“He is mine, too, Chernobog. You must leave him alone as well.” I looked up in horror: she had put herself in his way. The demon stopped, glaring at her with red light still shining in the tsar’s jewel eyes. “No!” he spat. “No, I will not! He was given me by promise, by fair bargain made, and I need not give him to you!” “But you already have,” Irina said, “when you made him marry me. A wife’s right comes before a mother’s,”
