Lord of Snow and Shadows

by Sarah Ash

  “Still thirsty?” the Drakhaoul asked slyly.

  “You . . . know I am. . . .”

  “And you think water will quench your thirst?”

  “What . . . else is there?”

  “Remember the young men and women who used to model for you at the College of Arts? Those naked limbs, so seductively posed, that you sketched in Life Class, day after day? Remember the tantalizingly sweet scent of their fragrant flesh?”

  Gavril remembered the burnished light of Smarnan summer gilding flame-haired Amalia as she posed for the students, remembered freckled throat and shoulders, stippled like tiger lilies, yet so soft, so smooth to the touch. . . .

  “Amalia . . .”

  “You’re dying, Gavril. A slow, agonizing death.”

  “Dying . . . ?” Gavril repeated. His own voice seemed so faint, so far away.

  “If you want to live, you must replenish yourself. You know what you need. Go, take it.”

  “No,” Gavril whispered, knowing only too well what it meant. “I can’t do it. Don’t make me—”

  There came the metallic grating sound of a key turning in the lock. The door opened.

  A girl stood in the doorway.

  Kiukiu blinked, eyes watering at the stench filling the tower room; vomit and hot pitch mingled into a dry, burning vapor.

  Lord Gavril lay in the slimed shreds of his torn clothes, hair fouled with his own vomit. Her first instinct was to back away—and yet she forced herself to confront it. It was not as if she hadn’t seen the like before, especially on winter solstice nights when the druzhina drank themselves stupid on Oleg’s home-distilled spirits. Was it his fault that he was so sick? She took a tentative step into the room.

  “Kiukiu?” The voice was barely recognizable as his; a smoke-dry whisper, seared by internal fires too intense for her to imagine. “Go away. For God’s sake, go away.”

  So he was ashamed that she should see him in this state. At least that meant he was no longer possessed by the Drakhaoul.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said, forcing the unwanted tremor from her voice. It was time to be practical. She had brought a bucket of hot water, clean linen, and soap from the kitchen.

  “You mustn’t come near me.” He tried to move farther away, drawing himself into a corner. “I . . . I’m not yet . . . in control . . . of myself. . . .”

  “That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she said, going closer. “I’ve cleaned up after the men here many times before. Though if you were Ivar or Semyon, I’d tell you to go stick your head under the water pump for a half hour or so.”

  “You . . . don’t understand. . . .” He kept shaking his head.

  “Hush, now.” Kiukiu immersed one of the linen cloths in the hot soapy water, wrung it out, and, kneeling beside him, began to wipe his face with gentle yet firm strokes. The soiled shirt was so badly ripped there was little to do but peel the last tatters from his shoulders.

  “There,” she said briskly, as if speaking to a sick child, “that’s better, isn’t it?”

  He sat huddled up, knees drawn to his chest, shuddering at the touch of the hot cloth as if he had a fever. His breathing came hard and fast and his eyes gleamed, blue-bright as starfire, under dark-bruised lids.

  “There’s still time,” he said hoarsely. “You can still go. Please, Kiukiu, please go.”

  She hesitated, hearing the urgency in his voice.

  “You want to be alone. But perhaps it’s not good for you to be alone.”

  “Alone?” A bitter laugh escaped his lips. “But I shall never be alone now. Not until I die.”

  She sat back on her heels, looking at him uncertainly. The dry laughter was tinged with scorn. Maybe they were right and this was not the same Gavril she had known. . . .

  “You mean . . . ?”

  “Drakhaoul,” he said. “That’s what it calls itself. That’s what you saw. My own dark daemon.”

  His eyes still gleamed in the darkness: blue, dangerous. They were no longer human eyes but weirdly striated, enameled cobalt glinting with veins of molten gold. Why had she not noticed before?

  “Daemons can be cast out,” she said defiantly. “Why don’t you let me try?”

  “You?” A look of hope flickered briefly across his drawn face, and for a moment she glimpsed again something of the Gavril she remembered—but deeply hurt and painfully vulnerable. Then just as swiftly, it was gone. “No. It’s no use. It’s too late for me, as it was for my father. It’s made itself a part of me; it’s gone too deep.”

