by Rosalyn Eves
“Cukor is the only horse left in the stables, but you can have him if you need him. Mátyás’s horse was stolen a couple months back.”
“Stolen?” I asked, remembering the ill-tempered brute. “Who would want it? In any case, I cannot take your last horse, János bácsi. What if you should need it?”
“I can come by another one easy enough. And I don’t travel so much as I used to.”
There was nothing to do but thank him, though Cukor was only marginally faster than a creek in August, dried to a trickle.
“This is a bad business, though. First Noémi, now you.” At my startled look, he explained. “My cousin sent a letter with one of his men when she disappeared. Thought she might have come here.”
My heart dipped. “Then she has not been here?” Somehow I had been sure that Noémi would have come to Eszterháza in pursuit of Mátyás. Where had she gone? And where was she now?
A maid came in to remove János’s tray, starting a little when she saw me. János said, “Please prepare a room for Miss—that is, Mr. Arden. He will be staying tonight. In the lavender room, I think.”
Our talk shifted after that, turning to lighter questions about my time in Vienna, about the country summer in Eszterháza. When I started drooping above my teacup, János sent me to my old room.
The chamber still smelled of lavender and sage, and the familiarity of it brought tears pricking to my eyes. I stripped off my clothes and scrubbed a week’s worth of grime from them in the washbasin as best I could before draping them across the windowsill to dry.
I had not been clean for nearly a week—or safe in much longer.
But sliding between the cool, dry sheets, I felt, briefly, both. Some inner bulwark shifted and cracked, and as I rolled onto my stomach to sleep, warm salt tears speckled my pillow.
*
Sometime in the small hours of the night, a howl split the air. I shot upward, my heart thumping, my breath shallow. I could not tell if I had been dreaming.
A commotion sounded in the courtyard, hooves clattering on stone. I tumbled out of the bed and scrambled to the window.
The courtyard was awash with torches held aloft by soldiers, the flickering light shining on their curved leather helmets, glinting off the metal hilts of their swords.
I had been so very foolish.
I didn’t believe János had contributed to the trap, but I could not stay here to see him caught up in it.
I pulled on my still-damp trousers and shoes and raced down the hallway as quickly as my sore feet would allow, taking the servants’ stairs to the lowest level of the house and then darting outside. Wood cracked loudly somewhere nearby, followed by the lighter tinkle of glass. They’d broken down the main doors.
I ducked into the stable. Starlight cast thin light into the dim.
Cukor drowsed noisily in his stall, but at my approach he awoke with a huff. I threw a blanket and a light Hungarian riding saddle on him, then the saddlebags someone had had the forethought to pack and leave near the wall of the stall.
Bless János.
I pulled myself up into the saddle, settling into the unfamiliar astride position.
This would be the tricky part: I had to lure the soldiers away from the estate, so they would leave János alone. I did not want him to fight and die for me out of some misguided chivalry. And Cukor—the sweet, stupid, placid beast—was no match for the long-legged elegant horses the soldiers were riding. I should have to be clever—more clever than I felt with my eyes still thick with sleep and my heart pounding through my throat.
I rode Cukor around the sweeping wings of Eszterháza to the wrought-iron gates. There I hesitated. The soldiers were already spilling into the palace through the wrecked doors; I needed to draw their attention. I kicked Cukor harder than he merited, and the poor horse screamed.
The soldiers nearest me spun around. I waved merrily, and urged Cukor into the fastest jog he could manage, riding back around the palace walls to the maze of trees and gardens behind it. I could not lose the soldiers in the fields spreading around Eszterháza, but I might have a chance in the woods.
Cukor and I had just reached the cover of the woods when something electric jolted me, nearly knocking me from the saddle. I doubled over, gasping, recognizing too late the buzz of a spell.
The archduchess had sent spell-casters with the soldiers.
The night lit with a flash, as though the sun had accelerated over the horizon. I glanced behind me to see a ball of fire shooting toward me.
