His eyes meet mine. The scar on his cheek from the spot of oil looks raw, ugly, as if still freshly made, though it is months old. “Please, Echo. Please don’t do this. Don’t let her trap you. Leave me. Save yourself. Please.”
“I am here to save you,” I tell him fiercely, “and I’m not leaving till I’ve done it.”
“But I’m not worth saving. Echo, you still don’t understand—”
“Come to the center of my circle,” thunders the Wolf Queen.
I lead Hal the few steps to where she’s pointing; he leans heavily on my shoulders. He feels fragile beneath my touch—brittle, impossibly old. And if what he and the Wolf Queen have said is true, he is old, more than four hundred years. “Echo, please!” Tears drip down his cheeks.
The moon is looking full into the Wolf Queen’s court. I have the feeling that it’s truly watching us, interested in the choices we make amidst the dust and the trees.
Hal faces me, standing a little straighter, a little grimmer than before.
I take both of his hands in mine; they’re cold, but they feel strong. “For the next three days, I’m holding on to you, Halvarad Wintar. And then you will be free.”
“What magic is stronger than hers?”
“The magic that made the world.” My voice cracks on the next word: “Love.”
He smooths his thumb across my cheek and smiles at me, the sad, hopeless smile of a man who has lost everything. He’s accepting my choice. “Thank you for coming to save me. My dear Lady Echo.”
“I’m just glad it’s not too late, Lord Wolf.”
He smiles again, and this time it’s a true smile.
From my peripheral, I see the Wolf Queen pacing toward us, and I have the sudden realization that this is not going to be as simple as holding Hal’s hands for three days. The Wolf Queen is bent on destroying us both—if she didn’t think it an impossible task, she wouldn’t have accepted my challenge.
“Don’t let go,” says Hal.
“Never.” I tighten my grip around his fingers.
And then the Wolf Queen raises her hands to the sky and begins to speak to the moon, a liquid, chanting language that seethes with fire and reminds me of the North Wind’s stories.
Hal begins to scream and shake, his eyes rolling back in his head. I slide one hand up his arm, my fingers digging through his thin shirtsleeve. He screams as if he’s being tortured with hot irons, and suddenly he’s burning, flames bursting raw from his skin, engulfing both of us.
And now I’m screaming, too. We both sink to our knees as the fire rages round. I can feel it eating away at my flesh, I can smell the stink of it. My hair catches fire and I am burning, burning, and yet I am not consumed. Hal weeps, ragged, rough, and anger cuts through my pain.
“You can’t kill us!” I cry out. “You don’t have the power!”
The fire burns and burns. I am in agony and Hal is worse. He shudders and shakes in my arms. His flesh chars black. His screams fill up the world, and mine are tangled with them.
But I don’t let him go. I cradle him in my arms, rebuking the fire and cursing the Wolf Queen. The flames slide away from me, but not from him. My pain evaporates. His does not.
He burns and burns and burns, but does not die. I think he will burn forever, or turn all to ash and blow away on the wind. I will not be able to hold him then. He will be lost to me.
I cling to him tighter than before. He screams and screams and weeps into my hair.
The fire abates, so slowly I don’t realize it’s happening until it’s suddenly gone, leaving Hal cracked and feverish in my arms. But he isn’t burnt to nothing, isn’t scarred beyond recognition. His screams fade to whimpers, and he’s trembling and human and somehow still whole.
“An illusion.” I wipe the tears from his eyes even as my own well up. “Only an illusion. Like the ones in our book-mirrors.”
He shudders and shudders. “It isn’t the worst she can do—” But his words are cut off in another cry of pain.
His body convulses. His bones crack and his skin tears apart and he transforms into a giant serpent, sinuous and black. He writhes and shrieks and I hold on, hold on, though his scales are sword-sharp and they slice into my hands. Hot, slippery blood runs down my arms. I dig my fingers under his scales, deeper and deeper, down into his flesh. I won’t let him go.
