Lord of Snow and Shadows

by Sarah Ash

Astasia was standing, staring at Count Velemir.

  “Andrei?” she whispered. “Drowned?”

  The Grand Duchess gave another choked cry.

  “Send more search parties!” ordered the Grand Duke. “He could have been washed ashore on any of the beaches. He’s a strong swimmer, our Andrei.”

  “Andrei,” echoed the Grand Duchess, beginning to sob into her napkin. The Grand Duke reached out blindly for her hand.

  Courtiers rushed to and fro in confusion. Some called for the captain of the White Guard to organize a search; others surrounded the Grand Duchess, holding a glass of brandy to her lips, fanning her, easing her into her chair.

  Elysia could not bear to think of so many lives lost in the cold, churning seas. She could not bear to remember how Andrei had smiled and waved as he went to board the Sirin, the vivid enthusiasm of the young and the fearless lighting his dark eyes. He had so reminded her of Gavril. . . .

  “This is all my fault,” Astasia said softly. Her lower lip trembled.

  “How so, my dear?” Elysia asked, taking her hand and pressing it gently.

  “Oh, Madame Andar, if only I’d agreed to the marriage with Prince Eugene sooner, then none of this would have happened and Andrei would still be alive. Now it’s too late—”

  “We don’t know for sure—” began Elysia, hating herself for saying the meaningless words.

  “I shall never, ever forgive myself!” cried Astasia, running from the dining room.

  CHAPTER 27

  The darkness is flecked with specks of gold. Gold specks spin, meld together, forming a disk, pale gold as the harvest moon. Not one disk—now twin full moons glimmer in the night sky. Moons—or eyes?

  Owls’ eyes.

  Kiukiu groaned. Her body felt as if it had been ripped apart. Every sinew ached.

  Snowcloud was sitting on the back of a chair, staring intently at her.

  She knuckled her eyes. Such a horribly vivid dream. Lord Stayvor had taken possession of her. She could still feel the cold, cruel anger of her Arkhel master, seeking to impose his will on her, forcing her to . . .

  But no, it could only have been a dream.

  “Free . . .”

  The word sighed through the firelit room so softly that she was not sure whether she had imagined it.

  “Grandma?” But Malusha was still sleeping soundly under her brightly colored quilt of patches.

  “Alive.” The voice was clearer this time. And there was no doubting where it came from.

  “Wings.” The owl stretched out one powerful white wing, retracted it, and extended the other. “Fly, I can fly.”

  She jumped up, alert now.

  “Snowcloud?”

  “You . . . will . . . address me”—the creaking voice issued from the owl’s beak—“as . . . my lord.”

  For a moment, Kiukiu found herself completely speechless. Her owl had answered her back. She was not certain if Snowcloud had actually articulated actual words, or if she had heard the owl speech and understood it for the first time. Didn’t Malusha call the owls “my lords and ladies”?

  “M-my lord Snowcloud?” she stammered eventually.

  “Must you be so stupid?” the owl snapped back spitefully. “Don’t you know me? Stavyor Arkhel?”

  At once all Kiukiu’s delight and amazement melted away. It had been no dream. Lord Arkhel had used her to return to the world of the living. She had tried to resist him, but he had been too strong; his will had overmastered hers.

  How dare he! Panic and anger clouded her mind. Must send him back. But how, how?

  She began to edge toward Malusha’s bed.

  “Grandma?” she hissed. “Wake up.”

  The owl rose off its perch, wings slowly beating, making an attempt to fly in her face. “No!” She gave a shriek, flinging up her arms to beat it off.

  Snowcloud twisted awkwardly in the air, tumbling toward the floor, only just managing to right himself as he skidded into an ungainly landing. A few downy feathers floated down.

  “You will learn to treat me with respect,” he said aggrievedly.

  “What’s all this commotion?” Malusha sat up suddenly in her bed, clutching her quilt to her. Then she saw Snowcloud, and her eyes narrowed. “Lord Stavyor,” she said quietly, “it’s not yet time. You must go back.”

  “Do you presume to tell me what to do?”

  “This young owl has not been properly trained, my lord.” Malusha swung her feet out from under the covers. “You will only harm yourself—and your host.”

  “I want to see my son.”

