Through the White Wood

by Jessica Leake

  “You make it seem so simple,” I said to Grigory, but he only gave me a single nod in answer.

  “Katya, can you freeze the tree?” the prince asked, and I looked at the enormous oak dubiously. I’d frozen buckets of water before, yes, and of course my cold fire could freeze anything, but I didn’t know how to release the necessary amount of power.

  “I’m afraid I would freeze everything else in the garden,” I said, “including you.”

  “If I may, Katya,” Ivan said, coming up beside me, his boots crunching in the snow. He held out his hand to me, and slowly, I put my hand in his. He closed his eyes and held my hand. I tried not to pull away. After a moment he said, “You have so much power—it’s like an endless, rushing waterfall. To freeze the tree Grigory has created, you’ll need a substantial amount of power, yet not as much as you’ve released in the past.”

  I nodded. “I’m not sure I’ve ever released only a moderate amount of power—only a very little, or torrential.”

  “Then what you must do is think of your power like a horse. So much energy and speed and power are contained within a horse—enough to throw a man, even injure or kill him—and yet a man can control it. Such is the ice within you. If you let it take the reins, it will gladly run freely, trampling all in its path.” He looked at me, gaze sharp beneath bushy brows. “But if you use the reins and your body to halt the horse, it will have no choice but to obey. If you imagine your power in the same way, you can learn to control it, just as you would learn to ride.”

  I decided not to tell them all at that moment that I could barely ride a horse, but I appreciated that Ivan was trying to help me.

  “If you lose control again,” the prince said, “then Ivan is here to stop you.”

  I thought of what Ivan had said in the throne room—that he’d barely been able to stop me when I’d released my power on the raiders. “And if he cannot?”

  “Then we’ll knock you unconscious,” Grigory said with a nasty smile, like he hoped it would end up that way.

  “You can do this, Katya,” Ivan said, patting my hand and stepping back.

  Part of me never wanted to access that type of power again, but another part—a darker part—wanted to feel the cold fire rushing from my palms, to feel the delicious warmth chase away the cold. I turned to the oak tree, its leaves fluttering in the wintry wind. My thoughts turned inward, and I could feel that well of power that Ivan had sensed within me, rushing through my veins and coating my skin in frost. If my power was like a horse, then it was a wild one, untamed and unwilling to submit to the bridle. I had one moment when I thought, I can do this, and then I released the cold fire, letting it pour from my palms.

  Flames of blue licked up the tree trunk, turning it to ice so cold cracks formed. The tree groaned as though it were a person, branches and leaves shaking as the cold fire spread. The temperature dropped still lower, and the cracks in the tree grew larger, until the whole thing splintered. In the next moment, it broke in half, the heavy, frozen boughs crashing toward the ground only to shatter on impact. And still the cold fire raged, flames dancing gleefully toward other trees, toward statues and fountains and benches. I tried to rein it in as Ivan had said, tried to call it back to me, but it continued unheeding.

  “Gosudar,” Grigory said in a panicked rush behind me, “we must take you away from here. You are in danger.”

  The cold fire continued to spread, pouring out of me like the waterfall Ivan had first compared it to. I didn’t dare turn around and look at the prince or any of the others—doing so would cause the fire to leap toward them hungrily, and not even Ivan would be able to stop it.

  “No,” the prince said as I fought against the torrential outpouring of cold fire. “I have faith in her.”

  “Take the reins, Katya,” Ivan said.

  The cold fire spread to tree after tree, freezing them solid and moving with blue tongues of flame over the already snowy ground to the palace walls, made of stone. I didn’t think the cold fire could freeze the stone; the garden, too, was surrounded by a massive stone wall. But it could certainly freeze and destroy everything within the walls. I had to gain control of it and stop the flow of fire—I was feeding it with my own power, and if I could but stop, then the blue flames would lose their momentum. It was what had happened before in my own village.

  “She will destroy the palace!” Grigory shouted.

  Suddenly, the ground trembled beneath me.

