"The Raven Has Two Lives" by Elena Kondratskaya, summary Automatic translate

This 2022 fantasy novel tells the story of a young sorceress who strives to join the ranks of the defenders of the Volsk Kingdom but finds herself a pawn in the machinations of gods and men. An unexpected epilogue completely upends the plot: after a fatal blow on a sacrificial altar, the heroine awakens in a modern hospital room surrounded by life-support machines, horrified to realize that her familiar magical reality was a projection of other worlds or a sinister game of the goddess of death. This novel opens the "Wonderful Shores" series. This series also includes the sequel novels "When Fairy Tales End" and "Oaths of Dead Birds," as well as the related story "Wild Bird."

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the Fountain of Magic

Twenty-year-old Vasilisa lives in the village of Lyutobory, secretly slaying minor evil spirits at night. Seven years ago, she ran away from her tyrannical mother, who kept her locked up, to become the apprentice of the renowned sorcerer Beremir the Red. She dreams of joining an elite squad of monster hunters, the Ravens of the Volsk Guard. Beremir teaches her fencing and elemental magic, and Vasilisa is adept at using fire, water, and air magic, though she remains elusive to earth.

The familiar way of life collapses on the day of the Autumn Bonds festival. A magical flame, unquenchable by water, descends upon the village. People are burned alive. Vasilisa rushes into her mentor’s burning house and finds Beremir with his throat slit. Nearly dying, she saves the spirit of the caustic house spirit Tirg by tying him to a wooden splinter. In a surviving book, the girl finds a letter from her mentor. Beremir foresaw his death, left his apprentice a gold ring, and told her to go to the capital, Dargorod, to see the commander of the Guard, Argorad.

On her way to the capital, the girl spends the night in the steppe near a campfire of strange shepherds. An old woman tells her a legend about the Dark Ones — a powerful race that enslaved people with the knowledge of their true names, until the hero Peresvet drove the invaders to the Dead Lands with the sickle of the goddess Morena. The next morning, Vasilisa wakes alone in an open field, finding only a sheep’s skull at their campsite.

In Dargorod, Vasilisa meets Captain Atli, who turns out to be a fugitive prince of the Northern Lands and is granted the status of Raven. Argorad reveals a terrible secret to the girl: Beremir’s hut stood on the site of a spatial breach — the Source of Magic. Years of living at the Source had made Vasilisa’s reserves colossal and potentially destructive to the continent. To save the world, Beremir erected a magical wall in her mind, blocking most of the energy.

The hunt for evil spirits and the death of the Riders

Vasilisa is paired with Kirshi, a withdrawn and arrogant warrior wielding an oriental katana. Atli found him dying and took him under his wing. The relationship between the partners begins with open hostility. Vasilisa refuses to sit back in the rear, and Kirshi considers her an impulsive upstart. She soon learns that Kirshi is one of the surviving Dark Ones and is bound to Atli by a blood oath of loyalty. Her partner’s ability to suppress others’ wills simultaneously frightens and fascinates Vasilisa.

The Guard is going through hard times. The evil spirits are behaving aggressively, forming packs. On a mission to Utopkino, the companions discover a werewolf settlement, to which a local witch is feeding travelers. Vasilisa is forced to burn the village to the ground, having exhausted her magic reserves. Kirshi saves her from death at the claws of a surviving werewolf. Later, in the port city, they kill Likho. While healing his wounds, Vasilisa uses a healing energy transfer technique and accidentally glimpses Kirshi’s memories, seeing the deceased young man Haru — the only person the Dark One truly loved.

Meanwhile, a series of murders of Guard commanders — the legendary Horsemen — unfolds in the capital. An assassin slits the throat of Captain Mira Sokolov in her own home, draining her of all her magical energy. Argorad himself falls victim: the criminal enters his office through a portal right before Vasilisa’s eyes, standing behind the locked door. Kirshi uses the power of the Dark One to bring the hysterical sorceress out of her shock.

It turns out that Belogor Ratny, the renowned founder of the Guard, is behind the crimes. Everyone believed him to have perished during an expedition to the Dark Forests, overcome with grief over the death of his son, Luchezar. It turns out Belogor has seized Morena’s sickle, enslaving the goddess of death herself. He seeks to accumulate a vast amount of magic to breach the boundary between worlds and transfer his son’s soul into the body of a double from another reality. His assistant is Siyana, a striga and Luchezar’s former fiancée, who abducts gifted young men to serve as temporary shelter for her tormented soul.

A Deal with Death and the Battle in the Dark Woods

Atli, Kirshi, and Vasilisa are sent to guard the last surviving Horsewoman, Belava. The frivolous sorceress drugs the defenders with a love potion, attempting to savor life one last time. The plan fails due to Atli’s unrequited love for Kirshi. That night, a clay effigy in the form of Belogor attacks the tower. The golem easily scatters the warriors, kills Belava, and plunges a spear woven from magic straight into Kirshi’s chest, puncturing her lung.

Vasilisa desperately tries to stop her dying partner’s bleeding and begs Morena, who has come to claim the Dark One’s soul, for help. The goddess agrees to heal Kirsha in exchange for a favor: the sorceress must infiltrate Belogor’s lair and retrieve the stolen sickle. Morena reveals the girl’s true memories, proving that Belogor is holding her in slavery.

Using the ball of guide, Vasilisa penetrates the portal into the ancient Dark Forests. In the caves of a mad sorcerer, she finds the tormented kidnapped boy Tikhon, battles Siyana, and is captured by Belogor. The sorcerer chains the girl to a sacrificial stone. He needs her boundless Source energy as a conduit to rupture reality. Kirshi and Atli, pursuing the kidnappers, cross the border of the Forest, break through the Leshy outpost, and engage in an unequal battle with Belogor.

The old sorcerer effortlessly repels the attacks: he burns Atli’s fur as he transforms into a wolf and breaks his spine, while Kirshi is repelled by a powerful spell. After giving Vasilisa a paralyzing potion, Belogor casts a spell of transition and plunges his sickle into the chained girl’s heart. The forest is illuminated by a blinding flash, sweeping away trees. Kirshi, awakening, finds the shattered altar, the charred bodies of Belogor, Siyana, and Luchezar, and the lifeless Vasilisa with a monstrous wound in her chest. The Dark One takes his beloved’s body, refusing to believe in her final death.

Another world

In a blindingly white room, ringing with the sounds of medical equipment, Vasilisa emerges from oblivion. A doctor in a lab coat removes a ventilator tube from her trachea and reassures her, addressing her as Svetlana Andreeva. It turns out the girl had been in an inexplicable coma for a week. Left alone, she stares out the window in horror at the concrete skyscrapers and the stream of cars.

Morena casually enters the room, having swapped her robe for a leather jacket. She announces that the ritual was a success: Vasilisa’s soul has transferred into Svetlana’s body. The goddess cynically admits that all the events since the sorceress’s birth were a complex plot. Vasilisa’s mother promised to give her daughter to Morena in exchange for saving her from a childhood illness, while the goddess herself orchestrated Beremir’s actions, directed Belogor, and manipulated Kirshi for her own amusement and long-awaited freedom. Throwing off the shackles of subordination, a satisfied Morena vanishes into thin air, leaving the shocked girl with a red ball of thread.