He strikes without warning, fangs biting deep into my shoulder, and violent, white-hot pain sears through me. I’m screaming again, the world white around me, but somewhere in the haze of agony I remember what I am, and what he is.
I screw my eyes shut. I don’t let go.
I feel him begin to change beneath me, and I open my eyes to see him growing larger and larger and larger, until I find my hands wrapped around the claw of a giant monster, with the shoulders and horns of an ox, the body of a lion, the feet of an eagle. His eyes glow fire red, and in one hand he wields a whip made of stars. He reeks of death and I am sick with fear.
The monster looks at me and laughs as he tries to shake me off his claw. But I wrap my whole body around his foot, tucking my head down between his claws, my feet cinched tight around his ankle joint. He cracks the whip and the tail hits the back of my head; excruciating light explodes in my vision. The fire and the pain tunnels into my mind, deeper and deeper, driving me mad.
But under the agony pulses a single, desperate thought: don’t let go, don’t let go, don’t let go.
The fire fades a little, and I open my eyes to see Hal again, kneeling on the forest floor, weeping and raging in his anguish. My hand is curled about his wrist. He lifts his face to mine, and there’s hatred in his eyes.
“What do you want with me?” he demands. “She-witch. Devil’s daughter. Beast of the pit!”
The words cut deep but I fight hard against them. “I’m not leaving you. No matter what you say to me, I’m not leaving you.”
“Did you think I wanted you to come and rescue me in this foolish way? I was glad to escape you, escape that dreary house and your horrid company. To return here, to the Queen and her daughter who alone truly care for me. You are worthless. Wretched. Ugly. I cannot stand to look at you.”
Something cracks deep inside. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts so much. “How can you be so cruel?”
He tips his head back and laughs, laughs and laughs, and I think I hate him, but I feel the pulse of his heart beneath the skin at his wrist and I remember—
This is not Hal. This is her.
And I don’t let go.
Then he’s screaming as his bones once more break apart and feathers burst sharp from his skin.
He transforms into a great black carrion bird, and his talons pierce the skin beneath my collar bone, driving like a knife to the heart. I shriek in pain as he beats his wide wings and hurtles us both into the sky. His claws tear through me and I scrabble desperately to hang onto his leg as the world spirals away below us.
He flies, up and up and up, toward a tall white cliff where the moon shows its silver face just beyond.
He dashes me against the rock and pain explodes in my shoulders, my back, my legs. I hear a sharp snap, and a scream tears out of me. The agony is all-encompassing, filling the world.
But a thread of my being remains inside, a small voice whispering don’t let go, don’t let go, don’t let go.
And I obey.
Then suddenly we’re back in the wood again, crouching together on the forest floor, and the pain is gone. Rain falls, somewhere far away. Or no—close; I feel it sweet on my skin.
“Echo—” gasps Hal.
But the Wolf Queen isn’t finished yet. Once more his body breaks apart and he transforms into a huge white mass before my eyes: a giant arctic bear, with claws as long as my hand and teeth bigger than the stalactites in the ice cave.
He opens his mouth and roars, swiping at me with his free paw—I’m clinging desperately to his other one. Hal’s claws rake deep into my back, and wetness leaks from the raw lines of fire in my skin. I sob for brea
th. The rain around us now is sharp as needles.
And I can still hear the Wolf Queen’s song-spell, tangled in the wind.
Everything in me screams to let go, to end the pain, to be free of it. Everything but that tiny thread that remembers.
I hold on to him, as his claws tear into my flesh, as he lowers his great head and sinks his teeth into my shoulder.
I weep and weep. I can’t stop the cries of pain ripping out of me.
But I listen to that quiet thread.
And I don’t let go.
Hal changes, again and again and again.
He’s a dragon, a demon, a fish with slicing scales. He’s a scorpion, a spider, a creature made of wind that bites like glass and tears raging at my skin. The creatures blur all together into a haze of anguish and torment and pain. Blood blears my eyes. I long for release.
But still my heart beats within me: don’t let go, don’t let go, don’t let go.
And somehow I am strong enough to hold on to him.