Fighting through panic, I closed my eyes, ignoring the brilliant orange painted against my eyelids. Fire and electricity meant Elementalist and Lucifera, whether two magicians working together or one with both gifts, I didn’t know. I reached for the faint buzzing of the spell and found its source near the corner of the palace. This was a larger spell than the soul signs I had broken in the Congress, larger still than the spells I had snapped at the archduchess’s ball. It took a moment for my second sense to disentangle its threads.
The heat of the approaching fire seared my skin. Cukor bucked and screamed beneath me.
There. I yanked at the strands of magic, and the spell fell apart.
But anxious and jittery as I was, I wasn’t quite fast enough to catch the magic as it exploded from the spell. When my eyes flew open, I saw that the fireball had split around me, forming a kind of fiery cage. And though the power behind the magic had faltered, the fire had already taken root where it touched dry ground, and the magic had only magnified the flame.
In a moment the magician would send another spell after us. Spotting a section where the fire was thinner, I urged Cukor through the flames. For once obedient, Cukor dashed across the clearing and away into the woods.
The fire widened behind us, obscuring my view of the palace. I whispered an apology to János for the destruction, though I could not help feeling grateful for the fire, which might at least delay my attackers long enough for me to escape.
A third spell, more electricity, followed after us. This time I caught the escaping magic and sent it back toward the magician.
After that there were no more spells.
Cukor and I rode into the fire-lit darkness.
*
Once we were safely away, Cukor slowed to an exhausted plod. I sprang down to walk with him, stopping to give him a handful of oats, rub him down, and water him. Our progress after that was slow, but steady, and we passed a tense day.
By early evening, I was forced to halt. Cukor could hardly move, and I was not much better—bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, footsore, and headachy from spell-breaking. I found a copse of trees some distance from any village, and we both tumbled into heavy sleep.
Cukor woke me sometime after midnight, pawing the ground nervously where I’d tied him a few meters distant. He whickered, then snorted, pulling at his ties as if eager to be away. I sat up in my thin bedroll, my pulse thrumming in my ears. I’d been dreaming of Mátyás, flying as a grey-faced crow above the plains.
The sky overhead was clear and sprinkled with stars, a fingernail sliver of moon. Wind stirred through the still-warm air, branches whispering together. In the distance, a tiny snap of wood.
I couldn’t hear any cause for alarm, but Cukor rolled his eyes, and anxiety propelled me from my bed. I crept to Cukor, patting his neck reassuringly and whispering into his mane. He trembled beneath my touch.
Something was wrong. The clearing might be quiet, but the woods did not feel empty. They felt, instead, as though they were waiting, the quiet merely the hush of anticipation.
Acting on impulse, I wrenched Cukor’s ties loose. Cukor sprang away, faster than I had ever known him to move.
Hide. The instinct crackled through me.
I sprinted toward the river, where I could hear murmuring in the distance. When I reached the shore, I stripped off my shoes and waded into the water, beginning to feel silly. Nothing dangerous had yet erupted from the trees. Probably, Cukor had alarmed us bot
h over nothing, and I would have to spend the better part of the morning hunting him down—if I found him at all.
In the middle of the stream, I clambered up onto a boulder. I curled my knees beneath my chin, my heart still thumping madly. I would wait for a few minutes, to be certain it was nothing, then go back to my bed.
The wind tickled at my exposed toes and fluttered my hair around my ears. I gripped my knees tighter, waiting for my pulse to slow.
A scream split the night, the bellow of a terrified horse. Cukor. I started up, but then caught the faintest snarling, a thin yip. Wolves. I had forgotten there might be other dangers in the woods besides soldiers and praetheria.
But wolves belonged to more desolate regions: to mountains and wild woods, not to these small clumped trees scattered among settled villages.
Shivering now, though the night was warm, I slid down behind the boulder into the water. I peered around the rock, praying that the faint light of the almost-new moon and stars would not betray me.
But if there were wolves, they would not need the light. My scent alone would be enough, though perhaps the water could cover my smell. I sank down deeper, till only my eyes and nose were above the surface.
