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HELL BENT

RAZING HELL 5
CATE CORVIN
Hell Bent

CATE CORVIN

All Rights Reserved © 2020 Cate Corvin. First Printing: 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or

transmitted in any form or by any means with the prior written permission of the
author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and
certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Author's Note: All characters in this story are 18 years of age and older, and all
sexual acts are consensual. This book is a work of fiction and liberties may be
taken with people, places, and historical events.

Cover by Luminescence Cover Design

 CONTENTS

1. Melisande
2. Tascius
3. Melisande
4. Melisande
5. Melisande
6. Melisande
7. Melisande
8. Azazel
9. Melisande
10. Melisande
11. Melisande
12. Melisande
13. Melisande
14. Melisande
15. Melisande
16. Lucifer
17. Melisande
18. Melisande
19. Melisande
20. Melisande
21. Melisande
22. Melisande
23. Melisande
24. Belial
25. Melisande
26. Melisande
27. Melisande
28. Melisande
29. Melisande
30. Melisande
31. Melisande
32. Melisande
33. Melisande
Epilogue

About the Author

1
 MELISANDE

T he collar bit into my throat with every move I made.

I grimaced, pausing halfway towards reaching for a bottle of dark
wine.
The skin around my neck felt like it’d been rubbed raw, but after
three days of getting used to the weight of it, I knew that was only
an illusion. In the few glimpses I’d caught of myself in a mirror, there
was no redness, no scratches besides the ones my own nails left
behind.
Nothing to show that it might be anything more than a
decorative ornament.
That was the most galling thing about the slave collar Queen
Ereshkigal had fitted to me when I woke up from a dream of agony
and torment.
That it was beautiful.
Not that it always hurt, not that the spell she’d placed on it kept
me bound in Kur for as long as she desired, nor even the fact that it
couldn’t be cut away or removed by any hands other than her own.
It was the fact that she had me in a pretty necklace, a band of
gold-plated ebonite the width of my forefinger, set with diamonds
and amethysts that sparkled when they caught the light.
 Like I was a cosseted pet instead of a captive. Her slave.
Her silent handmaidens, ranging from winged and clawed Gallu
demons to pretty girls who looked barely more than human, had
brushed my hair until it shone as smooth as glass. I’d been given a
shift of black silk to wear that was identical to theirs. It was simple
but elegant, and spilled like water around my knees when I knelt
before the Queen.
I stared at the bottle of wine I was supposed to be fetching for
her, gritting my teeth with impotent rage.
The Queen loved beauty. Or rather, she loved breaking it. She
took more joy in destroying something pretty and whole than in
kicking someone already down.
So instead of being left to wallow in my own filth, coated in blood
and sand, she’d had my unconscious body removed from the
birdcage and washed.
I’d woken on a stone floor, clean and dressed in new clothes, and
the collar tight around my throat. The night before seemed like
nothing but a confused fever-dream: hadn’t she ripped open my
wounds again with her darkness? Why would I be in silk and jewels?
But the moment I’d been forced to my knees before her, the flash
of vicious satisfaction in her eyes was all I needed to tell me why
she’d done this.
It wasn’t for my benefit. The comfort I seemingly enjoyed was an
illusion, much like her slave collar.
It was to keep me on my toes, always jumping at shadows and
wondering when the next cruel strike would come.
I hadn’t bowed properly that first day. Her guardian’s whip had
come down across my back in lines of white-hot fire, splitting the silk
dress and soaking it with blood.
 It had forced me face down to the ground in front of her feet,
gasping out all my breath in shock at the sudden pain. He’d hit me
over and over until the darkness mercifully swallowed me again.
The next time I woke up, I was clean again, and my wounds
tended.
After that, I bowed properly. I pressed my face to the floor with
my arms outstretched, in total obeisance to the Queen. There was a
time to fight, and a time to bow. This wasn’t going to be the hill I
died on just to make a point.
Distantly, I knew that she was just breaking me down. Every time
I gave in to her games and control, she won a little more of the high
ground.
Her handmaidens had already been broken. Their eyes were
empty, and they moved like automatons: living and breathing, but
totally empty shells. They, too, were clean and pampered,
ornaments for Ereshkigal to move around like pretty, dead-eyed
dolls.
As long as I held on to my rage, Ereshkigal would never make a
doll out of me.
Lucifer made sure of that.
I ran a finger along the edge of my collar again, barely stopping
myself from scratching at my skin until it bled, and grabbed the wine
bottle.
Irkallan guardians lined the corridors, their pale limbs painted
with dark stripes. They were silent as I slipped out of the wine room
and passed them, but I felt their suspicious gazes on me.
It took a great effort to slow my steps towards the throne room
and drift along like the other handmaidens, gazing at nothing in
particular, but taking in all I could. Memorizing it as I had memorized
the succubus temple’s map.
 The palace of Kur was labyrinthine, with passages branching off
into darkness and going God knew where, but I committed
everything to memory. In some alcoves, more black sphinx statues
stood, staring down with snarling faces that seemed alive under the
flickering torchlight.
Ereshkigal’s throne had been spun on its axis and now sat on the
broad balcony, her back facing the roomful of corpses and despair. I
felt a pulse of sadness from Inanna’s body as I walked beneath her,
but I had no time to spare for the semi-dead goddess.
Lucifer was fighting, and all of Kur was watching.
The balcony looked out over the arena grounds. An enormous
ebonite pillar had been raised from the river souls and stood in the
broad gap in the center of the city, its sides a stark drop-off of over
a hundred feet. This was where Lucifer fought, amusing the Queen
at her leisure.
Ereshkigal lounged in her throne, her claws tapping out an
offbeat cadence as she watched the fight on the arena floor below.
Beside her, in a smaller throne of ebony, Satan sat with one leg
flung over the arm of his chair and his thick black hair pushed back.
He’d adapted to King Nergal’s body as swiftly as I’d adapted to
my role of handmaiden, luxuriating in the power and beauty of it.
Even now he shunned shirts, preferring to expose the dense slabs of
muscle under his bronze skin. Every once in a while, Ereshkigal
would reach over and run her claws over his bare torso, opening thin
red lines that healed as quickly as they appeared.
When she licked his blood off her talons, I had to look away.
Fortunately, she’d left off on the bloodplay while I fetched her
wine. I carefully unstoppered the bottle and poured the ruby liquid
in her cup, and put the bottle down to offer her the cup with both
hands, kneeling at her feet.
 “Your wine, my Queen,” I murmured, disguising the sheer hatred
in my voice under a flimsy veneer of deference. It was easier if I
kept my head bowed and face down, the way she preferred.
Her claws traced over the back of my hands before she took the
cup. “Sit beside me, pretty songbird.”
If I didn’t know what she was truly like, her voice would be my
undoing. She always sounded so sweet and caring, almost motherly.
I obediently knelt between the thrones, taking a deep breath
before I faced the arena.
A young manticore the size of an elephant circled Lucifer, who
was hobbled with chains around his wrists and wings. He’d been
given a flimsy spear, the wood warped and spearhead rusted, but at
least his feet were unbound.
The worst of his bindings was the plain ebonite collar he wore.
His was under a different enchantment, one designed to drive a
wedge between us: Lucifer was able to leave Kur whenever he liked.
The enchantment didn’t bind him here.
The only magic imbued in the collar prevented him from raising
his hand against Ereshkigal herself.
But he wouldn’t leave without me. Ereshkigal’s gamble that
Lucifer would take his chance at freedom without me had failed.
He danced away before the manticore struck out with its
scorpion tail, ducking under the lethal stinger. In the flickering light
of Kur, his black wings gleamed with the rainbow colors of an oil
spill, his hair a rich gold.
He was as well cared for as I was, one of Ereshkigal’s most
precious pets. The whirling lines of his dark tattoos almost looked
like the war-paint the Irkallans wore, but the white gash of the scar
over his chest filled me with relief and glee every time I saw it.
 As long as that scar remained whole, cutting through the lines of
his soul-bond tattoos, Satan would never have him back.
A hand descended on my head, interrupting my reverie of
watching Lucifer fight.
“Isn’t he a beauty?” Ereshkigal stroked my hair, running her
claws through the newly silky strands.
I remained silent. She wasn’t waiting for an answer from me.
“The light of the dawn shines from him.” She gave a small,
wistful sigh. I heard her drink from the goblet, and as she shifted in
her chair, a lock of her pitch-black hair fell into my lap.
The touch of it made my skin crawl, but I made no move to push
it off me. Not while her hand was resting on top of my hand, the tips
of her claws pressed gently against my scalp.
I glanced down as the luxurious black hair became white and
dull, yellowed at the ends.
To my left, Satan made a disgruntled noise. “I never took you for
one who loved the day.”
I focused on the arena, feeling for the chain between myself and
Lucifer. It was there, glowing brightly in my sight, invisible to
everyone but me. Every time I saw it, I was filled with renewed hope
