The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy 3)

Vasya said nothing at all. She had no words. What did songs matter? They would not bring her brother back.

It was night when the cart came to take her brother’s body away. It came rumbling out of the dark, accompanied by a spill of noise and light, and Dmitrii’s noisy attendants, all full of triumph, barely leavened by respect for the occasion. Vasya could not stand their noise, or their joy, and anyway, Sasha was gone.

She kissed her brother’s forehead, and rose, and slipped away into the dark.

* * *

SHE DID NOT KNOW when Morozko and Medved appeared. She had the sense that she’d been walking alone a long time, with no notion of where she was or where she was going. She just wanted to get away from the noise and stink, the gore and the grief, the wild triumph.

But at some point, she raised her head and found them walking beside her.

The two brothers she had met in a clearing as a child, the two that had marked her life and changed it. They were both daubed with blood, the Bear’s eyes alight with the remnants of battle-lust, Morozko grave, his face unreadable. The enmity between them was still there, but changed, somehow, transmuted.

It’s because they aren’t on opposite sides anymore, she thought, dim with exhausted grief. God help me, they are both mine.

Morozko spoke first, not to Vasya but to his brother.

“You still owe me a life,” he said.

The Bear snorted. “I have tried to pay it. I offered her hers, I offered her brother his. Is it my fault that men and women are fools?”

“Perhaps not,” said Morozko. “But you still owe me a life.”

The Bear looked surly. “Very well,” he said. “What life?”

Morozko turned to Vasya, looked a question. She only stared at him blankly. What life? Her brother was gone and the field was thick with dead. Whose life could she desire, now?

Morozko reached very carefully into his sleeve, drew out something wrapped in embroidered cloth. He unwrapped it, held it out with both hands to Vasya.

In was a dead nightingale, its body stiff and perfect, kept inviolate with the water of life. It looked like the carved one she had kept with her through all the long nights and hard days.

She stared from the bird to the winter-king, beyond speech. “Is it possible?” she whispered. Her throat was dust-dry.

“Perhaps,” said Morozko, and turned back to his brother.

* * *

SHE COULD NOT BEAR to watch. She could not bear to listen. She walked away from them, almost afraid of her hope, coming so soon after grief. She could not bear to see them succeed and she could not bear to see them fail.

Even when hoofbeats came softly up behind her, she didn’t turn. Not until a soft nose came down, lightly, on her cheek.

She turned her head.

And stared and stared and she could not believe. She couldn’t move; she couldn’t speak. It was as though speech or movement would break the illusion, shatter it and leave her desolate once more. She drank in the sight; his bay coat black in the darkness, the single star on his face, his warm dark eye. She knew him. She loved him. “Solovey,” she whispered.

I was asleep, said the horse. But those two, the Bear and the winter-king, they woke me up. I missed you.

Her heart torn with exhaustion and shocked joy, Vasya threw her arms around the bay stallion’s neck, and she wept. He was no ghost. He was warm, alive, smelling of himself, and the texture of his mane was agonizingly familiar against her cheek.

I will not leave you again, said the stallion, and put his head around to nuzzle her.

“I missed you so,” she said to the horse, hot tears sliding into his black mane.

I am sure of it, said Solovey, nosing her. He shook his mane, looking superior. But I am here now. You are the warden of the lake now? It has not had a mistress for a long time. I am glad it is you. But you should have had me. You would have done it all a great deal better if I’d been there.

“I am sure of it,” said Vasya, and she made a broken sound that was almost a laugh.

* * *

FINGERS TANGLED IN HER horse’s mane, leaning on his broad, warm shoulder, she barely heard the Bear speak. “Well, this is all touching. But I am off. I have a world to see and her promise for my freedom, brother.” This last was added warily to Morozko. Vasya saw, when she opened her eyes, that the winter-king was eyeing his twin with undimmed suspicion.

“You are still bound to me,” said Vasya to the Bear. “And to your promise. The dead will not rise.”

“Men create enough chaos without me,” said the Bear. “I am just going to enjoy it. Perhaps give a few men nightmares.”

“If you do worse,” said Vasya, “the chyerti will tell me.” She raised her golden wrists, a threat and a promise.

“I will not do worse.”

“I will call you again,” she said. “If there is need.”

“So you will,” he said. “I may even answer.” He bowed. And then he was gone, swiftly lost in the gloom.

* * *

THE BATTLEFIELD WAS EMPTY. The moon had risen, somewhere behind the clouds. The field was stiff with frost. The dead lay open-eyed, men and horses, and the living moved among them by torchlight, looking for dead friends, or stealing what they could.

Vasya looked away.

The chyerti had already slipped away, back to their forests and streams, holding Dmitrii’s promise, and Sergei’s, and Vasya’s.

We can share this land. This land that we have kept.

Three chyerti remained. One was Morozko, standing silent. The second was a woman, whose dawn-pale hair slanted across the darkness of her skin. The third was a little mushroom-spirit, who glowed a sickly green in the darkness.

Vasya bowed to Ded Grib and Polunochnitsa, straight-shouldered and solemn, though she knew her face was swollen and blotched like a child’s with grief and with painful joy. “My friends,” she said. “You came back.”

“You had your victory, lady,” returned Midnight. “We are witnesses. You made your promises and you kept them. We are yours in truth, the chyerti. I came to tell you that the old woman—she is glad.”

Vasya could only nod. What care had she for promises, either kept or broken? The price had been too high. But then she licked her lips and said, “Tell—tell my great-grandmother that I will come to her, in Midnight, if she will permit. For I have much to learn. And thank you. Both of you. For your faith. And your lessons.”