  “Is that you talking, Lord Gavril,” she said, “or the daemon?”

  He did not reply, but she heard him draw in a long, thin breath between gritted teeth, as though still in pain.

  “What’s wrong?” She laid her hand on his shoulder; his skin was burningly hot to the touch. She snatched her fingers away as if they had been singed.

  “Ahh.” He shook his head, eyes squeezed shut, hands clenched into fists as though trying to control a sudden spasm.

  “Lord Gavril, what’s wrong?”

  He doubled up, arms crossed, knees drawn up, hugging the pain into himself. Alarmed, she drew back, hardly able to bear seeing him suffering like this.

  “I’ll go get help.”

  “Yes . . .”

  She rose to her feet and hurried across the room. But at the door she stopped, looking back. She saw him lying slumped on the floor, and she knew what she had to do.

  She went back over to him, kneeling beside him, raising his head till she could support it against her breast.

  “Why . . . have you come back?” he whispered.

  “I know what you need,” she said simply.

  “No, Kiukiu.” He tried to push her away. “I’ve little control left. I don’t want to hurt you—”

  “I’m young, I’m strong. Let me help you.”

  He turned his face away from her. “No. I can’t do it. I won’t.”

  “Gavril,” she said, gently touching his face, running one fingertip across his lips as if to silence his protests. There. She had dared to say his name as if they were equals.

  And suddenly his eyes glimmered bright, blue wildfire in the gathering shadows. His taloned fingers gripped her shoulders. He reared up and pressed his mouth to hers. She tasted the flicker of fire on his tongue, felt the scorching heat of his body against hers. The swiftness, the violence of his response caught her off guard, and she felt a flutter of panic overwhelm her.

  Visions of past, dead Drakhaon’s Brides clustered in the shadows of her mind. Tender white bodies streaked with traceries of living scarlet; dark, dead eyes staring warningly at her . . .

  But wasn’t this what she’d always wanted? To be his?

  “Drink. Take what you need from her.” The smoke-dry voice burned through Gavril’s skull, searing away all rational thought. “Do you want to die? Without her blood, you’ll die, a horrible, protracted death, starved of nourishment. And I can’t let you die.”

  Gavril’s dry lips moved from her mouth to her throat, seeking the sweet succor the Drakhaon promised.

  One taste of the blood leaking from her broken flesh—and it was a cooling, healing sweetness that flooded his parched body with life-giving moisture. He could not help himself. He had to have more.

  “More,” breathed the Drakhaoul.

  And then he felt Kiukiu shudder in his arms. He raised his head from her breast and saw that her eyes were rolling upward. She slumped fainting against him, her unbound hair soft against his chest like a skein of gold silk, pale autumn gold.

  And suddenly he was shocked back into himself.

  “Kiukiu?” He said her name, but she did not respond.

  “You have not taken enough.”

  “I’ve taken too much!” There was blood on his lips. Her blood. What had he done? Weak as he was, he couldn’t bear to begin to imagine what obscene act he had committed.

  “She’s given herself to you. Willingly. Why won’t you take what’s yours?” />
  “No!” Gavril, faint and sick, tried to block out the Drakhaoul’s serpent voice.

  “Take her.” Gavril felt the Drakhaoul rear up within his mind, its dark puissance threatening to overmaster his will.

  “I can’t!” Gavril cried out with the last of his strength. “And you can’t make me. I won’t be your puppet any longer!”

  “I must survive! And I need your body to do so. . . .”

  The room spun. There was a rushing sound in his ears; he was losing consciousness. Yet one simple truth suddenly burned bright in his heart.

  “I . . . I love her,” he said in a whisper. “And . . . I won’t let you destroy her. Without her I’d be . . . nothing.”

  “Then . . . be . . . nothing.”

  Nothing. Gavril, exhausted by the battle of wills, felt himself sucked slowly down into a vortex of blackness.

  Nothing . . .

  A cold dawn, chill as melting ice, woke Gavril, and for a while he lay staring up at the lead-lighted window, wondering bemusedly where he was and why most of the little glass panes were broken.

