The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3) - Katherine Arden Page 0,80
she snapped. “Home, to be burned as a witch? Should I have heeded you, worn your charm, married, had children, and sat sometimes by the window, fondly remembering my days with the winter-king? Should I have let—”
“You should think before you do things.” He bit off the words, as though her last question had stung.
“This from the frost-demon who set this whole realm at hazard to save my life?”
He said nothing. She swallowed more hot words. She did not understand what lay between them. She was neither wise nor beautiful. None of the tales spoke of both wanting and resentment, of grand gestures and terrible mistakes.
“The chyerti would be worshipped,” said Vasya, moderating her tone. “If the Bear had his way.”
“He would be worshipped if he had his way,” said Morozko. “I do not think he cares what happens to chyerti, so long as they serve his ends.” He paused. “Or what happens to men and women themselves, dead in his scheming.”
“If I wished to throw my lot in with the Bear, I would not have come to find you in the first place,” Vasya said. “But yes, sometimes I think it is a bitter thing, to go back and try to save that city.”
“If you spend all your days bearing the burden of unforgotten wrongs you will only wound yourself.”
She glared at him, and he looked back, narrow-eyed. Why was he angry? Why was she? Vasya knew about marriages, carefully arranged; she knew about swains courting yellow-haired peasant girls in the midsummer twilight. She had listened to fairy tales since before she could speak. None of those prepared her for this. She had to clench her hands into fists to keep from touching him.
He drew away, jerkily, just as she took a deep, shaken breath and turned her gaze again to the water. “I am going to go to sleep in the sunshine,” she said. “Until Father Sergei is ready to go on. Will you disappear if I do?”
“No,” he said, and he sounded as if he resented it. But she was hot and sleepy and could not bring herself to care. She curled up in the grass near him. The last thing she felt was his light, cold fingers in her hair, like an apology, as she fell suddenly and completely asleep.
* * *
SASHA FOUND THEM A little while later. The frost-demon sat upright, watchful. The slanting summer light seemed to shine through him. He raised his head as Sasha approached, and Sasha was startled at the look on his face at that moment, unguarded, there and gone. Vasya stirred.
“Let her sleep, winter-king,” said Sasha.
Morozko said nothing, but one hand moved to smooth Vasya’s tousled black hair.
Watching them, Sasha said, “Why did you save Father Sergei’s life?”
Morozko said, “I am not noble, if that is what you are thinking. The Bear must be bound anew, and we cannot do it alone.”
Sasha was silent, turning that over. Then he said abruptly, “You are not a creature of God.”
“I am not.” His free hand, lying loose, had an unnatural stillness.
“Yet you saved my sister’s life. Why?”
The devil’s gaze was direct. “First for my own scheming. But later because I could not stand to see her slain.”
“Why do you ride with her now? It cannot be easy, a frost-demon at high summer.”
“She asked it of me. Why all these questions, Aleksandr Peresvet?”
The epithet was given half in earnest, half in mockery. Sasha had to swallow a surge of rage. “Because after Moscow,” he said, trying to keep his voice even, “she went to a—dark country. I was told I could not follow her there.”
“You could not.”
“And you could?”
“Yes.”
Sasha took this in. “If she goes into the darkness again—will you swear not to abandon her?”
If the demon was surprised, he gave no sign. His face remote, he said, “I will not abandon her. But one day she will go where even I cannot follow. I am immortal.”
“Then—if she asks—if there is a man who can warm her, and pray for her, and give her children—then let her go. Do not keep her in the dark.”
“You ought to make up your mind,” said Morozko. “Swear not to abandon her or give her up to a living man? Which shall it be?”
His tone was cutting. Sasha’s hand strayed to his sword. But he did not grasp it. “I don’t know,” he said. “I never protected her before; I do not know why I should be able to now.”