***Content warning: self-harm***

If you're just joining us, hello! Welcome! Don't be scared! You don't have to read every word I have previously spurted onto the page to get the gist of where we are now (though you should—my spurting is very entertaining). If you're short on time or patience, you can find a brief(-ish—brevity may be the soul of wit, but no one has ever accused me of being witty) summary of the events thus far below:

I am born in poverty to a drunk witch of a mother, but, in the first kidnapping of my short life, I am quickly removed from her custody and installed in a palace run by my late father’s sister, the formidable Knyaz Aksana.

But this story really begins with my cousin Semchik and I being sent to remote, snowy Gorakino to complete our compulsory military service. In our culture, that means hunting ghosts, magical monsters that spill over the borders of the neighboring Sundered Lands. I quickly make an enemy of one of our hosts, Knyaz Artyom’s nephew Filipp but a friend—or at least teammate—of Filipp’s cousin, Sanya.

My naturally curious nature gets me in trouble right away when I find out that the ghosts are the key to an even more powerful form of magic called zhiva. The use of zhiva is prohibited by longstanding cultural norms and taboos, but it’s so much more useful (and impressive) than the magic we volshebniks usually use! I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t use it, and to my surprise, neither does Sanya’s other cousin, the next in line for Gorakino’s throne, Vasilij.

I don’t have much time to ruminate on why Vasilij doesn’t have me flayed for my lawbreaking. I have barely finished weaseling out of trouble myself before Sanya’s sister is kidnapped by a bunch of miryanin (fancy word for people with no magic) rebels who are mad that life isn’t fair—well, really, they’re mad that we’re hoarding all the magic to ourselves and live like kings while they have no control over the trajectory of their own lives. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. Anyway, this outrage will not stand, so all of us volshebniks converge on Veliko, where Sanya’s sister was kidnapped, to find her and bring her back.

Unfortunately for me, no sooner have we arrived to hunt the rebels than those very same rebels ambush me like the devious cowards they are. Only, after a few weeks with those rebels, I start to think they’re not so devious or cowardly after all. Don’t they just want what we volshebniks already have? And why shouldn’t they? What have we done to make us so special?

Nothing at all, as it turns out, when one of my kidnappers convinces me to try to teach him how to use volshebnik magic. He makes a very good case as to why he deserves it and why it’s likely my volshebnik family has been lying to me my whole life… but also he has the most dashing smile and very strong arms.

Not only do I succeed in teaching Antosha, my KILF (kidnapper I’d like to fuck), how to use magic, but I learn a lot that my volshebnik family kept from me about how the world works. Antosha’s father, Pavel, is a better teacher and father figure than I’ve ever had before. He is teaching me how to be a better person, help the people around me, and look out for the less fortunate.

And then, my volshebnik family finds me! And kills Antosha. I’m brought home, only to be quickly sent on a mission around my home country with Sanya and my cousin Dasha. We are meant to ferret out hints of rebellion like the one plaguing Veliko, but by this time, my loyalties are divided. When we find a woman who goes on a drunken, anti-volshebnik rant, Dasha insists that we report it to Knyaz Aksana. I try to stop her, but Sanya won’t let me—he’s trying to keep me alive. I am less than grateful.

I fail to save the would-be rebel’s life: Dasha has her executed, and when we get home, she rats me out to Aksana. Aksana has had it up to here with my defiance and has me whipped to within an inch of my life (at least, that’s how it feels). But at my behest, Semchik and Sanya use their goodwill with Aksana to get me sent back to Gorakino to finish my martial service with Sanya rather than be locked up at home.

Let loose in Gorakino, I must convince Sanya of the rightness of my plan. My plan, which is to teach miryanins volshebnik magic. Sanya is naturally skeptical. The rebels did kill his sister. But, back in Gorakino, Sanya discovers that his cousin Vasilij may be involved in fomenting this peasant rebellion. Gorakino has an interest in seizing Veliko’s resources, which will be much easier if the country is destabilized and outside forces must come in to quash the rebellion and take over governing parts of the country.