  “Stop this, Grigory,” the prince commanded, but whatever was happening continued.

  Wood burst from the earth all around me, like branches of a great tree that grew underground. They wrapped themselves around me, trapping me even as they froze under the onslaught of my cold fire. They began to tighten until I cried out, and I could hear the prince shouting, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying over the groaning of the branches that held me prisoner.

  Terrified Grigory would allow the branches to continue to wrap around me until I suffocated, I thought desperately of what Ivan had said. In my mind, I imagined my power as a great white horse, galloping unchecked across the snowy landscape. I added a bridle and reins and pulled back on them with everything I had within me. The branches groaned as they wrapped still tighter.

  “Grigory, so help me God, I will kill you if you do not stop,” the prince said, his voice cutting through the wood of the branches.

  I pulled back on the reins of the great white horse in my mind, and at last, the cold fire went out. The branches around me, frozen from their proximity to me and to my cold fire, shattered, and I crashed to the ground. Coughing and gasping for breath, I saw three faces: Grigory, brows drawn in determination; Ivan, full of concern; and the prince, whose expression was so murderous I began choking in fear.

  It was the prince, though, who helped me to my feet, who demanded that I tell him if I could breathe. If I was all right. I nodded, still unable to speak.

  The prince whirled on Grigory. “You could have killed her.”

  Grigory held up both hands in peace. “She had lost control—she could have killed you, Gosudar.”

  I didn’t understand the prince’s anger on my behalf, or how he could have possibly come to care for me—not only someone who was a peasant from a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, but also someone he’d just met. But then he made everything clear.

  “She is our only chance of defeating our enemy, and you nearly crushed her to death.” He looked to me after the words escaped his mouth as though he hadn’t meant to say so much.

  Foolish girl, I thought viciously. Of course he didn’t care about me. He cared about what I could do. As a weapon.

  I was disgusted that I’d been so willing to try to release my power here. That I’d actually believed I could control it. It was clear the prince had only sought me out to test my abilities, to see the power of the weapon he’d acquired.

  Grigory was continuing to offer paltry excuses to the prince when I slipped away, back toward the palace and my room . . . and away from the prince.

  “Katya,” Ivan called after me, but I refused to stop. He caught up to me when I reached the door to the palace. “Are you injured?” he asked. “I can have the healer come to your room.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said, already pushing open the door. “I need to rest.”

  But I knew what I really needed.

  I needed to find a way out of this palace and away from the prince.

  Chapter Seven

  ALONE IN MY ROOM, I WAS warm from the inside out, and as I stood before the fire blazing in the wide fireplace, tendrils of steam curled up from my skin. As my body warmed, pain followed: bruising all over my sides from where the branches had wrapped around me, and an aching soreness in my throat where I’d nearly been choked. I wasn’t sure if the blazing emotion I felt within me was anger at Grigory for attacking me in such a way or fear that the whole thing had nearly ended in disaster. For once, though, the painful stab of guilt didn’t follow. I’d called forth the
cold fire, but death hadn’t followed.

  It would have given me hope had it not been for the prince’s reaction. I looked around the room—elegant and richly furnished, just as the tent had been. I was being treated well only to gain my compliance in being used for his war, and I didn’t care that he’d said before he wouldn’t make me fight. I wasn’t so sure that, if I refused when put to the test, the prince would relent.

  I wasn’t so sure that I would be able to control my power enough to keep from killing them all—friend and foe.

  All too soon, the warm feeling inside me faded, chased away by my dark thoughts. Soon I could barely feel the heat from the fire. Exhaustion, too, lowered itself over my shoulders like a yoke. Besides the usual death toll, this was the cost of the cold fire: a terrible fatigue, such that I could barely hold my eyes open. It was because of this that the villagers had so easily caught and subdued me.

  I stumbled to the bed on stiff legs as the cold spread throughout my body. As I collapsed and gave in to the exhaustion, I thought of one of the only times I’d been ill that I could remember, and of the smell of herbs and the warm, rough hand of Babushka upon my forehead. As darkness rolled over me like a fog, tears fell from my eyes. I could see her in my mind, as clearly as if she was standing before me.

