Winter War Awakening (Blood Rose Rebellion, Book 3)

by Rosalyn Eves

  “Well?”

  “I’ve brought you some soldiers, sir,” Emilija said, gesturing to the women behind her.

  “Can they fight?”

  “As well as most of your men, I’d wager.” Emilija raised her chin.

  The tent flap lifted behind the general, and a young man emerged, already speaking to Guyon. But as his eyes took us in, his words fell away.

  “Anna,” Gábor said instead, a smile breaking across his face: sunlight after a rainstorm, light fractured into a million colors.

  My heart swelled, lifted, burst—too full to stay neatly confined behind my ribs. “Gábor.”

  He was here. Whole. Safe.

  The terrible weight I had carried for the past hours lifted a fraction, though I should have to reckon later with my guilt for all the men who were not here, who were not whole or safe.

  General Guyon raised his eyebrows. “You know this woman, Kovács?”

  Even in the pale light of the lantern I could see Gábor was blushing. My own face felt warm, but I did not care. Gábor was here. Is, I thought. Not was. I could withstand any embarrassment for that, any pain.

  “We are friends,” I said in English. More than friends.

  Guyon’s eyebrows lifted even higher. “You’re English. And a lady too, I’d swear, though I’ve never seen one with such a haircut—or in such a place.”

  I dropped a curtsy. “Lady Anna Arden,” I said. “My mother is Hungarian.” As though that explained everything—my short, unruly hair; my sudden appearance in the midst of a Hungarian war.

  He puffed out a breath. “Well. You’d best tell me how else I may help you.”

  I need to apologize….No. There was no time for that.

  I switched to Hungarian for the sake of the others, who did not all speak English, though it was harder to find the words after the brief stint in my mother tongue. “We’ve brought a warning. The Russian army does not fight alongside Austria, not entirely. They fight in collusion with a praetherian army, which is biding its time, waiting for our own forces to weaken before attacking. I do not know what the praetheria have promised Russia, but I do not trust them.”

  “Galicia,” Hunger said, stepping forward. “The Four have promised the tsar Galicia in exchange for his aid—and the safety of the Russian people. Austria and Hungary have no such promise, and if the plan unfolds as intended, the praetheria will establish a stronghold here and then spread out across Europe, into the Mediterranean, and onward.”

  Beneath the shadow of the hat he wore, Hunger’s golden eyes looked ordinary and brown. If I did not know him for praetherian, I would never have guessed it.

  “These are serious claims—but how do I know they are true?”

  “I believe Anna,” Gábor said. “As long as I’ve known her, she’s been a woman of integrity.”

  I pressed my lips together, swallowing the words that would betray my damnable mistake that destroyed much of Guyon’s army.

  “We’ve been to the caves where the praetherian army prepares,” Emilija said. “We were held prisoner there and only recently escaped. I am Emilija Dragović, a Red Mantle and the daughter of Josip Dragović. I would not abandon my father and my army without good cause.”

  The lidérc stood back, her gaze lowered. But the line of her neck was taut: she was not comfortable here, surrounded by human soldiers. I made a mental note to ensure that one of us stayed with her.

  General Guyon tugged at his beard. “You’ll need to speak with Hadúr and Görgey.”

  * * *

  It took only a few minutes for Gábor to gather horses for our small group: Noémi, Emilija, the lidérc, Hunger, and me. Emilija’s recruits stayed behind with Guyon’s men. Emilija fretted at leaving them, but Gábor assured her that they would be given food and a place to sleep.

  As Gábor led me to my horse, he tugged at my short hair with one hand, then rested his fingers against my cheek. I caught his hand and pressed my lips into his palm. Everywhere our skin touched seemed to spark.

  “I should not be so happy to see you here, in the middle of a war,” Gábor said with a soft laugh. “But I am. I worried when your letters stopped coming.”

  An angry red line peeked out just above his collar, and I tugged the fabric down, fingering the welt as it crawled across his collarbone before disappearing beneath his shirt. He laid his hand over mine. “I’m all right.”

