A demon’s rival. Natalie Yacobson

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СКАЧАТЬ her wings. All the orange fairies were the size of frail teenagers, and they had more strength than the fire giant. Samantha whistled in surprise. Even her whistle didn’t get the horses to budge.

      «You’re taming them wrong!» Famma flew over to the harness with a look of expertise.

      «Do you have to burn them to get them to move?» Samantha snorted sarcastically.

      «You have to be gentle! You’ll drive them around like a coachman. Horses don’t like that. They don’t need saddles, spurs or bridles.»

      «But then they’d go wild!»

      «No, they won’t! If you sing to them, they will always please you,» the Fire Fairy sang. Her song was like the hissing of flames, and the horses obediently followed the fairy. Samantha barely had time to climb onto the horses. She held the whip and reins, but the horses obeyed Famma, not her.

      «Now you try to sing to them,» suggested the fire fairy.

      «I can’t do that! You have to be a fairy to sing like that!»

      «Let’s not be prejudiced!» Famma flashed her orange eyes menacingly. «Just sing, that’s all!»

      The fairy resembled a flaming torch. She could persuade anyone to become more obedient. If not indulged, she would scorch or even burn. Samantha sang obediently. Strangely enough, the horses obeyed. They trotted forward.

      «Then you must sing so they would not be lazy again!» Samantha hoped the fairies would guide her to the capital. It was a brighter ride with them. When the flaming silhouettes flanked the road, there was no fear of ravines or bandits. Besides, if the fairies flew away, the horses would be stubborn again. Samantha was not so naive as to believe that the horses obeyed only her singing. It was not without the fairies’ energy.

      Alas, as soon as the sky began to lighten, the fire fairies hurriedly said goodbye and flew back to the manor. Samantha looked at them in despair, but the horses continued to trot forward. Samantha was afraid to let them gallop. She didn’t encourage speeding. You could crash into a milepost. Near her parents’ estate, carriages often crashed. Probably the tops of the poles were badly placed there. The carriages were literally bumping into them. Samantha had once dreamed that the poles were living monsters that caught travelers. Now it seemed to her that the mileposts on the road to Ivilor were ugly goblins.

      Good thing her carriage hadn’t run into them. The horses were finally obeying her. The fairies helped her tame them. You should sing while you’re driving the carriage. That’s what the fairies said. It’s silly, but it works. But the carrot didn’t work! Magic works better!

      Barren black fields

      The horses rode on their own, even when Samantha wasn’t singing. If they stalled again, she’d have to sing to them again.

      «Thank the fairies for all their advice!» Samantha muttered, moving from the goats into the cozy interior of the carriage. The velvet seat provided a place to sleep, which she did. It was still a full night and half a day’s ride to Ivilor. It would be possible to get some rest. And once she arrived, she would be in competition with the local socialites. Better not even think about that!

      Samantha fell into a dream as she had various nightmares. Fairies’ claws were sliding on the wheel of a spinning wheel. Duchess Evangelina was talking to the fairies about something. You couldn’t tell if she was alive or a ghost. Evangelina was extorting from the spinning fairies a special thread that could be used to bind a demon. The fairies charged an unbelievable price, but they wouldn’t give up the job. And then the fairies and Evangelina disappeared. Some evil black creature clawed its way into the royal treasury. It looked suspiciously like the demon Samantha had seen on the road.

      «I can’t stand maidens!» It wailed. «They always want to hurt me, poor thing! They’re all so brave as to offend the little ones! As soon as I, a poor little thing, get a favorable position in a new place, they swoop down like flies on honey. Don’t they realize I need a king more than they do? Serpin is my protector, my provider, my employer. And they want to steal him away and deprive me. I’ll kill them all!»

      The hoarse voice broke into a furious hiss on the last sentence. Samantha flinched. Could the king really be the demon’s employer? What a demon’s job it was to turn the entire kingdom into a kind of hell!

      As the black claws reached for her, Samantha woke up. No demon was there, of course. And the feeling was that he was still sitting in her carriage.

      «I think my nerves are shot!» Samantha looked out of the carriage window. The familiar wooded area around the road had been replaced by apiaries. There were no beekeepers, but strange black bees hovered over the black honeycombs.

      Samantha rubbed her eyes. What if she was dreaming? Behind the apiaries stretched barren black fields with black weeds and burdock. Suspicious-looking creatures rode through the thickets. Such animals Samantha had never seen in her life. They were not goats, sheep, or dogs. But they had twisted horns, hooves, and black wings like bats. One such creature stared at the carriage. Samantha hurriedly shut the window and sang, urging the horses to gallop faster.

      The black, barren fields outside the window, where the evil spirits nested, reminded her of hell. Where could hell come from in Ivilor? Samantha had always thought Hell was underground, not on the surface of the earth. How could it be that a piece of hell had surfaced? It must be another nightmare.

      The carriage suddenly stopped. The horses were frightened by a tiny creature that scurried under their hooves. It was the size of a gopher, but it had the aggression of an elephant.

      «Look where you’re going!» It hissed angrily at the horses and Samantha.

      It seemed to Samantha that the little creature wanted to fight her. For some reason she was afraid of it. Perhaps it was because she had already seen a small, stunted demon fight a tall lady named Evangelina.

      The road on which the carriage was traveling lay between black fields. To the left of the road was an unusual scarecrow on a pole. Instead of button eyes, it glittered with two coins, and its pointed black hat resembled a witch’s.

      Samantha was interested and stepped toward the scarecrow, almost stepping on another small creature that she mistook for a field mouse.

      «Look where you’re going!» The creature hissed angrily and released a stream of red, glistening smoke in the girl’s direction. The smoke made Samantha cough. It seemed to be poisonous. She felt dizzy.

      «Look up at the sky and the red spell will dissipate,» a husky male voice advised.

      Samantha looked up and gasped. Had the scarecrow really spoken to her?

      «The local invaders are like locusts,» the scarecrow suddenly nodded from the pole. It was really alive and moving. «You must know how to defend yourself against their charms. Otherwise you’ll end up like me.»

      «Who are you?» Samantha looked obediently up at the sky, and the dizziness immediately disappeared.

      «I am a former royal advisor.»

      No way! The scarecrow must be playing a joke on her. It was clear from her shabby dress that she was a country girl. Samantha expected to be laughed at in the capital, but she didn’t expect even a scarecrow from the suburbs of Ivilor to tease her.

      «You СКАЧАТЬ