The Leszy hammered in silence for a moment. Then he said, in a voice that had entirely lost its musical quality, “I find it very interesting, you know.”
Lukasz didn’t move. He stayed still, a tense outline in the yellow light.
“Find what interesting.” Lukasz spoke flatly. Despite the heat, the Leszy’s abrupt change of tone chilled him to the bone.
“You have an appetite for monsters”—the Leszy licked his lips and then they curved upward, enough to make Lukasz’s skin crawl—“and they for you.”
Lukasz shrugged. It was a short gesture. He meant it to be casual, but it was cut off by a spasm of pain. He put his hand on his belt, considered how to answer.
“I suppose,” he said.
The Leszy grinned again.
“Just remember, this is my forest,” he cautioned. His face, still partially obscured with shadow, looked like a nightmare where the light touched it. “It’s mine.” And then the Leszy’s tone became dangerous. “Don’t think you can keep it for yourself.”
He paused again, and then his voice dropped an octave and made Lukasz’s blood run cold.
“Any of it.”
25
THE LESHONKI WOKE THEM EARLY the next morning, whooping and hollering as they tugged them back to the dining table. Breakfast comprised heaping dishes of literally every food Lukasz could imagine, but he could barely eat a bite. Across the table, Ren avoided his eye and talked to Jakub and Koszmar. It left him furious, and he couldn’t decide whether it was with her, with the Leszy, or with himself.
He decided it was all three.
After that, with predictably chaotic glee, the Leszy led them through the tunnels. The little god enjoyed dancing far ahead and disappearing, leaving them to flounder in the dark. He found it especially hilarious to then surprise them—either by plummeting from the ceiling like a psotnik or by popping out of the ground—usually snatching off Koszmar’s helmet or pulling Król’s tail. Once—very bravely, thought Lukasz—he even snuck up on Ren.
Unfortunately, Lukasz was in her line of fire on that one and almost lost an eye to her claws. More disturbingly, she seemed genuinely disappointed to have missed. All in all, he was grateful when they finally erupted, around midday, into the open.
Only it was not open at all, but dark and poisoned. Black slime dripped from the surrounding trees, and horseflies the size of hummingbirds droned in the shadows. A few feet away, Koszmar stepped in something syrupy black and cursed like a sailor while Felka and Jakub dragged him back out of the sticky pool.
Leszy checked on them one last time, ensuring they were adequately supplied with provisions, bad couplets, and sarcastic remarks. Then, as abruptly as he had appeared, he simply melted back into the forest.
“What happened?” demanded Koszmar, whirling around and nearly tripping into the black goo again. “Where’s the little devil?”
But the forest was watchful, pathless, and empty. It was mostly a testament to his unease, but Lukasz almost missed the little madman.
Lukasz left Felka to reassure Koszmar and wandered over to where Ren was adjusting the girth on Król’s saddle. She gave him the kind of look that would have caused a less courageous, more sensible man to retreat.
Lukasz was neither.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“Ren, I—”
A few feet away, Ducha took a direct nosedive from the treetops and tackled a psotnik to the ground. The creature hissed as it died, like air escaping a bellows.
Felka sidestepped the dying monster and joined Ren at Król’s saddle. Lukasz wondered if she was intentionally running interference.
“Ren, do you ever get the feeling,” she said, pointedly excluding Lukasz, “that this forest isn’t on your side?”
Then she bent out of sight, buckling a saddlebag to the saddle. When she reappeared, she clarified: “Like, do you ever worry it might not be worth saving?”
Ren looked at her. Then she looked at Lukasz.
“Well,” she said coolly, “I am regretting a few things I’ve saved.”
Lukasz knew he deserved that.
Still, he leaned down, and he wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but Ren’s hand went still on the saddle. It might be his only chance. He could tell her the truth. He could tell her about his hand. He could tell her that it was all for Franciszek.
But he didn’t.
“Forgive me, Ren,” he said quietly.
He wished they could start again. He wished he hadn’t lied. He wished there weren’t nine dead brothers and a Dragon standing between them. He wished he hadn’t pulled out that lighter on the riverbank, and he wished she hadn’t run.