  Overhead, the rustling and low crooning of the other roosting owls grew louder.

  “Didn’t I warn you, Kiukiu?” Malusha was tucking a shawl around her nightshirt; her voice was low and angry. “Never look in their eyes.”

  Now Malusha was blaming her—as if she’d had any choice in the matter!

  “He made me!” Kiukiu burst out. “He was in the mirror, the bronze mirror—”

  “Don’t send me back!” The cry tore out of the owl’s throat. The other owls above yikkered and shook their wings.

  “It is deepest winter, my lord.” Malusha, muttering to herself, shuffled toward the fireplace. “Your owl host would not last more than a day in this bitter weather. We must wait for the thaw.” She took hold of the gusly and struck a shivering ripple of notes.

  “No!” The owl’s scream, a cry of rage and defiance, made Kiukiu clutch at her ears.

  Malusha had begun to sing, a low, insistent chanting, plucking at the deepest string until her voice and the string’s dark vibration mingled and became one. The air trembled. A fissure began to gape open. The deep, thrumming note had opened a doorway into the void filled with rushing darkness, which Kiukiu recognized with growing terror.

  Stavyor-Snowcloud recognized it, too, and flung himself upward, great white wingbeats stirring the gaping air.

  “He’s getting away!” Kiukiu cried.

  All the owls were gripped with Snowcloud’s panic now, whirring around like wild-clawed fiends, feathers and owlshit dropping down onto the room below like snow.

  “Ugh!” Kiukiu grabbed a cloth, flinging it over her head for protection. In the confusion of flying feathers she thought she saw Snowcloud dash through the owl hole in the roof. Others followed, screeching and hooting.

  With a small, sucking sound, the doorway collapsed in on itself.

  Malusha laid down the gusly. She put her wrinkled hands to her head and rocked to and fro for a moment, as if about to faint.

  “Grandma?” whispered Kiukiu, creeping close. “Are you all right?”

  “I wasn’t strong enough,” Malusha said dully. “He resisted me. He fought me and he won. The dead should not control the living so easily. Am I losing my powers? Am I too old?”

  “This is all my fault,” Kiukiu said. She felt shaky, near tears. “I was weak. He took advantage of my weakness.” If Malusha wanted to punish her, she deserved punishment.

  Malusha leaned toward her and took her hand, squeezing it between her own.

  “Weak? No. If anything your powers are too strong, child.” She shook her head. “I should have known Lord Stavyor would try to use you. Even as a child he was always headstrong, willful. I should have protected you better. I should have been more vigilant.”

  “What will he do to Snowcloud?” demanded Kiukiu.

  “He will drive him to fly to the limits of his own strength—and beyond.”

  “I can’t let him do that.”

  “Snowcloud is an Arkhel Owl. He is strong, bred to fight in battle. Bred to fight as host to a warrior spirit-wraith.”

  “But—but I thought those were just old stories, Grandma. Legends. To scare the Nagarians.”

  “And now you have seen the truth of it.”

  “Owls trained to maul and maim in battle?” It seemed obscene to Kiukiu that such beautiful, noble creatures had been subjugated to the Arkhels’ will and used as killing machines. “I have to save Snowcloud. He will
go mad with Lord Stavyor lodged in his head.” And then another thought, worse than the first, gripped her. “He said he wanted to see his son. But suppose—suppose he has gone to seek out Lord Gavril instead?”

  Malusha shrugged. “My throat is dry. I need some tea.” She moved slowly toward the fire, tutting as she tried not to step in the mess left by the owls.

  “Grandma.” Kiukiu followed her. “Lord Gavril helped to rescue Snowcloud. He wouldn’t know, until it was too late—”

  Malusha ladled water into the pot and put it to heat over the flames. “Fire’s burning low. We need more kindling.”

  “Grandma!”

  Malusha turned to her, brown eyes gazing at her critically. “You still speak like a Nagarian, Kiukirilya.”

  “Is that my fault?” Kiukiu blazed. “I was raised a Nagarian. I was taught to hate the Arkhels. And besides,” her voice dropped “you’ve got to believe me, Grandma, Lord Gavril is not like his father.”