  Sleep, devotchka, she said. I will watch over you.

  And I did.

  I awoke hours later to a knock at my door. Blearily, I opened it to find Ivan waiting for me. He looked apologetic.

  “The prince has asked if you will join him for dinner.”

  Though my stomach once again reminded me it had been far too long since I’d last eaten, I shook my head. “I would rather rest tonight, Ivan. Could you thank Gosudar for me?”

  “You shouldn’t go to bed hungry,” he said. “It won’t be just you and Gosudar. The rest of us will be there—the members of his bogatyr with abilities.” Bogatyr was an interesting description of them. The prince thought of his guardsmen with abilities as knights? Still, I wasn’t yet recovered enough to face them all. I didn’t relish an evening full of Grigory’s malicious glances and the prince’s offhanded remarks on how I might best be used as a weapon.

  “Tomorrow, perhaps,” I said, and started to turn back to my room.

  His stern face looked disappointed. “The dining room is on the first floor if you change your mind.”

  I nodded and turned back to my room. After I heard his footsteps fade down the hall, I closed my door and leaned against it.

  I knew I had done the right thing. Better to be alone, better to not be drawn into more of the prince’s manipulations.

  Even if the memories of what I’d done began to pull at the edges of my mind again. Even if I missed Babushka and Dedushka so badly it gnawed inside me.

  I walked over to the window, which overlooked the river. The water below was frozen still, but soon it would thaw. The air was already losing some of its bite when the sun was high. Spring would follow, chasing away the cold.

  But not for me. For me, it was always winter. The cold was trapped inside me like the frozen river. Emotions threatened to crash over me: the aching loneliness, the piercing regret, the bleak sadness. But I let the cold spread to my heart, pushing away those feelings as a stone stands resolute against crashing waves.

  For far too long I fought against succumbing to self-pity, but then the growling of my stomach convinced me I had to at least go and seek out food from the kitchens if I wasn’t going to attend dinner with the others.

  I whirled around and walked to the door, and after a brief hesitation, I pulled it open.

  I nearly walked right into the prince.

  “Katya,” he said, eyebrows raised in surprise.

  For a moment, I was struck dumb. “Gosudar,” I finally said warily.

  His gaze swept over me, brows knitted as though concerned. He has to be sure his weapon is still functioning properly, I thought savagely. “Ivan said you would rather rest tonight than come to dinner, but that you hadn’t eaten. Did you change your mind?”

  “No, I was only going to seek out a bit of bread and cheese from the kitchen.”

  Once again, his gaze swept over me, lingering where I held my arm protectively over my tender ribs—the area the branches had squeezed the hardest. “You are injured,” he said, his eyes turning darker, until the gray looked almost black.

  “Just bruised and sore,” I admitted so he would stop looking at me in that way. “Enough so that I’d rather just stay in my room tonight, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind,” he said, and a little breath of relief escaped me. “What does bother me, though, is your choice of meal. If I had supper brought to your room, would you eat it with me?”

  The exhaustion lingered in my bones, my aching ribs begging me to lie down again. “I happen to like bread and cheese,” I said, and even I could hear the irritable tone creeping into my voice. Babushka would have given me a hard look, but the prince only grinned.

  “I feel badly that you were injured today, Katya,” the prince said, and the sincerity in his voice gave me pause. “It wasn’t my intention, and I would like to make it up to you.”

  “You weren’t the one who injured me.”

  His expression darkened. “Grigory has been dealt with.”

  My skin turned cold. Just how did this prince—one who so many had rumored to be cruel—deal with those who displeased him? Suddenly, the prospect of dinner with the prince didn’t seem worth arguing over anymore. “If you insist upon such a meal, then I won’t fight you.”

  “Good. Then I will ask Vera to bring the food up.”