and purpose. For the sake of that bond, I’d get us out of here.
It had been worth coming here to free Lucifer.
He spun on the arena floor below, striking out with the rusty
spear. A gash opened wide on the manticore’s leg and hot blood
burst out, painting the ebonite floor, but Lucifer was just toying with
it.
Like me, he knew his role. Give Ereshkigal the show she desired.
Let her think us obedient to her.
Still, manticores were dangerous even without having your limbs
bound, and even a young one had a sting toxic enough to kill.
 I resisted the urge to gnaw my lower lip and give away my
anxiety to the Queen. If she saw it on my face, she would slap it
away with her claws. And then probably slap me some more for
having the audacity to bleed on her, even though she loved the smell
of fresh blood.
“Many eons have passed, love.” A sharp note had come into
Ereshkigal’s voice as she addressed Satan over my head. “In my age
and wisdom, I’ve learned to appreciate even the beauty of the
daylight. But, oh, I wish I could taste him.” She took another deep
draught of her wine.
I practically felt the tension humming between them, so tight a
knife could cut it.
“Not my son. He’s not for you to consume.” Satan looked at her
with Nergal’s eyes, the muscles in his stolen body gone tight.
“I didn’t ask for your son’s life,” Ereshkigal said. If she wasn’t a
Prime power, a goddess in her own right, I would’ve said she
sounded peevish. “Only my little songbird.”
“Mmm. My spoils of war. Your little songbird cost me my throne,”
Satan hissed.
Ah, back to the crux of the matter.
In the last several days of serving Ereshkigal, I’d discovered
several curious things about the eons-crossed lovers.
First, she did love beauty, almost as much as she loved others’
pain, and she was deeply jealous.
And second, Satan was beginning to take on some unusual
qualities.
In Dis, when he’d possessed a body made of straw and insects,
he’d been chilling to be near. I’d felt the sickening power that came
from him, the endless hunger and need for destruction.
 I still felt the hunger that rolled off him in waves, but now there
was a strange new undertone to his possessiveness. If I was a
broken doll, I felt like a doll that was being pulled between the two
of them, like two overgrown children fighting over a toy until they
ripped it in half.
Satan had been very clear in his displeasure in gifting me to
Ereshkigal, no matter how much he claimed to still love her.
I thought he only loved what she could give him, but if
Ereshkigal couldn’t see that, it was a secret I would keep to myself.
“Thrones come and go.” Ereshkigal waved her hand carelessly
and spilled wine on my lap. It soaked through the silk shift I wore,
plastering it against my thighs. “Now you have all of Kur beneath
you.”
“No.” Satan sat up in his throne, as tightly coiled as a snake, but
when Ereshkigal looked at him sharply, his expression shifted like
he’d put on a mask, nothing but adoration written there. “My love.
You rule Kur, and you did promise to bring Dis to its knees.”
I held my breath as he held out a hand, and Ereshkigal placed
hers in his after a petulant moment of silence. She shifted from
maiden to crone, her slim hand wrinkling in his powerful one.
There was a curl of disgust to Satan’s lip, but Ereshkigal was
blind to it.
“We will. I promised you then, and I promise you now: Dis and
Kur will be united again. I’ve always loved you; I would do anything
for you.”
Satan smiled at her as she became a beautiful woman again. My
stomach lurched at the thought that they might start kissing right
over my head, like I wasn’t even there.
Beneath their clasped hands, I had a good view of the arena
floor. The chain connecting me to Lucifer seemed to pulse in my
chest, reacting to his presence and my complete joy that he was still
alive despite the situation we were in.
He’d smashed the chains around his wrists against the floor until
they broke. There was still dried blood on his forearms, but he’d
healed, and he didn’t even need his wings.
Lucifer circled the manticore, the chain looped around his left
arm and the spear in his right.
His eyes gleamed quicksilver as he moved, fast as lightning, and
buried the spear in the manticore’s ribs with a burst of light.
The demons of Kur cried out, a collective noise that sounded like
screeches and wails at the sudden influx of brightness in their dark
city.
I blinked away lingering black spots in my vision, and when I
could see clearly again, Lucifer had managed to sling the chain
around the manticore’s neck.
He viciously booted the creature in the side, digging the spear in
deeper. It roared as its paws slipped across the bloody floor, and the
muscles in Lucifer’s arms stood out like cords as he gripped both
ends of the chain.
The manticore went over the side of the pillar, paws flailing. One
of its claws caught Lucifer’s leg and a freshet of blood spilled down
his calf. I was sitting ramrod straight, every muscle tense as I took in
the grim set of Lucifer’s jaw and his furrowed brows.
Both Satan and Ereshkigal had gone silent, their hands breaking
away from each other as the manticore screamed.
The sounds grew quieter as Lucifer hung the creature over the
side of the pillar, balanced precariously on the edge with his wings
bound and useless. When the manticore exhaled its last, its eyes
bulging and tongue lolling out, he released the chain.
 The limp body plunged downwards. After what seemed like an
eternity, the splash of the manticore hitting the river below rippled
up to us.
Ereshkigal stood up, her movements graceful despite her clawed
feet scratching the floor as she moved forward.
“Dawn wins again,” she said, smiling indulgently at Lucifer.
My mate looked up at her silently, his expression dark. His chest
was still heaving, the blood painted across him glistening in the light.
His eyes dropped to me, and the burning hate in his face
vanished. I didn’t realize I was about to move until I found myself
dragging a foot out from under myself and made myself stop, even
though every cell in my body was screaming to go to him.
Ereshkigal turned and saw me half-poised to rise. Her smile
became as thin and sharp as cut glass.
“He must love you so much to keep fighting against hope.” She
strode towards me, scraping her fingers through my hair and
opening thin scratches in my scalp. “Aren’t you a fortunate little
bird.”
I forced myself back to my knees. “Yes, my Queen.” A trickle of
hot blood ran down over my forehead, threatening to drip into my
eyes.
She gripped my chin and forced my face upwards to hers. Her
sparkling ebony eyes abruptly became white and clouded, her breath
rancid. “No matter how hard he fights, you are mine. You will never
leave here. Abandon your hopes, little one.”
With that she released me, leaving me shaking on the floor.
I’d adapted to the force of her power when I was in close
contact with her, my stomach no longer turning in nausea from the
proximity, but the fear that she’d choose any moment to sink her
claws right through me was an impossible fear to shake.
 I looked out towards the arena instead of dwelling on what she
could’ve done to me. Irkallan guards had stormed onto the arena
floor and were herding Lucifer away. He looked over his shoulder
towards me, the hope I’d been told to abandon shining in his eyes.
I wouldn’t abandon a single shred of it. My men were coming,
and when they did, we’d tear this palace down on Ereshkigal’s head.
I raised my chin as he vanished, just enough to remind myself
who I was. I might be in a slave collar and kneeling on the floor, but
I was still Lady Wrath in my heart. This was yet another ordeal.
One I was determined to survive.
Ereshkigal turned away from the arena, abruptly bored. “The
manticore was too simple a creature for your son, lover. We must
make these more entertaining.” Her eyes landed on me as she said it
and a prickle of foreboding went down my spine.
She swept away silently, leaving me alone with Satan.
I couldn’t move until I was dismissed. She had eyes everywhere;
even if I had to sit here for the next day, I wouldn’t move. I’d tasted
her darkness and lashes too many times to risk it again.
“Do you think he fights for love?”
I swallowed hard and forced myself to meet Satan’s eyes. He
looked at me like I was a curiosity, hunger and anger at war on his
face.
Oddly enough, there was a sliver of bright blue in the darkness of
his eyes.
“Yes, my King.” The words seemed to burn my tongue.
He leaned in closer, dark hair spilling over his shoulders. “Of
course he does. He’s my son; he will never stop fighting for what he
wants.” The dark smile that curled his full lips made my stomach flip
again in a sickening rush. “Just like me. Don’t think I’m done with
you, songbird.”
 Satan reached out and brushed his long fingers over my
forehead. When he brought them away, they were still wet with my
blood.
Sudden fear speared through me. The demon would taste Sarai’s
blood, her essence running through me...
He licked the blood off his fingers, slow and sensuous, never
looking away from my eyes. “You and I are not done. Our song is a
dark one; but you were born for darkness, weren’t you?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t; my throat was locked up tight.
He didn’t seem to taste Sarai. It was such a small gesture, but
such a monumental blessing. Maybe he’d had so much blood over
the centuries he couldn’t differentiate the taste anymore.
“Go away, Melisande, before I do something I regret. I would
consume you whole right now if my lover wouldn’t cast me out for
it.”
I rose, my feet prickling as sensation came back into them. The
hate burning in me was an inferno, devouring everything else.
Before I disappeared, I spun to look at him. “You won’t win this.
You had to steal a body to make her love you. If she saw what lived
under that skin, she’d never look at you again.”
Satan just smiled, his eyes glittering. “Who said I want her love?”
2
 TASCIUS