  “But others aren’t.” I swallowed. “Gábor—your letters. They were stolen from me when you were in the mountains.”

  “But you erased them?”

  I looked at him, stricken. “All but the last.”

  A long moment passed. He didn’t say anything, only nodded shortly and cupped his hands to help me mount. Once I was safely astride, he backed away, not letting his fingers linger a fraction longer than necessary.

  My heart ached, guilt compounded by a new fear. Gábor must hate me for what I’d done. Once the initial joy of seeing him whole had faded, I’d thought I would no longer need to fling inky words across the distance between us, trying to span it with paper and pauses and imperfect thoughts. We would have spoken words, looks, touches—perhaps even kisses.

  I hadn’t considered that there might be worse distances between us than the ones bridged by paper and ink.

  He led us under the faint sliver of a waxing moon. Noémi kindled a blue Lumen light to supplement the meager illumination from the sky and sidled her horse beside Gábor. “Have you seen Mátyás?”

  Gábor frowned. “I’ve not seen him for several days. He was with Hadúr.”

  An hour or more passed before we found Hadúr, talking to one of the captains. Mátyás had mentioned him a time or two as a Hungarian demigod, but I was still unprepared for the reality: the hulking size of him, the dark curling hair, his sheer physical presence. Or the copper helm he still wore, dented and smeared with blood.

  He turned to us, scowling. But the scowl lifted when he recognized Gábor, and his lips curved as his eyes rested on the lidérc. He inclined his head gravely. “Well met, sister.”

  “Sister?” I echoed.

  The lidérc shook her head. “Not literal sister,” she said. “A sister of the heart. And your question betrays a good deal of ignorance.”

  Gábor introduced us, adding, “We’ve come for Mátyás. And to talk about the praetherian threat.”

  Hadúr nodded, as though the request did not surprise him, and led us to a quiet stretch of the camp, where a small fire burned before a tent, identical to the hundreds of others scattered nearby. Bahadır was stirring something in a pan over a small fire, and he sprang up as we approached. His eyes flashed across us, lighting with recognition and then lingering on Noémi.

  “You must be Mátyás’s sister. And you are a healer? Perhaps you can help him.”

  “Why does he need a healer?” Noémi asked, whitening. “Let me see him.”

  Bahadır pulled back the flap of the tent to reveal Mátyás, resting on a cot, his chest lifting and falling with shallow breaths, his face still.

  “He’s been like this for five days,” Bahadır said. “We have carted him behind the army and given him broth, but I am afraid he cannot sustain this for long.”

  Five days: since the night Hunger was killed and then brought back. Since the night Mátyás’s shifting broke and we fell out of the sky.

  Noémi knelt beside Mátyás and ran skilled fingers across his pulse, checking beneath his eyelids, listening to his breath. She lifted her head to look at Hunger. “There is nothing wrong with his body: why will he not wake?”

  But it was Hadúr who answered. “There has always been this danger for a táltos who traveled: that he might go too far from his body, that he might overextend himself and not find his way back.”

  I tabulated all the things Mátyás had done that night: found me in a drea
m, followed me out of a dream, brought Hunger back, shifted Noémi and me to escape. Was this the cost of his work?

  I wanted to be angry with Hunger for asking Mátyás to bring him back, for pushing Mátyás to shift us instead of fighting Vasilisa, and thus risking all of us, but I couldn’t. My own mistakes had been costly enough: I had no right casting more blame.

  “You think Mátyás’s spirit is lost?” Noémi asked. “How do we find him?”

  “Another walker might find him,” Hadúr said. “But there were never many of those.”

  “Then we must find one.” Noémi turned to Hunger, her eyes pleading. “Can you…?”

  But Hunger shook his head before she’d finished speaking. “I cannot do what you ask. Nor, I think, can anyone here. You will have to pray your brother finds his own way back.”

