Page 48 of I Will Always Find You
“I must act,” Abriana stated with conviction, “or Baba Yaga will kill him, taking what remains of my Pietro from this world. He deserves to experience love and joy, even if it must be through the eyes and heart of another.”
Abriana lifted the ancient ring to her lips and kissed it. Then she recited the exact phrases she had taught the Romani witch,the very words he had spoken to his enemy just moments before, which unlocked the ring’s power.
The Tuscan witch’s eyes turned as black as pitch.
At the same time, in Baba Yaga’s hut, several countries away, the Romani witch’s eyes also turned black. The plain ring on his finger emanated an intense, bitter coldness, though it caused no harm to him; in fact, he barely felt it.
Around the hut, sinuous tendrils of pure darkness oozed forth from every shadowy nook and cranny, slithering stealthily from crevices and hidden gaps. The chilling void, thick and palpable, began to coalesce and advance toward the Cannibal Hag, wrapping the air itself in an oppressive gloom.
“What is this?!” she screeched, shock and awe evident upon her contorted, grimacing face. “Get back!”
Baba Yaga cast an ancient Hybornean spell to exert control over shadow and gloam. When the living darkness did not heed her commands—drawing closer instead—she began hurling one dark spell after another at the encroaching inky mass. She attempted to burn it, freeze it, and destroy it with acid; nothing worked.
In a desperate frenzy, she called upon the power of her twisted mind.
Through sheer will and spite, she tore up the floorboards of her hut, uprooting the very earth beneath her and damaging the chicken legs that supported her home as she tried to bury the darkness beneath an immense weight of soil and stone. But it was all in vain; the darkness would not be stopped. Depending on the attack, it became solid, hard as Celestial Bronze, or intangible at will, overpowering or ignoring all the elements used against it, even the corrosive effects of magically created acid.
“No! Begone! This is my place of power! You cannot do this to me!”
The Romani witch mistakenly thought Baba Yaga was shrieking at him when, in fact, she was cursing the darkness itself. She knew whose power this truly was: the power of ancient gods.
The living darkness enveloped the Cannibal Hag in a colossal paw, tightening its grip with a merciless hold that felt both inescapable and suffocating. Claws of adamantine shadow pierced her flesh. Soon, a large opening into the Shadow Realm appeared behind her, and slithering black tendrils began to draw her toward it.
The great beast Baba Yaga fought against the mighty shadow to the last, screaming and cursing. Despite her efforts, she was inevitably pulled inside its cold embrace; the living black umbra, a realm bound by neither time nor space, was now her eternal prison.
And as silently as it had come, the darkness retreated back to the corners, the crevices, and the holes of the hut to behave as shadows typically did in this realm: innocuous and harmless.
Upon Baba Yaga’s disappearance, the Romani witch felt Abriana’s ring snap in two and fall from his finger to the ground.
Back in Tuscany, among the olive trees of the Bianchi farm, a ring of perfect black pearls intended for the hand of a goddess also dropped to the ground. However, being indestructible, it remained in perfect condition.
Sadly, the mortal body of Abriana Bianchi fared much worse. It had turned to ash, and the fragments of her essence drifted away upon the warm summer breeze.
The power embedded within the majestic ring was never meant to be wielded by mortal hands. This was why the old woman had enchanted her wedding band, binding it to the Titaness’ ring so that she could work the spellthroughthe Romani witch, leaving him blameless and unharmed.
For the sake of what remained of her cherished Pietro, buried deep within the heart and soul of the Romani witch, Abriana chose to take upon herself the burden of wielding this darkness. The price of a mortal invoking the ring’s celestial power: death.
As a last act of magic before her demise, Abriana spelled Phoebe’s ring to bury itself deep within the rich soil of her family’s farm, far below the roots of the olive trees, so deep that no one would ever find it.
Back at Baba Yaga’s hut, the Romani witch swore, for the briefest moment, he had heard Abriana’s voice inside his head, reminding him of his promise to her.
“Beloved!” Damek shouted urgently, capturing the Romani witch’s attention. “Look! Look!”
Seeing that his beloved’s legs were at twisted angles, the Romani witch ran to his side, understanding that there was no way he could meet him halfway. As he did, he turned to look where Damek was pointing, and that was when he saw the bone cage clear as day, sitting on the floor in the corner of the kitchen.
With Baba Yaga now far from this realm, the power and permanence of her magic were fading.
“Praise Hecate!” the Romani witch cried in happiness. “Though the crone is gone, her magic will still have much potency. It may take me some time to free them. Are you in much pain, my love?”
“It is manageable, thanks to the Great Spirit, so do not fret over me. Please, free my family!” Damek was using his magic to heal himself now that he had time to be calm and concentrate, without the threat of imminent attack. This was when the art of Zagovory truly shone.
The Romani witch, ignoring his own pain and broken body, set to work on unbinding the cage from Baba Yaga’s dark magic.
It took nearly two hours for the Romani witch to break the spell, finally freeing Dawyd and his mother. He was drenched insweat, and a terrible ache pounded in his head. He realized that if the Cannibal Hag had still been present, nothing he could have done—no spell or enchanted weapon—would have broken that lock.
“I must admit, she possessed awe-inspiring magic,” the Romani witch whispered to himself. He was impressed—and startled by just how envious he felt.
Dawyd, trembling and still in a state of panic, ran over to Damek, still on the floor, and jumped into his arms; the brothers embraced, neither wanting to let go of the other.