The water trickled cold fingers through my clothes, slapping at my cheeks. The wind pushed at the back of my head. Upwind. That, at least, was some mercy.
Something slid past my shin, and I swallowed a yelp. Only a fish, I told myself.
A dark shape appeared along the bank, followed by a second, then a third. Their eyes gleamed yellow in the faint light, and a pale luminescence clung to their fur. They were big, much bigger than I had expected, and they sniffed at the bank where I had gone in. A pair of them tussled over one of the shoes I’d left on the grass.
My heart beat so hard it hurt.
They ran along the bank, one of them putting his forepaws in the water before yelping and drawing back.
I let my breath out slowly. For whatever reason, the wolves seemed reluctant to cross the water.
Endless minutes stretched out as the beasts prowled the shore. My fingers grew numb in the cool water; my cheeks stung, pummeled by water and wind.
A hooded figure emerged from the trees behind the wolves, whistling to them. As one, they turned and padded back. The figure threw back her hood, exposing an unlined face and bone-white hair to the starlight. A kestrel rode her shoulder.
Vasilisa.
She crossed to the shoreline, and I drew back into the shadow of the rock where I could not see her—nor, I prayed, be seen.
“Anna Arden,” she called out, her voice shearing across the air, slicing under my skin. “Why do you hide from me? I mean you no harm.” I heard the high, thin scream of a falcon, saw the dark shape of the kestrel rocket against the star-strewn sky as she released it. “I only wish to speak with you.”
And yet you hunt me with wolves.
I took a long breath and then submerged myself in the water, hoping the kestrel would be far afield before I emerged. The wolves might not track me in the river, but if the bird spotted me, Vasilisa would know where I was. She would find a way to reach me, even if she could not cross moving water with her wolves. If her strength was back, she might fly.
Who was she? Hunger and his generals would not have gone to such lengths to free an ordinary praetherian, but despite all my childhood reading of fairy tales, I could not place Vasilisa among the strong, cruel women in those stories: Titania, the Morrígan, Melusina.
When my lungs began to burn, I surfaced, breathing shallowly through my nose. I peered around the rock, hoping my water-slicked hair and skin would blend with the eddying river.
Vasilisa still stood on the bank, scanning the sky.
Gooseflesh prickled along my exposed skin. I did not know how long she intended to wait, but I could not spend all night in the river. Though the July night was warm, the water was not, and I could die as surely from hypothermia as from the bite of one of her wolves. I studied the far shore, marking out a spot where a willow hung low over the water and the reeds bunched particularly close. If I could make it that far unnoticed, I might have a chance.
I took another breath and submerged, crawling along the stony bottom of the river. When I could hold my breath no longer, I turned my head to one side and raised it slowly, breathing just above the surface of the water before going under again.
My questing fingers closed around the reeds, and I slid among them, grateful for the wind that tossed them over my head and hid my passage.
On the far side of the river, Vasilisa had begun to pace, one of her wolves following behind her. The others had settled on the grass. I could not see the falcon, though its shriek sounded in the distance.
I pulled myself, dripping, onto the bank and slithered beneath the hanging branches of the willow. My head shouted at me to keep moving, to put as much distance between myself and Vasilisa as possible, but my trembling limbs would not seem to work. In any case, if I tried to run, I would only draw the attention of the falcon. I climbed into the willow tree, wedging myself against the trunk and curling my shaking arms around my knees.
Vasilisa did not come for me, and when I peered through the branches, I could see nothing—but she could not have gone far. Possibly only as far as the next bridge crossing the river. Everything but the clothes on my back was still on the far side of the stream—my pack and bedroll; my boots (though one, at least, had been shredded by wolves); all my money. And my horse—what was left of Cukor, anyway.
I sat unmoving as stars shifted overhead. I didn’t dare go back across the river for my things in case Vasilisa waited. I could more easily have faced Luminate magicians. Even if I snapped the spell securing the wolves to Vasilisa, I could not defend against their teeth and claws or her superior power. I couldn’t go back to Eszterháza—János would be no match for her.
