by Sarah Ash
“I want to know my son is safe.”
“Ah, but is that all you want?”
“No. I want him out of Azhkendir, away from the influence of Bogatyr Kostya. Gavril is not anything like his father. If they try to make another Volkh of him, I fear it will destroy him.” She bit her lip to stop the tears from flowing again. “He is a caring, sensitive boy, Feodor. An artist.”
“In the carriage today, you mentioned that Kazimir had found a cure for your late husband’s condition?”
“Some kind of elixir,” Elysia said, nodding, “that reverses the detrimental effects of the inherited condition. That makes the sufferer human again.”
“My dear Elysia,” Velemir said, refilling her glass with the pale amber wine, “it seems from all you have told me that it is essential—for the health and well-being of your son—that Doctor Kazimir should administer his healing elixir as soon as possible.”
“Oh yes, yes,” Elysia cried, “but how can it be done? He refuses to return to Azhkendir. And now that the ice has set in, it will be months—”
“Not with the assistance of Eugene of Tielen. His artificiers have designed vessels, ice yachts, that can easily traverse the winter ice that divides the two countries.”
“But you said there could be war with Tielen!” Elysia gazed at him, bewildered.
“And there could as easily be peace if Astasia agrees to become his bride. I am in constant diplomatic communication with the Tielen ambassador. And I believe the prince might be agreeable to helping you, Elysia.”
CHAPTER 18
The swirling snow song of the Snow Spirits lulled Kiukiu into a blank, white daze. She felt herself moving slowly forward over the snow.
Skeletal ice fingers beckoned her, caressed her, chilled her flesh until she could feel no cold, could feel nothing any longer but a profound numbness.
The shadowdoor gaped open. Beyond it, veils of darkness swirled and billowed. The singing had become wordless, each interweaving line a tendril of icy wind, reaching out to ensnare her, to draw her into the darkness. It was the barren breath of the wind as it stirred the frozen reeds. It was the song of the emptiness of the eternal snowflats.
And now she was gliding, gliding toward the mouth of the shadowdoor. . . .
A faint yik-yik-yikking cry broke the Snow Spirits’ glacial song.
She halted, listening.
“Who’s there?” she called. How weak her voice sounded. Even if anyone heard her, she would be past help before they found her. “H-hello?”
Something came flapping out of the darkness, its golden eyes blazing.
Kiukiu looked up and saw a snow-white owl hovering overhead. Behind it, others materialized, a flock of great owls, their golden eyes bright as torchflames in the snow.
“Snowcloud?” she whispered. “But you’re dead; Oleg killed you. Am I dreaming, or am I dead too?”
The snow was falling heavily now, large white flakes, soft as owl feathers. Kiukiu felt her eyes closing again, unable to stop herself slipping back into the cold stupor that had numbed her weary body.
“Well, my lords?” a querulous voice called. “What have you found? It had better be worth my pains, dragging me out on such a night.”
Dreaming . . .
“Away with you, you greedy Snow Spirits. Shoo, shoo! There’s nothing here for you. It’s Malusha talking to you, now. And when Malusha talks, you listen, you obey!”
The chill chanting ceased.
There was a malevolent hissing, and a bitter-cold swirl of wind whisked around her as the black doorway collapsed in on itself.
Then there was nothing but snow.
Something sharp and hard grated against Kiukiu’s cheek. “Too tired, Snowcloud,” she murmured apologetically. “Just can’t . . . go on . . . any f arther . . .”
“Who’s this, then, little lord?” The voice was closer now. Someone was bending over her, touching her cheek with callused fingers. “Friend of yours? Why, it’s a girl. Wake up, child. Wake up!”
Kiukiu opened her eyes a little and blinked the snow from her lashes.
A wild-haired old woman was staring into her face with eyes that were as golden-bright and mad as the eyes of the snow owls clustering behind her.
“You can’t stay here, child. You’ll freeze to death. Up you get now and come with me.”
“I—c-can’t.” Kiukiu could no longer feel her legs.
“Nonsense! Lean on me.” The old woman put her arm around Kiukiu and tried to pull her up. “Oof! You’re a great sturdy girl, too heavy for me. You’re going to have to do the work yourself.”
Kiukiu struggled to her knees.