B astards , the lot of you.

I kept the thought sealed firmly inside my head. The Between
was no place to start a fight.
And with the tension sizzling between us, a fight was imminent.
Azazel had gone as pale as snow, his jaw set so firmly he looked
like his teeth might shatter. Haru’s arms were crossed over his chest,
eyes narrowed into glittering amber slits. Belial was exhaling smoke
and on the verge of bursting into flame.
And Michael was leaning against a wall, taking another deep swig
from his silver flask. He tipped it upwards and lowered it with a
frown, tilting it over. A single amber drop plopped onto the floor.
“Fuck me, who drank all my whiskey?”
“You did,” Haru grated out. “You drank all the fucking whiskey.”
Michael raised his eyebrows and tossed the empty flask aside. “I
have no idea when that happened.”
Azazel turned his back on them, smoke spilling off him in angry
waves. “Shut up, all of you.”
From the moment we’d walked through a door and realized
Melisande was no longer behind us, I’d felt like someone had
dropped an ice-cold boulder in the pit of my stomach.
 When, and where, had she turned away from us? Even looking
back through the door didn’t offer any clues. That way was now
blocked off, nothing but a white stone wall behind the door.
My little friend, the best friend I’d ever had in my life, was
somewhere in here all by herself. Rationally, I knew she would be
perfectly fine if she kept her head clear. She was nothing if not
bullheaded.
But illogically, all I could picture was her walking into the wrong
memory and being trapped there forever, or taking the same set of
stairs over and over again and never finding the end.
“Is there any way back at all?” I asked, already knowing the
answer.
Azazel shook his head slowly. “No.”
“Then we should stay here and wait.” I planted my feet firmly on
the floor, ignoring the memory of a temple nymph gasping out her
last breaths near my left knee. “She might circle around to us.”
Azazel’s lips turned down. “We can’t just sit around and wait in
the Between. That’s the easiest way to die here. This place will feed
on you until you’re a part of it.”
Anger bubbled up in my veins, the first time I’d ever genuinely
wanted to smash my fist into my savior’s face. The idea of
continuing through the Between without Melisande felt like pure
betrayal, and yet… it was the only answer.
I clenched my fists at my sides, feeling my nails dig into my
palms. The pain cleared my head a little as Belial swept a hand
through his hair and exhaled crimson sparks.
“We go on,” he said. “She’ll know what to do, and we’ll meet her
there.”
I glared at him mutinously, even knowing he was right. “We need
to go find her. What if she comes across a memory of Gabriel?”
 That was my worst fear— Melisande locked in a memory she’d
never be able to walk away from, until the Between ate her away to
nothing but dust. The only thing that would be left of her was her
skeleton, watching the memory play out with empty sockets, until
her bones were dust, too.
Belial just leveled a steady look back at me. “Do you really
believe our angry angel would allow herself to be trapped here?
Come on, Tascius. You know better than that.”
To my surprise, Michael clapped a solid hand on my shoulder.
Despite having drained the flask, he was perfectly steady. “Let’s go.
The longer we wait here, the more likely she’s going to be alone and
waiting for us on the other side.”
Azazel phased forms as easily as breathing, becoming a cloud of
shadows with tiny sparks dancing in his heart as he slid away.
“Follow me.” His voice was short and clipped, his anger barely
contained.
Before we continued, I glanced back at the open door and the
impassable wall beyond.
The memories of the Between grew more violent, dark and
ancient, as we traversed. Every other step, I said the name of where
I wanted to be: Irkalla, Irkalla, Irkalla.
I was so determined to keep my thoughts on the one place she
should be that I almost ran into Belial’s back an hour later.
He knelt down in front of a corpse, his forearms balanced on his
knees.
“It’s only a memory,” Haru said, stepping around him, but he
stumbled on the corpse’s legs and looked down in shock.
Belial dragged his fingertips through the pool of blood on the
floor, and they came away wet and scarlet. “A certain pissed off
someone has been here.” His smile was both triumphant and tinged
with worry.
We all leaned over the corpse.
“What the Hell was it?” I muttered. The Between was already
consuming the body, which was a dull gray and crumbling to pieces
as we watched.
Azazel sifted through the remnants and lifted a piece of armor
that flaked away between his fingertips. “A Sin Eater. She was right
— we were being followed.” He dropped the disintegrating armor
and pushed something else out of the pile: a dark feather, no more
than a bit of down the exact shade of ink.
Belial chuckled, an incongruous sound in the hushed tension of
this place. “Not anymore. She made sure of that.”
He wiped his bloody fingertips on his pants and stood up, rolling
his shoulders. “Let’s get going. She’s up there somewhere.”
I picked up the tiny feather and tried to put it in my pocket like a
charm that would lead me to her, but it crumbled into pieces
between my fingertips. The Between had already destroyed it, this
small fragment of the present.
After the dead Sin Eater, all signs of Melisande’s passage
vanished. Azazel led us through a silent field full of bright sunlight,
and we climbed a ladder into a domed building that opened onto a
darkened room.
Azazel stopped dead in his tracks, his expression veiled.
“What is it?” Haru’s grumble went silent as two memories walked
in.
It was the woman we’d seen earlier, the one Melisande had
looked at with deep sadness written all over her face. I wasn’t sure
she’d known her feelings were so transparent when she looked at
the angel and the demon, the doomed lovers.
 Glittering veils were draped around the room, but they parted for
the couple. Lailah’s white wings glowed like beacons in the darkness,
but her light didn’t seem garish against Nakir’s night. If anything,
she looked like she belonged there, a star in her own right.
They stepped out onto the balcony, and Nakir ran his hand over
her stomach, giving her an almost shy smile. A moment later they
vanished like they’d never been there at all.
“This way.” Azazel strode towards the balcony.
Haru paused, his tails nervously waving behind him. “But there’s
a door over there.” He pointed past the draped veils to a door of
polished wood.
Azazel just shook his head, so sure of himself it was impossible
to argue. “This is the right way. They wouldn’t lead me astray.”
When he jumped over the edge of the balcony into the open sky,
I was right behind him.
Haru didn’t argue, but he gave Azazel a sidelong glance when we
landed in a cathedral hall. The stained glass cast brilliant scarlet,
emerald, and sapphire patches of light over everyone, highlighting
the empty pews.
When Azazel threw open the cathedral doors, everyone paused.
There were snow-capped mountains beyond, but unlike the
previously clear doors, this one looked like it was covered with a thin
layer of dark, molten glass. It dripped downwards in an endless
waterfall, casting a gloomy filter over the view beyond.
Something about the glass sent a chill down my spine. It looked
like the exact opposite of the door we needed.
But Azazel let out a small sigh full of relief. “This is it.”
“She didn’t mention snow in her visions of Irkalla,” I said,
squinting through the glass at the mountains beyond.
 “That’s not necessarily what we’ll see on the other side.” Azazel
pressed his hand gently against the glass, letting it melt around his
fingers. “This is the door we need.”
A huge shape barreled between us. “Let’s stand here all day and
talk about it,” Belial said sarcastically, and he pushed through the
glass and vanished.
Michael was right behind him with a shrug, and Haru followed.
Azazel just looked at me with those ageless violet eyes. I
remembered the same exact feeling the day I’d met him, when he’d
looked down at my scarred back and gaunt cheeks, masking his pity
for my sake.
The last thing I’d wanted was his pity.
“The only way is forward,” he said quietly. “As it was then, so it is
now.”
Of course he’d be having the same memory right now. I
wondered what it was like from his point of view, what emotion he
associated with the moment that had changed the trajectory of my
life forever.
“She might still be in here.” My voice was just as quiet, and I
couldn’t keep the hitch out of it when I thought about Melisande
possibly miles behind us, still struggling through the seemingly
endless maze.
“She might be. Or she might be out there, waiting for us to find
her. You won’t be helping her by sitting here and letting the Between
steal your life.” Azazel gestured to the glass. “Forward, Tascius. No
looking back.”
My wings trembled and I forced them to be still. Every breath felt
like a weight on my chest, and I couldn’t shake the sense of
betrayal.
 I pushed through the glass, which left a slick sensation on my
skin, and my ears popped.
The snow-capped mountains were gone. These mountains were
twisted spires amid deep crevasses, brushed with drifts of ash.
My next painful breath became a sigh of relief. Irkalla. We were
finally on Irkallan soil.
Azazel followed behind me as I stepped down to where Belial,
Michael, and Haru had gathered. He was incorporeal again, drifting
several feet above the ground.
“No sign of her here,” Belial said, his voice tight.
The door to the Between was gone, revealing nothing but more
mountains behind us. Besides our own footsteps appearing
seemingly out of nowhere, none of the ash had been disturbed.
Azazel scanned the mountains, the white fires and lightning he
always kept suppressed shining in the depths of his eyes. His frown
grew deeper by the moment. “The day isn’t right.”
“Nothing here is right,” Haru muttered, but he cast a curious gaze
at him. “What do you mean?”
Azazel took a deep breath and looked up at the sun. “We were in
the Between for about eight hours. Out here, at least several days
have passed.”
Michael’s face was carefully blank. “What does that mean for
your woman?”
“It means she might have come out days before us.” I’d never
heard Azazel so grim. “We search. If she emerged here that much
earlier, her footsteps might be buried.”
He tasted the air again and pointed us south. We spread out,
Michael, Azazel, and me flying to cover more ground as Belial and
Haru leaped over the mountains in their animal forms.
 It felt like hours had gone by before Belial’s roar echoed out over
the range.
We circled around and found him on a seemingly innocuous
outcropping. He’d scraped away the ash with his enormous paws
under a boulder, revealing fresh marks carved into the stone.
We all looked at the marks in silence. All of us would have known
them anywhere: a spiral, a star, a cross, and an eclipse.
“She made it out,” Michael said. “There’s good news.”
“But where is she?” Azazel whispered. He held his hand over the
stone, not close enough to touch, and finally took his hand away. “I
could open a gate in time and look, but it would drain me, and I
won’t risk touching this ground.”
“Why is that?” I asked stonily.
He gave me an opaque look. “My homeland knows me. I’d rather
it not dig its claws into me sooner than necessary.”
Belial shook his mane, dislodging a cloud of ash. Haru sneezed,
his ears going straight back, and then froze. His hand was still under
his nose. “Look there.”
The ash settled across the rocks. In several places it was slightly
more raised, illuminating the outlines of faint indentations roughly
the shape of a pair of small feet.
Belial sniffed at it, huffed, and growled. He prowled over the
outcropping, following the mountain line for another mile until the
thick reek of rotting flesh was carried to us on the wind.
“Here!” Michael shouted, wheeling in the sky overhead.
I launched upwards, glad to give my wings a stretch and finally
be on something resembling an actual trail.
My relief was short-lived. The smell hit me in the face like a slap,
the overpowering scent of decay almost thick enough to make my
eyes water. Michael grimaced at me. “Leave it to Satan’s rotting
corpse to smell like a seven-day-old unwashed asshole.”
I refrained from pointing out that his ass had been unwashed for
an entire damn century.
The crevasse beneath us stretched wide, but it took me a
moment to comprehend what I was seeing.
Only the faint gleam of the pale sun on scales made the mounds
of rotting flesh comprehensible as having once been the Dragon
himself, but the corpse was collapsing in on itself. As we watched, a
seam split in the hide and belched out the gases of decomposition in
a greenish cloud.
Azazel curled through the air, stars falling from him and winking
out in the abyss below. “She has to be here somewhere. There!”
He shot off towards a wide ledge piled with ash, but there was a
small cavern set behind it. Belial appeared over the entrance,
sniffing along the rocks and spotting us at the same time.
He jumped down onto the ledge, his impact sending up another
cloud of dust, and shifted in place, becoming a man again. “No one’s
here. It’s been abandoned for days.”
Azazel still wasn’t risking touching so much as a single speck of
soil, turning in place above the ground. He drifted into the cavern
entrance and I followed on his heels, throwing off enough natural
light that it lit the cavern all the way to the back.
The scattered remains of a skeleton were strewn across the floor,
alongside a cache of glass bottles and some stale bread.
Azazel peered down at the skeleton, his fists clenched. “Jesiel. I
always wondered where he’d died.” He reached out, and a small
spark lit in the skeleton’s skull, quickly devouring the body whole.
“Farewell, old friend.” He turned away from the smoldering pile,
his nostrils flaring, and froze. “Belial. Don’t move.”
 Belial was still out on the ledge, scanning the horizon. Usually,
he’d move just to piss off Azazel, but there was an edge in the
Watcher’s tone that kept him right where he was.
He looked down between his feet. Something golden gleamed
beneath the piles of ash.
As one, we converged on him. Belial looked down at the faint
impression in the dust and carefully stepped to the side.
“Give me a feather,” Azazel snapped, and Michael and I both
automatically tugged a long pinion from our wings. I ignored the
sharp holt of pain that the ebonite frame transmitted through my
nerve endings and handed it over.
He hovered over the buried form and carefully brushed the ash
away with the feathers, revealing the gleaming golden points of the
Spear of Light. Darker stains covered the ground beneath it.
“Blood.” Belial took a deep breath and knelt beside him. “At least
a few days old, maybe a week.”
A week?
Melisande had come out of the Between nearly a week before
us?
“Taking this path was a mistake,” Haru said, almost inaudibly, and
I nodded in silent agreement.
Belial got to his feet, still breathing deeply. He put a healthy
distance between himself and the fallen Spear before shifting back
into his leonine form, padding to the edge of the drop-off.
I glanced at Azazel as he followed his nose, turning left and
clambering over the boulders with fluid grace. “Her blood?”
Faint lines that hadn’t been in his ageless face before had
creased at the corners of his eyes. “Likely. Who can say what
happened here? But our mate bond isn’t dead. Don’t give up hope
yet.”
 I exhaled, pushing aside the sick feeling in my stomach. She was
out there. If she’d died, we would’ve felt it in the mate bond.
Michael had taken off after Belial, along with Haru. I stared after
them, a thousand images of Melisande being tortured playing in my
head.
I started after them and paused when something caught my eye.
Another corpse, a body that had been split apart much like the
Dragon’s decomposing carcass below.
It looked like it had crawled over the rocks before expiring, and
the layer of ash building atop it was thinner than the dense drifts on
the ledge. The rocks here were stained as well, but with a substance
darker than blood.
The Watcher spared it a glance. “The body Satan took. He must
have a new one.” His face hardened. “I only hope he didn’t take
Lucifer.”
“Melisande would’ve followed him to the edge of the world.” My
voice sounded hollow and empty in the still air. “She wouldn’t have
given up until one or both of them were dead.”
Azazel tilted his head after the receding forms of our fellow
warriors. “There’s no reason to believe she’s dead yet. We follow the
trail, Tascius. Only forward.”
3
 MELISANDE

