by Rosalyn Eves
Exhaustion crashed over me, and I yawned. “At this moment I do not particularly care what you do with me, so long as you let me sleep.” I’d figure something out in the morning, I thought muzzily, crawling toward the lidérc to share her blanket.
“I’ve already lost so much time.” Emilija’s words were sharp with impatience.
“I have climbed two mountains and narrowly escaped death today. I have not slept a wink. Unless you mean to tie me to a horse and drive me to Vienna, I will sleep. In any case,” I said, “these horses are not fit to be ridden until they’ve rested.”
“Fine. Sleep. But we’ll be off by afternoon.”
I scarcely heard her. I was already drifting away.
* * *
It’s astonishing what a few solid hours of rest and some bracing cold water can accomplish. By the time Emilija roused us, and I had splashed water on my face, I felt almost myself again. And I had a few ideas.
The lidérc watched me. The blood at her temple had been washed away, and her ankle was neatly bandaged. “I challenged the soldier to battle to set you free,” she said, nodding at Emilija, who stood some distance away currying the horses. “But she refused when she saw that I was injured.” Emilija either could not hear us or was doing a very good job of pretending she could not, as she did not once look at us. Her father would not have seen an injured praetherian as grounds for mercy. She had a sense of honor. I could use that.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
The lidérc shrugged. “I know.”
I stood up, swallowing a string of distinctly unladylike phrases as my bruised body registered aches in places I was not aware one could ache. On the plus side, Emilija had not bothered to bind me, as she had before. She must have been very sure of her capture.
“I could still run,” I said, approaching her, walking slowly so I did not betray how much it hurt to move.
She did not look at me but continued brushing the lidérc’s horse. “You did not leave me behind when I was injured, and I am your enemy. You would not leave behind a friend.”
“You said my friend was free to go.”
A tiny smile danced about Emilija’s lips. “So I told her. But she, curiously, has refused to leave you. And so here we are.”
I looked back at the lidérc with raised eyebrows. “I thought surely you would stay to help Mátyás. And what of Bahadır?”
“The satyr’s attack makes it clear that the praetheria escaped the blocked cave. I would guess from Bahadır’s disappearance that they have taken both him and Mátyás somewhere, and I am more likely to find clues to their destination in Vienna than here in these mountains. Besides, Mátyás does not need my help so much as you do—and he would not be pleased to hear that I had let a strange soldier take you back to Vienna to be killed.”
I sighed. She was likely right. “A pity that Emilija killed the satyr, or we might have asked him.”
“I’m sorry my efforts to save your life inconvenienced you,” Emilija said, brushing more aggressively. The horse skittered away, and she murmured an apology to it.
“Your efforts to see me hanged inconvenience me more,” I said. “If I am still to be executed for my cousin’s death, you should know that he is not dead.” I rather admired how neatly I’d phrased that: no mention that I had killed Mátyás, or that he’d been brought back to life. Only that he now lived.
“Why did you not say so before?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Can this be proved?”
“I’ve seen him,” the lidérc said, limping toward us. She paused, her face taut with pain, and put her arm across one of the horses to support some of her weight.
“You might have seen him too,” I said to Emilija, thinking of the first time I saw Mátyás after his death. He had come upon us just in time, after Vasilisa had trapped us with her wolves. “He is táltos. He fought with Vasilisa as a bear just as you passed out.”
Emilija’s frown deepened. “I…might remember that. Certainly, I do not think you should be executed for a crime you did not commit. But I am not the courts—my duty is only to take you back. Someone else must stand in judgment.”
“If you take me back as a prisoner, the archduchess will not let me live.”
“You do not know that.” Emilija cocked her head, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Indeed, the archduchess might welcome you. Her son is dying.”
I blinked. “Franz Joseph?” Impossible. I had danced with him only weeks before. He was young and strong and flush with health.
“He fell sick just after that masquerade ball where you were charged. A spell of some sort. The archduchess has offered enough wealth to buy a small kingdom to anyone who can break the spell. So far, no one has succeeded.”
Nausea washed over me, making me light-headed. I remembered that night vividly: Vasilisa transforming me into a vision of winter and saying she hoped I’d break a man’s heart. And then Franz Joseph had behaved so oddly, acting cold and distant when I first arrived and then drawing me to him in a frenzy, kissing me as though he were possessed. Or ensorcelled. Any good student of fairy tales knew that kisses were untrustworthy magic. They could cure one’s true love—but they could curse just as easily. Had I brought this illness on Franz Joseph?
Emilija continued, watching my face carefully. “You break spells, yes? If you heal him, you might name your own reward—perhaps even a pardon.”
“It’s a good idea,” the lidérc said, surprising both of us. “And not only for the young man. You might use the archduchess’s gratitude to turn the war. This is not a war any of us can win. Should Hungary somehow manage to stand against Austria and Croatia and Romania, she will fall to the praetheria. And if your armies unite against the praetheria, they might win. But at what cost to human and praetherian alike?”
