Winter War Awakening (Blood Rose Rebellion, Book 3)

by Rosalyn Eves

  It seemed impossible that she was dead.

  Even more impossible that the samodiva queen held Mátyás responsible. I thought of how Zhivka had teased Mátyás and how he grumbled at her but enjoyed her teasing all the same. He would not willingly have hurt her, not for all her treachery.

  Noémi touched my arm lightly. “Anna? Are you all right?”

  “I’m all right,” I said, but the thought of Zhivka’s death lingered with me, a disquiet ghost.

  For seven nights after the samodiva queen’s return, the queen and her sisters occupied the largest of the caverns and danced.

  They danced around a fire, their movements shaping the flame to mimic Zhivka’s form: a lick of fire for her hair, a spurt of light where her smile would be. The song of their grieving echoed through the cavern and stole into the side chambers, imbuing the rock itself with sorrow.

  For seven nights, everyone else in the caves—human and praetherian alike—was banned from the big cavern. We knew of their dancing only from their songs, from fragments shared by those who caught glimpses as they passed.

  On the eighth night, everyone was invited to a vigil in Zhivka’s honor, the last rite of remembrance before her spirit was bid a final farewell.

  When Hunger told us of the vigil, I refused to attend. “The samodiva queen cannot want us there.”

  “This vigil—truly, more of a dance—is for Zhivka, not for the samodiva queen. Where you might offer a eulogy of words to the dead, the samodiva offer dance and fire. You do not have to participate in the dancing, but your absence would be seen as a dismissal of her death.”

  Hunger brought us gowns to wear, as neither of us had anything fitting a formal ceremony. The dress I had arrived in—Emilija’s dress—had lost its claim to finery somewhere on the road to the cave. My new gown was black like night, shot through with threads of silver stars. Noémi’s was a wash of gold and crimson, like fire-made-silk. I held my frock against me and remembered the last time I had let a praetherian dress me: Vasilisa had glamoured a gown and a mask for me to wear to the archduchess’s masquerade, and everything had fallen to pieces.

  I put on the dress, wondering as I did what price I would pay for this night’s finery.

  Musicians were already playing when we arrived, a haunting elegy that swirled around the stone pillars, that curled in my ears and twisted my heart. I paused at the entrance to the cave, my hand gripping Noémi’s, and closed my eyes. The music caught me up, sweeping me back to the first time I had seen the Binding spell that had held the praetheria captive for a thousand years—a world so lovely that it hurt, even now, to think of it.

  I should not be here.

  For weeks after going into the Binding, I had yearned for it, like an opium addict kept from laudanum or pipes. That yearning had been a bruise on my heart, a limb I had not known of until I lost it.

  Standing at the entrance to the cave, that same yearning filled me, and I feared it. I was prisoner here, and the music put me in danger of forgetting that, of falling—again—for the hard-edged beauty of the praetheria. The first time I had been so seduced, I had broken the Binding. The second time, I had been betrayed. I could not let there be a third time.

  And yet…

  I moved into the stone chamber at Noémi’s gentle tug. The samodiva were already dancing, a dozen or more women with hair like flames: a dozen shades of crimson and gold, even the pale blue of a candlewick. Sparks trailed from them as they danced, weaving in and around one another, brushing hands as they passed, a bright flame lighting at each touch. Each brightness flared against my heart—mourning for Zhivka, whom I had not known well, for something bigger than us both that passed just out of my reach.

  Eventually, the samodiva broke apart and gathered onlookers into their dance. There was no distinct pattern, no steps that I could tease out, but there was a rhythm to the movement all the same. The samodiva continued to pass their sparks to their new partners, who held a flame like a star in their palms before the light guttered out.

  A light extinguished, a soul snuffed.

  After the onlookers passed through the samodiva, they began to dance with one another, swirling in and amongst the rock spires. A griffin stepped in time with a filmy-winged woman; a cockatrice danced with a tree-man; a faun danced with a melusine, her tresses still damp and trailing water on the floor.

