The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy 3)

“I have said you are not alone, Vasya, and I meant it,” he said. But he sounded unhappy.

She managed the ghost of a smile. “You are not alone either. By all means, let us continue repeating it until one of us believes it.” Briskly, she managed to say without tremor, “If I go out there, will the village try to kill me?”

“No,” said Morozko, and then he smiled. “But a legend might be born.”

She flushed. But when he extended a hand, she took it.

The village had indeed gathered outside the bathhouse. They drew back when the door opened. Their eyes roved from Vasya to Morozko, hand-fast, disheveled.

Yelena stood at the front of the crowd, shoulder to shoulder with the man who had tried to save her. She flinched when Morozko turned to her. It was to Yelena that the frost-demon spoke, although the whole village heard. “Forgive me,” he said.

She looked shocked. Then she gathered her dignity and bowed. “It was your right. But—” She looked more closely at his face. “You are not the same,” she whispered.

Just as Vasya had seen the years gone from his eyes, this woman could sense the weight of their return. “No,” said Morozko. “I have been saved from forgetfulness.” He glanced at Vasya and spoke so that the whole village heard. “I loved her, and a curse made me forget. But she came for me and broke the curse and now I must go. My blessing on you all, this winter.”

Whispers of wonder, even joy. Yelena smiled. “We are doubly blessed,” she said to Vasya. “Sister.” She had a gift in her hands: a magnificent long cloak, wolf without, rabbit within. She gave it to Vasya, embraced her. “Thank you,” she whispered. “May I have your blessing on my firstborn?”

“Health and long life,” said Vasya, a little awkwardly. “For your child, joy in love, and a brave death, a long time from now.”

Zimnyaya Koroleva, they said. The winter-queen. It frightened her. She tried to compose her features.

Morozko stood beside her, deceptively calm, but she could sense the feeling rushing between him and his people: a pull like a current. His eyes were a deep and astonishing blue. Perhaps he wished even now to go back, to take his place in the feasting, to feed forever on this worship.

But if he doubted his course, he did not let it show on his face.

Vasya was relieved when all the people turned at the sound of hoofbeats. Delight bloomed on a dozen faces. Two horses came flowing over the palisade, one white and one gold. They cut through the crowd, and trotted up to the two of them. Morozko, without a word, leaned his forehead against the neck of the white mare. The horse put her head around and lipped at his sleeve. Pain shot through Vasya, seeing it. “I forgot you too,” he said to the mare, low. “Forgive me.”

The white mare shoved him with her head, ears back. I don’t know why any of us waited for you. It was very dark.

Pozhar scraped a hoof in the snow in obvious agreement.

“You waited as well,” Vasya said to her, surprised.

Pozhar bit Vasya on the arm and stamped. I am not waiting again.

Vasya said, rubbing the new bruise, “I am glad to see you, lady.”

Morozko said, in some wonder, “She has never taken a rider willingly in all the years of her life.”

“She has not taken one now,” said Vasya hastily. “But she helped to guide me here. I am grateful.” She scratched Pozhar’s withers. Pozhar, despite herself, leaned into the scratches. You took too long, said the mare again, just to show she didn’t in any way enjoy being coddled, and stamped again.

Vasya’s new cloak lay heavy on her shoulders. “Farewell,” she said to the people. They were round-eyed with wonder. “They think they see a miracle,” Vasya said, low, to Morozko. “It doesn’t feel like one.”

“And yet,” he replied, “a girl alone rescued the winter-king from forgetfulness and stole him away with magic horses. That is miracle enough for one Midwinter.” Vasya found herself smiling as he vaulted to the white mare’s back.

Before he could offer—or not offer—to take her up before him, she said firmly, “I am going to walk. I came here on my own feet, after all.” Walking had been a slogging nightmare of deep snow without snowshoes, but she didn’t say that.

The pale eyes considered her. Vasya wished he wouldn’t. He so obviously saw past her pride—not wanting to be carried away across his saddlebow—to the deeper emotion. The shock of Solovey breaking, falling, was still too raw in memory. It felt wrong now to ride away in triumph.

“Very well,” he said, and surprised her by dismounting.

“You needn’t,” she said. The two horses’ bodies shielded them from the crowd. “You can’t mean to march out of the village like a cowherd? It is beneath your dignity.”

“I have seen uncounted dead,” he returned coolly. “Touched them, sent them on. But I have never done anything to remember them. I can walk now with you, because you cannot ride Solovey beside me. Because he was brave, and he is gone.”

She hadn’t wept for Solovey. Not properly. She had dreamed of him, waked screaming for him to run, felt his absence as a dull, poisonous ache. But she hadn’t wept, except for a few quelled tears after she nearly slew the mushroom-spirit. Now she felt the tears starting, stinging. Lightly, Morozko touched his finger to the first, as it ran down to her jaw. It froze at his touch, fell away.

Somehow the act of walking out of that midnight village, while the horses paced beside them, drove home Solovey’s loss in a way that none of the last days’ shocks had. When they had passed the palisade and gone back into the winter forest, Vasya buried her face in the white mare’s mane and she cried all the dammed-up tears that one night in Moscow had left inside her.

The mare stood patiently, blowing warm air onto her hands, and Morozko waited, silent, except that once, he laid cool fingers on the back of her neck.

When at last her tears quieted, she shook her head, wiped her running nose, and tried to think clearly. “We have to go back to Moscow.” Her voice was hoarse.

“As you say,” he said. He still didn’t look happy about it. But he didn’t object again.

If we are going all the way back to Moscow, the white mare put in unexpectedly, then Vasya must get on my back. I can carry both of you. It will be quicker.

Vasya had her lips open in a refusal, but then she noticed Morozko’s expression. “She will not let you say no,” he said mildly. “And she is right. You will only exhaust yourself, walking. It is you who must hold Moscow in your mind; if I guide us, it will be winter when we arrive.”

At least they were out of sight of the village now. Vasya vaulted to the mare’s back and Morozko got on behind her. The white mare was more finely built than Solovey, but the way she moved reminded her— Trying not to think of the bay stallion, Vasya looked down at Morozko’s hand, lying relaxed on his knee, remembered instead his hands on her skin, his hair coarse and cold, tumbled dark across her breasts.