I gripped the bars of my cage and pressed my forehead against

them, trying in vain to see as much as possible.
By all rights, I had the best seat in the house to the debacle
below. The birdcage swayed gently above Ereshkigal’s head and
gave me a front-row view to the sight of Lucifer’s chest being
slashed open by a six-armed Gallu demon.
I gritted my teeth, resisting the urge to cheer for him. Ereshkigal
hadn’t yet asked for music, and I had zero desire to give her a
reason to want to hear any.
Lucifer lunged in with one of his two swords, taking one of the
Gallu demon’s arms off at the shoulder. The offending limb flopped
to the arena floor, the fingers still twitching spastically.
He could handle a Gallu himself with no problem. Hell, he could
handle fifty without breaking a sweat.
But there were twenty cages suspended above the river of souls,
with iron gangways leading to the arena floor, and each cage was
packed with demons waiting their turn for bloodshed.
It was going to be a swarm, and Lucifer was deliberately kept
weak. Thick bands of ebonite encircled his ankles, each cuff forged
with the intention of dampening his natural power.
 As of now, he had none of the power of an archangel. He might
as well have been a freshly born demon for all the strength she left
him.
Below me, Ereshkigal reached out and ran her long nails over
Satan’s forearm. “You have an eye for the best,” she said admiringly.
“He was quite the catch, wasn’t he? To think he fell right into your
hands.”
My hands tightened around the cage’s bars, making my knuckles
stand out white and stark. Ereshkigal’s admiration of Lucifer was
starting to take on more than a sinister bent; she seemed to
genuinely like what she saw when she looked at him.
If she laid one hand on him, I wasn’t sure what I’d do. Killing her
was the most obvious and satisfactory choice.
And completely impossible without the Spear. It would take a
Heavenly weapon to annihilate a Prime power, otherwise she’d just
heal and come back stronger and angrier than ever.
Ereshkigal being kind was bad enough. I didn’t want to see her
rage.
Satan gave her a sidelong look under his eyelashes. I wondered
if she knew he didn’t give the slightest damn about her, and just
didn’t care. “You’re missing the real show. Lucifer can handle
himself. It’s no contest.”
She sat up a little straighter as Lucifer drove his sword through
the Gallu’s chest and kicked him right off the platform. The cage
doors slid open, admitting five more onto the arena floor.
The new contenders raised their arms to the crowds of Kur,
soaking up the cheers as they converged on my mate.
I saw the shine of sweat on Lucifer’s shoulders and back,
gleaming as he took a deep breath, exhaled, and settled into a
fighting stance.
 “He’s enough show on his own,” Ereshkigal murmured. She
clapped her hands together in delight when Lucifer decapitated one
of the demons on his first swing. The clapping became muted as her
hands shrank into a crone’s, her skin becoming soft as an overripe
peach and wrinkling grotesquely.
While she was distracted, Satan twisted his head and looked up
at me with a smirk.
“What do you want?” I whispered furiously, almost silently,
ripping my eyes away and gazing steadfastly out at Lucifer.
His smirk widened, and he turned back to his traitorous lover.
“Put your little bird in the arena if you want a real treat.”
That got her attention. Ereshkigal became a maiden again, her
dark eyes narrowing as she looked over at him. “Oh, no,” she said,
amused. “I couldn’t bear to live without my little songbird. Her music
brightens my day.”
She raised a hand and darkness spiraled from the center of her
pale palm, forming a rope of shadows.
With a sharp crack, she sent the rope snapping towards me.
It struck through the bars of my cage, whipping across my face
with the sound of splitting flesh.
Blood spilled down my cheek in a hot flood, and the whip
twisted, shifting into a new shape. Spines like thorns grew outwards
from its length, and the entire thing slithered downwards and coiled
around my leg, digging in deep.
I gritted my teeth, but it was impossible to hold back the
animalistic cry that tore out of me.
In the thick of a fight, it was easy to ignore pain. The adrenaline
coursing through my veins dampened everything until the end.
In a cage, defenseless, and terrified that every moment would be
my last, the pain seemed so much more real and intense. The thorns
felt like they were chewing through me, trying to eat me alive.
Gnawing down to the bone.
I clapped a hand over my mouth, but the only relief was to
shriek, and the more I screamed, the sooner she’d tire of me.
“Lovely.” Ereshkigal sounded satisfied.
After what felt like years, the thorns pulled themselves out of my
skin and muscle, leaving dripping red wounds behind.
I swallowed my next scream so it became a groan, panting for
breath. My blood dripped sluggishly onto the thrones below, painting
streaks of crimson over Satan’s bare chest.
But for once, he wasn’t looking at me, delighting in my pain.
His gaze was focused out on the arena floor, where Lucifer had
slaughtered the Gallu demons. His quicksilver eyes were on me, his
anxiety loud and clear.
I shook my head. I was bloody but alive, and Lucifer wouldn’t be
able to say the same if he didn’t keep his mind clear.
“He must love you so much.” Ereshkigal’s pretty mouth twisted.
“To hear you scream and yet keep fighting to return to you. I almost
envy you, little bird.”
She snapped her fingers. My birdcage lurched, then rocketed
towards the floor, drawing up short only inches away from hitting the
ebonite at full speed.
One of the Irkallan guards unlocked the door and held it open,
his face impassive despite the blood smeared on the bars and floor.
“Fetch,” Ereshkigal said casually, her eyes still on Lucifer. “My
throat is dry. Something… red.”
I swallowed the rest of my pain and tucked it in the deepest
corner of my mind. Her thorns had pierced me to the bone, and the
deep ache was starting to grow almost fiercer than the sharp,
surface-level sting of the open wounds.
 I gripped the bars and hauled myself upright. My silk shift clung
to my leg from thigh to ankle, soaked through with blood. The guard
moved back a step as I stepped out of the cage on wobbly legs,
trying to avoid getting any of my blood on his armor.
A wry smile flitted across my lips. He was as disgusted by me as
I was by him.
The servant’s station was down the hall, hidden in an alcove.
Every step I took left a wet trail on the floor behind me, but two
white-robed handmaidens had appeared behind me with a bucket
and sponge, scrubbing mechanically at the floor.
I paused halfway down the hall, pressing one hand against the
wall and leaning on it heavily.
My leg was trembling so badly I thought it might give out. The
ache was no longer ignorable; it felt like something was worming its
way into my bones, eating away inside me.
The handmaidens scrubbed the floor until they were at my heels,
and then sat back quietly, waiting for me to move again.
On a whim, I waved behind me, fluttering my hand right in front
of the face of a girl with blue lips and a tight braid of dark hair.
She didn’t so much as blink.
I wanted to hate them for belonging to Ereshkigal, but I couldn’t
summon the emotion. Instead of hate, all I found was a tired sort of
pity.
Maybe one day I would be just like them.
I forced myself to keep limping along until I reached the room
stocked with cups, trays, and bottles of wine, but paused when it
was time to make a selection.
If only I had poison. It wouldn’t kill her outright, but it might
incapacitate her long enough to find a way out.
 As if on cue, the skin beneath my collar began to itch and burn. I
slid a finger under the warm band of golden ebonite and scratched
at it, but stopped myself before I really began digging at my skin.
I’d had enough pain for today, and as long as this collar was on,
it wouldn’t matter if Ereshkigal was out stone-cold in a thousand-
year sleep. I wouldn’t be able to step foot outside Kur as long as I
wore it.
I picked a bottle at random, braced myself against the table to
pop the cork out, and nearly dropped it.
Satan was standing right behind me, so close we were almost
touching.
I fumbled the wine bottle in my shock, and he reached out and
caught it easily, sliding it back into my hands.
“How long do you think she would make you sing for breaking
one of her precious bottles?” he asked, the corner of his mouth
turned up in a half-smile.
The sliver of blue in his left eye had grown wider, brilliant against
the ebony of the rest of the iris.
My throat seemed to be glued shut, words impossible. I
automatically backed away and bumped into the serving table. The
glasses clattered alarmingly and went still.
Satan raised a dark, arched eyebrow. “Careful, now.”
I dragged a painful breath into tight lungs. Just that simple
movement of getting away from him had set off waves of fresh pain
in my leg. “What. Do. You. Want?” I hissed, clutching the wine bottle
against my chest.
He opened his mouth, and stopped. A strange mix of emotions
crossed his face: fury, sadness, frustration. He almost looked
contorted.
 His features finally smoothed out into the usual smug look I saw
on him these days. Satan reached out and wrapped a lock of violet
hair around his finger, twining it in loops. “I want you,” he said, his
voice dropping.
If it’d been hard to breathe a moment ago, it was even harder
now. I gripped the wine bottle so tightly I was half-afraid I’d shatter
it by sheer force. “Too bad for you, fucker. I’d rather let the Queen
tear me apart.”
“How did you become this way?” he asked, as though he hadn’t
heard me. “Nothing breaks you. Nothing stops you.” Satan tugged
the hair he’d wound around his finger gently, his brows creasing in a
frown. “I took your best friend. I took your lover. And you still didn’t
stop, even though there was no hope for you.”
I gazed up at him stormily. The blue splotch in his eye was
growing wider, eating up the darkness.
“That’s what people do when they love each other,” I said
abruptly. “Not that you would know anything about that.”
He just looked into my eyes. Looked right through me.
A cold shiver went down my spine.
“I think I could understand,” he finally said. He pulled his hand
away, watching my hair unspool from his finger like it was the most
fascinating thing he’d ever seen.
I couldn’t breathe. If I moved so much as a single muscle, I’d
touch him. The warmth of his skin was tangible through the thin
shift I wore.
He might be beautiful now, but I remembered all too clearly the
tar-like creature that lived inside this body. The scarecrow with red
lips and beetles pouring from his mouth.
“No,” I said, my voice quiet. I didn’t want to take a deeper breath
while he was standing right in front of me, smelling not like decay,
but like a man. He smelled good, which galled me more than I cared
to admit. “I don’t think you ever could. All you do is feed on pain,
just like her.”
I wanted to duck around him, but he had me boxed neatly into
the servant’s room. King Nergal had been a power much like the
Princes and archangels; he was broad and dense with muscle,
impossible to escape. Especially while my leg was still weeping blood
and trembling under me, now with fear as well as pain.
“Things change.” Satan braced his hands on the table, one on
either side of me. I had to lean backwards to avoid coming into
contact with him, but even so, his short dark beard brushed the top
of my face. “Eons pass. I would bear Ereshkigal’s wrath for you—
isn’t that what you would call love? I would let her whip me bloody
to own you again.”
My stomach churned sickeningly. I turned my face away, focusing
on the wall beyond him, my back muscles screaming from holding
myself away from his body.
“Don’t tell me you could understand.” To my surprise, I let out a
breathless laugh. It would be easier to believe I was dead and living
a Hellish nightmare than actually here in Kur, with Satan telling me
he could love. “You just proved you can’t. Loving someone and
owning someone are two very different things. I came here for
Lucifer because I love him, not because I own him. I would’ve
traded my freedom for his in a heartbeat, even if it meant I would
never see him again.”