  Beauty and brutal strength blurred together as the music rose and fell. Where did one end and the other begin? The praetheria—most of them—were as dangerous as they were lovely. Was that danger part of their beauty? Or that beauty part of their danger?

  I could not watch the praetheria dance and wish them dead, even if their survival meant the destruction of my world. No one watching the samodiva mourn their lost sister could doubt the depth of feeling driving them. I could not hear their music and hope to conspire against them. Surely there was room in our world for this realm splayed vivid and raw before me?

  A praetherian bowed before us—a tall, willowy creature with skin like night and batlike wings. Murmuring something soft to Noémi, she drew her into the dance.

  I stood alone, watching the spinning pairs, the faerie lights shining in my cousin’s golden hair. Noémi passed from the bat-winged creature to a samodiva, and Noémi too held a bit of light in her hands before moving on. The inchoate longing I’d felt since entering the room grew, making my heart ache.

  “Would you dance?” Hunger asked me.

  A beat of hesitation—Is this wise?—and then I held my hand out. His touch was warm, not burning, but as he drew me into the whirl, the longing thickened in my throat until it might choke me. All the things I wanted but did not know how to reach for seemed to flicker before my eyes: I wanted the war to end bloodlessly, with everyone happy; I wanted this somber vigil in the caves to be nothing more than a dance. I wished my father were here, to tell me how to go on and so I could watch his scholar’s eyes brighten with appreciation at this splendid room. I wanted to be spinning in Gábor’s arms, not Hunger’s, and face a future with no question more pressing than how we should spend our lives together.

  Could a person die of wanting?

  The music shifted as we whirled through the cavern—a roaring, burning beat that seemed to ignite the chamber. Illusory fire flickered between the dancers, stirred up by the energy of our tapping feet. The samodiva queen watched me, her face torn by grief.

  Hunger held me close and turned us through the crowd, spinning me until the room seemed to spin with us. When we slowed, he reached up to tap the pulse at the base of my neck. “Your longings call loudly tonight.”

  “You bring out the worst in me.”

  A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “I wish you would curb them. I can do nothing for them, and they will only bring you pain.”

  “I did not think you cared particularly for my pain.”

  “Because I make hard choices does not mean I feel nothing,” he said, and my heart gave a curious little twist.

  “Why do you persist in this war?” I asked.

  “What other choice do we have? We will not be made prisoners again.”

  “That does not mean you have to slaughter us.”

  “Us?” Hunger peered closely at me, his golden eyes bright. “Which ‘us’ are you speaking of? The Austrians, who drove you from them with a death sentence? Your family, who does not seem to understand you? The Hungarians, who do not listen to you? Why are you so determined to take their part against us? They do not stand on moral high ground here.”

  Words tangled in my head, on my tongue. “Some of them are my family, my friends. Most of them are innocent. They should not suffer because those in power have made poor choices. I cannot believe there are no peaceful ways for your kind to live among us.”

  “Our kind,” Hunger echoed, “as though we are something wholly different from you. We love, we laugh,
we bleed, we die. We bear children, our hearts break. Most of us were innocent too, but that did not stop your kind from sentencing us all together. And you—chimera—what makes you human rather than praetherian? Not your double souls. Are you so certain, when the dust settles and your scientists finish drawing their charts, that you will not be labeled praetherian and damned with us?”

  I stumbled over the uneven flooring, and Hunger caught my arms. This time his touch did burn, a heat that pulsed through my sleeves and into my very bones. Was he right? Did my double souls make me something other than human? Where was the line dividing human from praetherian? Did such a line exist, outside of an idea generated by humans who wanted to define themselves against something else, something other? The samodiva queen shared more in common with me than with the shrubby creature who had tried to bury me alive in Prater Park; I shared more with Hunger than I did with the Russian tsar.