  * * *

  Morning came all too early, with sharp-edged frost creeping across dull earth. My muscles ached from too many nights spent sleeping on cold dirt and not in a proper bed. Noémi did not appear to have slept at all: she’d spent the night beside Mátyás, trying to feed him the broth Bahadır had made.

  “No change?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  Later that morning, we were summoned to a council of war. Noémi and Bahadır stayed behind to tend Mátyás, but the rest of us followed Gábor to a large tent at the center of camp where Hadúr held court. Gábor did not look at me, and my heart twisted. You deserve this, I reminded myself.

  The tent was already crowded with military men, though I recognized only a couple: Richard Guyon and Kossuth Lajos, the provisional head of all Hungary. He was smaller than I imagined, a medium-sized man with a neatly trimmed chestnut beard and confident demeanor.

  Hadúr reported to the assembled men what we had told him of the praetherian plans, along with their possible alliance with Russia.

  A thin general with a pointed beard said, “How do we know this report is true? What proof have we?”

  Hadúr indicated me, Emilija, and the lidérc. “These young women have been to the praetherian camp. They’ve seen and heard the preparations they warn us of.”

  Pointed-beard scoffed. “Hearsay. No doubt they’re telling a tale to make themselves important.”

  “I’m a soldier,” Emilija said, her hands fisting in her lap. “Not a silly society gossip. I do not make false reports.”

  “You’re Josip Dragović’s daughter? Your father leads armies against us even now—such stories might only be a ploy to frighten us into surrender.”

  “You might lack a sense of honor,” Emilija said, her eyes flashing. “But I do not!”

  Goaded by the man’s doubt, I added, “I broke the Binding spell and helped free the revolutionaries trapped near Buda Castle. Will you tell me also that I am not a patriot, that I am only telling a tale?” A few faces lit up at this, but several men whispered to each other, and the whispers did not seem happy.

  Hunger said, “Until a week ago, I was a leader among the praetheria. I am here now only to stop a war. You should believe these women—and do so before the winter solstice, when the power of many praetheria reaches its peak.”

  Those nearest Hunger shifted away from him, dismay and repulsion creasing their faces.

  “You’re praetherian,” a man with rounded glasses said, surprised. “You might have been planted as a spy.”

  Beside me, the lidérc curled her booted feet beneath her seat and pressed her lips together. My heart hurt for her. She had come here in good faith, believing that the Hungarian army might want the same things she did—security, an end to this war. But all they had shown was mistrust of everything she was: woman and praetherian. I wanted to stand and shout at the room, but the memory of my disastrous confrontation with the Congress in Vienna kept me quiet.

  Another military leader, with broad red cheeks and curling hair, turned an accusatory finger on Hadúr. “You claim to be a god of war—but you were locked away in the Binding, same with the other praetheria. Who’s to say that you are not setting us up for betrayal, even now? Perhaps you and this golden-eyed monster are working together.”

  An uneasy murmur ran around the room.

  Kossuth sighed and rubbed his temple. “I have heard reports that you are a formidable warrior, and doubtless your military expertise exceeds mine. But your methods of seizing control of this army are highly unorthodox—if not treasonous—and I am not at all certain we can afford to let you stay. At the least, your aims may not be congruent with those of the Hungarian government.”

  Hadúr’s lips thinned to a grim line. “If you do not believe me, I will not force my aid on you. If you are content to see Hungary destroyed, so be it. I cannot help a people who will not see their own danger.”

  In dismay, I watched him leave the tent. If Hadúr abandoned us, how would we persuade the others to stop this war?

  The man with glasses—General Görgey, I think—looked at Kossuth. “You are making a mistake.”

  “It is my mistake to make,” Kossuth said crossly.

  “It will cost all of us.”

  A breathless messenger darted into the room. “General Haynau has broken the siege at Komárom,” he said. “The Hungarian armies in the west are in disarray, retreating toward us, and Haynau pursues them.”

  Beside me, Emilija hissed.

  Komárom had been one of the last freestanding strongholds in western Hungary: for it to fall meant a definite blow for our armies. But I did not understand what had put the strain in Emilija’s face. “Who is Haynau?”