Satan was still for a long moment, and then he stood up straight,
taking a step back. I took a deep breath, grateful for the sudden
space between us.
“Then I will show you.”
 He lunged in so suddenly I jumped, raising an arm to defend
myself, but he didn’t hit me. He just knelt down, almost like he was
bowing before me.
Satan’s fingertips dragged over my bare leg from thigh to ankle,
a slow, sensuous, and entirely sickening movement.
But as he moved his hand, darkness welled up in the holes the
thorns had left behind. I gripped the table with my free hand, trying
not to feel ill at the sight of the dark beads welling out of my leg. It
was like being infected with a parasite and powerless to stop it.
Satan twitched his fingers, and the beads slid into his hand like
leeches. He made a fist, and when he opened it, they were gone
entirely. “There. I took the infestation she planted in you. They will
heal more quickly now, and you won’t have her worms chewing on
your bones, causing you more pain.”
An infestation? I wanted to throw up, but my stomach was
empty.
“I expect nothing in return. As proof that I can learn,” he added
darkly, and then he turned and strode out.
The room suddenly felt a thousand times larger without his
presence in it. I carefully put the wine bottle on the table, heaving a
huge sigh of relief and testing my weight on my leg.
The bone-deep ache was fading rapidly. The open wounds still
stung, but my leg was no longer shaking uncontrollably.
He’d actually done something kind for me, but I wouldn’t let
myself be fooled for a moment. Everything he did was for his own
purposes.
Proof, my ass.
I swiftly uncorked the wine and found a clean glass, and hurried
back to the throne room with Lucifer on my mind.
 When Ereshkigal came into view, I slowed my steps, trying not to
look like I might’ve had her darkness leeches removed from my body
by her own lover, but she wasn’t paying attention to me at all as I
poured for her.
Her eyes were fixed on Lucifer and the mountain of bodies he’d
made. Blood painted him from head to toe, wiped in thick streaks
across his broad chest.
I served the Queen silently, watching the arena from the corner
of my eye. With a final savage swing, Lucifer beheaded the last Gallu
demon standing. The body fell to the floor, and he planted his sword
in its back.
Kur was rapturous, screaming their praises. A group of demon
women with the lower bodies of pythons, scales shining slick and
green, hung over a balcony near ours, throwing black-petaled
flowers down to him.
“Bring him here,” Ereshkigal commanded her guards. She sipped
her wine, staining her lips an even deeper purple that offset her
pallor, and smiled at the bloodied archdemon below.
I obediently knelt beside her throne as the Irkallan guards
lowered a gangway and descended into the arena, carelessly kicking
bodies off the side of the pillar and surrounding Lucifer.
They shoved the Gallu demons over like so much trash. Lucifer’s
muscles were still bunched and coiled, but he lowered his arms and
let his ruined sword fall to the floor in a puddle of blood and black
flowers.
His eyes were on me as they ascended to the throne room. I
clenched my hands in my lap, putting every drop of willpower into
staying where I was.
I love you, I mouthed.
 A smile crossed his face in a flash, even with his lips cut, and he
wiped the expression away as soon as Ereshkigal rose to her feet.
“Such beautiful carnage,” she purred, circling him. “Join us at the
victor’s table.”
She swept away, but Lucifer paused as I rose to my feet, taking
up the cup and bottle. He didn’t move an inch until Satan joined
him, and I followed in their wake down another serpentine hallway.
I dared to reach out and touch his wings. It was a quick stroke, a
brush of fingers through feathers, but I saw his shoulders tense and
relax.
Satan led him to the door of Ereshkigal’s dining hall. An ebony
table that could seat a hundred spanned the length of the hall,
looked over by sphinx statues. It had already been laid out with
polished gold cutlery and steaming trays of food: roasted meat,
berries glittering with sugar crystals, cups of wine and a deep
emerald tea.
My stomach growled and I willed it into silence. I was fed well
enough, all things considered, albeit plainer food. Just enough to
keep me alive and Sarai healthy, but I wasn’t above stealing when I
thought I could get away with it.
Satan turned to Lucifer. “You will continue to win. Please her at
all costs.”
With that, he disappeared into the dining hall.
I was close enough to Lucifer to inhale deeply and smell him
under the blood and sweat, a smell like the sun, warm and
enveloping.
Without a single word, he spun around and pushed me back into
the darkness of the hall. The glass and bottle in my arm clattered
alarmingly, but Lucifer bent down and kissed me hard.
 I wanted to relax into him so badly, but I kept myself upright,
opening my mouth and sliding my tongue over his, letting him know
without words how much I loved him. The low sound he made sent
a shiver through me.
He pulled away only seconds later. His eyes were burning with
desire, but he turned away, obediently following them. We all had a
part to play, and any deviation would be madness.
Against my will, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I
erased the evidence of his blood but not the swollen redness of my
lips.
Ereshkigal was striding around the table when I entered silently,
placing her cup at the head of the table and refilling it. The soft
gurgle of the wine filled the empty space and bounced off the walls,
it was so silent in here.
“It’s rare that I’m so impressed,” the Queen said, her hips
swaying as she moved towards Lucifer. He gave her a dead-eyed
look. “I could see you in the raiment of Irkalla. You would be such
an addition to my collection—a crown jewel in this city’s crown. The
fallen light of dawn himself, a star blazing in the dark...”
She reached out, placing her lacquered talons on his bloody
chest just beneath his slave collar. My own chest squeezed tightly,
like a hand had reached inside me and clamped around my heart.
I could see it now. Ereshkigal could do no wrong in her own city;
Satan wouldn’t stop her if she meant to take Lucifer for herself.
I’d have to feel that through the bond. I’d have to feel Lucifer’s
feelings when she inevitably fucked him, and live with it forever. And
even worse, so would he. He would be the one living the experience
of being defiled and degraded.
Our bond might even be broken by it.
 She ran her hand over him, letting it drift down over the rippled
muscles of his abdomen, seductively tracing a swirling black tattoo
with one claw.
“I could give you so much,” she whispered. “I could make you a
king. Better to reign than to serve, isn’t that so?”
Her hand drifted lower, and she hooked her fingers in the band of
his pants, tugging ever so slightly. Lucifer began to pull away, his
fists clenched impotently, but his eyes flicked over her shoulder. To
me.
The Queen turned to gloat, smiling as she began to pull his pants
down lower, revealing the bloodied V of muscle at the base of his
stomach.
I wasn’t aware of moving, or of the shatter of breaking glass
when I dropped the bottle.
I picked up a golden knife from the Queen’s setting, drew my
arm back, and threw it with flawless precision.
It stopped dead in the air, only centimeters from one of her
shining obsidian eyes. A tendril of her darkness had caught it by the
blade.
Everyone was completely silent, frozen in place. Lucifer’s eyes
were full of horror, but Satan… anger battled with desire on his face.
Ereshkigal blinked. “Perhaps you are less a songbird, and more a
bird of prey.”
The tendril released the knife, which clattered to the floor, and
then whipped outwards and hit my already-cut face.
A fresh explosion of pain rattled my skull. I gripped the back of
the chair to keep myself from falling backwards, pressing a hand to
the stinging pain on my cheek.
“Haven’t I treated you well enough? Perhaps you need a little
time alone to consider the debt of gratitude you owe me.”
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 The power of Ivan Kalita being
once raised by the Tatars’ aid,
and by the re-establishment of
the direct line of succession, and
thoroughly developed by his son
and grandson, Simeon the
Proud and Dmitri Donskoi, it
followed, as a natural
consequence, that he who was
most able to reward and to
punish drew around him, and
retained, the whole of the
nobles. These constituted the
sole strength of the appanaged
princes; their defection,
therefore, completed the
subjugation of the princes.
Dmitri Donskoi
Dmitri Donskoi was, therefore, in
reality sovereign, as is proved
by his treaties with the princes
who held appanages, all of whom he reduced to be his vassals. And,
accordingly, notwithstanding the appanages which he gave to his
sons, and the dissensions which arose out of that error—an error as
yet, perhaps, unavoidable—the attachment of the nobles, for which
we have just assigned a reason, always replaced the legitimate heir
on the throne.
Already, so early as about 1366, the Russian
[1366 a.d.] princes could no longer venture to contend
against their lord paramount by any other
means than by denunciations to the horde; but to what khan could
they be addressed? Discord had created several: what result was to
be hoped from them? Divided among themselves, the Tatar armies
had ceased to be an available force. The journeys to the Golden
Horde, which had originally contributed to keep the Russian princes
in awe, now served to afford them an insight into the weakness of
their enemies. The grand princes returned from the horde with the
confidence that they might usurp with impunity; and their competitors
with envoys and letters, which even they themselves well knew
would be of no avail. It was, then, obvious in Russia, that the only
protecting power was at Moscow: to have recourse to its support
was a matter of necessity. The petty princes could obtain it only by
the sacrifice of their independence; and thus all of them became
vassals to the grand prince Dmitri.
Never did a great man arise more opportunely than this Dmitri. It
was a propitious circumstance, that the dissensions of the Tatars
gave them full occupation during the eighteen years subsequent to
the first three of his reign:[20] this, in the first place, allowed him time
to extinguish the devastating fury of Olgerd the Lithuanian, son of
Gedimin, father of Iagello, and conqueror of all Lithuania, Volhinia,
Smolensk, Kiev, and even of Taurida; secondly, to unite several
principalities with his throne; and lastly, to compel the other princes,
and even the prince of Tver, to acknowledge his paramount
authority.
The contest with the latter was terrible: four times did Dmitri
overcome Michael, and four times did the prince of Tver, aided by his
son-in-law, the great Olgerd, prince of Lithuania, rise again
victorious. In this obstinate conflict, Moscow itself was twice
besieged, and must have fallen, had it not been for its stone walls,
the recent work of the first regency of the Muscovite boyars. But, at
length, Olgerd died; and Dmitri, who, but three years before, could
appear only on his knees at the horde, now dared to refuse the khan
his tribute, and to put to death the insolent ambassador who had
been sent to claim it.
We have seen that, fifty years earlier, a similar instance of temerity
caused the branch of Tver to fall beneath that of Moscow; but times
were changed. The triple alliance of the primate, the boyars, and the
grand prince, had now restored to the Russians a confidence in their
own strength: they had acquired boldness from a conviction of the
power of their grand prince, and from the dissensions of the Tatars.
Some bands of the latter, wandering in Muscovy in search of
plunder, were defeated; at last the Tatars have fled before the
Russians! they are become their slaves, the delusion of their
invincibility is no more!
 The burst of fury which the khan exhibited on learning the murder
of his representative, accordingly served as a signal for the
confederation of all the Russian princes against the prince of Tver.
He was compelled to submit to the grand prince, and to join with him
against the horde.

