The Girl in the Tower (Winternight Trilogy 2)

“Stay here, Vasya,” said Sasha. “Hide. Bar the gate.” Then he was running, sword aflame with the light from above, straight toward the melee. Guards from all over the dooryard were converging. Then a shattering crash came from the main gate. The guards’ steps faltered, and they wavered between the threat behind and the threat above. Sasha did not hesitate. He had reached the foot of the southern staircase, and bounded up into darkness.

Vasya barred the gate as Sasha had bidden her, then stood a moment in the shadows, indecisive. Her gaze went from the quivering main gate, to the bewildered palace guards, to the lights swinging wildly behind the palace’s slitted windows.

She heard her brother’s voice shouting, the ring of his sword. Vasya breathed a prayer for his life, and made for the stable. If she were to do anything for the Grand Prince besides cry warnings, she needed her horse.

She reached the long, low stable and flattened herself once more into the shadows.

A guard in the dooryard wailed and fell, pierced by an arrow shot from over the wall. The whole dooryard was alive with shouting, full of running, bewildered men, many of them drunk. More arrows flew. More men fell. Above the noise she heard Dmitrii’s voice again, desperate now. Vasya prayed Sasha would reach him in time.

The battering redoubled at the gate. She had to get to Solovey. Was he there? Had he been killed, taken somewhere else, wounded…?

Vasya pursed her lips and whistled.

She was rewarded immediately and with a rush of relief by a familiar, furious neigh. Then a crash, as though Solovey meant to kick the stable down. The other horses began to squeal, and soon the whole building was in uproar. Another sound joined the tumult: a whistling, wailing cry unlike that of any horse Vasya had ever heard.

Vasya listened a moment to the shouts of the half-awake grooms. Then, judging her time, she darted inside.

She found chaos, nearly as bad as that in the dooryard without. Panicked horses thrashed in their stalls; the grooms did not know whether to calm them or go investigate the clamor outside. The grooms were all slaves, unarmed and frightened. The hiss and snarl of arrows was clearly audible now, and the screams.

“Do what you must and get out,” said a small voice. “The enemy is near and you are frightening us.” Vasya raised her eyes to the shadows of the hayloft and saw a pair of tiny eyes, set in a small face, scowling down at her. She lifted a hand in acknowledgment.

Chyerti fade, she thought. But they are not gone. The thought lifted her heart. Then she frowned, for the stable was lit by a strange glow.

She slipped down the row of stalls, keeping out of sight of the hurrying grooms. As she went the glow strengthened. Her soundless steps faltered.

Kasyan’s golden mare was glowing. Her mane and tail seemed to drip shards of light. She still wore the golden bridle: bit, reins, and all. She slanted one ear at Vasya and snorted a soft breath: pale mist hazed with her light.

Three stalls down from the mare stood Solovey, watching her with pitched ears, two horses standing still in the midst of the tumult. He, too, wore a bridle, fastened tight to the door of the stall, and his forefeet were hobbled. Vasya ran the last ten steps and threw her arms around the stallion’s neck.

I was afraid you would not come, Solovey said. I did not know where to go to find you. You smell of blood.

She collected herself, fumbled for the buckles of the stallion’s headstall, and with a wrench let the whole contraption fall to the floor. “I am here,” Vasya whispered. “I am here. Why is Kasyan’s horse glowing?”

Solovey snorted and shook his head, relieved of the binding. She is the greatest of us, he said. The greatest and the most dangerous. I did not know her at first—I did not believe she could be taken by force.

The mare watched them with pricked ears and a steady watchful expression in her two burning eyes. Let me loose, she said.

Horses speak mostly with their ears and bodies, but Vasya heard this voice in her bones.

“The greatest of you?” Vasya whispered to Solovey.

Set me free.

Solovey scraped the floor uneasily. Yes. Let us go, he said. Let us go into the forest—this is no place for us.

“No,” she echoed. “This is no place for us. But we must bide awhile. There are debts to pay.” She cut the hobbles from about the stallion’s feet.

Free me, said the golden mare again. Vasya rose slowly. The mare was watching them with an eye like molten gold. Power, barely contained, seemed to roil under her skin.

Vasya, said Solovey uneasily.

Vasya barely heard. She was staring into the mare’s eye, like the pale heart of a fire, and she took one step, then another. Behind her Solovey squealed. Vasya!

The mare mouthed her foamy, golden bit and looked straight back at Vasya. Vasya realized that she was afraid of this horse, when she had never been afraid of a horse in her life.

Perhaps it was that, more than anything else—a revulsion to fear that she should not have felt—that made Vasya reach out, seize a golden buckle, and wrench the bridle from the mare’s head.

The mare froze. Vasya froze. Solovey froze. It seemed the world hung still in its skies. “What are you?” she whispered to the mare.

The mare bent her head—slowly, it seemed, so slowly—to touch the discarded heap of gold, and then raised her head to touch Vasya’s cheek with her nose.

Her flesh was burning hot, and Vasya jerked back with a gasp. When she put a hand to her face, she felt a blister rising.

Then the world moved again; behind her Solovey was rearing. Vasya, get back.

The mare flung her head up. Vasya backed away. The mare reared, and Vasya thought her heart would stop with the fearful beauty of it. She felt a blast of heat on her face, and her breath stilled in her throat. I was foaled, Solovey had told her once. Or perhaps I was hatched. She backed up until she could feel Solovey’s breath on her back, until she could fumble away the bars of his stall, never taking her eyes off the golden mare—mare?

Nightingale, Vasya thought. Solovey means nightingale.

Were there not others, then? Horses that were— This mare…No. Not a mare. Not a mare at all. For before Vasya’s eyes, the rearing horse became a golden bird, greater than any bird Vasya had ever seen, with wings of flame, blue and orange and scarlet.

“Zhar Ptitsa,” Vasya said, tasting the words as though she had never sat at Dunya’s feet hearing tales of the firebird.

The beating of the bird’s wings fanned scorching heat onto her face, and the edges of her feathers were exactly like flames, streaming smoke. Solovey shrilled a cry that was half fear and half triumph. All around, horses squealed and kicked in their fright.

The heat rippled and steamed in the winter air. The firebird broke the bars of the stall as though they were twigs and hurled herself up, up toward the roof, dripping sparks like rain. The roof was no barrier. The bird tore through it, trailing light. Up and up she went, bright as a sun, so that the night became day. Somewhere in the dooryard, Vasya heard a roar of rage.

She watched the bird go, lips parted, wondering, terrified, silent. The firebird had left a trail of flames that were already catching in the hay. A finger of fire raced up a tinder-dry post and a new heat scorched Vasya’s burned cheek.

All around, flames began to rise, and bitter smoke, shockingly fast.

With a cry, Vasya recalled herself and ran to free the horses. For a moment she thought she saw the small, hay-colored stable-spirit beside her, and it hissed, “Idiot girl, to free the firebird!” Then it was gone, opening stall-doors even faster than she.