The war. In the tumult of the last few weeks—fleeing for my life, being captured first by Emilija and then by Vasilisa, and then our frantic search for Noémi—I’d mostly ignored the war, except as it pertained to Gábor. The lidérc’s words made me remember, reluctantly, how wide this web of violence stretched. Less than six months after Hungary had been granted independence from Austria, Austria had begun to regret that freedom. The Hapsburgs (most particularly, Archduchess Sophie) had encouraged the minorities in Hungary—Romanians, Croats, Serbs—to petition for their own independence and had covertly sent them money and arms to provoke outright rebellion. Then, when the count who had been sent to bring order to Hungary was murdered by a group of students, pulled from his carriage and hacked to pieces, Austria had declared war outright.
And this was only the beginning. Austria would reach out to her old ally Russia for aid in quashing the unrest that the Austrians had helped manufacture. The Russians, in turn, were led by a tsar who was under the influence of a praetherian, Count Svarog, one of the Four who sought to restore the praetheria to their former glory by inciting a war among humans. If Russia were drawn into the war, the praetheria might destroy Austria and Hungary together before turning on the Russians.
But no one had wanted to listen when I tried to alert them to the praetherian plot. I had not been able to stop the Congress in Vienna from voting to sequester the praetheria. The British embassy in Vienna had ignored my warning. When I had tried to stand against Archduchess Sophie, she had decreed my death, and only intervention by the praetheria had saved me. Even if I wanted to stop the war, there was nothing I could do. Everything I thought I possessed had been stripped from me—family, fortune, a place in society. I had channeled my energy into finding Noémi instead.
And now the lidérc wanted to drag me back into the war. She continued, “The only way to win this war is to stop it before it begins. If the archduchess decrees it, the Austrians will withdraw their army, and others will follow. If the humans will not fight, the praetheria will not attack. Not yet. They are
not strong enough to take on hale armies.”
I looked at Emilija. “Would your father pull back his armies if the archduchess asked him to?”
“Of course. He’s a loyal subject of the Hapsburgs.” She frowned a little. “What is this about the praetheria?”
“I’ll explain later,” I said, thinking. The archduchess did not care for me—but she did care for her son. All her ambitions were centered in him. His life would surely be worth my pardon, which would mean I should not have to live my life in exile or in hiding. I could see my family again—my sister, Catherine, and her new baby; my parents; and my brother, James. Besides, I did not want to see Franz Joseph die from a spell. Not when I could stop it. Not when I might be responsible. But— “I risk my life if I go back to Vienna. If this does not work, I might die.”
“If this does not work, we might all die,” the lidérc said. “I risk my life every day simply existing in your world.”
I took a long breath. She was right. Only luck and a twist of history made my life less precarious than hers. Had there never been a Binding, perhaps today the praetheria would rule, and humans would be hunted.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll try to break the spell.”
* * *
Our return to Vienna was not swift, as we had to let our exhausted horses recover and then we ran afoul of autumn rains that turned the roads to mire. But my agreeing to go willingly to Vienna had shifted something between Emilija and me—she did not bind my hands, and she allowed the lidérc to travel with us without comment. I had always seen Emilija as an extension of her father, but it was becoming increasingly clear that she was her own person: she did not hate the praetheria, as he did; she was not ruthless, as he could be; and in the mornings, when the sun shone, she sang Croatian folksongs in a delightfully rusty voice. After a few days, the lidérc began to join in, her voice a low, mournful countertone to Emilija’s. I hummed along, my voice scarcely audible. When the lidérc did not know the words, she made them up, and she and Emilija both dissolved into giggles.
I watched them—a fierce soldier and a sharp-toothed creature out of nightmares—laughing together like two ordinary girls, and something curled tight beneath my breastbone began to ease. I could imagine few things more distant from the war Emilija’s father waged than the laughter pealing in the autumn light, and those echoing notes sounded like hope.
The second evening of our journey, while Emilija poked at the fire beneath a small pot that held what promised to be our dinner and the lidérc went hunting, I settled on a patch of grass still lit by the fading sun to read the latest of Gábor’s letters.
Šukarìja! I hope my letter finds you well.
A group of Romani men have joined my division, though it took some persuading for our colonel to accept them as soldiers rather than musicians: it is a bitter truth that the Romani are often as sought after as musicians as they are scorned elsewhere. In my grandmother’s generation, Bihari János played before the emperor of Austria and lived like a nobleman. For this, he was remembered as a Hungarian, his Romani heritage forgotten. I hope someday that when—if—I am remembered, it will be because I am Romani and Hungarian both.
I looked up. Emilija prodded at the fire, oblivious to me. Why did society persist in seeing identity as an or rather than an and, unless you were a wealthy man? All my life, my mother and society had taught me that because I was a woman—a lady, at that—I must live and behave a certain way. Or. Emilija defied such expectations to become a soldier and was held to be a good one, despite being a woman. But to erase one part of her identity was to diminish the other. Or.
And Gábor—what must it be like, to everywhere find his talents and gifts undervalued because he belonged to a community without a nation, because he was Romani? Yet he too was many things, many ands: Romani and scientist, soldier and friend. He should not have to choose between them.
I picked up the letter again.