“My sleigh’s here. Just a little farther, child. Blizzard’s whipping up—we must get to shelter.”
Out of the snowmists, Kiukiu could just make out a dim lantern glow. Painfully she forced herself to crawl through the snow toward the light until she saw the lantern hung from a little sleigh covered in furs, owls perching on its top. A sturdy, shaggy-coated moorland pony was standing patiently waiting, head down against the snow.
The old woman got into the sleigh and leaned down to give Kiukiu her hand. Her clothes waterlogged with melting snow, Kiukiu clambered awkwardly up into the sleigh.
“Wrap these furs round you.” The old woman took up the reins and tugged them, making clicking sounds to the pony. “Off we go, Harim.”
Slowly, bumpily, the sleigh began to move across the snow into the darkness. Teeth chattering, Kiukiu huddled down into the furs. The snow owls took off, flapping overhead, their great wing strokes fanning the fast-falling snow.
Numb with cold and exhaustion, Kiukiu lost all sense of time. Soothed by the rhythm of the pony’s steady trotting, the swishing of the snow, she lapsed into a trance. It seemed that the little sleigh had been traveling through the winter darkness forever when it suddenly drew to a stop.
“Here we are,” the old woman said, hopping down and unhooking the lantern. Kiukiu was too weak to ask where “here” was; she let the old woman lead her. She had a vague impression of passing beneath a tall archway, crossing a snow-covered yard, and ducking down to enter a low door. Inside, she saw firelight.
“Sit yourself down and get warm,” the old woman said, tossing some more sticks onto the fire. “I’m off to stable old Harim.”
Kiukiu slid down on the hearth, raising her frozen hands to the blaze. But as her fingers and toes began to thaw, pain burned through them. She had forgotten how the cold could cause irreversible damage even as it numbed hands and feet. Melting snow dripped down her cheeks from her wet hair. She tried to pull off Sosia’s headscarf but her fingers would not obey her.
An old iron cooking pot, blackened with fire and age, hung on a tripod over the flames. Kiukiu thought she could recognize a faint but mouth-watering waft of vegetable soup. Only now did she realize she was ravenously hungry.
“Just in time!” The old woman reappeared, stamping the snow from her boots. “The blizzard’s set in. Even my lords and ladies won’t hunt tonight.”
“I must thank you,” Kiukiu stammered. “You saved my life.”
“The little lord was most insistent,” the old woman said, coming closer to stoke the fire. Her eyes gleamed bright in a face as wrinkled as a winter apple. “Friend of yours, is he?”
For a moment Kiukiu was not sure what her rescuer was talking about.
“You mean Snowcloud?” she asked, understanding.
“Snowcloud? Is that what you call him?” The old woman cackled as if Kiukiu had made a joke.
“His leg was broken,” Kiukiu said, indignant that her special name should be mocked. “We nursed him back to health. But—but how did he know I was in danger? How did he tell you?”
“What is your name, child?” inquired the old woman, ignoring her questions. “And what were you doing out so far from shelter?”
“My name is Kiukirilya, but everyone calls me Kiukiu.”
“There is something about you . . .” The old woman was star
ing at her intently, the firelight glinting in her bright eyes. Then she turned away, muttering to herself, “No, no, it cannot be. No.”
“What is your name?” Kiukiu ventured.
“Malusha.” The old woman seemed to recover her composure. “Old Malusha. Mad Malusha.”
“And you live out here on the moors all alone?”
“Alone?” Malusha cackled again. “With all my lords and ladies to care for?”
Something stirred up high in the rafters. Kiukiu looked up and saw a snow owl perched above her head on bare rafters stained white with owl droppings.
“The owls?” Kiukiu said.
“My lords don’t usually choose to roost in here, they prefer the tower. But they were curious tonight. They wanted to inspect our guest. But we’re forgetting our manners; you’re soaked to the skin. You’ll catch your death, child. Take off those wet things.”
Only now did Kiukiu realize she had left her bundle of possessions out on the moors.
“Here’s an old shift of mine and a dry blanket.” Malusha shuffled over with a folded pile of clothes. “You can change by the fire.” When Kiukiu hesitated, she said indignantly, “Don’t be so modest, I won’t look.”