The Battle of the Don or Kulikovo (1380 a.d.)

Russia now began to feel that there were

[1380 a.d.] three things which were indispensably
necessary to her; the establishment of the direct
succession, the concentration of the supreme power, and the union
of all parties against the Tatars. The movement in this direction was
taken very opportunely; for it happened simultaneously that the
Mongolian chief, Mamai, was also disembarrassed of his civil wars
(1380), and he hastened with all his forces into Russia to re-
establish his slighted authority; but he found the grand prince Dmitri
confronting him on the Don, at the head of the combined Russian
princes and an army of two hundred thousand[21] men. Dmitri put it
to the choice of his troops whether they would go to encounter the
foe, who were encamped at no great distance on the opposite shore
of the river, or remain on this side and wait the attack? With one
voice they declared for going over to the assault. The grand prince
immediately transported his battalions across the river, and then
turned the vessels adrift, in order to cut off all hopes of escaping by
retreat, and inspire his men with a more desperate valour against an
enemy who was three times stronger in numbers. The fight began.
The Russians defended themselves valiantly against the furious
attacks of the Tatars; the hosts of combatants pressed in such
numbers to the field of battle, that multitudes of them were trampled
under foot by the tumult of men and horses. The Tatars, continually
relieved by fresh bodies of soldiers as any part was fatigued by the
conflict, seemed at length to have victory on their side. Nothing but
the impossibility of getting over the river, and the firm persuasion that
death would directly transport them from the hands of the infidel
enemy into the mansions of bliss, restrained the Russians from a
general flight. But all at once, at the very moment when everything
seemed to be lost, a detachment of the grand prince’s army, which
he had stationed as a reserve, and which till now had remained
inactive and unobserved, came up in full force, fell upon the rear of
the Tatars, and threw them into such amazement and terror that they
fled, and left the Russians masters of the field. This momentous
victory, however, cost them dear; thousands lay dead upon the
ground, and the whole army was occupied eight days in burying the
bodies of the dead Russians: those of the Tatars were left uninterred
upon the ground. It was in harmony of this achievement that Dmitri
received his honourable surname of Donskoi.g

Significance of Battle of Kulikovo

The chronicles say that such a battle as that of Kulikovo had never
before been known in Russia; even Europe had not seen the like of it
for a long time. Such bloody conflicts had taken place in the western
half of Europe at the beginning of the so-called Middle Ages, at the
time of the great migration of nations, in those terrible collisions
between European and Asiatic armies; such was the battle of
Châlons-sur-Marne, when the Roman general saved western Europe
from the Huns; such too was the battle of Tours, where the Frankish
leader saved western Europe from the Arabs (Saracens). Western
Europe was saved from the Asiatics, but her eastern half remained
long open to their attacks. Here, about the middle of the ninth
century, was formed an empire which should have served Europe as
a bulwark against Asia; in the thirteenth century this bulwark was
seemingly destroyed, but the foundations of the European empire
were saved in the distant northwest; thanks to the preservation of
these foundations, in a hundred and fifty years the empire
succeeded in becoming unified, consolidated—and the victory of
Kulikovo served as a proof of its strength. It was an omen of the
triumph of Europe over Asia, and has exactly the same signification
in the history of eastern Europe as the victories of Châlons and
Tours have in that of western Europe. It also bears a like character
with them—that of a terrible, bloody slaughter, a desperate struggle
between Europe and Asia, which was to decide the great question in
the history of humanity: which of these two parts of the world was to
triumph over the other.
But the victory of Kulikovo was one of those victories which closely
border upon grievous defeats. When, says the tradition, the grand
prince ordered a count to be made of those who were left alive after
the battle, the boyar Michael Aleksandrovitch reported to him that
there remained in all forty thousand men, while more than four
hundred thousand had been in action. And although the historian is
not obliged to accept the latter statement literally, yet the ratio here
given between the living and the dead is of great importance to him.
Four princes, thirteen boyars, and a monk of the monastery of
Troitsa, were among the slain. It is for this reason that in the
embellished narratives of the defeat of Mamai we see the event
represented on one hand as a great triumph and on the other as a
woeful and lamentable event. There was great joy in Russia, says
the chronicler, but there was also great grief over those slain by
Mamai at the Don; the land of Russia was bereft of all voyevods
(captains) and men and all kinds of warriors, and therefore there was
a great fear throughout all the land of Russia. It was this
depopulation through loss of men that gave the Tatars a short-lived
triumph over the victors of Kulikovo.e

THE DESTRUCTION OF MOSCOW (1382 A.D.)

The immediate and inevitable consequence of

[1382 a.d.] the battle was a sensible reduction of the
Russian army. The numbers that fell before the
Tatars could not be easily or speedily supplied: nor were the means
of a fresh levy accessible. Those districts from which the grand army
was ordinarily recruited had already exhausted their population; all
the remote principalities had contributed in nearly equal proportion,
and the majority of the rest of the empire was composed of persons
who were unaccustomed to the use of arms, having been exclusively
occupied in tillage or commerce. These circumstances, which did not
damp the joy of the victory, or diminish its real importance, presented
to the implacable foe a new temptation for crossing the border. But it
was not until two of the wandering hordes had formed a junction that
the Tatars were able to undertake the enterprise. The preparations
for it occupied them two years. In 1382, the hordes of the Don and
the Volga united, and making a descent upon the frontier provinces
with success, penetrated as far as Moscow. The city had been
previously fortified by the boyars with strong ramparts and iron
gates; and Dmitri, trusting with confidence to the invincibility of the
fortifications, left the capital in the charge of one of his generals,
while he imprudently went into the interior to recruit his army. His
absence in the hour of danger spread consternation amongst the
peaceable part of the inhabitants, particularly the clergy, who relied
upon his energies on the most trying occasions. The metropolitan,
accompanied by a great number of the citizens, left the city upon the
approach of the Tatars. The small garrison that remained made an
ineffectual show on the ramparts, and the Tatars, who might not
otherwise have gained their object, prevailed upon the timidity of the
Russians, who consented to capitulate upon a promise of pardon.
The Tatars observed their pledge in this instance as they had done in
every similar case—by availing themselves of the first opportunity to
violate it. They no sooner entered Moscow than they gave it to the
flames, and massacred every living person they met in the streets.
Having glutted their revenge with a terrible scene of slaughter and
conflagration, they returned home, satisfied with having reduced the
grand princedom once more, after their own fashion, to subjection.
They did not perceive that in this exercise of brutal rage they
strengthened the moral power of Russia, by giving an increased
motive to co-operation, and by rendering the abhorrence of their
yoke still more bitter than before. All they desired was the physical
and visible evidence of superiority; either not heeding, or not
comprehending, the silent and unseen progress of that strength
which combined opinion acquires under the pressure of blind
tyranny.
Dmitri, thus reduced to submission, was compelled once more to
perform the humiliating penance of begging his dignity at the hands
of the khan. Empire had just been within his grasp; he had bound up
the shattered parts of the great mass; he had effected a union of
sentiment, and a bond of co-operation; but in the effort to establish
this desirable end, he had exhausted the means by which alone it
could be perpetuated. Had the Tatars suffered a short period more to
have elapsed before they resumed the work of spoliation, it is not
improbable but that a sufficient force could have been raised to repel
them: but they appeared in considerable numbers, animated by the
wildest passions, at a time when Dmitri was unable to make head
against their approach. The result was unavoidable; and the grand
prince, in suing to be reinstated on the throne from which he was
virtually expelled, merely acquiesced in a necessity which he could
not avert.
But the destruction of Moscow had no effect upon the great
principle that was now in course of development all over the empire.
The grand princedom was still the centre of all the Russian
operations: the grand prince was still the acknowledged authority to
which all the subordinate rulers deferred. While this paramount virtue
of cohesion remained unimpaired, the incursions of the Tatars,
however calamitous in their passing visitations, had no other
influence upon the ultimate destiny of the country than that of
stimulating the latent patriotism of the population, and of convincing
the petty princes, if indeed any further evidence were wanted, of the
disastrous impolicy of wasting their resources in private feuds.

THE DEATH OF DMITRI DONSKOI; HIS PLACE IN HISTORY

The example of Dmitri Donskoi had clearly pointed out the course
which it was the policy of the grand prince to follow; but, in order to
place his own views beyond the reach of speculation, and to enforce
them in as solemn a manner as he could upon his successors, that
prince placed a last injunction upon his son, which he also
addressed in his will to all future grand princes, to persevere in the
lofty object of regeneration by maintaining and strengthening the
domestic alliances of the sovereignty, and resisting the Tatars until
they should be finally driven out of Russia. His reign of twenty-seven
years, crowned with eventful circumstances, and subjected to many
fluctuations, established two objects which were of the highest
consequence to the ultimate completion of the great design. Amidst
all the impediments that lay in his way, or that sprang up as he
advanced, Dmitri continued his efforts to create an order of nobility—
the boyars, who, scattered through every part of the empire, and
surrounding his court on all occasions of political importance, held
the keys of communication and control in their hands, by which the
means of concentration were at all times facilitated. That was one
object, involving in its fulfilment the gradual reduction of the power of
the petty princes, and contributing mainly to the security of the
second object, which was the chief agent of his designs against the
Tatars. In proportion as he won over the boyars to his side, and gave
them an interest in his prosperity, he increased the power of the
grand princedom. These were the elements of his plan: the
progressive concentration of the empire, and the elevation of the
grand princedom to the supreme authority. The checks that he met in
the prosecution of these purposes, of which the descent of the Tatar
army upon Moscow was the principal, slightly retarded, but never
obscured, his progress. The advances that he had made were
evident. It did not require the attestation of his dying instructions to
explain the aim of his life: it was visibly exemplified in the institutions
he bequeathed to his country; in the altered state of society; and in
the general submission of the appanages to a throne which, at the
period of his accession, was shaken to its centre by rebellion.d
In 1389 Dmitri died at the early age of thirty-
[1389 a.d.] nine. His grandfather, his uncle, and his father
had quietly prepared ample means for an open
decisive struggle. Dmitri’s merit consisted in the fact that he
understood how to take advantage of these means, understood how
to develop the forces at his disposal and to impart to them the proper
direction at the proper time. We do not intend to weigh the merits of
Dmitri in comparison with those of his predecessors; we will only
remark that the application of forces is usually more evident and
more resounding than their preparation, and that the reign of Dmitri,
crowded as it was from beginning to end with the events of a
persistent and momentous struggle, easily eclipsed the reigns of his
predecessors with their sparse incidents. Events like the battle of
Kulikovo make a powerful impression upon the imagination of
contemporaries and endure long in the remembrance of their
descendants. It is therefore not surprising that the victor of Mamai
should have been given beside Alexander Nevski so conspicuous a
place amongst the princes of the new northeastern Russia. The best
proof of the great importance attributed to Dmitri’s deeds by
contemporaries is to be found in the existence of a separate
narrative of the exploits of this prince, a separate embellished
biography. Dmitri’s appearance is thus described: “He was strong
and valiant, and great and broad in body, broad shouldered and very
heavy, his beard and hair were black, and very wonderful was his
gaze.” In his biography the severity of his life is extolled, his aversion
to pleasure, his piety, gentleness, his chastity both before and after
marriage; among other things it is said: “Although he was not learned
in books, yet he had spiritual books in his heart.” The end of Dmitri is
thus described: “He fell ill and was in great pain, then it abated, but
he again fell into a great sickness and his groaning came to his
heart, for it touched his inner parts and his soul already drew near to
death.”

