Author of quotes: Elizabeth Dvoretskaya

All the mysteries of the present grow from the distant depths of the past. One thing clings to another, leading the mind's gaze lower and lower. Having unraveled this ball to the end, you can find yourself near that lump of earth that the duck pulled out from the bottom of the pristine waters.

When Mladina was already getting ready for bed, Velebor came in. She was so excited. During the journey, although they were not able to talk, she saw him quite often. And, oddly enough, the more she looked at him, the less similarity she saw with Hort: more precisely, she got used to and learned to see him himself, and not just this similarity.

Even her own sisters, who lived here married, looked at her as if she were a stranger: betrothed to the prince, she ascended to a height, like a girl taken by the Sun into his heavenly mansion. Homework, Swans and others wanted to ask her about many things, but they didn’t dare. And she barely recognized them: they were no longer the same girls with whom she had spent her whole life. Half of them have already been walking “heavy” since the fall: Domashka, Vesnoyar, and even Krinka. And everyone seemed to be completely different, unfamiliar women - this is how the women’s magpies over their horned pussycats changed them, hiding their hair and abundantly decorated with woven patterns, temples, and fluffs. They now had completely different thoughts, concerns, expectations and hopes. Their paths have diverged far away: now you can’t stop shouting!

Divina didn't answer. But Zimobor himself knew: Prince Vladogor chose the black fork - a short but glorious life. And only because of this the legend about him exists. No one now knows about all those who made a different choice.

- Fate is very whimsical. And our gods sometimes like to play a joke with mortals, so that they don’t relax and think that if they make sacrifices on time, then the wind will be fair in all directions and Odin himself will personally patrol around their estate. You should always rely on yourself.

Prophetic Vila no longer helps him. The invincibility it gave is no longer there. But does this mean that he himself no longer owes her anything and is free to live as he wants? This is what seemed most important to him now.

Even now, when the first grief had subsided, Ogneyar could not come to terms with the loss. For him, Milava continued to live, she was somewhere in the world, only now it became immeasurably more difficult to reach her. So the month, having never seen the sun, knows about it and strives towards it...

He was right again. The Varangians stayed with her when their own betrayed her. And it’s stupid to blame them for caring about themselves too.

And something changed: he became himself, and not part of the vague mass of people, he began to speak as if from himself and felt less confident. And Zimobor looked at him intently and affably - without a threat, but in such a way that a healthy man, old enough to be the father of this curly-haired guy, felt a desire to lower his eyes. From the brown, shining eyes of the young prince, entire generations of people, accustomed to rule, accustomed to looking at the world from above, from the back of a war horse, looked at him. Their world was wide and vast, and the elder, whose white light had always been closed by the flow of the Sezha - two or three transitions from beginning to end - suddenly became timid in front of this world, realizing for the first time its enormity. He vaguely knew that somewhere there were the Dnieper and Sozh, and this guy saw them and drank their water.

The gods show the way with a ray across the sky, but walk along the earth yourself, feeling all the gullies with your feet.

The chosen one was going to go with the army and even regretted that she would have to stay behind and the road to the battle itself would be closed to her. Danger meant nothing to her, even death seemed like a trifle compared to this painful and anxious expectation.

Smolensk doubted her because she was a woman, and other people’s doubts made her doubt herself.

“Well, show me,” the invisible Zimobor agreed calmly. - So you’ll spend your whole life proving to everyone and fighting with yourself? This is how you live your life in war. Is this your happiness?

- Well, you said it! - Zimobor did not get angry, but laughed, as if he had heard utter stupidity. -Have you seen the sun? Have you noticed that winter and summer alternate, that people are born and die, like grass and trees, like the stars themselves? And if you have seen all this, how can you say that there are no gods? Doesn't this mean denying the obvious?