  Fragments of broken glass were scattered on the floor beside him. And disjointed fragments tumbled through the void of his memory.

  The kastel was under siege. Tielen cannons and mortars had blasted the towers, shaking the building to its foundations. . . .

  He listened, holding his breath. There was no sound of cannon fire now.

  Was it all over?

  He looked around him and saw that he was in his father’s study with Kiukiu sprawled across him.

  “Kiukiu?” he whispered. He levered himself up on his elbows, until he could touch her hair, her face.

  Had the tower been hit by the cannon fire, and they both been knocked unconscious? He was almost naked; the blast must have been very violent to have stripped his clothes from his body. And Kiukiu . . . beneath the curtain of her long golden hair, he saw that her simple linen shift was torn.

  “Kiukiu!” he said again, louder this time. Why didn’t she reply? She lay so heavily across him, a dead weight, almost as if she were—

  “Kiukiu!” He leaned forward and lifted her, turning her gently over. Her head lolled back against his shoulder, and as her white breasts and neck were exposed, he saw to his horror the ragged wound, still leaking beads of blood, shockingly red against the pallor of her skin.

  Soft white flesh, so fragrantly sweet to kiss, to taste . . .

  “Oh no, no, no . . .” he murmured. For now it seemed to him that ragged gash was where he had pressed his burning mouth, seeking succor.

  He put his ear to her lips, listening for the faintest hint of a breath, cradling her limp body close.

  What have I done?

  CHAPTER 42

  A white dove wings through the dark woods of Malusha’s dreams, white as innocence.

  “Come to me, little pretty one,” Malusha croons, raising her hands to catch the dove.

  But before it can alight, eyes gleam blue in the darkness. Some creature of darkness comes writhing out from the thorn-shadows and seizes the dove in its claws, rending it, tearing its soft flesh.

  “No!” cries Malusha, but it is too late. One bloodied white feather flutters down to her. . . .

  “Kiukiu!” Malusha awoke, sitting bolt upright in her chair. Lady Iceflower, who had been roosting on the back of the chair, gave a squawk of surprise and flew straight up into the air.

  “She’s in trouble,” Malusha said to Lady Iceflower. “I can sense it. Fond, foolish girl, just like her father. Drawn to that cursed House of Nagarian against all her grandmother’s warnings . . .” All the while she was muttering to the owl, she was busying herself, pulling a thick shawl about her shoulders, forcing her calloused feet into her walking boots, picking up the gusly in its embroidered bag and slinging it over her shoulder.

  The white dove struggles in the coils of a glittering serpent, its torn feathers strewn about the dark, dank leaves like snow. Its wings flutter feebly as it struggles for life. . . .

  “If he’s laid one finger on my grandchild, I’ll send him and his daemon straight to hell!”

  Gavril laid Kiukiu gently down on his bed. The embroidered bedspread was covered in a film of plaster dust, but he slid it away from underneath her, pulling out the fine linen sheet beneath to cover her.

  All the glass had been shattered in the diamond windowpanes, and the bedchamber was freezing cold.

  He knelt beside her, at a loss to know what to do, uselessly stroking her limp hand, talking, as if talking could bring her back.

  “Why didn’t you listen to me, Kiukiu? I told you to get out. Why did you stay?”

  Her skin was so white it looked almost translucent. White as death.

  Tears welled in his eyes, tears hot with grief and guilt.

  I’ve killed her.

  The sight of her pale, still face blurred as the tears spilled over, trickling down his cheeks.

  He leaned forward, blinded by his tears, and gently kissed her chill mouth.

  Was that a faint breath escaping her lips, so faint it was hardly even a sigh?

  “Kiukiu.” He called her name, his voice tremulous with hope. “Oh, Kiukiu, please open your eyes—”

  Suddenly he knew there was one thing only to be done. No matter what the cost to himself, he must see it through.

  “If this is what it means to be Drakhaon, then I want no more of it!”

  But first he must make his mind a blank, for if it once sensed his intention, it would seek to prevent him with all its guile and power.

  He hastily pulled on a jacket and breeches and then wrapped the sheet gently, tenderly around Kiukiu.