Live-fish Merchant

The important consequences of Dmitri’s activity are manifested in

his will and testament, in which we meet with hitherto unheard-of
dispositions. The Moscow prince blesses his eldest son Vasili and
endows him with the grand principality of Vladimir, which he calls his
paternal inheritance. Donskoi no longer fears any rivals to his son,
either from Tver or Suzdal. Besides Vasili, Dmitri had five sons: Iuri,
Andrew, Peter, John, and Constantine; but the two latter were under
age, Constantine having been born only four days before his father’s
death, and the grand prince confides his paternal domain of Moscow
to his four elder sons. In this domain, that is in the town of Moscow
and the districts appertaining to it, Donskoi had ruled over two parts
or shares, the share of his father Ivan and of his uncle Simeon, while
the third share was under the rule of Vladimir Andreevitch, to whom
it now remained. Of his two shares the grand prince left one half to
his eldest son Vasili; the other half was divided in three parts among
the remaining sons, and the other towns of the principality of
Moscow were divided among the four sons; Kolomna went to Vasili,
the eldest, Zvenigorod to Iuri, Mozhaisk to Andrew, Dmitrov to Peter.

THE REIGN OF VASILI-DMITRIEVITCH (1389-1425 A.D.)

From the very commencement of his reign the young son of

Donskoi showed that he would remain true to the traditions of his
father and grandfather. A year after the khan’s ambassador had
placed him on the grand prince’s throne at Vladimir, Vasili set out for
the horde and there purchased a iarlik (letter-patent of the khans) for
the principality of Nijni-Novgorod, which not long before, after many
entreaties had been obtained from the horde by Boris
Constantinovitch. When the letter heard of Vasili’s designs, Boris
called together his boyars and said to them with tears in his eyes:
“My lords and brothers, my boyars and friends! remember your oath
on the cross, remember what you swore to me!” The senior among
his boyars was Vasili Rumianietz, who replied to the prince: “Do not
grieve, my lord prince! we are all faithful to thee and ready to lay
down our heads and to shed our blood for thee.” Thus he spoke to
his prince, but meanwhile he sent to Vasili Dmitrievitch, promising to
give up Boris Constantinovitch to him. On his way back from the
horde, when he had reached Kolomna, Vasili sent from there to Nijni
the ambassador of Toktamish and his own boyars. At first Boris
would not let them enter the town, but Rumianietz said to him: “My
lord prince, the khan’s ambassador and the Muscovite boyars come
here in order to confirm peace and establish everlasting love, but
thou wishest to raise dissensions and war; let them come into the
town; what can they do to thee? we are all with thee.” But as soon as
the ambassador and boyars had entered the town, they ordered the
bells to be rung, assembled the people, and announced to them that
Nijni already belonged to the prince of Moscow. When Boris heard
this he sent for his boyars and said to them: “My lords and brothers,
my beloved drujina! remember your oath on the cross, do not give
me up to my enemies.” But this same Rumianietz replied: “Lord
prince! do not hope in us, we are no longer thine, we are not with
thee, but against thee!” Boris was seized, and when somewhat later
Vasili Dmitrievitch came to Nijni, he placed there his lieutenants; and
Prince Boris, with his wife, children, and partisans, he ordered to be
carried away in chains to various towns and kept in strict
imprisonment.e
The princes of Suzdal, Boris’ nephews, were
[1395-1412 a.d.] banished, and Vasili also acquired Suzdal. Later
on the princes of Suzdal made peace with the
grand prince and received back from him their patrimonial estates,
but from generation to generation they remained dependants of
Moscow and not independent rulers. In 1395 took place an event
which raised the moral importance of Moscow: on account of an
expected invasion of Timur (Tamerlane), which, however, never took
place, Vasili Dmitrievitch ordered to be transported from Vladimir to
Moscow that famous ikon which Andrew had formerly taken from
Kiev to his beloved town of Vladimir; this ikon now served to
consecrate the pre-eminence of Moscow over all other Russian
towns.
Following in the steps of his predecessors, Vasili Dmitrievitch
oppressed Novgorod, but did not however entirely attain to the goal
of his designs. Twice he endeavoured to wrest her Dvinsk colonies
from her, taking advantage of the fact that in the Dvinsk territories a
party had been formed which preferred the rule of the Moscow grand
prince to that of Grand Novgorod. The people of Novgorod were
fortunate in defending their colonies, but they paid dearly for it: the
grand prince laid waste the territory of Novgorod, and ordered some
of the inhabitants who had killed a partisan of his at Torzhok to be
strangled; but worse than all, Novgorod itself could not get on
without the grand prince and was obliged to turn to him for help
when another grand prince, namely the Lithuanian, attempted its
conquest.
At that period the horde was so torn up with inward dissensions
that Vasili had not for some years paid tribute to the khan and
regarded himself as independent; but in 1408 an unexpected attack
was made on Moscow by the Tatar prince Edigei, who like Mamai,
without being khan himself, made those who bore the name of khan
obey him. Vasili Dmitrievitch being off his guard and thinking that the
horde had become weakened, did not take early measures against
his wily adversary, who deceived him by his hypocrisy and pretended
good-will. Like his father he escaped to Kostroma, but provided
better than his father for the defence of Moscow by confiding it to his
brave uncle, Prince Vladimir Andreevitch. The inhabitants
themselves burned their faubourg, and Edigei could not take the
Kremlin, but the horde laid waste many Russian towns and villages.
Moscow now learned that although the horde had no longer the
power to hold Russia in servitude, yet it might still make itself terrible
by its sudden incursions, devastations, and capture of the
inhabitants. Shortly thereafter, in 1412, Vasili went to the horde to do
homage to the new khan Djelalledin, brought him tribute, and made
presents to the Tatar grandees, so that the khan confirmed the grand
principality to the prince of Moscow, although he had previously
intended to bestow it upon the exiled prince of Nijni-Novgorod. The
power of the khans over Russia was now only held by a thread; but
for some time yet the Moscow princes could take advantage of it in
order to strengthen their own authority over Russia and to shelter
their inclinations under the shadow of its ancient might. Meanwhile
they took measures of defence against the Tatar invasions, which
might be all the more annoying because they were directed from
various sides and from various fragments of the crumbling horde. In
the west the Lithuanian power, which had sprung up under Gedimin,
and grown great under Olgerd, had attained to its utmost limits under
Vitovt.
 Strictly speaking, the supreme authority over Lithuania and the
part of Russia in subjection to it belonged to Iagello, king of Poland;
but Lithuania was governed independently in the quality of viceroy by
his cousin Vitovt, the son of that Keistut who had been strangled by
Iagello. Vitovt, following the example of his predecessors, aimed at
extending the frontiers of Lithuania at the expense of the Russian
territories, and gradually subjugated one after another of them. Vasili
Dmitrievitch was married to the daughter of Vitovt, Sophia;
throughout his reign, he had to keep up friendly relations with his
kinsman, and yet be on his guard against the ambitious designs of
his father-in-law. The Muscovite prince acted with great caution and
prudence, giving way to his father-in-law as far as possible, but
safeguarded himself and Russia from him. He did not hinder Vitovt
from taking Smolensk, chiefly because the last prince of Smolensk,
Iuri, was a villain in the full sense of the word, and the inhabitants
themselves preferred to submit to Vitovt, rather than to their own
prince. When however Vitovt showed too plainly his intentions of
capturing Pskov and Novgorod, the grand prince of Moscow openly
took up arms against his father-in-law and a war seemed imminent;
but in 1407 the matter was settled between them, and a peace was
concluded by which the river Ougra was made a boundary between
the Muscovite and the Lithuanian possessions.

VASILI VASILIEVITCH (AFTERWARDS CALLED “THE BLIND”

OR “THE DARK”)

Vasili Dmitrievitch died in 1425. His

[1425-1435 a.d.] successor, Vasili Vasilievitch, was a man of
limited gifts and of weak mind and will, but
capable of every villainy and treachery. The members of the princely
house had been held in utter subjection under Vasili Dmitrievitch, but
at his death they raised their heads, and Iuri, the uncle of Vasili
Vasilievitch, endeavoured to obtain the grand principality from the
horde. But the artful and wily boyar, Ivan Dmitrievitch Vsevolozhsky,
succeeded in 1432 in setting aside Iuri and assuring the grand
principality to Vasili Vasilievitch. When Iuri pleaded his right of
seniority as uncle, and in support of his claim cited precedents by
which uncles had been preferred, as seniors in years and birth, to
their nephews, Vsevolozhsky represented to the khan that Vasili had
already received the principality by will of the khan and that this will
should be held above all laws and customs. This appeal to the
absolute will of the khan pleased the latter and Vasili Vasilievitch
remained grand prince. Some years later this same boyar, angered
at Vasili because the latter had first promised to marry his daughter
and then married Marie Iaroslavna, the granddaughter of Vladimir
Andreevitch Serpukhovski, himself incited Iuri to wrest the
principality from his nephew. Thus Russia again became the prey of
civil wars, which were signalised by hideous crimes. Iuri, who had
taken possession of Moscow, was again expelled and soon after
died. The son of Iuri, Vasili Kossoi (the Squinting) concluded peace
with Vasili, and then, having treacherously violated the treaty,
attacked Vasili, but he was vanquished, captured, and blinded
(1435). After a few years the following events took place at the
Golden Horde: the khan Ulu Makhmet was deprived of his throne
and sought the aid of the grand prince of Moscow. The grand prince
not only refused him his aid, but also drove him out of the
boundaries of the territory of Moscow. Ulu Makhmet and his
partisans then established themselves on the banks of the Volga at
Kazan, and there laid the foundations of a Tatar empire that during a
whole century brought desolation on Russia. Ulu Makhmet, as ruler
of Kazan, avenged himself on the Muscovite prince for the past, was
victorious over him in battle, and took him prisoner. Vasili Vasilievitch
only recovered his liberty by paying an enormous ransom. When he
returned to his native land, he was against his will obliged to lay
upon the people heavy taxes and to receive Tatars into his
principality and give them estates. All this awakened dissatisfaction
against him, of which the Galician prince Dmitri Shemiaka, the
brother of Kossoi, hastened to take advantage, and joining himself to
the princes of Tver and Mozhaisk, in 1446 he ordered Vasili to be
treacherously seized at the monastery of Troitsa and blinded.
Shemiaka took possession of the grand principality and kept the
blind Vasili in confinement, but observing an agitation among the
people, he yielded to the request of Jonas, bishop of Riazan, and
gave Vasili his liberty, at the same time making him swear that he
would not seek to regain the grand principality. Vasili did not keep his
oath, and in 1447 the partisans of the blind prince again raised him
to the throne.
It is remarkable that from this period the reign
[1447-1448 a.d.] of Vasili Vasilievitch entirely changed in
character. While he had his eyesight, Vasili was
a most insignificant sovereign, but from the time that he lost his
eyes, his reign becomes distinguished for its firmness, intelligence,
and decision. It is evident that clever and active men must have
ruled in the name of the blind prince. Such were the boyars: the
princes Patrikeev, Riapolovski, Koshkin, Plesktcheev, Morozov, and
the famous voyevods, Striga-Obolenski and Theodore Bassenok, but
above all the metropolitan Jonas.