  “The Hyena of Brescia,” Emilija said, drawing her lips back in a snarl. “An undisciplined sadist who gives a bad name to all military men. He’s not one of your old-school gentleman generals. Haynau fights to win, and he is merciless.”

  A gust of air whirled in behind the messenger. It smelled of ice and snow. It smelled of death.

  Kossuth glanced from the messenger to General Görgey. “Find Hadúr. Bring him back.” As Görgey slipped from the tent, Kossuth waved at Hunger. “Put that one under guard.”

  Two soldiers flanked Hunger, who stood unresistant, only his eyes hard. I doubted the guards could hold him against his will.

  Görgey returned a few minutes later, alone. “Hadúr is gone.”

  It took nearly a week for General Haynau, the Hyena of Brescia, to reach us: a week of flat-out retreat across the puszta, praying for General Bem or Perczel or another of the Hungarian reinforcements to reach us before Haynau did.

  Hadúr still had not returned, and I could not help feeling we were marching not away from but toward some cataclysm. At least Mátyás still lived, though he had lost too much weight. His clothes hung from him, and Noémi fretted at his increasing pallor.

  The lidérc returned from hunting one evening to find Noémi, Emilija, and me huddled together for warmth in our makeshift camp; the generals had decided nighttime fires might betray our location too easily—as though the crushed vegetation in a wide swath on either side of the road we followed had not already signaled our whereabouts.

  The generals had also decided that setting and striking tents took up valuable time, so we were to sleep under the stars. This ruling, of course, did not apply to the generals themselves. Mátyás slept in a cart nearby, covered with as many blankets as we could spare. Bahadır was gone: he’d disappeared not long after Hadúr, and no one seemed to know where. I did not think he’d abandon Mátyás lightly, so one of the generals must have given him orders.

  The lidérc carried a brace of hares slung over one shoulder. “I’ve got news,” she said, and we clustered around her, even though news those days was invariably bad. She poked around the campsite. “Where is the fire? This cold bites into me like a fene.”

  A fene egye meg. Let the evil spirit eat it. Mátyás had been fond of that particular epithet. I hoped he’d live to use it again.
r />   “No fires, remember?” Emilija said.

  “I could warm you,” Hunger said, joining us. The lidérc snorted. His imprisonment had not lasted long, but a guard trailed him at all times.

  “You only wish you might.” She glanced around at her audience. “So, my news: Haynau is not alone.”

  The lidérc took a bite of the rabbit leg and swallowed. I swallowed too, reminding myself that not everyone needed—or even liked—the taste of well-cooked meat. The lidérc’s eyes lingered on me, as though she could sense my discomfort and was enjoying it.

  Or maybe her gaze lingered for a different reason. “Franz Joseph, emperor of all Austria, comes with him.”

  I lay awake for a long time that night. It was cold, just as the previous night had been. And the night before that. But somehow this cold cut deeper, grating against my bones despite the blankets cocooning me. I shifted, worry for Mátyás and the dilemma confronting us eating at my thoughts: we could not stop the praetheria without the cooperation of the human armies, but the human armies would not believe us. I thought of Franz Joseph, likely sleeping before a fire—perhaps even in a bed. If I could get a message to him, would he listen?

  Tiny flakes of snow freckled my cheeks, my closed eyelids. I turned to my side and pulled a blanket over me so it covered my face.

  I fell asleep at last, after I had given up on sleep entirely, and tumbled into a dream of home. I was back in England, with my parents and James and even Catherine, who set a round, rosy bundle of a baby in my arms. Everything was safe and comfortable and known. When I woke, it was to find my eyelashes sealed shut with ice, the remains of my tears frozen tracks across my cheeks.

  * * *

  Gábor found me a day later, at dusk. I had seen him only briefly since the council of war: he was busy as Guyon’s aide, and I could not leave Noémi for long, though I knew Hunger would help her tend Mátyás. But Noémi waved me away as Gábor approached, telling me fresh air would be good for me.