  Then, gathering her up in his arms, he climbed the broken stair to the roof of the Kalika Tower.

  Below, he became vaguely aware of distant shouts, of people pointing upward.

  Malusha. He was taking her to Malusha the swiftest way he knew how.

  He walked to the edge, feeling the wind cold on his face.

  Don’t fail me now, Drakhaoul.

  Closing his eyes, holding Kiukiu tightly to him, he drew in a deep breath.

  And stepped off into the void.

  “Malusha?” The abbot peered down at her in the dreary early-morning light.

  Malusha cursed under her breath. Why did Yephimy have to interfere? She was sure he’d try to stop her.

  “Where are you going so early?”

  “To Kastel Drakhaon. Kiukiu needs me.”

  “Let us take you there in the cart. It’s a long walk.”

  Malusha gave a snort. “I can’t wait for the cart to be made ready. She needs me now!” And then she stopped, sensing an unfamiliar presence approaching, faster than a stormwind. She shivered, feeling a sudden unmistakable tingle of warning in her bones.

  “What’s wrong?” the abbot asked, bending down to steady her.

  The sky grew dark.

  “Too late now, abbot!” Malusha gazed up into the turbulent sky. “He’s here.”

  The Drakhaon circled the white cluster of monastery buildings, searching for somewhere to alight. Below, monks appeared, running around, pointing up at him. Faint voices and cries of alarm carried up to him as he swooped lower.

  Holding the unconscious girl close, he came to a halt in front of Saint Sergius’ chapel, claws scraping over the frozen ground.

  Monks surrounded him. Some threw holy water at him, others brandished spades, axes, hoes, and improvised weapons snatched from their daily chores to defend the holy shrine.

  “Fools.” The dry voice of the Drakhaoul echoed faintly through Gavril’s mind. “Do they think they can defeat us with gardening tools?”

  “Don’t attack!” Yephimy came striding through the throng, staff in hand. “Can’t you see it’s got the girl?”

  “Kiukiu!” A little old woman pushed past the abbot and planted herself in front of him, arms akimbo. Her eyes glittered with fury in her wrinkled face; she alone was not afraid of him. “Give me my grandchild, Drakhaon!”<
br />
  “Destroy the old woman.”

  “No.” Gavril struggled to regain control of his mind. His thoughts were clouded in smoke and shadow. Yet he knew there was a reason he had come this far. His salvation, his immortal soul depended upon it. “I must talk with her.”

  “The old woman is dangerous. Powerful. She seeks to harm us.”

  “Ma . . . Malusha. Help me,” Gavril gasped aloud. “Help me rid myself of this daemon—”

  “Gavril!” The Drakhaoul let out a roar of warning that seared his mind like a lightning spear. It knew now what he intended. It would fight him all the way.

  “Give me my grandchild,” repeated Malusha, standing before him, arms outstretched.

  Kiukiu. He still held her in his arms. White and gold, her aura, gold and white, a pale flame burning so faintly . . .

  He knew then there was a chance, but he must hazard all to save her life.

  “Destroy her.”

  “No.” With all his strength, Gavril locked his mind to the voice of the Drakhaoul. He willed himself to shrug off the dark-winged daemon-body that imprisoned him. He must slough it off as if he were a snake shedding its skin, a dragonfly emerging from its larval case.

  “Kiukiu,” he said aloud. He strove to keep her brightness of spirit illuminating his mind, forcing the cloaking shadows to melt away from him, the great wings to fold into his body. The dark haze of heat clouding his vision dispersed.

  He collapsed to his knees—a man again, still holding Kiukiu close.

  “Quick!” he gasped. “I haven’t long.”

  Yephimy dropped his staff and bent to take Kiukiu from him, gathering her up in his strong arms.

  “Bring Lord Gavril to the shrine,” Malusha said to the monks, “and tie him down. The daemon will fight us every inch of the way.”

  A thunderclap resounded through Gavril’s mind. Pain stars of blue and black glittered in his brain. Gavril clapped his hands to his head, fighting to keep the Drakhaoul from regaining control.