by Rosalyn Eves
I wet my lips with my tongue. “That was not what I meant.”
“Then you must learn to be more specific. Such a small thing to end the war—I rather thought you’d be delighted.”
“Please don’t do this.” With effort, I refrained from dropping at her feet and groveling. I remembered the Russian delegation in Vienna that spring, which included Svarog, one of the Four who led the praetheria, glamoured as a beautiful blond count. The Russians did not act alone in this decision to aid Austria. I was certain of it. “If you send me with these men, they will only give me to the praetheria, and you will not have stopped a war: you will have given them a weapon.”
“My dear child, you’re being ridiculous. Your uncle cannot mean you harm, and your obsession with the praetheria is frankly unhealthy.”
I looked across the room at Pál. He smiled at me, but there was nothing warm in his expression.
I tried again. “I am a British citizen. I have rights. Lord Ponsonby will not allow it.”
Archduchess Sophie waved her hands. “In the eyes of the British government, you have officially vanished. Even your sister does not expect to hear from you again. Who shall ever know?”
Her face was calm, but I caught a glint of light in her eyes. She had failed to make me disappear before, when I had escaped her sentencing. But she would not fail now. This time, I would vanish truly.
“Franz Joseph…Emilija…”
“They will be told you have gone with your uncle. Nothing to warrant distress in that, is there?”
A great black wave seemed to hang over my head. No matter what I said, the archduchess would not hear me.
“Thank you for saving my son,” she said, her voice cold and formal. “You have done this country a great service. This very morning, Emperor Ferdinand is stepping down as emperor, and my son, newly restored to health, is to be the emperor of all Austria. Hungary too, God willing, when the war is over.”
While my reeling brain struggled to parse this new information, the Russian count said, “Gather your things, girl. We leave at once.”
* * *
Were it not for the troop of Russian guardsmen surrounding Pál and me, I could almost pretend I was merely a young lady traveling through the country with her uncle. The first day brought us past the black-and-yellow-striped poles that marked the Austrian border. The guards gave us no trouble over our papers, particularly not when Pál pressed a bottle of champagne on them to toast the new emperor when they were off duty.
I could not seem to assemble my thoughts. Every time I lined them up, they toppled like a row of toy soldiers. Franz Joseph was the emperor. I might have persuaded him to stop the war when he stood in my bedroom, but instead I had wasted time talking of foolish personal issues. If I had said yes to his halfhearted proposal, I might be empress, my own decree more powerful than that of the archduchess. I had no real wish to be empress, but why had I not said anything to Franz Joseph about the praetheria? Now I was a pawn, promised to Russia in exchange for worsening the war I had sought to end. In a fit of self-righteousness, I had delivered up myself and Hungary in a neatly trussed bundle.
I was not the hero of this story; I was its fool. Perhaps I could crack jokes better than I broke spells.
We continued into Pressburg, where we stayed at a respectable inn. Pál was given the room beside mine, and I watched as he cast wards on the door and windows of my room.
“Do not be so afraid, niece,” he said. “You and I have a great opportunity to reclaim some of the glory that should have belonged to our family, if we play our cards right.”
“And what does that mean? Help the Russians win? Help the praetheria conquer people and places I love?”
Pál looked cagey, smiling to himself as though he knew something I did not. “Humor the praetheria, yes—they have the potential to be the most powerful players in this little game. And trust me: I have a vision that will take care of everything.”
I wrapped my arms around my torso, chilled. As little as I trusted the Four driving the praetheria, I trusted Pál even less. I knew what they wanted; Pál was still a mystery to me. When I did not answer, he only smiled more broadly and left the room.
After that, the days began to blur together. We left the plains behind us and followed winding trails that curled through blue mountains of northern Hungary, between trees waving banners of autumn gold and red. As the road began to climb, I was blindfolded so I could not report on our destination. Had Pál seen my letters from Gábor and known them for what they were? Or was this the sort of precaution they might take with anyone?