Kiukiu wriggled out of her damp clothes and hurriedly shrugged on Malusha’s coarse old linen shift, wrapping the blanket about her as a shawl. Last of all, she set about peeling off the soggy woolen stockings. Her feet emerged, swollen and blue. At the least she would have agonizing chilblains—if she didn’t lose any toes to frostbite.
“Put these on.” Malusha brought her a pair of thick woolen socks. “And now let’s have some tea. Tea will warm us up.”
A little later, Kiukiu sat, a bowl of green tea in her hands, beside Malusha on the hearth in the glow of the fire’s blaze.
“Now tell me, Kiukiu,” Malusha said, “what were you doing out on the moors in the first snows?”
Kiukiu sighed. She had not the strength to pour out the whole story tonight.
“I was going to Klim,” she said.
“Klim! You were going in the opposite direction, child. If Lord Snowcloud hadn’t found you, you’d have frozen to death. The Snow Spirits were hungry tonight. And where were you coming from?”
“Kastel Drakhaon.”
“Kastel Drakhaon!” Malusha’s eyes blazed, bright as the owls’. “So you’re one of Volkh’s minions?”
“Lord Volkh,” Kiukiu said, alarmed by the old woman’s reaction, “is dead.”
“And what business does one of Volkh’s minions have rescuing Arkhel’s Owl?” Malusha asked, thrusting her face up close to Kiukiu’s.
“They threw me out for rescuing him!” Kiukiu cried. She began to sob. “I thought he was dead. Oleg told me they’d killed him.”
“My little lord flew here last night. Seems he heard the call of one of my young ladies and found her irresistible.”
Oleg had tricked her. Had he found the white feathers shed by Snowcloud and smeared blood on them to make the druzhina believe his story? Or just to cause her pain?
“So you’ve a kind heart in spite of where you were raised, child.” Malusha was still staring at her, looking so keenly that in spite of her tiredness, Kiukiu felt acutely uncomfortable.
“No, no,” the old woman muttered. “Impossible. More tea, child?” She took the bowl from Kiukiu’s hands and hobbled over to the fire to refill it. Kiukiu gratefully swallowed down more of the warming tea. This time it tasted more fiery, as though Malusha had added ginger and hot spices to the dried leaves. Heat sizzled through Kiukiu’s veins, warming fingertips and toes, making her cheeks burn. A delightful drowsiness followed. All she wanted now was to sink back in the blankets and sleep away the troubles of the day.
“That’s right, child,” Malusha crooned. “You’re tired, you must sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”
Kiukiu dreams.
She is walking through a forest of slender birches, past tall, silver trunks, beneath delicate leaves that sway and sigh in the breeze. Faint amid the sighing of the birch leaves comes the sound of music, distant notes, clear as the patter of falling rain.
In a clearing carpeted with dry, fallen birch leaves, soft and silvered with age, a woman sits, playing a stringed instrument. The woman’s head is bent over the strings; the dark folds of her headdress shade her face.
Kiukiu comes toward her and the music stops, mid-phrase, like a question.
“Who are you, child?” the woman asks, her head still bent, her voice low and sweet like a wood dove’s.
“My name is Kiukiu—”
“That is your name. But what is your parentage, who was your father, your mother?”
The breeze stirs the strings, a strange, wild breath of sound
“My mother’s name was Afimia. And my father—my father—” Kiukiu can hardly say it. “My father was called Malkh.”
There is the harsh discordant sound of snapped strings—and the woman casts the instrument down.
“Malkh, Malkh, my golden boy,” the woman whispers, rocking to and fro in grief.
The birch forest is growing rapidly dark, and the gentle breeze has become a cold wind. Silver leaves begin to stir and eddy in the harsh gusts.
“You knew my father?” Kiukiu asks, chilled to the bone.
The woman raises her head and Kiukiu finds she is staring into the tear-streaked face of Malusha.
“Knew him? He was my son.”
CHAPTER 19
“Welcome, Gavril,” Lilias said, smiling. She lay on her silk-draped bed, propped up on pillows. Beside the bed was set a cradle, draped with folds of crisp white linen. A talented seamstress—Dysis?—had embroidered the Nagarian crest on the linen in threads of gold and blue.