  When the song ended and Hunger bowed to me, my curtsy was perfunctory, my thoughts still tangled. Another praetherian asked me to dance, a courtly old man with rosy cheeks and a long white beard who might have been a human grandfather, were it not for his eyes, red irises rimmed in gold.

  Pál found me next, and he pulled me rather stiffly into another movement of the dance. For all his sartorial neatness, Pál was an indifferent dancer.

  “Vasilisa will be returning soon, to train you,” he said.

  I looked away from the amusement in his face, fixing my eyes on the fires flickering around the room. “Trained to do what?”

  “To be chimera, my dear. To fight.”

  “I don’t want to fight,” I said, tugging free of his grip. The other dancers swept around us, the only still spot in the room.

  At this, Pál laughed. “Of course you do not. I did not, either, when I was young. But I learned that only by embracing my gifts could I embrace my destiny. My fate leads me to splendid things, as will yours, if you do not resist it.”

  “Then why does Vasilisa come to teach me, and not you?”

  He pursed his lips as though he had bitten into something sour. “The praetheria do not entirely trust me, though I have proved my worth many times over.”

  “I do not trust you, either.” I walked off, shaking, and took refuge away from the crowd where I could catch my breath and find Noémi. I needed someone familiar, someone safe.

  Catching sight of her across the cavern, I picked my way along the rim of the chamber, only to find that Noémi was not alone. Hunger was with her, his back toward me.

  He held both her hands in his, and she did not pull away.

  Something about their position, the way they held themselves separate but with their heads inclined toward each other, suggested I ought to retreat and give them space. But I could not seem to move my feet.

  Hunger released one of Noémi’s hands to cup her cheek as though she were a dandelion globe: something beautiful and ephemeral that might escape if he breathed too hard.

  Her eyes flickered shut, and she leaned into his touch for the briefest moment before drawing away, recalled to herself.

  “I cannot do this,” she said.

  “Cannot do what?” Hunger asked, his voice low and sweet enough to draw my own heart from me, and I was not the one he spoke to.

  “I cannot care for you. Cannot…” She stopped.

  “Cannot or will not?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “Does it matter? You hold me here as a prisoner, to force my cousin—and perhaps my brother—to fight with you against people and places I love. How can you in good conscience ask me to love you against my own interests, against my own heart?”

  “I have no good conscience,” Hunger said, and Noémi’s lips curved into a reluctant smile. “Do I disgust you, as a praetherian?”

  Noémi straightened, her nose flaring in indignation. “You know little of me if you have to ask that.”

  “I know your heart. I know your inflexible honesty. You may be the only person—human or praetherian—who always dares speak truth to me. I find it quite charming.”

  Noémi looked away, but she could not hide the blush stealing into her cheeks. “You do not disgust me. But if you care for me at all, let me go. Let Anna go. Stop driving this war.”

  “That I cannot do. Not for you, not for all the world.”

  Noémi froze for a moment, pain flashing raw across her face. When she pulled free, Hunger did not follow her, but stood, stiff and straight, as the crowd swallowed her. I whirled and stumbled back the way I’d come.

  My heart ached for Noémi. She had a gift for drawing suitors who loved her, but loved their own cause more. First William, now Hunger. There might be honor in putting principles above people—had not Gábor done the same?—but that did not make the pain of being sacrificed any less. At least with Gábor, I knew this sacrifice for a temporary one that would end with the war. Noémi had no such assurance.

  I had lost my taste for the dance, which was likely to continue past dawn. Instead, I made my way back to our holding cell.

  Noémi lay on her bedding, her face turned toward the rock. I hesitated for a moment, wanting to comfort her. But her posture suggested she wanted to be left alone, so I would honor that for now.

  I sat on my own bedding and rifled through my bags, tugging out the well-worn pages Gábor had given me. I needed his words to ground me, to funnel my still-spinning emotions into known channels. New words were scratched across the sheet. His normally neat writing was cramped and uneven, witnessing some great agitation.