Pál was the only one who spoke to me. But I grew to dread his voice: he approached only to tell me of some terrible thing that was happening, some further sign that the war had escalated beyond any one person’s efforts to contain it.
It was Pál who told me that Dragović’s armies were closing in on Buda-Pest, that the first elected minister of Hungary had resigned, and that Kossuth was to take his place, in defiance of the Austrian government, which had declared martial law over the country. Worse, the uprisings had spread—not only had Croatia taken up arms against Hungary, but now peasants in Romania were revolting against Hungarian nobility.
“Reports of the fighting are terrible,” Pál said. “Entire cities have burned. Those who survive the burning have had their eyes put out, their bodies run through with pikes.”
He paused—waiting for some show of horror or tears from me. But I would not satisfy him. He might be energized by stories of brutality, but I was not.
After perhaps a week of travel—I had lost track—we halted midday, and my blindfold was removed. We were at a crossroads near some mountain pass. Count Medem approached me for the first time since we had left Vienna.
“This is where you stay, as per my tsar’s orders.”
He helped me dismount. I looked at the mountains towering around us, at the long, empty stretch of road in all directions. Was I to be left as sacrifice for some great beast? I tensed, prepared to flee as soon as the soldiers were gone.
But Pál stopped beside me. “You will not run,” he said, flicking his hands at me, and I found that I could move nothing but my eyes and mouth. My arms and legs were fixed.
We watched the Russian count and his guards disappear along the northeast road with the horses we had ridden. When all sight and sound of their passing had vanished, a pair of men approached us, walking across a field of drying grass.
As they drew near, I recognized the taller of the two: Hunger.
I had been right—I was never intended for the Russians.
“Why?” I asked Pál. “My magic is nothing beside yours—I can scarcely cast a spell. Even my spell-breaking is a mercurial magic.”
“I asked for you,” Pál said, watching the two men instead of meeting my gaze. “I have plans, and you might prove quite helpful.”
“Miss Arden,” Hunger said, tipping an imaginary hat. I blinked at him, unable to return his nod, thanks to Pál’s spell, even had I wanted to. Which I did not. Hunger did not introduce his companion, a narrow-faced man with curling hair and a pair of twisting horns. After speaking briefly with Pál, they turned and led us back across the field.
Pál released the spell holding me in place. “Do not think you can run from us,” he said.
A breeze ruffled my hair, carrying the unmistakable chill of winter, though the afternoon was yet warm. I shivered and put aside thoughts of escaping. For now.
I retained only hazy details of what followed: a sense of rising elevation, as I had to lean forward as I walked and my thighs burned. I kept my eyes fixed on the curly-haired man and Hunger, who climbed ahead of us.
It was coming on dark when we reached our destination. Some distance up a mountain incline, Hunger held up his hand, and we stopped. Pál disappeared behind a rocky outcropping. The curly-haired man fol
lowed.
I took one quick step sideways, but Hunger grasped my arm. His touch burned, hot even through the shirt and coat I wore. He led me past the outcropping to where a dark, narrow gap opened in the rock. Another cave. But this one, I fancied, held more than illusions.
Hunger shepherded me into the cave, a roughly shaped oblong that led into another, larger chamber. The others crowded in behind us. Lights hung at intervals along the walls, illuminating the slick rust-brown surface of the rock. The second chamber nearly stopped my breath. Lights shimmered everywhere, but instead of the relatively plain interior of the first room, stone fountains cascaded everywhere: icicles of rock melting from the ceiling onto the floor, rounded tiers erupting from the ground in every shade from burnt umber to russet to gold. I had never seen anything like it.
Praetheria milled about the room, talking in small groups, eating, minding children—some even dancing to a faint piped melody. It did not look like a prison—and then I remembered that the world of the Binding spell had been the most beautiful place I knew; prisons could be exquisite. But beauty could not compensate for lost freedom.