And then he shifts into a form I know very well: the great white wolf.
I gasp as he crouches there, growling at me, my hand tight around his back left leg. I can feel his scars, the marks left by the wolf trap I tried so hard to free him from.
I breathe hard, desperate, afraid.
He twists and leaps at me, and I’m barely able to keep hold of him as his teeth sink into my arm.
The pain cuts down to the bone and a cry rips out of me. My throat is raw from screaming. My mind is numb with pain.
“Hal. Hal, please stop.” This form hurts more than all the others.
Or so I think—until he shifts into my father.
I’m so startled to see Peter Alkaev staring at me in the wood that I almost do let go, right then, but I stop myself just in time. I’m holding his hand, something I haven’t done with my real father since I was a very young child. It feels strange.
“I know you’re Hal,” I say aloud, more for my own benefit than the Queen’s latest creation’s.
My father smiles at me. There’s flour dusted in his beard, and he smells like cinnamon. “You know I care nothing for you, child. Even before you ruined your face, you killed my darling wife, and resigned me to an existence of misery. If not for you, I would never have lost money at the shop. It was your curse that did it. That made everyone hate us. That made crops fail and rains come out of season. You are devil-touched. I should have left you in a snowbank. You would have frozen to death, and I would have been rid of you.”
His words cut deep, though I know, I know they are the Queen’s words, not my father’s. He does not attack me as the creatures did, but still I feel pain—every pulse.
“We have stopped mentioning you at home,” he continues. “We did it the moment you went away. Peace came into our lives again. I cannot believe how you fooled us into keeping you all those years. Donia saw the truth, but I wouldn’t listen. Now we don’t need you. Rodya is married. Something that could never have happened to you. And Donia is with child and I thank God every day I never have to see you again.”
“Stop!” I cry, beating at his chest with my free hand. “Stop! I know it isn’t you.”
He grins, his eyes flickering red. “Why do you ask me to stop? Because you know I speak the truth and you are too water-willed to hear it? Foolish child. You are nothing. You have always been nothing, and that is what you will be forever.”
“Stop it, stop it, stop it!” I scream at him.
He just laughs and laughs, and I know it is the Wolf Queen’s laughter, but I still can’t bear it.
And then suddenly he is Hal again, and his mouth presses soft and warm against mine and he’s wrapping his arms around my shoulders and clinging to me as I’m clinging to him.
I sob into his chest and his tears fall into my hair and I can’t bear it.
“Echo, Echo, Echo,” he whispers. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
I sag against him, still shuddering and scared. There’s tension in his arms; it isn’t over yet.
I hear the Wolf Queen’s step and look up at her. She stands cool and silver in the moonlit wood, and I realize the sudden silence is the absence of her spell-song. I regard her in exhaustion and fear, my arms still locked around Hal.
“You have done tolerably well so far.” Her tone is aloof. “But I don’t think you know everything.” She’s holding another of the red flowers from her throne, and she strokes its petals thoughtfully. It trembles in her hands, and I have the feeling that, to her, I am nothing more than another flower, for her to toy with as long as it amuses her, then discard when she grows tired of the temporary diversion. “Does she, Hal?”
He turns his head to look at her, and I feel again his own fragility, the weight of the curse stretching him too far, too long. “I don’t know what you mean, your majesty,” he answers softly. But I can sense he’s lying.
“Don’t you?” The Queen’s lips turn up in a momentary, humorless smile. “Well, let me remind you of the terms of your enchantment. The terms that she agreed to, when she came to live in your house for a year. What really happened when she broke those terms.” The Wolf Queen steps slowly around us, her skirt sweeping the forest floor behind her as she walks. I have the sudden idea that she fashioned it from ice and snow, with wind for thread. “I think you should tell her.”
Hal sits a little back from me. I can feel his heartbeat echoing in our joined palms. He doesn’t speak.
The Queen keeps circling us. “Let me rephrase. Tell her, Halvarad. Tell her exactly what you made her agree to. Tell her what would have happened if she didn’t light that lamp. Tell her.”
