Spinning Silver

“That part of the old story turned out to be true: you have to be cruel to be a good moneylender. But I was ready to be as merciless with our neighbors as they’d been with my father.” 

Miryem discovers that keeping the books balanced and collecting on her debts responsibly requires shutting her heart against mercy. She is willing to do this to ensure that her family survives, but she also remembers how she and her family starved when the people who owed them money refused to pay. As they were without empathy for the Mandelstams, Miryem decides she will not grant them any mercy. While Miryem forgives no debts and refuses to allow lack of payment, she does treat the debtors fairly. In her own mind she may be as merciless as required, but she takes no joy in causing suffering.

“I didn’t want to make a row of dead babies and die.” 

Wanda fears the life expected of her—marriage and death by childbirth, the same fate that befell her mother. She is unsure of any other options, seeing no other choices available to peasant women but marriage, children, and death.

“Anyway, it was not the same in my house as the moneylender’s house. I did not think the word love. Love was buried with my mother. Sergey and Stepon were only more of the babies who made my mother sick. They had not died, but so they had made even more work for her and now me.” 

Wanda’s home life is radically different from Miryem’s. While the Mandelstams are all demonstrably loving with one another, Wanda and her brothers are more like roommates than family despite the ongoing shared trauma of living with their abusive father. Wanda only loves her mother, who had died giving birth to another baby boy. To Wanda, Sergey and Stepon represent the death of the one person Wanda loves, as well as the ongoing burdens and bleak future facing Wanda herself.

“I liked him better for that cold hard honesty, and it made me proud that now he did invite guests, and even boasted of me to them, how I’d taken away a purse of silver and brought back one of gold. I liked to feel their eyes on me, weighing me like a purse, and being able to hold my head up when they did it, feeling my own worth.” 

Miryem is finally validated by her grandfather’s approval upon returning his investment with interest. Having raised herself from squalor into prosperity as a successful businesswoman, Miryem is proud of herself and the way her grandfather’s associates now view her. This very pride will lead to the boast that changes everything.

“Thrice you shall turn silver to gold for me, or be changed into ice yourself.” 

The Staryk king’s threat shapes the rest of the plot by giving Miryem the make-or-break chance to prove her boast true. By changing silver into gold, she not only avoids certain death but also becomes the Staryk queen, setting events in motion that will change two kingdoms forever.

“I loved nothing about the town or any of them, even now when it was at least familiar ground. I wasn’t sorry they didn’t like me, I wasn’t sorry I had been hard to them. I was glad, fiercely glad. They had wanted me to bury my mother and leave my father behind to die alone.”

As she prepares to leave her hometown, possibly forever, Miryem remembers how poorly the townspeople have treated her family. Because of their cruelty, Miryem has no regrets for her merciless treatment of them, easing her impending departure.

“You are the one who demanded fair return for a proven gift of high magic; did you think I would degrade myself by pretending to be one of the low, unable to match it? I am the lord of the glass mountain, not some nameless wight, and I leave no debts unpaid. You are thrice proven, thrice true—no matter by what unnatural chance—and I shall not prove false myself, whatever the cost.” 

Miryem believes herself the victim of the Staryk king’s decision to make her his bride, given that her only other option was death. By this statement, the Staryk king gives his rebuttal. He is not forcing her into marriage with him for his own amusement; he’s forced to do so due to the nature of high magic. This misunderstanding is one of many arising from the cultural differences between them.

“Will you make a hundred years of winter in a summer’s day or wake new snow-trees from the earth? Will you raise your hand and mend the mountain’s wounded face? When you have done these things, then truly will you be a Staryk queen. Until then, cease the folly of imagining yourself other than you are.” 

When Miryem asks what a Staryk queen is expected to do, her husband sneers at her, judging her to be incapable of fulfilling a true Staryk queen’s responsibilities. Despite her mortality, Miryem goes on to fulfill each of these requests, becoming a true Staryk queen.

“I made my vows to you, but someone else keeps coming to the bedroom in your place. Squirrels run on instinct when a hunter comes too close.” 

In this bold statement, Irina not only acknowledges that she knows about the demon within Mirnatius but also states that she will continue fleeing from him.

“The only thing that had ever done me any good in my father’s house was thinking: no one had cared what I wanted, or whether I was happy. I’d had to find my own way to anything I wanted. I’d never been grateful for that before now, when what I wanted was my life.” 

Irina’s life of dismissal and neglect has provided the independence and creative problem-solving skills she needs to survive her marriage to the demon-possessed tsar. This leads her to be grateful to her less-than-ideal upbringing, as she could not survive her new situation without the skills she developed as a result of it.

“So the fairy silver brought you a monster of fire for a husband, and me a monster of ice. We should put them in a room together and let them make us both widows.” 

Miryem’s statement, which begins as a joke, inspires a plot to kill both the Staryk king and the tsar, directly endangering the lives of the Staryk and resulting in Chernobog’s death.

“I wouldn’t make that bargain. I was going to try and kill him, even if I was almost certain to fail, and I wouldn’t be afraid of him now, either.” 