“Come,” Hunger said, his voice almost gentle. “Let me show you to your quarters.”
“You mean my cell?” Let him call a spade a spade.
He frowned, rubbing his hand over his chin and cheeks. A golden sheen glowed across his face in this muted light. “You will be treated kindly here.”
“I had rather I were free to go.”
Beside me, Pál spoke for the first time since entering the caverns. “Do not be a fool, niece. You might take your place among the most powerful rulers of the last millennia. Do not waste that chance out of misplaced nostalgia or sympathy. At the end of the day, you have only yourself to rely upon.”
Distaste curled Hunger’s lip. “You may go, Zrínyi Pál. Anna is tired and no doubt hungry. You may speak with her later.” With that, he led me across the crowded room, stepping over a trail of water that glowed silver in the light. We walked through several branchings of the cave system, which was larger than I had initially supposed, and came to a series of smaller chambers. The doorway to each was covered—a mesh of daisies, threads of pearls that chattered in the wind left by our passing, a spider’s web.
Hunger stopped before the seventh door, its opening shrouded in mist-grey silk. As he pulled aside the covering, he said, “I trust the accommodations—and the company—will be to your liking.”
The room was dim, only a single globe of light hanging from the ceiling at the center of the roughly shaped space. Two pallets lay inside, facing each other on opposite sides of the chamber. One of the pallets was occupied by a sleeping figure, but at the light streaming through the doorway, the girl turned.
For the second time that night, my heart seemed to stop.
On the mostly silent ride from Vienna, I had had plenty of time to think, to wonder if I would see Noémi if I were, in fact, given to the praetheria. Each time, I had dismissed it as unlikely. Why should they give me an ally? Friendless, I was weaker—and more likely to succumb to their persuasions and charm.
But here she was, pushing her blond curls from her face, blinking sleepily as she sat up, Mátyás’s filigree cross still hanging around her neck. Her gaze sharpened, and she threw back her blanket and launched herself at me.
Salt tears bit my tongue as I laughed, clinging to Noémi with all the strength generated by nearly four months’ searching for her.
Her cheeks were wet as she hugged me. “I thought I might never see you again.”
“Impossible,” I said. “I would have searched for you until I was an old crone, too weak to order a carriage.”
She laughed, but her laughter was tinged with sadness. Her eyes flicked past me to Hunger, who stood watching our reunion in silence. Something shifted in his gold eyes, and when I looked back at Noémi, she was blushing.
Had he engineered this reunion for me—or for Noémi? I found it did not much matter. For the first time since the archduchess had told me my fate, I was hopeful. If Hunger felt a kindness for either of us, it meant he had a weakness we might exploit.
Noémi gripped my hands in hers. “I cannot deny I am glad to see you. But, oh, Anna, I wish you had not come. They have used me as bait, and now we are both caught—and I’m afraid they will use me as fire to forge a weapon out of you.”
I braced for impact as I fell out of the sky. Beside me, Vasilisa screamed imprecations. Bahadır whispered a prayer.
But the impact never came. As we neared the earth, our speed slowed—a spell?—and we came to a stop just before touching lightly on the ground.
Hála Istennek. Relief made my body light.
Vasilisa surged forward, still bound to Bahadır and me by the ropes the samodiva queen had wound around us, and we all nearly toppled. I danced to hold my footing, while Bahadır did the same. The iron-laced net still hung over us like a curse.
“You,” she snarled.
I looked up. I’d been so focused on my imminent death that it hadn’t occurred to me to look for the source of the net. Which, in hindsight, seemed a glaring mistake.
A towering dark-haired man in copper armor stalked toward us, twin blades gleaming in the sunlight.
Despite the threatening expression on his face and those murderous swords, his appearance sent hope shooting through me.
“Hadúr!” I hadn’t seen the war god in months, not since I’d fled the World Tree and the Lady’s plans for me to save the world.