  I nodded, already turning back to the sanctuary of my room. Once inside with the door safely shut again, I glanced down at my wrinkled rubakha. And when I touched my hair, I knew the pale locks had escaped their braid. Running my fingers through it, I braided it again, and then retrieved a turquoise headscarf from the trunk—perhaps the least ostentatious accessory in there, and even it had golden discs hanging from it that made a pleasant jingling sound as I shook it out—and fashioned a turban that kept my hair wrapped and secure.

  It wasn’t long before the prince returned, followed by Vera, who bustled in with a tray laden with food and mead. She’d brought a colorful quilt, too, and she laid it out before the fire. “If you bring a few of those cushions from the bed, you’ll have somewhere to sit, too,” she told me, and wordlessly, I did as she asked. She set the tray on a low table nearby and gestured for us both to sit. “I’ll stay to serve you,” she said, and I tried not to let my relief show. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep myself from turning into a frozen statue if I was left alone with the prince.

  “Thank you, Vera,” the prince said, and she bobbed her head once.

  Vera handed us both goblets of mead and bowls of shchi, and although it was essentially the same cabbage soup Babushka always cooked, this one was made with richer ingredients: venison, carrots, onions, basil, and garlic. It was warm and delicious, and I had to keep myself from drinking it down in one gulp. I hadn’t realized quite how desperately hungry I was until the soup touched my tongue.

  The prince ate slowly, as one who isn’t accustomed to ever being hungry does, his manner thoughtfully quiet. He didn’t say anything for a very long time, and it allowed me to relax enough to finish my soup. Vera took away our bowls—mine empty and the prince’s half-full—and laid out a plate of piroshki. They were baked golden brown, and as I took a bite of the soft crust, it yielded sautéed mushrooms and onions. It, too, was delicious. I took a sip of the sweet mead, to again pace myself from devouring everything like a wolf.

  When I’d finished two or three, the prince nodded his head toward the chest. “None of the clothing I sent was to your liking?”

  I stiffened, expecting him to be insulted, but instead, a grin played at his lips.

  “They were all very elegant and beautiful, but . . .” I trailed off, unsure what to say.

  “But . . . ?” he prompted, a single ey
ebrow arched.

  “I wasn’t sure any would be appropriate for travel, especially for someone . . . like me.”

  The amusement continued to tug at his lips, distracting me. “Then they weren’t to your liking.”

  I frowned at the twisting of my words. “That’s not what I said.”

  “Perhaps, but that’s what you meant.” The grin finally took over, prompting me to smile back in spite of myself.

  “I like the red coat very much,” I said, glancing at where it draped over a chair near my bed.

  He laughed, but it wasn’t the rich and full laugh of someone who laughs often. Rather, he almost seemed surprised by the outpouring of mirth himself. “It is a nice coat,” he said, the laughter dying back down to burning embers in his eyes. “It suits you.”

  “Thank you,” I said quietly, turning my focus once again to the food and the mead so that I wouldn’t have to look at him. I couldn’t decide what I thought of him, and that made me nervous.

  We ate in silence again for a time, but then I finally asked the question that had been circling in my mind since I arrived. “This war,” I said, glancing up from my goblet of mead. “I’ve known there have been whispers of unrest in the land, and that you had been amassing an army, but I suppose in my ignorance I hadn’t thought the threat was so imminent.”

  He shifted on the quilt with one arm resting on his knee. “That isn’t because of your supposed ignorance—I’ve intentionally hidden how dire the situation is to prevent mass panic. The Drevlians and Novgorodians, once our allies, have now joined forces against us. They make weak attempts at peace, but in the end, we will have no other choice but to fight.

  “I told you before that our enemy’s element is earth, and they have gathered the most powerful earth wielders the world has ever known. In comparison, I have an army at my command, but it is comprised of humble soldiers incapable of stopping an earth wielder. Kharan is skilled at espionage, Ivan at negating power; Boris has unnatural strength; Grigory has a minimal amount of earth wielder power.” He paused and looked at me. “And then there’s you.”