He wished she had been the one to kiss him.
Their breath hung in the air between them, then mixed, and finally, drifted up to join the fog overhead.
“If you keep asking me that,” she said, “one day, I’ll stop saying yes.”
The day went quickly. Ren gave Felka her clothes, transformed into a lynx, and walked most of the way with Czarn and Ryś. She was avoiding him, and Lukasz knew it. Even when they set up camp, in the trees just beyond the river, she avoided him. She curled up between Felka and her animals, but he saw her watching him, one green eye open and accusatory.
Lukasz gave up. He left the camp to join Koszmar at the river. When he got there, the blond Wrony was nowhere to be found, and he took a moment to reexamine the wound on his shoulder. The cuts had fully reopened, and their edges were purple. They wouldn’t stop bleeding.
Lukasz knelt at the river’s edge. He used one hand to scoop the dark water over his shoulder. He couldn’t stop thinking of Michał and Eliasz.
He wondered if the Leszy was right. He wondered if he was going to die out here, like he’d promised himself he wouldn’t. Burning his hand had been one thing; it had been ugly, but it had only ended his career.
But this . . . this might end his life.
He scooped the dark water over his shoulder. The blood ran thick and black down into the quiet river, and he half feared it would draw trouble to the surface.
Franciszek, he thought, flexing his arm and watching the cuts shiver in the moonlight. Franciszek, I am sorry.
In the darkness behind, steps sounded.
Lukasz jumped to his feet, rifle ready.
“Down, boy,” murmured Koszmar, palm raised. He indicated a bundle wrapped in a sheet under his other arm. “And after I nearly died at the hands of that rodentous god for you.”
Lukasz lowered the rifle, feeling his hands shake.
“I don’t think that’s a word,” he said.
Koszmar laughed. It echoed in the quiet forest.
“As if you would know,” he said, without venom.
The Leszy had said they would reach the Mountains by the following evening, and Lukasz had half a mind to set out tonight. Maybe this forest was Ren’s, and maybe she loved it, but it scared the hell out of him.
Koszmar’s eyes lingered on the wounded shoulder. Lukasz knew the cuts had opened wider. Thick, dark blood oozed down his skin and was staining his shirt. When Koszmar lifted his eyes back to Lukasz’s, they gave nothing away.
“Come on,” he said, lowering himself to the ground. “Let’s fix that.”
Lukasz’s heart sank.
You smell like death.
“It’s getting worse,” he said.
Koszmar shook his head.
“We don’t die here, Lukasz. Not like this. We die on that Mountain, or we don’t die at all.”
His words hit home. It was, for a moment, almost like having one of his brothers back. Wasn’t that how they’d always talked? In absolutes and on scales of epic proportions? He’d said he wouldn’t die out here. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t. Then again, his track record in keeping promises wasn’t exactly pristine.
He sank down next to Koszmar, who had already bent over the cloth-wrapped package. In the dim light, Lukasz could make out a small square of wax the color of spun honey, dot
ted with bits of something dark. It smelled starchy and a little foul.
“What the hell is that?” asked Lukasz, more aggressively than he intended.
“Don’t turn up your nose,” replied Koszmar idly. “It’s żywokost. Dziurawiec would have taken weeks to prepare, and I think we both know you don’t have that long if this goes on.”
Lukasz didn’t answer, but it was the second bleak assessment of his longevity in as many days, and he was not especially keen to dwell on it. Koszmar didn’t notice and kept talking.
“Besides, this was all our hairy little friend had growing in that little rathole of his. And you know what they say about beggars and choosers. Just a harmless little herb, boiled down in some fat and honey. It’ll do the trick.”
The żywokost came apart in sticky strings as Koszmar applied it to several strips of bandage. It seemed overwhelmingly gross to Lukasz, but he took off his shirt.
“You have a strange set of skills for a major,” he observed.
With an expert hand, Koszmar positioned the żywokost over the wound. The bandages hissed as they touched the cuts, sending waves of searing pain down Lukasz’s arm and radiating up his throat.