He doesn’t look at me, just stares at the ground and shudders like he’s breaking to pieces.
“TELL HER!” thunders the Queen.
I can feel the shiver of magic pass between them. She’s using the enchantment to command him. He cannot help but obey.
“And look at her, when you do,” she adds.
His chin jerks up, against his will. His eyes are wet. The scar from the spot of oil is stark against his pale skin. “Echo.” His words sound strangled, torn from his lips. “If—if you would have waited. If you wouldn’t have lit the lamp—”
The Wolf Queen is laughing, and begins picking up the threads of her spell-song once more. I sense its rising power.
“You would have been free,” I say. “I know. Instead I doomed you to come back here. Back to her.”
He nods, tears leaking down his cheeks. “It’s true, yes, it’s true. But Echo, all the things I told you. About being a caretaker for the house. About seeing your family again—” He wants to look away but he can’t, and his whole body trembles with his resistance to the spell. “If you hadn’t lit that lamp, I would have been free. But—but she would have taken you instead. That was the deal. The only way to break my curse. Your life for mine. That was what I asked of you. That is what you agreed to, though you didn’t know it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
HAL’S PULSE BEATS BENEATH MY FINGERTIPS: erratic, unstable.
His eyes still meet mine, but I glance away. I can’t bear it. My breath is ragged and wild in my chest, my whole body sears with the pain of everything I’ve endured. I can’t bear it. Can’t bear it.
“He never wanted you,” hisses the Queen. “He never loved you. He was just trying to save his own worthless skin.”
“No.”
“Tell her!” the Queen commands.
Hal’s wretched voice, torn from his lips without his consent: “It’s true. I’m sorry, Echo. I’m so sorry—but it’s true.”
I stare at my hand, wrapped around his wrist. I am collapsing inward, falling through a jagged crack in the ice, dark water closing over my head and sealing me into oblivion. In the service of the Queen there will be peace. Forgetfulness. When I belong to her, body and soul, I won’t remember him—won’t remember this.
I am outside myself as I watch my fingers loosen their hold. They move so slowly, too slowly, as if my o
wn body rebels against me.
“Echo,” breathes Hal, “Echo, no.” And he jerks himself close to me, his leg grazing my foot as he grabs my head with both his hands, fingertips piercing into my skull. “Let her see.” He says it like a prayer. “Let her remember.”
Light explodes behind my eyes and pain bursts inside of me. I fracture into a thousand different pieces, spin out and out and out, beyond sight and sound and breath. But not beyond feeling. Not beyond pain. Somewhere I think I’m screaming.
An image unfolds in the nothingness around me: a woman lying in bed in a square room, a fire burning on a hearth, two men standing over her. One is my father, much younger than I’ve ever seen him. He’s tall and thin; there is no silver in his beard. He’s crying.
The woman in the bed isn’t moving. There’s a baby cradled in her dead arms, a baby with blue eyes and dark hair and smooth, perfect skin.
The other man eases the baby from the woman and hands her—hands me—to my father. “I shall call you Echo,” he whispers, “because you have the echo of your mother’s strong heart. No one can ever take that from you.”
The image melts away like honey in hot tea and another uncurls to take its place: A dark-haired girl playing in a fort built of books in her father’s shop, laughing as a pile of them collapses on top of her. A dark-haired boy pulls her free and spins her in a circle before setting her firmly on her feet again. “Best put them back before Papa gets here!”
The girl and boy scramble to collect the books, slotting them expertly onto the shelves as though they’ve done this many times before.
Confusion swells hot and sharp inside of me. This girl is me, but not me. I remember this, and yet I can’t. Because this me is nine years old, and the skin on her face is as smooth and clear as the day she was born.
Impossible.
The strange, cruel not-memory fades into another: the me-who-can’t-be-me is several years older, sharing lunch with a crowd of children at school. She’s laughing and happy. She has friends. No one is throwing stones at her. No one is cursing her as the spawn of the Devil or crossing themselves.
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