Lukasz looked up sharply. His heart skipped a beat. “Or did you hear—?”
Tadeusz’s chin jerked. It was short and compulsive and negated the rest of Lukasz’s question.
“Our home is in the Mountains,” said Tad. “It is time we returned.”
“Why?” repeated Lukasz. “There’s no one there. Our parents are dead.” He ignored how Tadeusz flinched and continued: “It’s been almost ten years. We should build lives out here. We left for a reason, Tadeusz.”
“I understand, Lukasz. But I am the eldest. It is time I went back and rebuilt what was once there. We are the last in a tradition of great warriors, and it cannot die with us.” Then he added, in a softer voice: “When I have killed the Dragon, I will send for you.”
“That’s what Mom said.”
Tadeusz didn’t answer.
Around them, the rain thundered on. Darkness clouded the Faustian’s dull scales. Soon its corpse would begin to erode. Flesh darkening, fangs loosening. In a few months, it would be dryness and dust, as fragile as sand castles on a Granica beach. Soon enough, wind would blow the dust from its flawless silver bones.
“It’s not our home anymore.”
Tadeusz put an arm around his little brother’s shoulders.
“For a thousand years, our people have run with wolves and slain dragons. We are heirs to gold and fire, baptized under ice, destined to inherit a tradition as ancient as the hills themselves. Whatever lengths we travel, Lukasz, whatever worlds we visit: we shall be buried in the shadow of the Mountains, beneath the blessings of wolves.”
At Tad’s words, a chill scuttled over Lukasz’s shoulders.
“Shadow of the Mountains, eh?” He rubbed his eyes. “What about ruined churches?”
But Tadeusz did not laugh. He looked like their father in that moment: heavy jawed, serious. Not the kind of man who joked over blasphemy and gold-flecked vodka.
“You are still young, Lukasz,” he said. “But one day, you will see.”
And then he turned their father’s eyes away. Trained them on the silver Faustian, stripped of its antlers and its fur and gathering darkness. Three hundred years of terrible beauty, now so swiftly fading, crumbling to ruin. And when Tadeusz spoke again, his voice carried the growl of wolves, the roar of mountains, and the echoes of ten centuries.
“One day, Lukasz,” he whispered, “the Mountains will call you home.”
5
LENGTHENING HER STRIDE TO THE flexible gallop of a predator, Ren sprinted home.
She dashed under the ramparts and tore up the front steps, past twin stone lynx statues. She streaked across the cool, dark entrance hall, vaulting over shards of the fallen chandelier. On the upstairs landing, she rounded a corner, carpet shredding under her claws.
Czarn was waiting for her.
He lay on his belly, high in an alcove opposite a wall of windows. The alcove had previously housed a rather vivid rendering of a witch being drowned. Ren despised the painting on principal, and she and Ry? had deposed it early in childhood.
From his vantage point, Czarn surveyed the forest below.
“That was a long swim,” he observed.
He had the kind of voice that could stop a conversation in its tracks: round, slow, a little clipped at the edges.
Ren picked her way across what was left of the shredded canvas. The sky was dull gray, and Czarn looked like just another shadow in the dim light of the hall. His perch was flanked by faded banners in purple and gold, rippling slightly in the chill draft.
“You look quite at home there,” said Ren.
She transformed, slowly this time, back to a human. This was always the gentler part of the change. The transition from four legs to two came more easily to her.
“I am very noble,” agreed Czarn serenely.
“I meant you’re a snob.”
Czarn chuckled and watched as Ren used the closer banner to scale the wall to the alcove. She settled next to him, long dirty legs dangling over the edge. As darkness fell, a few sparrows swooped in through a broken window, home to their nest among the golden-wrought deer busts.
“Were you waiting for me?”
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
Czarn eased onto his side and kicked out his back legs. He said, as the hall dimmed another shade: “Maybe I was worried.”
Ren was about to laugh when she saw the thin stream of black smoke over the trees. It was stark against the low purple rise of the Mountains beyond, already rumbling in the east.
The smoke was coming from the river. The Dragon.
“You saw it?” she asked.
“I did,” said Czarn. Then he added, very gently: “Are you all right?”