Miryem does not cower before her supernatural husband, just as she did not back down when confronted with the threats of her debtors. She does not consider the bargain—sacrificing her pride and dying a little death by cowardice to survive another moment—one worth making. Instead, she boldly meets his anger with her own, refusing to bow to his will when she is already plotting against him.

“You were challenged beyond the bounds of what could be done, and found a path to make it true.” 

Miryem successfully turns all the silver in the Staryk storehouses to gold by having one of them emptied, fulfilling the challenge by what she considers to be cheating. In this statement, Tsop explains that finding and exploiting the loophole in the challenge counts as fair success in the eyes of high magic. As such, Miryem’s impressive accomplishment stands.

“I’m not a fool, to take gifts from monsters. Where do you think its power comes from? Nothing like that comes without a price.” 

When offered anything her heart desires, Irina denies Chernobog, stating that she only wants him to leave her and hers alone. Mirnatius expresses his surprise at her refusal, prompting this statement. Irina astutely realizes that anything she accepts from Chernobog will cause her more trouble than it is worth, just as it has for Mirnatius. Her refusal ultimately enables Chernobog’s death.

“[A]nd we held tight, tight; we made a circle together, my brothers and me, around the food that we had been given, and there was no wolf in the room.” 

Reunited for the first time since their father’s accidental death, Wanda, Sergey, and Stepon hold each other, grateful for their change in circumstances. For the moment they are together and fed, with no “wolves” like their father to prey on them. This moment of familial gratitude and bonding solidifies not only the siblings’ relationship with each other but also their attachment to the Mandelstams, who have provided this sense of safety.

“What did it matter that they didn’t speak of kindness, here; they had done me kindness with their hands. I knew which one of those I would choose.” 

Miryem acknowledges the differences between her culture and Staryk culture. She recognizes that she would rather have honesty of action than the familiar comfort of polite words.

“I was so angry I had gone cold straight through. […] He could hold my hand the rest of the way if he wanted to, as a fair return for the gift he’d given me, the one thing I’d wanted from him after all: I’d lost even the slightest qualm about killing him.” 

Miryem realizes that by changing the silver in the Staryk storerooms to gold, she unknowingly created a brutal winter. This winter increases the Staryks’ power but may result in the starvation of mortals due to the destruction of their crops. Miryem is enraged not only by the prospect of her people’s innocent deaths but also by the prospect of being used without her knowledge. Her decision to kill the Staryk king is solidified.

“I could slough off the dress of a Staryk queen, but I had been one for too long to just forget. And yet I couldn’t tell Irina she was wrong, and I couldn’t even tell her she was selfish.” 

Miryem is wracked with guilt about her decision to have the Staryk king killed, as it will result in the deaths of innocent Staryk like Tsop, Flek, Shofer, and Rebekah bat Flek. As their queen, she knows she has responsibility to the Staryk people and the death of their king will not bode well for them. However, she recognizes that Irina’s decision to stay the course—killing the Staryk king to end the winter—is a reasonable one from the perspective of protecting the mortals. They are both motivated by the same instinct to protect the lives of innocent people. As such, Miryem cannot condemn Irina’s decision, which comes at the price of her own happiness, as she will continue to be married to the possessed tsar—something Miryem admits she would not willingly do herself.

“I owe a debt and I have to find a way to pay it.” 

After much consideration, Miryem decides that she cannot leave the Staryk king—and thus his people—to a painful death by the demon Chernobog. This statement to her grandfather represents the turning point at which she acknowledges that she is prioritizing the Staryk lives over the lives of her mortal countrymen.

“I only knew the work had to come first.”

When Stepon asks Wanda how she knew that she could hold the Staryk king in his bonds, she answers that she did not know she could. This statement reflects her conclusion that achieving anything requires trying without knowing that the effort will be worth it. Failure may or may not occur, but there is no chance of success without trying first. This is both a philosophical statement and a reflection of Wanda’s work ethic.

“But the world I wanted wasn’t the world I lived in, and if I would do nothing until I could repair every terrible thing at once, I would do nothing forever.” 

Irina acknowledges that by sending Chernobog to the Staryk lands, she is condemning innocent Staryk to death. While she wishes that she could spare both the Staryk and the mortals, she ultimately decides that the Staryk lives are unfortunate but acceptable casualties in the course of fulfilling her duty to protect the people of Lithvas.

“It didn’t matter that I cared, that I was sorry; what mattered was what I had done, what I would do.” 

In this moment of solitude, Irina confronts the reality of the consequences of her actions. She acknowledges that her regret for the Staryk deaths does not undo them. Her guilt will not bring any of them back or hinder her from allowing more of their deaths in the future through the execution of her plans.

“But I looked at the white tree standing next to me, with its branches high and covered with flowers, and I knew there was no use asking him. He would only shrug and look at me expectantly again, waiting for high magic: magic that came only when you made some larger version of yourself with words and promises, and then stepped inside and somehow grew to fill it.” 

Miryem wants to ask the Staryk king how she can help him stop Chernobog, but she realizes that even he does not know the answer. She finally understands the nature of high magic. This understanding enables her to use high magic to stop Chernobog and heal the Staryk mountain.