When thin gold fingers crawled across the sky, I uncurled my stiff body and slid down from the tree.
Then I started walking east.
I walked through the July heat like a swimmer fighting upstream. The world felt strangely unreal, droning in a haze beneath the white spot of the sun. The sky overhead was impossibly blue; the hum of insects across the field was an invitation to find a dappled patch of shade and sleep.
But I could not stop to sleep. My eyes itched, and my body had the curious lightness of too little rest. My thighs chafed from the unaccustomed riding the day before; my bare feet were torn and bleeding. Cukor’s final cry echoed continuously in my ears; before me, no matter the landscape, I saw glowing wolf eyes prowling the banks.
I kept moving east. I had gone beyond some vague idea of finding Noémi—I would only bring trouble on her if I did. Instead, a name haunted me, keeping time with the uneven stumbling of my feet.
King of Crows.
King of Crows.
Rumor held that he was powerful. That he was a bandit. That he had sheltered fugitive praetheria. If these were true, it meant he would not care that soldiers hunted me. He would not fear Vasilisa.
If there was sanctuary to be had in this world, he might be able to grant it.
Near midday I passed a low-slung thatched-roof farmhouse that seemed mostly deserted—the owners probably in the fields. I crept through an open doorway into a kitchen, the whitewashed walls lined with painted plates, a ceramic stove resting quiet in the corner. The cool of the room was a relief after the heat.
Just off the kitchen lay the customary unused spare bedroom, the fancy carved bed piled high with embroidered pillows and blankets that had likely been part of the bride’s dowry. Carefully I eased a wool blanket from the bottom of the stack and curled it under my left arm. Farther down a narrow hallway, beneath a wardrobe in the bedroom, I found two pair of dress shoes, a woman’s embroidered heels and a man’s black boots. From their neat placement and general lack of wear, they were probably reserved for special occasions: church, weddings, fetes.
Hearing voices, I peeked out the window to see f
our people sloping across the field toward the house. Snatching the boots, as the woman’s shoes appeared too small, I fled back the way I had come.
I sprinted down a narrow lane into the shadows of a grove and pulled myself up into a tree. When no one came hunting after me, I tore a few strips from the already ragged hem of my shirt, wrapped them around my aching feet, and stuffed my feet into the boots.
Just over a week ago I had captivated an entire ballroom—wealthy, admired. Today I was a fugitive, and a thief.
Sliding down from the tree and wishing I had grabbed something from the kitchen, I ignored my growling stomach and walked on.
*
I walked for nearly a week to reach the Duna, stealing bits of food, eating half-ripe apples pilfered from orchards, sleeping in barns (when I could find them) and trees (when I could not).
Avoiding the major roads, springing like arteries from Buda-Pest at the country’s heart, I did not see soldiers. Where had they gone, after that night at Eszterháza? Were they following false trails, or were they even now closing in on me? I hoped János hadn’t been harmed for giving me shelter.
The black velvet night of the new moon came and went.
Twice, shadows moved in the brush at gloaming, eyes bright against the growing dark. But they were gone so swiftly I might have imagined them.
Eagles circled overhead, swinging wide lazy loops in the sky, but no screaming falcons followed me.
I tried—and failed—to shake the sense that Vasilisa was not so much hunting me as herding me. But where? And why?
Upon reaching the Duna, I persuaded a kindly farmer’s wife to take me across the ferry in her wagon, loaded high with produce, in exchange for helping her wrangle three squirming children. In truth, she probably did not need the help but only took pity on my half-starved and dirty appearance. She gave me a thick slice of bread, slathered with creamy butter and topped with fresh tomato slices.
The Hungarians call the tomato paradicsom—paradise. Licking the bright, sweet juice from my chin, I understood why Eve would have risked her Eden for a fruit.
Tiny, stinging insects hung in swarms over the water, but aside from that small menace, the day seemed calm.
