As you know, demons are drawn to water, and the creature took up residence in a nearby lake. Anytime someone approached the water to fish or take a drink, the demon would emerge, hiding its true form to entice its victim. Sometimes it appeared as a siren with smooth skin and damp lips who sang to young men of love. Sometimes it was a lost mother crooning a lullaby, or an old friend bellowing a happy drinking song. The demon always found the right melody to draw its prey closer, and as soon as the hunter or farmer or widow or child dipped their fingers into the water, the demon would seize that hopeless person by the wrist and drag its victim down to the smooth stones at the lake’s bottom. There it would finish its song, as the cold seeped into its prey’s bones and water filled the lungs of another poor lost soul. Only then would the demon release the body and let it float to shore.
The townspeople knew that nothing could destroy the demon but fire. The men of Brevno filled their quivers with burning arrows, but the monster was too canny to ever stray out of the lake. Whenever the hunters got close enough to the shore to take aim, the demon would begin to sing and coax them down beneath the surface.
The priest who had let the demon escape his grasp had long since vanished from the town in shame. But the young priest who came to replace him was a different kind of man. Petyr had the strength of the Saints and he was not afraid to approach the lake. He told the men to gather their arrows, dip them in pitch, and be ready.
He marched down to the water, and as he drew closer, he began to recite the Sikurian Psalms. When he was only a few feet away he saw his brother before him, singing the filthy old shanty they’d learned from their father, a song they’d laughed over together for hours as children. But of course, his brother had been crushed by the wheel of a horse cart before he’d reached his twentieth year. Petyr was not deceived. He spoke the psalms louder, shouting them, drowning out the voice of the demon.
Petyr stood on the rocks and leaned out over the lake so the demon would see his face and be tempted to emerge to claim him. He chanted as it sang, but he made his expression rapt, pretending to be lured. He reached his hand out as if to touch the water. Then just as his fingers were about to break the surface, Petyr drew back, and the demon shrieked in frustration.
He did this again and again, drawing back a little bit farther each time, until at last, the demon lifted its slippery head out of the water and climbed over the rocks toward him. The demon stretched its limbs, yearning toward Petyr, about to seize him.
The hunters let their arrows fly.
The demon tried to flee, but Petyr grabbed it by the wrist and held it tight. Fiery arrows rained down upon them both.
Though his cloak caught fire and his chest was pierced again and again, Petyr would not let go. He died that day, but so did the demon. The lake was freed and the villagers could frequent its shores without fear, though its waters always felt colder than they had before.
Sankt Petyr is known as the patron saint of archers.
SANKTA YERYIN OF THE MILL
In the Shu capital of Ahmrat Jen, the palaces of noble families line the boulevards, grander and more elegant than any city in the world. Every spring, these nobles throw open the doors of their homes to their wealthy neighbors, festoon the pathways with peonies and apricot blossoms, and compete with one another to see who can serve the most delicious and elaborately decorated custard cakes.
Long ago, a nobleman invited friends from far and wide to celebrate with him. He intended to host a decadent banquet, imagining table after table laid with sweet fried cakes. But when he went to his storehouses, he found that the shelves were nearly empty and only one bag of flour remained, barely enough to make dough for a dozen guests.
The nobleman cursed and called for his miller. But the miller reminded him that over the year, the nobleman had given away all his flour to his rich friends in an attempt to impress them. Though there was plenty of wheat, there was no way to grind it into flour in time for the party.
In a rage, the nobleman denied this and accused his miller of being a thief. The miller’s daughter, Yeryin, begged him to spare her father’s life and promised that the next day, if the Saints were kind, the storehouse would be full of finely milled flour. Though the nobleman agreed to stay the miller’s execution, he locked Yeryin inside the mill and posted his soldiers outside, for he suspected the girl was as dishonest as her father.
At dawn the next morning, the nobleman arrived with his many finely dressed friends. If he could not offer them a feast, he would at least provide them the spectacle of a hanging. But when he opened the doors to the storehouse, he saw flour bags stacked to the ceiling and a very tired Yeryin snoozing on the floor.
The nobleman kicked her with his boot. “Where did you get all this flour? You could not have ground it all in a single night.”
“The Saints made me able,” said Yeryin.
“Surely it will be coarse and unusable,” he declared. But each bag was full of the finest, whitest flour ever seen.
You would think that the nobleman would have been happy, but he was convinced that Yeryin and her father had somehow managed to steal the flour and make a fool of him. Since his soldiers claimed Yeryin had never left the mill, he concluded that she must have dug a tunnel. He sent for shovels and picks and a cask of wine and he and his friends tore up the ground, making a merry game of it. They dug so deep and so far that eventually, no one could hear their voices or the sound of their pickaxes.
The miller opened the storehouses and invited all his and his daughter’s friends to help themselves to flour. Then the servants of the vanished nobles sat down to a great feast and toasted Yeryin many times over.
She is the patron saint of hospitality.
SANKT FELIKS AMONG THE BOUGHS
When Ravka was still a young country, less a nation than a squabbling band of noblemen and soldiers unified beneath the young King Yarowmir’s banner, a terrible winter came. It was not that this winter was any colder than those before it, only that spring did not arrive when it was meant to. The clouds did not part to let the sun warm the tree branches and turn them green. No thaw came to melt the snow. Throughout the countryside, pastures remained barren and frozen.
Yet in the Tula Valley, beneath a hard gray sky, the orchards somehow bloomed. Those trees were cared for by a man named Feliks, said to be a warrior monk who had once taken the shape of a hawk to fight for King Yarowmir. Each night, the people of the valley claimed they saw visions near the orchards. Some saw a red sun that floated overhead, some a wall of burning thorns, others a black horse with a mane of fire and hooves that sparked when they struck the ground, igniting rivers of blue flame.
In the mornings, they would argue about what they’d seen, each tale taller than the last. All they knew for certain was that the orchards did not succumb to frost. New flowers sprouted on the trees, blossoms white as stars that turned pink, then red, then vanished as the boughs filled with hard green nubs of new fruit.
As the cold sat stubborn over the rest of Ravka, the Tula Valley flourished, and eventually, those who suffered without a harvest grew jealous of the valley’s bounty. They came with torches and swords to accuse Feliks of witchcraft, despite his reputation as a holy man.
The people of the valley had been well fed throughout the cold months. Their limbs were strong, their children healthy, their livestock sturdy. When they saw the light from the torches, they could have banded together to protect Feliks. Instead, they huddled in their homes, their gratitude withered by terror as a bud is withered by frost. They feared the mob would turn on them and did not want to lose all they had, even if that meant forgetting the man who had given it to them. So they let the outsiders put Feliks to the pyre.