The food is terrible—oversalted and undercooked—but somehow eating it while speaking Romani makes it bearable. My mother tongue is a beautiful one: someday I shall teach you. We are kept busy during the daylight hours, but at night, when I cannot sleep, I find myself wishing you were with me. Then I remember the food and the indifferent quarters we keep, and I am glad you do not have to share them. I miss you.
I smiled at his closing: our own food and quarters were not much better. Though I did not recognize his opening word—it was not Hungarian—I hoped it was some Romani endearment. His words helped bridge the terrible distance between us and offered me an anchor, reminding me there was still much in the world to hope for.
I trimmed my own pen and began to write.
* * *
As we drew nearer to Vienna, Emilija grew more talkative. One afternoon, as we led the horses alongside the nearly impassable smear of mud that passed for a road, she said, “Tell me more of this praetherian conspiracy. I thought the praetheria were all secured in a camp outside Melk.”
“I think ‘secured’ means something different to you than to me,” the lidérc said. “Were the praetheria truly secure, and safe, we would be protected by laws, not guarded by soldiers.”
“Some of the praetheria are dangerous—we cannot have them free to threaten peaceful citizens.”
“And some humans are dangerous, but most of you remain free,” the lidérc said.
“The law is as much for praetherian safety as ours.”
“Then perhaps you might have asked us how we wished to feel safe.”
Emilija’s lips thinned, but she did not argue back. Indeed, the faint pink stealing into her cheeks suggested she might be considering the lidérc’s argument.
“You asked about the war.” The lidérc changed the subject, returning to Emilija’s earlier question. “Some praetheria evaded the sanctuary. Many of those resent this human world—they want to return to the world they knew before the Binding, where they were worshipped by humans. Where they ruled.”
Emilija studied the lidérc. “And do you wish for this?”
“Would I be here with two humans if I wished for that world? My kind have only ever been feared—by humans as well as other praetheria.” Her black eyes flickered and drooped, and her voice sounded faintly sad. “I should like a world where I do not fear being hunted.”
“That sounds very lonely.” Emilija combed her fingers through the hair hanging free at the end of her braid in what I was coming to recognize as a nervous gesture. “I know something of that feeling. Because I was not a girl who wished for fancy dresses or the attention of boys, other girls did not know what to make of me. And when I became a soldier, the boys mocked me too. Only my father believed in me. I hope you also have someone like that.”
“I had someone once,” the lidérc said, her eyes fixed on distant shadows. “Very long ago.”
“You have Mátyás,” I said, because for all his faults, my cousin’s loyalty was adamantine.
“I know,” the lidérc said, very low. “That is why I am still here.”
We told Emilija what we knew of the war, how the praetheria meant to wait until our armies had worn themselves thin, then attack. I explained that I had tried to leave word with Kossuth Lajos, with the English embassy, but no one seemed to listen.
“I am listening,” Emilija said. “I was there when Vasilisa attacked us. I believe you. A good soldier fights not to make wars but to end them. When we get to Vienna, I will do what I can to persuade the Hapsburg family to listen to you.”
That night, we shared a stew and bits of familiar songs before dropping to sleep, one by one, beneath the stars. But in that shared quiet before we slept, a current passed among us. We were not quite allies but no longer enemies, either. Words had done that—mine, the lidérc’s, Emilija’s. There was a key in that somewhere, but sleep tugged at my thoughts, and I could not hold it.
A thundering boom shook the
ice caves, and then a cloud of ice pellets and debris enveloped me. I coughed on the dust, my lungs burning. With each cough, my shivering intensified, until my whole body trembled with cold.
Here lies Eszterházy Mátyás: He died with fire in his lungs and ice on his arse.
Angry voices reached me, coming nearer. Through watery eyes, I counted the returning figures: one, two, three. I squinted through the lingering dust, but no one appeared to be dragging a captive.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Your thrice-damned cousin tried to drop a mountain on us,” Vasilisa said. But though she seemed put out, she did not seem genuinely angry. There was a glint in her eye that might even have been amusement.
Anna escaped. I released a long, burning breath and let the shifting I had cast over her dissolve. She no longer needed the samodiva shape—and I might have need of the power. As soon as I regained enough strength, I planned to shift to something better adapted to the cold. A beaver, maybe, with a nice, thick pelt. Or a wombat, one of those odd, fuzzy Australian badgers. Vasilisa’s spell net still hung over me, preventing my escape, but it would not stop me from shifting.
From her crouch beside me, Zhivka said, “His lips are blue. Unless you mean to kill him with cold, you’d best cover him.” She’d extinguished the flame she held earlier as a peace offering, and now she would not meet my eyes.
“And spoil the view?” Vasilisa asked, pouting, and then laughed as my cheeks flamed. Would that I could pass that warmth to the rest of my frostbitten body. But she produced a blanket from somewhere—a coarse woolen thing—and flung it over me. I snuggled into the folds gratefully.
“Stop talking about the táltos,” the samodiva queen said. “We need to get free of this cave before our quarry escapes.”
Vasilisa addressed the satyr who was standing near the mouth of the chamber with his arms crossed. “Silenus, see what you can shift of the rocks. If brute strength will not move them, we shall have to use other means.”