“Congratulations, Lilias.” Gavril could not bring himself to smile back at her.
“Don’t you want to see my son? Your half-brother Artamon?”
Half-brother? Gavril approached the cradle and looked inside. He had never had a brother or sister. The pink little scrap of a thing that lay curled asleep inside did not look much of a threat. Neither, he thought, did the baby look anything like a Nagarian with its wisps of red-gold hair. Or an Arkhel. If anything, little Artamon favored Lilias’ coloring. He felt a sudden pang of pity for the sleeping child, innocent and unaware of the snake’s nest it had been born into.
“Sleeping so peacefully. And yet,” and a darkness shadowed her face, “he had such a narrow escape.”
“What do you mean?”
“A horrible thing happened. I still find myself shaking when I think of it. One of the servants tried to kill him.”
“One of the servants?” Gavril had a sudden sick feeling of apprehension; what unpleasant revelation was she leading up to? He had noticed an unusually subdued atmosphere in the kastel. “Who would want to kill a baby?”
“The girl was never right in the head. She should never have been left alone with the baby. But don’t worry, my lord, the matter is dealt with.”
“Dealt with?” Apprehension turned to dread. “Who was it?”
“Why, Kiukiu, of course. I thought you might have guessed from my description!”
Gavril felt his heart lurch painfully in his breast. He had warned her to be careful of Lilias. But Lilias was clever. Too clever for good-hearted, loyal Kiukiu.
“Kiukiu isn’t the kind of girl to harm babies,” he began. “Are you sure you aren’t mistaken?”
“I caught her trying to smother my baby!” Lilias’ green eyes glistened with sudden tears.
“But why would she do such a thing?”
“Because she has bad blood in her! Did you know her father was an Arkhel? Not a lord, of course, but one of their shamans.”
Gavril stared at her in dismay. He did not for one moment believe that Kiukiu would have tried to harm the baby—but for now he found himself outmaneuvered.
“And where is she now?” he asked.
“Oh, she’s gone.”
“Gone!” His heart gave another lurch. “Gone whe
re?”
“I had her thrown out. I couldn’t risk her being anywhere near my baby.”
“What right,” he said coldly, “did you have to have one of my servants dismissed without my authorization?”
“Michailo authorized it. Kostya left him in command of the kastel. There was more. An owl. She was keeping an owl—an Arkhel’s Owl—as a pet! She was lucky to be dismissed without punishment.”
Worse and worse. They had found Snowcloud.
“And when did all this happen?”
“Yesterday.”
“You sent her out into that blizzard?”
“Was it my fault the weather changed?”
“And has no one gone to look for her?” Gavril turned and went striding out of Lilias’ bedchamber, letting the door bang behind him. He didn’t care if he woke the baby. He only knew that Kiukiu had been made to suffer on his account. Lilias had found a way to rid herself of Kiukiu—a way that worked all too well to her advantage.
“Sosia!” he shouted. He was Drakhaon; the whole household would pay if Kiukiu had come to any harm.
“My lord?” Sosia came up from the kitchens; her face was wan and drawn.
“Why did you let them dismiss Kiukiu? Send her out into the snows?” He could hear his own voice, hot and rough with anger.
“I—I had no alternative, my lord.” Sosia looked frightened.
“Where did she go?”
“I told her to go to the village. To Klim. I have family there, at the tavern.”
“Michailo!” The anger was building inside him; he made an effort to contain it. “Michailo!”
“My lord?” Michailo appeared on the balcony overhead; Gavril could see the glint of his fair hair in the gloom.
“Assemble a search party. Get blankets and aquavit.”
“Why, my lord?”
There was something in Michailo’s tone of voice that rankled, almost a hint of insolence.
“You dare question my orders?” The words rasped out. “Do as I say.”
There was a small pause.
“Very well, Lord Drakhaon.”
Gavril struck his clenched fist against the paneled wall. Fixed shields and crossed blades rattled. Suddenly the household sprang into life; orders were bellowed, men of the druzhina came running past, grabbing axes, buckling on sabers. Gavril watched them with a kind of grim satisfaction, following them through to the courtyard where he saw them leading their horses from the stables. The cobbles were dirty with muddied slush and hard-trodden snow.