Hadúr inclined his head gravely. “Táltos.”
Mátyás, I thought. But it did not seem to be the time or place to correct the god.
He turned back to Vasilisa. “You have something of mine. He has not finished his training.”
She kicked me in the leg. “This human? I caught him; he belongs to me now. If he needs training, I can do that as well as you.”
“I caught you both. By your own reckoning, he belongs to me.”
I tugged at the ropes binding me to Vasilisa, looking for looseness or give. It was awkward enough being fought over as though I were a favored toy—or weapon—without being bound to one of the claimants.
The bonds held tight. But though Vasilisa’s spell still trapped me, we were no longer airborne, which meant shifting would not put Bahadır at risk of slipping out of the bonds and falling to his death.
So I shifted, my body collapsing inward and downward, a fine layer of fur covering my limbs as I slithered through the ropes. Now mouse-shaped, I scampered out of Hadúr’s net and stopped by the foot of the war god. He smiled approvingly down at me.
I whirled around to see Bahadır slide free of the loosened bonds and duck beneath the iron-laced net. Vasilisa was either distracted by Hadúr or did not care that Bahadır had freed himself: she did not react, her focus directed on the god.
I could not see the samodiva queen anywhere—the sky was clear, save for a few distant, raptor-shaped specks that made my mouse instincts twitch. Apparently, the samodiva queen’s loyalty to Vasilisa had ended with Zhivka’s death and Vasilisa’s refusal to punish us.
Something painful twinged inside me at the thought of Zhivka, and I pushed it away.
“You killed my Lady in an ambush,” Hadúr said, his rough voice lowering to a growl.
Another twinge; another death I did not want to think about—another death following in the wake of my unnatural second life.
“And now you mean to kill me? Justice cries out for my blood? Really, such an uninspired concept.” Vasilisa’s voice was flat with boredom, but I caught a sharp edge that pricked me into wariness.
I flattened myself to the ground, just as a terrific shock of energy boomed past me, knocking Hadúr over. When my sight cleared, Vasilisa stood free of the iron-laced netting, her white hair wafting about her head in an electric cloud, her face pale with fury. Behind her, B
ahadır struggled upright, then ran toward the nearest copse of trees. I made a mental note: iron slows but does not stop her.
Then I realized: the faint prickle of Vasilisa’s magic net was gone. Whether consciously or not, she’d released me in order to fight Hadúr. Now was my own chance to run.
Hadúr roared upward beside me, then hurtled through the air like a breathing cannonball, sunlight fracturing around him. He dropped toward Vasilisa, his twin swords cleaving through the ball of light Vasilisa shot at him as though it were nothing.
Vasilisa fell back, and Hadúr crashed down where she had been standing, his landing sending rumbles through the earth. My paws twitched in the grasses.
Now, I thought. I could fly to Bahadır, and we could escape together while Vasilisa was distracted.
But I didn’t move.
I’d scorned the Lady’s training, and then my own strength had nearly undone me when I could not control the dragon I’d become. There was more to being táltos than I had discovered on my own: if Hadúr could train me, I would let him.
I still meant to find Noémi, but searching for my sister without clear direction had so far led only to an ambush and our capture. Perhaps there was a way to use my táltos gifts more intelligently to find her.
A fireball scorched the earth near me, singeing my whiskers and shaking me out of my thoughts.
Staying with Hadúr did not have to mean I’d invite death right now.
I shot upward, in crow form, and winged my way toward the copse of trees where Bahadır had taken refuge. I settled in the uppermost boughs of an oak.
In the meadow before me, the two near-immortals still grappled. Vasilisa fired spell after spell at the towering god, and each time his sword sliced through the spell as though it were silk. Vasilisa retreated again, throwing up a shield of fire as Hadúr sheathed his swords in one swift movement and sent a barrage of metal stars spinning through the air toward her. The stars danced through the fire, drawing bright ribbons of blood from her arms.