  “The Drakhaoul has taken your Lord Gavril as it took his father before him. If you go back to Kastel Drakhaon, you’ll be in for a rude shock, child.”

  Why didn’t Malusha understand! “But I have to put things right. First Lord Volkh, and now Lord Stavyor. You have to teach me, Grandma. Teach me how to send them back.”

  “Very well.” Malusha turned her back to the fire. “But it’s a dangerous business. The spirit-wraith will fight you. It will do all in its power to stay with its host—and even if you drive it out, if your will is not strong enough, it will possess you instead.”

  “How can I track him?” Kiukiu persisted. “How can I be sure which way he’s gone?”

  “Your only hope is to take my lady Iceflower with you. The two were getting on very nicely together before Lord Stavyor appeared; I have hopes of chicks in the spring. She’ll know which way he’s gone.”

  Kiukiu glanced uncertainly up at the rafters. She had never known any other owl but Snowcloud, and from down here all the snow owls looked dauntingly fierce, their talons cruelly hooked and barbed.

  “First my tea,” Malusha said, “then I shall teach you the Sending Song.”

  The fire burned low as Malusha played, and Kiukiu imitated her as best she could. There was a sequence of notes to be learned but the art, Malusha showed her, was in a subtle retuning of the strings of the gusly. The slow, deep vibration of each plucked string seemed to bleed the brightness from the flames of the fire, to draw the winter shadows closer. Every dark pitch had to be matched with a long, low, ululating sound in the throat, closer to weeping than to singing. A hypnotic funeral chant, Kiukiu thought, at once peaceful and remote, a meandering path of sound leading far, far away, beyond a dim, distant horizon.

  “You will weave the spirit-wraith within one of these chants. It will find it irresistible. Once you have trapped it and bound it, you’ll be able to lead it back into the Ways Beyond.” Malusha’s voice droned on; Kiukiu fought the growing urge to close her eyes. “But be careful that it doesn’t drag you with it, child, for it won’t go peacefully. It will fight you. All the way.”

  Kiukiu shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. The notes still reverberated in her mind, each one as dark and somber as an autumn twilight.

  “Now,” Malusha said, rising to her feet to go to stoke the fire, “you must practice.”

  “The sleigh is ready.” Malusha placed her hand on Kiukiu’s shoulder. “I want you to wrap yourself up warmly. I’ve put in food and a little flask of cloudberry brandy for emergencies—but you will need a clear, keen head if you’re to entrap my lord Stavyor. Oh—and your mittens, child. What use is a Guslyar whose fingers are so chilled she cannot tell one string from another?”

  In the yard, Harim the pony stood patiently waiting, harnessed to the sleigh. On the rail perched a white owl, regarding Kiukiu with its head inclined a little to one side. The owl was smaller, slighter, more elegantly groomed than Snowcloud.

  “You must be Iceflower!” Kiukiu cried.

  The owl retracted its head as if affronted at her crude greeting.

  “My lady Iceflower,” she hastily corrected herself.

  “My lady will lead you to Lord Snowcloud. Let her guide you through the snows.” Malusha tucked Kiukiu in among the furs and blankets she had piled in the sleigh, placing the gusly beside her. Then she leaned across and, to Kiukiu’s surprise, gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Now be off with you all.” She whispered in the pony’s furry ear and patted him on the rump.

  Obediently, Harim set off at a slow trot, the runners of the sleigh grinding over the snowy cobbles of the yard.

  At the gateway, Malusha stood, clutching her shawls to her against the snow wind’s icy breath. Kiukiu heard her murmuring a slow, mumbling chant beneath her breath. As they passed beneath the gateway she felt the invisible veil of protection part to let them through. And then the cruel wind off the moors hit her like a whip. Turning to wave to her grandmother, she saw that Malusha and the walls of the cottage had completely vanished into the snowmist.

  Even though it was day, the skies were dark and threatening as thunder. A thin, dismal light shone through chinks in the snowclouds.

  “Which way, Lady Iceflower?” she asked the owl, whose neat white feathers were being ruffled by the wind.

  The owl haughtily lifted her head, turning it a quarter to the left.

  “You’re certain?”

  The owl turned her head right around and gave her a look of such chilling contempt that Kiukiu instantly pulled on the reins, turning Harim’s head to the left. Soon they were skimming over the frozen snowflats.

