to as "Mother", showing that Snow doesn't know her.
- Official Couple: With the Prince.
- Picky Eater: As a child she was a finicky eater, especially when it came to meat due to feeling bad for the animals.
- The Pollyanna: This is a thorn in the side of her step-mother. She's unable to figure out how Snow can be so happy even after losing her father, and she considers her loving the prince to be betrayal towards her father's memory.
- The Quiet One: She's soft-spoken and quiet in part because of the Queen's overprotective nature. Her stepmother doesn't like her being around people she doesn't know or trust.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: She has dark black hair, red rosy lips, and pale skin.
- Rescue Romance: She meets the Prince when he rescues her from a well.
- Riches to Rags: The Queen forces her to act as a Scullery Maid in order to keep her away from the Prince.
- True Blue Femininity: She mentions that her favorite colour is blue. Snow White is a very feminine and regal girl.
- World's Most Beautiful Woman: She surpasses her step-mother as the most beautiful in all the land.
Marcus
- Cool Uncle: He's the King's kind uncle.
Vivian
- In-Series Nickname: She gets referred to as Aunt Viv a few times.
UPDATE: now I know that he was speared or lanced in the upper back, run through the ribcage; the tip of the blade protruded from his chest; during close-quarters combat upon the decisive battlefield (his wife watched this in real time, scrying through the magic mirror, in utter shock). If that did not strike the heart or the spine, at least it must have lanced a major artery. So sad for someone who was so attractive and kind-hearted yet so concerned as a warrior-royal -- reminded me a lot of Gustavus Adolphus if you ask. (insert a lot on the character study)
Something about husbands, fiancés, and love interests in girl-power-themed historical fantasy -- especially injuries, poisoning, and other disabling/lethal conditions -- just makes me get a kick out of their altered helplessness.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A NEW SNOW QUEEN STORYBOOK by Luna Scortegagna:
There will also be the Spanish translated release of this Italian version with adorable animesque illustrations and crenelation wherever it can be --in shattered sorcerers' mirrors, frosted windowpanes, rococo carriage windows, night sky...
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