“I was a medic,” said Koszmar simply.
It still burned like hell.
“Didn’t know medics could be majors,” said Lukasz through gritted teeth.
“Well.” Koszmar began to smile. “I also killed a lot of people.”
There was a pause while he finished tying the bandages. He used knots Lukasz didn’t recognize, fingers flying over the fabric.
“Hurt?” he asked.
“Like the devil.”
A slow, satisfied smile curved over Koszmar’s pale face.
“Good,” he said. “It’s working.”
Koszmar watched as Lukasz moved his arm experimentally. The pain was subsiding, and he had done a good job with binding it up. Lukasz could move his shoulder easily—easily enough to swing a sword, if it really came down to it.
Lukasz pulled his shirt over his head.
Suddenly, Koszmar’s head snapped away. His eyes were trained in the darkness beyond the river. Lukasz followed his gaze. A wall of trees stared back. There was nothing there. Or . . . ?
“You hear something?” he asked, hand already moving to the rifle.
“No,” said Koszmar, but he continued to stare across the river.
The trees crowded together on the opposite bank, and Lukasz felt like they were being watched. He couldn’t shake the memory of the red mist, and the dragon’s quiet golden flames.
This forest felt alive. Not just its animals, its trees, its underbrush—but the earth itself, the air, the dark sky overhead. Even in stillness, it seethed. A silent heartbeat pulsed in the air, and he wondered if Koszmar, too, could feel it.
It’s alive, he thought. It’s alive, it’s watching, it’s—
“She likes you,” said Koszmar suddenly.
Lukasz didn’t answer.
“Ren,” said Koszmar. He began putting away his supplies. “She cares about you.”
Lukasz laughed. It sounded tired, even to him. The forest leaned in.
“I think she wants to kill me,” he said.
Koszmar chuckled. It was soft. The human sound broke up the forest’s heartbeat, occluded that strange, vital thrum around them.
“Well.” He kept his eyes across the riverbank. A half smile slipped over his face. “If she didn’t like you so much, then maybe she would.”
They might have been strangers talking nonsense in a pub somewhere. Not two soldiers in the service of monsters and queens.
“You know,” continued Koszmar, as if a thought had just occurred to him, “I would stay.”
“Here? In the forest?”
Koszmar nodded, eyes unfocused in the distance. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his bent knees. His uniform was still spotless: from the sparkling emblem at his throat to the toes of his tasseled boots. But something else had changed.
“I like this forest,” he said. “I would stay.”
Lukasz got to his feet after Koszmar left. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and was about to turn back to the camp. But for some reason, he lingered. Perhaps that hypnotic, eerie heartbeat. Perhaps that overall sense of vitality, of things watching and life burning. Perhaps it was the evil. Here, it lay thick enough to taste.
Evil so powerful, so dense, webbing the ground and soaking into the soil. Evil trickling through tree roots and nestling under tree bark. Evil had twitched the tree branches and it had scraped and burrowed and whispered, and in its own way, evil had breathed life into these things.
He couldn’t understand why Ren would sacrifice so much to save this. He looked down at his hand, hidden in its glove. He had to tell her. Maybe she’d understand. Maybe she’d see that hand and she’d realize why he couldn’t do it, and maybe—for what felt like the thousandth time—maybe she’d forgive him.
Or maybe she wouldn’t.
Calling wolves, are you? Franciszek would have said. Asking for trouble, are you?
The gloom shifted. Lukasz twisted around. The trees behind him rustled, the wind whistled, and then all the sounds and ever-changing shadows came together, and as if made from the darkness itself, she took shape.
She hung back a moment.
She was looking at him the same way she had once looked at him on another riverbank: cautious, curious, nothing cold, nothing closed off. Eyes full of the things that kept making them start things they couldn’t finish. Things better left unsaid. Better left ignored.
She had him. She had him forever.
She moved closer, and despite the dark sky, it was as if she had a light all her own. Still she was coiled, ready to spring away, cautious as always. Wary of what lay ahead.
