The Girl in the Tower (Winternight Trilogy 2)

Vasya, rather than falling back, stepped closer to him, and that was obviously the one thing he did not expect. The priest froze.

Closer still. Vasya was afraid of many things, but she was not afraid of Konstantin Nikonovich.

“Batyushka,” she said, “I would help you if I could.”

His lips shut hard.

She touched his sweating face. He did not move. Her hair tumbled damply over his hand, where it lay locked around her arm.

Vasya made herself stand still despite his pinching grip. “How can I help you?” she whispered.

“Kasyan Lutovich promised me vengeance,” Konstantin whispered, staring, “if I would—but never mind. I do not need him. You are here; it is enough. Come to me now. Make me whole again.”

Vasya met his eyes. “That I cannot do.”

And her knee came up with perfect accuracy.

Konstantin did not scream, nor fall wheezing to the floor; his robes were too thick. But he doubled over with a grunt, and that was all Vasya needed.

She was out in the night—crossing the walkway, then running out through the dooryard.

23.

The Jewel of the North

A corpse-gray moon just showed above Olga’s tower. The prince of Serpukhov’s dooryard echoed with the shriek of the still reveling city outside, but Vasya knew there would be guards about. In a moment Konstantin would raise the alarm. She must warn the Grand Prince.

Vasya was already running for Solovey’s paddock before she remembered that he would not be there.

But then there came a thump and a snowy crunch of hooves.

Vasya turned with relief to fling her arms around the stallion’s neck.

It was not Solovey. The horse was white, and she had a rider.

Morozko slid down the mare’s shoulder. Girl and frost-demon faced each other in the sickly moonlight. “Vasya,” he said.

The stench of the bathhouse clung to Vasya’s skin, and the smell of blood. “Is that why you wanted me to run away tonight?” she asked him, bitterly. “So I wouldn’t see my sister die?”

He did not speak, but a fire, blue as a summer sky, leaped up between them. No wood fueled it; yet its heat drove back the night, and cradled her shivering skin. She refused to be grateful. “Answer me!” She gritted her teeth and stamped on the flames. They died as quickly as they had risen.

“I knew the mother or the child was to die,” Morozko said, stepping back. “I would have spared you, yes. But now—”

“Olga threw me out.”

“Rightly,” he finished, coldly. “It was not your choice to make.”

Vasya felt the words like a blow. There was a ball in her gut, a knot in her throat. Her face was sticky with dried tears.

“I came to save you, Vasya,” Morozko said then. “Because—”

The knot of grief broke and lashed out. “I don’t care why! I don’t know if you will tell me the truth; why should I listen? You have guided me as though I were a dog on the hunt, bidden me go here and there and yet told me nothing. So you knew Olga was to die tonight? Or—that my father was to die, there in the Bear’s clearing? Could you have warned me then? Or—” She wrenched out the sapphire from beneath her shirt and held it up. “What is this? Kasyan said it made me your slave. Was he lying, Morozko?”

He was silent.

She came quite close and added, low, “If you ever cared, even a little, for the poor fools you kiss in the dark, you will tell me all the truth. I can stomach no more lies tonight.”

They looked at each other, stone-faced in the silvered darkness. “Vasya,” he whispered from the shadows. “It is not the time. Come away, child.”

“No,” she breathed. “It is the time. Am I such a child, that you must lie to me?”

When he still said nothing, she added, the faintest of breaks in her voice, “Please.”

A muscle twitched in his cheek. “The night before he died,” Morozko said flatly, “Pyotr Vladimirovich lay awake beside the ashes of a burnt village. I came to him at moonset. I told him of your fading chyerti, of the priest sowing fear, of the Bear worming his way free. I told Pyotr that his life could save his people’s. He was willing—more than willing. I guided your father after me, through the woods, on the day the Bear was bound, so that he came timely to the clearing—and he died. But I did not kill him. I gave him the choice. That is what he chose. I cannot take a life out of season, Vasya.”

“You lied to me, then,” Vasya said. “You told me my father happened upon the Bear’s clearing. What else have you lied about, Morozko?”

Again, he was silent.

“What is this?” she whispered, holding the jewel between them.

His glance went from the stone to her face, sharp as shards. “I made it,” he said. “With ice and my own hands.”

“Dunya—”

“Took it on your behalf from your father. Pyotr received it from me when you were a child.”

Vasya yanked the necklace down so that it lay gripped in her hand, chain dangling, broken. “Why?”

For a moment, she thought he would not answer. Then he said, “Long ago, men dreamed me to life, to give a face to the cold and the dark. They set me to rule over them.” His glance strayed beyond hers. “But—the world wound on. The monks came with vellum and ink, with songs and icons, and I diminished. Now I am only a fairy tale for bad children.” He looked at the blue jewel. “I cannot die, but I can fade. I can forget and be forgotten. But—I am not ready to forget. So I bound myself to a human girl, with power in her blood, and her strength made me strong again.” A flush of blue washed his pale eyes. “I chose you, Vasya.”

Vasya felt very far from herself. This, then, was the bond between them, not shared adventure, wry affection, or even the fire he might set in her flesh, but this—thing. This jewel, this not-magic. She thought of the pale wisps of chyerti, fading in their bell-bound world, and how her hand, her words, her gifts could make them briefly real again.

“Is that why you brought me to your house in the forest?” Vasya whispered. “Why you fought my nightmares and gave me presents? Why you—kissed me in the dark? Because I was to be your worshipper? Your—your slave? It was all a scheme to make yourself strong?”

“You are no slave, Vasilisa Petrovna,” he snapped.

When she was silent, he went on, more gently. “I have had enough of those. It was emotions I needed from you—feelings.”

“Worship,” retorted Vasya. “Poor frost-demon. All your poor believers turned to newer gods, and you were left groping for the hearts of stupid girls who don’t know better. That is why you came so often, and why you left again. That is why you bade me wear the jewel and remember you.”

“I saved your life,” he returned, harsh now. “Twice. You have carried that jewel, and your strength has sustained me. Is it not a fair exchange?”

Vasya could not speak. She barely heard him. He had used her. She was a doom to her kin. Her family lay in ruins—and her heart.

“Find another,” she said, surprised at the calm in her voice. “Find another to wear your charm. I cannot.”

“Vasya—no, you must listen—”