  Exhilarated by the cold and the speed of the sleigh, Kiukiu tossed back her head and—because she couldn’t help herself—let out a loud whoop.

  The owl gave her another disdainful look.

  “So? Who’s about to hear us?” Kiukiu cried.

  CHAPTER 28

  “Hold on. Hold on, now.” Someone was speaking in a low, insistent voice.

  Pain—agonizing pain—exploded like firecrackers through Gavril’s body. A restraining hand gripped his arm.

  “Don’t move. Lie still.”

  Through wavering lids, Gavril saw a figure bending over him in the night. Behind him shimmered a vast wall of rock and ice, glittering against the starry sky.

  “Jaromir?” he whispered to the shadowed face above him.

  And then another surge of pain swept sickeningly through him, and the night and his rescuer blurred into one cresting dark wave.

  “So. You’re awake,” said Jaromir Arkhel.

  Snowmist still swirled in front of Gavril’s eyes. Through the haze of concussion, he saw Jaromir gazing impassively down at him.

  “Where . . . am . . . I?”

  “In the monastery refuge. On the mountain.”

  “I . . . remember falling. Thought I would die.”

  “A ledge broke your fall. I heard your cry for help.”

  “You?” Gavril struggled to sit up—and gave a gasp as a stab of excruciating pain shot through his right side and arm. “B-but why?”

  “I think your shoulder’s broken. I’ve bound it,” Jaromir said impassively. “You were lucky. It could have been so much worse.”

  Another wave of sickness washed over Gavril. Suddenly he found himself retching uncontrollably. Jaromir produced a bowl and held his head until he was done.

  “I’m—sorry.” Shamed, Gavril lay back, shakily wiping the spittle from his mouth with his good hand.

  “Drink this.” Jaromir held a cup to his lips. “It will help control the nausea.”

  Gavril gazed up at him, suddenly riven with mistrust. He was at Jaromir’s mercy. Jaromir could poison him here, and no one would ever know how he had died.

  “The monks gave it to me to take when the pain was too much to bear.”

  Gavril reluctantly drank down the draft. He had expected it to taste bitter, but the monks had masked the bitterness with a pleasant syrup of green mallow and ginger.

  “Now you will sleep, and hea
l the faster for sleeping,” Jaromir said.

  It was already working; his lids were drooping, the pain in his shoulder dulling to a bearable throb. And yet there was something still troubling him.

  “B-but why,” he said, his voice sounding thick and drugged in his own ears. “Why not just leave me to die?”

  “Why? Oh, I have my reasons. You are of much more use to me alive than dead on the mountain, Lord Drakhaon. Much more use.”

  A girl stands alone in the middle of the darkened ballroom. She is weeping.

  Moonlight silvers the broken glass in the panes, the dust powdering the cracked floor, the grimy cobwebs hanging like streamers from the chipped plaster. Moonlight lights her cloudy dark hair, her white organdy ballgown—all torn to tatters.

  “Astasia,” Gavril cries. “Astasia!”

  Slowly she turns, slowly she raises her face from her hands.

  He is gazing at a blank. Where her features should be, there is nothing but a void.

  Gavril, drowsy and feverish, lost count of the hours. Days and nights passed as he wandered through troubled dreams.

  When he came back to himself it was dark. He could just make out Jaromir kneeling over the smoldering eye of the fire, stirring a pot that hung suspended above the flames. A thin, savory steam wafted out. Gavril’s stomach rumbled at the scent of the broth. He was ravenously hungry.

  He shifted a little and pain flared through his right shoulder, tingling down his arm to his hand. Looking down he saw that Jaromir had strapped his right arm across his chest, and that the straps pinned him to the narrow wooden bed on which he lay.

  “So I’m your prisoner.”

  “Hostage.” Jaromir threw a handful of pinecones onto the fire; the flames crackled and spat sparks into the darkness.

  “And your terms?”

  “I’d have thought you’d have worked that out for yourself,” Jaromir said drily. “Your life for hers.”

  “Lilias? Didn’t you know? She got away. Michailo rescued her.”

  “But your druzhina went after her. Your druzhina will catch up with them. They will not treat them kindly.”