The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy 3)

“For her blood,” said Morozko. “But later for her courage.”

“Have you anything to offer her?” Olga asked him. And, with an edge, “Besides whispers in the dark?”

Vasya bit back her sound of protest. If the question took Morozko aback, it didn’t show. “All the lands of winter,” he said. “The black trees and the silver frost. Gold and riches made by men; she may fill her hands with wealth, if she desires it.”

“Will you deny her the spring and the summer?”

“I will deny her nothing. But there are places she can go where I cannot easily follow.”

“He is not a man,” Olga said to Vasya, not taking her eyes off the winter-king. “He will not be a husband to you.”

Vasya bowed her head. “I have never wanted a husband. He came with me out of winter, for Moscow’s sake. It is enough.”

“And you think he won’t hurt you, in the end? Remember the dead girl in the fairy tale!”

“I am not she,” said Vasya.

“What if this—liaison means your damnation?”

“I am damned already,” Vasya said. “By every law of God and man. But I do not wish to be alone.”

Olga sighed and said sadly, “As you say, sister.” Abruptly, she said, “Very well. My blessing on you both—now send him away.”

* * *

VASYA FOLLOWED MOROZKO OUT. He even went through the door this time, in ordinary fashion. But when he was outside, he halted, head bowed, like a man after hard labor.

He managed to say to her through gritted teeth, “The bathhouse.” She took his hand and pulled him there with her, shut the door on darkness, forgot a candle wasn’t burning. Four flared up at once. He sank to one of the benches of the outer room and drew a shuddering breath. A bathhouse was a place of birth and of death, of transformation and of magic, and perhaps of memory. He could breathe easier there. But—

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He didn’t answer. “I cannot stay,” he said instead. His eyes were pale as water, his hands locked together, the bones of them stark in the candlelight. “I cannot. It is not my time yet, here. I must go back to my own lands. I—” He broke off, then said, “I am winter, and have been too long separate from myself.”

“Is that the only reason?” she asked.

He wasn’t looking at her now. Forcibly, he relaxed his clenched hands, laid them on his knees. Almost inaudibly, he said, “I cannot learn any more names. It draws me too near—”

“Too near what? Mortality? Can you become mortal?” she asked.

He was taken aback. “How? I am not made of flesh. But it—tears at me.”

“Then it will always tear at you, I think,” said Vasya. “So long as we—unless—you forget me.”

He rose to his feet. “I have made that choice already,” he said. “But I must return to my own lands. You are not the only one who can be driven mad with impossibilities; I cannot endure this one anymore. I do not belong in the summertime world. Vasya, you have done all you must. Come with me.”

At his words, a bolt of longing tore through her, for blue skies and deep snow, for wild places and for silence, for his fire-lit house in the fir-grove, for his hands in the darkness. She could go with him, and leave all the doings of men behind her, leave this city that had cost Solovey his life.

But even as she thought it, she said, “I can’t. It isn’t over.”

“Your part in this is over. If Dmitrii fights the Tatars, then that is a war of men, and not of chyerti.”

“A war the Bear brought about!”

“A war that might have happened anyway,” retorted Morozko. “A war that’s been threatening for years.”

She put a hand to her cheek, where lay the scar from a stone flung as she was led to her death. “I know,” she said. “But I am Russian, and they are my people.”

“They put you in the fire,” said Morozko. “You owe them nothing. Come with me.”

“But—who will I be, if I go with you?” she demanded. “Just a snow-maiden, the winter-king’s bride, forgotten by the whole world, just like you!”

She saw him flinch at the words. Biting her lips, she asked, in a calmer voice, “Who am I, if I cannot help my people?”

“Your people are more than a single, ill-conceived battle.”

“You freed your brother because you thought I could keep the chyerti from fading out of the world. Perhaps I can. But the other Rus’—the Rus’ of men and women—paid the price, and I am going to make it right again. The Bear’s mischief did not end with Moscow; my task is not over.”

“And if it gets you killed? Do you think I want to bear you away into the dark and then never see you again?”

“I know you don’t.” She dragged in a deep breath. “But I still have to try.”

For her sake, Morozko had made common cause with her brother, asked her sister’s forgiveness, gone into Moscow in summer, bound the Bear. But she had reached the limits of both his strength and his will. He would not fight Dmitrii’s war.

She would, though. Because she wanted to be more than a snow-maiden. She wanted Dmitrii’s faith, and his hand on her head. She wanted a victory, brought about by her courage.

But she also wanted the winter-king. In the smoke and dust and stink of Moscow, he was a breath of pine and cold water and stillness. She could not think for wanting him.

He saw her waver. Their eyes met in the darkness, and he closed the distance between them.

He wasn’t gentle. He was angry, and so was she, baffled and wanting, and their hands were rough on each other’s skin. When she kissed him, he felt like flesh under her hands, drawn sharply into reality by the place and the hour, and by her own passion. The silence stretched out, as their hands said the things they could not, and Vasya almost told him yes then. She almost let him carry her to his white horse, bear her away into the night. She didn’t want to think anymore.

But she must think. Tamara had let her own demon lull her with dreams of love until she’d lost everything that mattered.

She wasn’t Tamara. Vasya yanked away, gasping for breath, and he let her go.

“Go back to winter then,” she heard herself saying, her voice hoarse. “I am taking the road through Midnight to find my brother-in-law, if he is alive. I am going to help Dmitrii Ivanovich win his war.”