“Me too,” she whispered, breaking through his thoughts.
He toyed with the lighter in his hand. His voice was hoarse.
“You too what?”
Her eyes glittered, a little glassy, and then she looked down. She spoke again.
“I’ve also been told I go looking for trouble.”
Lukasz laughed. He put the lighter back in his pocket. Part of him wondered if she’d read his mind. But she hadn’t; it was just her. She understood animals; she understood him.
“You know, humans have a saying for that,” he said. He repeated the old phrase, a phrase first learned as a child, now seared into his memory forever: “Don’t call the wolf from the forest.”
Ren thought about it for a moment.
“I don’t really understand.”
“Don’t ask the wolf to leave his home and come eat your livestock,” said Lukasz. “Don’t go looking for trouble.”
Ren nodded.
There was a heartbeat’s pause.
“Did you come here to say something?” he asked into the silence.
She shot toward him. Faster than he could react. Faster than he could pull away. Not that he would have. God, he never would.
Her hands found his collar, pulled him to her. Her lips on his jaw. Warmth, pressure, and then her smooth cheek slid past his rough one. And while he listened to his own heart pounding, her lips on his ear. Her voice, soft and beautiful and animal, rasping straight into his soul.
“No.”
She let go. He staggered. She took a step back. He reeled.
Her eyes were like pools of glittering darkness, marooned in a bone-white face. The kind of beautiful specter that lured a person into shadows, into nightmares.
She didn’t say anything else.
Instead she kept retreating, while Lukasz stood, stunned. And suddenly, like mist off a river at night, she became indistinct, almost nebulous. And suddenly his fantasy that she was a specter, a monster, a vila, a witch . . . it all became much more reasonable than the alternative. Because she was not human. She had melted, she had shifted, and she had simply faded away. You have an appetite for monsters. She never actually moved, was just accompanied by all the secret sounds of
the river. And then Lukasz was looking at black trees and he could barely believe there had ever been anyone there at all.
And they for you.
Eryk
THREE YEARS EARLIER
LUKASZ AND JAREK MET THE other three brothers just under the eaves of the mayor’s house. They looked imposing, army caps pulled low on their foreheads, fur-collared greatcoats slick with rain.
Now that he was the oldest brother, Eryk was in charge. Certainly the most lupine of them all, he had always been fond of the bottle and the beautiful things that winked at handsome men from smoky shadows.
Now he checked a silver pocket watch before stowing it in his coat.
“Two minutes to spare,” he said. “Cutting it close.”
“They wanted photographs,” said Lukasz, out of breath.
Eryk raised an eyebrow.
“Well, if they’d wanted good ones, they should have asked Anzelm,” he said before striding up the front steps to knock on the door.
Anzelm rolled his eyes, but they all knew Eryk was right. Anzelm was the handsomest of the Wolf-Lords.
The five of them had just slain a pair of Tannimi scuttling shipping boats in Granica Harbor. The mayor’s house loomed overhead, in white stone with arched, blue-tinted windows. The Granica flag flew from the topmost floor, and the second story was flanked by statues of mermaids.
The door swung open, and a maid curtsied.
“You still smell like fish,” murmured Franciszek as they filed inside.
“We smell like courage,” replied Lukasz.
The mayor of Granica was a powerful man. His city controlled the import of goods; his city welcomed the drab ships of the west and gorgeous ships of the east; his city weighed and measured the cargoes with cranes; his city produced the most capable of engineers and the wickedest of privateers; his city shipped out the great salt blocks that kept the Miasto nobility draped in jewels and lace.
And the mayor was jealous of the Wolf-Lords. They were near the ages of his own disappointing sons. According to the Granica gossips, the mayor had looked into five dark faces and five pairs of sharp blue eyes, and he had envied them. Resented them.
And so, under his direction, the celebratory dinner, held in the opulence of amber-paneled rooms in the gatehouse’s upper floors, took an unexpected turn. Between the soup and the entrées, the mayor clapped his hands. Double doors opened at the end of the amber room, and his attendants entered. Lukasz froze, midway through a generous glass of vodka.
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