  My dear Anna,

  I scarce know what to write. My friends and fellow soldiers lie dead behind me.

  So many, Anna. I cannot unsee them. Their voices echo in my ears.

  We engaged the Austrians when we should not have—our position, backed against a forest where the Austrians could take cover, was not good. But Kossuth sent word to attack (though he is not a military strategist), so attack we did. Our soldiers were outmatched almost at once, flanked on all sides by the enemy. The soldiers we might have met. But Lucifera traveled with them, and the handful of Elementalists on our side, with their illusions and wind and storms, could not undo the Lucifera spells, which dropped boulders on our troops, deadlier than cannon fire, and which folded the ground around entire companies.

  We are regrouping and making our way to safety as best we can. Most of us are on foot, and the weather is turning.

  May God hold you more securely than He has me.

  I read the letter again. Where was Gábor now? Was he injured? The cramped cave seemed to fill with the sights and sounds of the fighting outside Buda Castle, after I’d broken the Binding—the bitter tang of smoke and blood, the sharp cries of the wounded and the staccato of gunfire. I swallowed down bile.

  I scrawled something in return, some wish for his safety and suitable expressions of horror. But my words were attenuated and thin. What were mere words in the face of devastation and grief? What were words when action was needed and I could do nothing?

  If I had been there, instead of dancing with the praetheria, perhaps I could have broken some of the Lucifera spells that decimated his army. Perhaps I could have saved someone. When Mátyás and I had decided to follow Noémi instead of Kossuth’s army, we—I—had put Noémi before Hungary, before Gábor. And that choice, like so many of my choices, had borne bitter fruit. Had I known then what I knew now, would I have made a different choice?

  It was useless to speculate. I could not go back and undo the past, or my choices. The only way forward was to keep moving.

  I closed my hands into fists and then relaxed them.

  I loathed feeling trapped.

  The difference between a man and a rat may be the quality of their cages.

  My current cage was particularly fine—the broad green expanse of the World Tree, caught between the vault of sky and the spreading plain
s—but I felt no less trapped than a rat in a laboratory.

  It had been nearly a week since I had dream-walked in search of Noémi and discovered the trick of locating the praetheria by their glowing soul sparks—nearly a week in which I had failed to make any progress in finding her. Hadúr kept me so busy with training during the day that at night I collapsed into my bed, exhausted—too spent even to dream.

  Was I a man or was I a mouse? I had come to Hadúr willingly enough, to learn what I could of being táltos. I had not bargained on trading away my freedom in the process. I was not an apprentice, with a contract to earn out. Neither was I a prisoner. But Hadúr insisted I was not yet ready to join the armies, and he gave me no leave during which to find Noémi.

  The itching to act deepened, burrowing into my heart and sending roots rippling through my body. Surely, I’d learned enough by now.

  “I need a drink,” I told Hadúr, at the end of another endless strategy session.

  “I’ve a very fine pálinka—” Hadúr began, but I cut him off.

  “In a csárda,” I said. “Where such alcohol is meant to be drunk. Not in a tree. Bahadır, are you coming?”

  Bahadır looked startled. “I don’t drink.”

  “I know that.” There was a reason I’d never invited him drinking before. “But I could use the company.” If I abandoned Hadúr, I could not also abandon Bahadır—at least, not without telling him why I was going. If he chose to stay, that was his business.

  Hadúr must have caught something of my intention in my voice because he offered to come with us.

  “The point of drinking in a csárda is to drink with ordinary men. If you come, you’ll rather spoil the purpose. No offense meant.”

  “If you meant no offense, you would not forbid me to join you,” Hadúr grumbled. “Go. I hope you give yourself a headache.”

  I grinned at him. Now that I’d made up my mind to leave, I found I’d rather miss Hadúr. His irascibility reminded me of my uncle János, though the war god was far more formidable.