The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3) - Katherine Arden Page 0,24

have it not. Which will you be, Konstantin Nikonovich?”

“At least I am a man,” Konstantin snapped, shrill. “You are only a monster.”

Medved’s teeth were white as a beast’s; they gleamed briefly when he smiled. “There are no monsters.”

Konstantin snorted.

“There are not,” said the Bear. “There are no monsters in the world, and no saints. Only infinite shades woven into the same tapestry, light and dark. One man’s monster is another man’s beloved. The wise know that.”

They were nearly at the monastery-gate. “Are you my monster then, devil?” Konstantin asked.

The shadow at the corner of Medved’s mouth deepened. “I am,” he said. “And your beloved too. You are not one to distinguish.” The devil caught Konstantin’s golden head between his hands, drew him down and kissed him, full on the mouth.

Then he disappeared into the darkness, laughing.

8.

Between the City and Evil

BROTHER ALEKSANDR LEFT HIS SISTER’S palace in the gray-blue hour before the sun rises. All around him, Moscow was stirring, sullenly. The city’s rage and wildness had shifted to a deeper unease. Dmitrii had every man he could spare in the streets—soldiers at the kremlin-gate, at the gate of his own palace, guarding the boyars’ houses—but their presence only seemed to feed the sense of dread.

A few people recognized Sasha, despite the hour, despite his hood. Once they would have asked him for his blessing; now they gave him black looks, and drew their children aside.

The witch’s brother.

Sasha strode on, lips set thin. Perhaps a better monk would have fixed his gaze on heavenly things, forgiven and forgotten, not mourned his sister’s torment, or his own lost reputation. But—if he had been a better monk he would have stayed in the Lavra.

The sun had made a copper rim on the horizon and water was running beneath the softening snow when Sasha passed the Grand Prince’s gate, and found Dmitrii in low-voiced conversation with three of his boyars. “God be with you,” said Sasha to them all. The boyars made the sign of the cross, identical troubled expressions half-hidden in their beards. Sasha could hardly blame them.

“The great families do not like it,” said Dmitrii when the boyars had bowed and left, and his attendants gone out of earshot. “Any of it. That a traitor came so close to killing me, that I lost control of the city last night. And—” Dmitrii paused. His hand toyed with his sword-hilt. “There are rumors that a demon was seen in Moscow.”

Sasha thought of Varvara’s warning. Perhaps Dmitrii expected him to scoff, but instead he asked, warily, “What nature of—demon?”

Dmitrii shot him a glance. “I know not. But that is why those three came to me so early and so uneasy; they heard the rumors too and fear that the city must be under some curse. They say that people talk of nothing now but devils, and of spoiling. They say that the only reason the city did not fall to evil last night was because a priest named Father Konstantin banished the demon. They are saying he is a saint, that he is the only one standing between this city and evil.”

“Lies,” said Sasha. “It was that same Father Konstantin yesterday who drove the city to riot and put my sister in the fire.”

Dmitrii’s eyes narrowed.

“His mob smashed the gates of my sister’s palace,” Sasha went on. “And he—” Sasha broke off. He stole my niece from her bed and gave her to the traitor, was what he wanted to say, but…No, Olga had said. Don’t you dare say aloud that my daughter left the terem that night. Get justice for Vasya if you can, but what do you think folk will say of Marya?

“Have you proof of this?” asked Dmitrii.

Once Sasha would have replied, Is my word not enough? Dmitrii would have answered, Yes it is, brother, and that would have been the end of argument. But a lie had come between them and so instead Sasha said, “There are witnesses that will place Father Konstantin among the mob at the palace of Serpukhov, and at the burning.”

Dmitrii didn’t answer directly. He said, “After I heard the rumors this morning, I sent men to the Monastery of the Archangel, with orders to escort the priest here. But he wasn’t at the monastery. He was in the Cathedral of the Assumption, with half the city attending him, praying and weeping. He chants like an angel, they say, and Moscow is full of tales of his beauty and his piety and how he freed