Sanya blames Vasilij for his sister’s death more than he blames the miryanins. If these peasant rebels learn magic, they can keep volshebniks out of Veliko, and Vasilij won’t get what he wants. So he agrees to help me. We’re going to learn everything we need to teach miryanins how to use zhiva, so they’ll be even stronger than the volshebniks fighting them.

And we do! But unfortunately, just as we have learned everything we need to know, Vasilij finds out that we are using zhiva. Sanya tells me that Vasilij knows, and he also tells me that he loves me. Sanya wants me to rein it in; we have to lay low so Vasilij doesn’t crush us. Our plan isn’t going to work. If we quit now, at least the two of us can be together and be safe.

Well, I have never learned to admit defeat. I have never learned to leave well enough alone. I leave Gorakino before Vasilij can put my head on a pike and run back to Veliko and Pavel, Antosha’s grieving father.

Back in Veliko, Pavel welcomes me with open arms… eventually. I start teaching miryanins magic, and we are doing all right, until one day, volshebniks find our secret hideout. It’s a massacre. Many of us are killed, and those who survive flee to a nearby city called Pultavo.

Though we grieve our friends and the progress we were making, Pultavo presents an opportunity. It is currently occupied by armed forces attempting to hold the city for the volshebniks. With just a few of us using the much more powerful zhiva, we are able to take the city and chase the occupying forces out (the ones we don’t kill, anyway).

It’s time to celebrate! And to work together to prove we can govern a city just as well—better!—than the volshebniks can. All is going well (enough) until we get word that the volshebniks are coming. And everything falls apart.

Pavel thinks I have been set up by Vasilij: Vasilij intended for me to learn to use zhiva and even teach it to miryanins so that he would have an excuse to not only invade Veliko but to do so using zhiva himself.

But we don’t have time to ruminate on that right now. The volshebniks are coming, but no one can agree on what to do. Pavel, who has been fighting for miryanin rights since before I was born, decides he’s tired of losing and running. He is going to stay and fight for the city. That is idiotic, in my opinion: there is no way we win this fight. We have to run to save the lives of everyone here, most of whom still don’t know how to use zhiva.

We still haven’t decided what to do when the volshebniks arrive, smashing down our gates and killing many of our friends, including Pavel, in mere moments. I only barely manage to escape with two children we have been looking after since the previous massacre that sent us to Pultavo.

The kids in tow, I make my way back across Veliko to a safehouse we lived in years before. There, I have no goals but to keep those children and myself alive. It is not easy, but we have just made it through the first winter when an unexpected visitor shows up at our door.

Sanya is here. That’s not good news. He is with Vasilij. He has promised he can get me to come quietly so that Vaslij can have the honor of bringing me home for a public execution (that’ll score him big political points). Well, I can’t say I’m happy about it, but I am tired. I can’t believe I’ve managed to escape death for this long. I tell him I’ll do it on one condition: he has to take the children. If the volshebniks find out the children know any magic at all, they’ll kill them. Sanya agrees. The children go with him, and I go with Vasilij.

As a prisoner in the dungeons, I start to have doubts about my decision. Should I really have trusted Sanya? Where is he now; where are the kids? I pry assurances from Vasilij that the children won’t be hurt when I tell him how I used zhiva to give middle-aged Pavel a spry, young body back. For whatever Vasilij’s word is worth.

After a brief show trial, I am sentenced to die. Aksana comes to visit me before I am to hang, and, later that evening, a knife is delivered to my cell along with my dinner. In a last act of kindness for her traitorous nephew, my aunt wants to save me (and her) the shame of me being publicly executed. For once, I take the opportunity she offers me. Like my father before me, I end my life by my own hand.

(You can also find a handy glossary and family trees here: https://tapas.io/episode/2951492)