It might not have been so bad if Yuri’s uncle had some patience or kindness in him, but he was the worst of them. When Yuri dropped a box or lagged behind the other workers, his uncle would smack him hard across the back of his head. When Yuri’s mumbled prayers disturbed him, he’d stick out a foot and Yuri would go tumbling. At home, his uncle’s hands often became closed fists. He laughed when Yuri walked to church on Sundays and said the Saints had no interest in a man who could not work for a living.
But Yuri knew the Saints were watching. Each morning and each night, he prayed to them and vowed to give his life over to their worship if they would only free him from his uncle’s cruelty and let him devote his life to study. During the long days working the docks, he whispered psalms and prayers to himself, and in Novokribirsk’s grand chapel, he endeavored to teach himself liturgical Ravkan. In the quiet of the church’s little library, he would lose himself in the old stories of the Saints, his fingers turning the pages in a kind of meditation, the shadows creeping over his shoulders.
One evening, Yuri had drifted so deeply into the comfort of words, he didn’t realize that night had fallen and the shadows had pooled around his feet. He ran home but was late getting supper on the table, and Yuri’s uncle beat his nephew until his fists were tired.
In the morning, Yuri could not rise from his bed. His eyes were nearly swollen shut and his aching body felt as if it had been sewn together by a careless hand, the stitches pulling at every joint. His uncle left for work on the dry docks and vowed that if Yuri did not meet him there, another beating would be waiting that night. Yuri knew he would not survive it.
He dragged himself across the floor. He forced himself to dress and eat a bit of porridge. He limped down the street to the town square. Yuri knew he had to keep moving, but as he leaned against the fountain at the town’s center, trying to summon his strength, he heard a voice whisper to him, Do not go.
Yuri didn’t know if the voice was real, only that he couldn’t move his feet another step.
My uncle will find me here, he thought, and this is where I will die. For he knew that no one would intervene. They never had before. In the long months Yuri had been in Novokribirsk, they had always turned away, pretending not to see his bruises or hear his cries. The old man is harmless, they said. Some boys need more discipline than others.
Yuri looked down the street to where the dry docks stood, the Fold a high wall of seething shadow beyond it. He had to move, but again he heard the voice telling him, Do not go.
That was when the shadows seemed to move. The Fold shifted and swelled as if it were gathering breath, and then it was rushing toward him, a wall of darkness. It swallowed the dry docks, the buildings beyond. It flooded over the houses of Novokribirsk. Yuri heard screaming all around him, but he was unafraid.
The shadow tide rushed all the way up to the toes of Yuri’s boots, and there it stopped. He could hear the weeping of people trapped inside the Fold, their sudden agony as they were torn apart by volcra. He wondered briefly if he could hear his uncle. Then he fell upon his knees and gave thanks to the darkness.
That day, half of Novokribirsk was lost when the Darkling expanded the Fold. Many cursed the man responsible for this cruelty and celebrated his death when it finally came. But there are others who worship him still, the Starless One, patron saint of those who seek salvation in the dark.
SAINT OF THE BOOK
I don’t remember my own story.
I may have slept in a hayloft or on a featherbed.
I may have eaten from silver dishes or stolen scraps from the kitchen.
I may have worn summer silks and jewels in my hair.
Or maybe I went barefoot and clawed in the dirt, searching for roots, for gold, for shelter. I can’t recall. There have been too many stories in between, miracles and martyrdoms, too much blood spilled, too much ink. There was a war. There were a thousand wars. I knew a killer. I knew a hero. They might have been the same man. I remember only how I fell into books, never to rise from their pages, how I was never truly awake until I began to dream of other worlds.
I wander now, lost among the shelves. My hand cramps around the pen. I gather dust. But someone has to set down the words, put them in the proper order. I am the library and the librarian, hoarding lives, a catalog for the faithful.
Erase my name. Indelible is a word for stories.
About the Author
LEIGH BARDUGO is a #1 New York Times–bestselling author of fantasy novels and the creator of the Grishaverse, which spans the Shadow and Bone Trilogy, the Six of Crows Duology, The Language of Thorns, and the King of Scars Duology. Her short stories can be found in multiple anthologies, including Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her other works include Wonder Woman: Warbringer and Ninth House.
Vist her online at leighbardugo.com and grishaverse.com, or sign up for email updates here.
About the Illustrator
DANIEL J. ZOLLINGER is an award-winning illustrator and painter. Born in Glens Falls, New York, and raised in Schenectady, he later earned his degree in art from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. Dan cut his teeth as a Madison