Jonas Becomes Metropolitan

Jonas was a native of Kostroma. When

he was made bishop of Riazan he did not in
any wise become a partisan of the local
views, his sympathies inclined to Moscow
because, in conformity with the conditions
of that epoch, Jonas saw in Moscow alone
the centre of Russian unification. In 1431, at
the death of the metropolitan Photius,
Jonas was elected metropolitan, but the
patriarch of Constantinople had already
named the Greek Isidore to that office. This
Isidore had participated in the capacity of
Russian metropolitan, in the Florentine
council which had proclaimed the union of
the Greek church with the Roman, the pope
of Rome to be the head of the Universal
church. Isidore, together with the patriarch
of Constantinople and the Byzantine
emperor had submitted to the pope; for
Isidore was at heart a Greek: all his aims
Russian Woman
 were directed to the salvation of his
perishing country, and like many other
Greeks he hoped through the pope to arouse Europe against the
Turks. It was these hopes that had caused the Greeks of that time to
sacrifice the independence of their church. In the eyes of Isidore
Russia too was to serve as an instrument for Greek patriotic designs;
but the union was rejected at Moscow, Isidore was driven out, and
for some years the office of metropolitan of Moscow remained
unoccupied. Kiev had its own metropolitans since the days of Vitovt,
but Moscow did not wish to have anything to do with them. The
bishop of Riazan, Jonas, having been already named metropolitan
by the Russian clergy, enjoyed at Moscow a pre-eminent importance
and influence, and finally, in 1448, this archbishop was raised to the
rank of metropolitan by an assembly of the Russian bishops, without
regard to the patriarch. This event was a decisive breach with the
past, and from that time the eastern-Russian church ceased to
depend upon the patriarch of Constantinople and acquired full
independence. The centre of her supreme power was Moscow, and
this circumstance definitively established that moral importance of
Moscow, which had been aimed for by the metropolitan Peter, which
had been held up by Alexis, and which had received greater
brilliancy from the transfer of the ikon of the Blessed Virgin from
Vladimir. From that time the Russian territories not yet subject to
Moscow and aiming to preserve their independence from her—Tver,
Riazan, Novgorod—were bound to her more closely by spiritual
bonds.
When he had for the third time ascended the throne of Moscow,
the grand prince designated as co-regent with himself his eldest son
Ivan, who was thenceforth called grand prince like his father, as is
shown by the treaties of that period. It was from that time that the
political activity of Ivan commenced and gradually widened; and
there is no doubt that when he attained his majority it was he, and
not his blind father that directed the accomplishment of the events
which led to the strengthening of Moscow. Prince Dmitri Shemiaka,
who had been obliged to promise on his oath to desist from any
further attempts upon the grand principality, did not cease to show
his enmity against Vasili the Dark. The clergy wrote to Shemiaka a
letter of admonishment, but he would not listen to their
remonstrances, and the armies of Moscow marched with the
blessing of Jonas and accompanied by the young prince, against
Shemiaka in Galicia. Shemiaka was defeated and fled to Novgorod,
where the inhabitants gave him a refuge, and Galicia with its
dependencies was again joined to Moscow. Shemiaka continued to
plot against Vasili, took Ustiug, and established himself there; but the
young prince Ivan Vasilievitch drove him out, and Shemiaka again
fled to Novgorod. The metropolitan Jonas issued an edict declaring
Shemiaka excommunicated from the church, forbidding orthodox
persons to eat and drink with him, and reproaching the people of
Novgorod for having received him. It was then decided at Moscow to
put an end to Shemiaka by secretly murdering him; the secretary
Borodati, through Shemiaka’s boyar Ivan Kotov, induced Shemiaka’s
cook to prepare and serve to him a poisoned fowl (1453).
Vasili the Dark died on the 5th of March,
[1462 a.d.] 1462, from an unsuccessful treatment of burns.
He outlived his chief counsellor, the
metropolitan Jonas, by a year, the latter having died on the 31st of
March, 1461.h

A REVIEW OF THE INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT DURING THE

TATAR PERIOD

The beginning of the fourteenth century was the commencement

of a new epoch in the life of Russia; in its two halves two empires
began to crystallize: that of Moscow in the east and that of Lithuania
in the west, and the scattered elements began to gather around the
new centres. Such a centre for eastern Russia was Moscow, until
then an insignificant town, rarely mentioned in the chronicles, being
the share of the younger and therefore less powerful princes. Under
Daniel Aleksandrovitch[22] the town of Moscow constituted the whole
principality. With the acquisition of Pereiaslavl (1302), Mozhaisk
(1303), and Kolomna (1308) this region became somewhat more
extended, but when it fell to the share of Ivan Danilovitch after the
death of his brother Iuri, it was still very insignificant; and yet through
its resources the princes of Moscow managed to become the first in
eastern Russia and little by little to gather round them the whole of
eastern Russia. The rise of the principality of Moscow is one of the
most remarkable phenomena in the history of Russia. It is therefore
not surprising that particular attention should have been directed
towards it by historians, and by the light of their united investigations
the phenomenon becomes sufficiently clear.
In the thirteenth century, under the domination of the Tatars in
eastern Russia, there was a continual struggle amongst the princes
for the title of grand prince, to which they also strove to unite the
possession of Vladimir. We also observe another distinctive feature
of the time, which was that the princes did not remain to live in
Vladimir, but only strove to unite it to their own possessions, and
thus augment them, and, if possible, secure them for their families.
The struggle was for the preponderance of one family over another
through the extension of its territorial possessions. In the Kievan
period, whoever became prince of Kiev, removed to Kiev, and named
someone of his own family as ruler in his own principality, so that if
Kiev were lost and it should pass into another family, he would not
lose his own patrimony.
During the Tatar period we note a new phenomenon: the princes
did not merely separate themselves from their patrimonial lands, but
even from their capitals; for instance: Iaroslav lived in Tver, Basil in
Kostroma, Andrew in Gorodeza, Dmitri in Pereiaslavl, and so on. The
power of a grand prince at that time was only a hegemony, a
preponderance over other princes; as a testimony of their
independence the other princes, the elders of their families (such as
Riazan, Tver, etc.) began also to call themselves grand princes, and
the preponderance of the grand prince of Vladimir little by little lost
its significance. To all this there must yet be added another special
circumstance, that in order for anyone to unite Vladimir and its
territory to his possessions and thus obtain the predominance, a
iarlik or letter of the khan was required; no rights were necessary
and a wide field was open for every guest. Thus there appeared a
new basis for the right of succession: the favour of the khan. To
obtain this favour was the aim of all the princes, to keep it—a
peculiar art. Whoever possessed this art would be the head over all
eastern Russia, and whoever could maintain this position was bound
to subordinate all the rest to himself. In consequence of this, the first
condition for success at that time was a dexterous tactfulness, and
whoever possessed this quality must come out victor. This
dexterousness was a peculiar distinction of the Muscovite princes,
and in it lay the chief cause of their success. They had neither power
nor higher rights, and all their hopes were founded on their own skill
and the favour of the khan. They had no riches, and their patrimonial
lands, poor and secluded, away from the great rivers which were
then the chief means of communication, did not yield them large
means.
But to ensure success with the khan, his wife, and the princes of
the horde, money was necessary; so they became saving and
scraping, and all their capacities were directed to the acquisition of
gain. Their qualities were neither brilliant nor attractive, but in their
position it was only by these sober qualities that anything could be
obtained. Alexander Iaroslavitch (Nevski) pointed out to his
successors that their policy should be to give way when necessary
and to wait when uncertain. He who followed this counsel was
successful; whosoever hurried, like Alexander Mikhailovitch (of
Tver), was a loser in the game.
But while taking advantage of every means of influence at the
horde, the Muscovite princes did not lose sight of those means by
which they could also act within Russia itself. Ivan Danilovitch
managed to induce the metropolitan St. Peter to come to Moscow,
and his successors continued to reside in that town. The alliance
with the spiritual power, the only power that embraced the whole of
Russia, was of extraordinary advantage to the Muscovite princes.
The metropolitan could exert his influence everywhere. Thus
Theognost closed the churches at Pskov when that city offered an
asylum to Alexander Mikhailovitch, and St. Sergius did likewise at
Nijni-Novgorod when it accepted a prince to whom Moscow was
opposed. This alliance was a most natural one: if the princes needed
the authority of the church, the clergy—at that time the
representatives of the most advanced ideas concerning the civil
order—sought to realise that order of which it stood in need even for
its purely economic interests. There is not the slightest doubt that
one of the chief causes of the devotion of the clergy to the views and
policies of the Muscovite princes, lay in its conviction that it was
bound to derive material advantages from the concentration of all
power in the hands of one prince. In fact, while the system of
appanages prevailed, it was, on the one hand, extremely difficult for
the clergy to enjoy its possessions and privileges in security,
because the maintenance of this security depended not on one, but
on many; while on the other hand, the princes of appanages
infringed on clerical privileges more frequently than the grand prince.
The dispersion of the monastic estates over several principalities still
further contributed to the desire of the clergy for the abolition of the
appanage system, which increased the difficulties of managing those
estates. Especially in the case of war among the princes of
appanages, the clergy of one appanage might easily be deprived of
its possessions in another appanage, because at such a time all
means of injuring the enemy were considered permissible.
In the increase of power of the Muscovite princes a leading part
also belongs to the Moscow boyars, whose activity was principally
displayed during the youth or minority of the grand princes.[23]
Such were the principal causes of the strength of the Moscow
princes; to them should be added (according to the historians N. V.
Stankevitch and S. M. Soloviov) the central position of the
principality of Moscow, both in the sense that Moscow is near the
sources of the chief rivers, and that an attack from without must first
fall on the surrounding principalities. But these causes are evidently
secondary and would have no significance without the others:
Moscow is not so far from the other principalities that these
advantages would belong to her alone. It was much more important
that a wise policy, by preserving Moscow from the attacks of the
Tatars, attracted thither an increased population and thus enriched
the principality. A final important cause was the weakening of the
Tatar horde and its dismemberment at the end of this period, of
which the princes of Moscow did not fail to take advantage for their
own ends.b