Кэтрин Арден - The Winter of the Witch

TRINITY LAVRA (THE TRINITY LAVRA OF SAINT SERGEI)—Monastery founded by Saint Sergei Radonezhsky in 1337, about forty miles northeast of Moscow.

TUMAN—Mist; the name of Sasha’s gray horse.

ULUS—Nation, tribe, followers.

UPYR—The Slavic version of a vampire. More monstrous and less elegant than the Western European variant.

VAZILA—In Russian folklore, the guardian of the stable and protector of livestock.

VEDMA—Vyed’ma, witch, wisewoman.

VERST—In Russian, versta (the English word verst derives from the Russian genitive plural, which is the form most frequently used in conjunction with a number). A unit of distance equal to roughly one kilometer, or two-thirds of a mile.

VLADIMIR—One of the chief cities of medieval Rus’, situated about 120 miles east of Moscow. Its founding is said to date from 1108, and many of its ancient buildings are still intact today.

VLADIMIR ANDREEVICH—Called “the Bold” (khrabriy), he is the most well known of the princes of Serpukhov. He got his moniker for his courage in fighting in Dmitrii Donskoi’s wars, and was also Dmitrii’s first cousin and close adviser. In The Winter of the Witch, he is the husband of Vasya’s sister Olga.

WRITING ICONS—A direct translation of the Russian phrase. In Russian, one uses the verb to write (pisat/napisat’) for the making of icons.

ZAPONA—An ancient outer garment worn by maidens over a long-sleeved shift. It was just a rectangular length of fabric folded in half at the shoulders and with a round opening for the head. It was not sewn together on the sides, but belted at the waist.

SEVEN YEARS OF MY LIFE went into The Winternight Trilogy, and more kindnesses from more people than I can possibly count. Writing a book is solitary, but finishing a book and publishing it is the work of many, in great and small ways. I am grateful to everyone who went into the forest with Vasya and me, back in 2011, and stuck it out to the bittersweet end.

To the Russian department at Middlebury College, current and former, I suppose this was a slightly unorthodox use of my education, but I am grateful for all those years of history, grammar, and conjugations, without which I would never have undertaken this series. Thanks, in particular, to Tatiana Smorodinskaya and Sergei Davydov, for being mentors and friends, and for checking my translation of Pushkin.

Huge thank-you to my agent, Paul Lucas, who was the very first person not my mom to read this book and believe in it, way back in 2014, and who has been a rock of good advice and common sense ever since. And to everyone at Janklow and Nesbit and Cullen Stanley International, especially Stephanie Koven, Brenna English-Loeb, and Suzannah Bentley.

To the people across the water at Ebury: Gillian Green, Stephanie Naulls, and Tess Henderson, thank you so much for bringing my work to readers in the UK, and thanks for your unfailing hospitality and cupcakes whenever I visited. Special shout-out to Vlad Sever and his team in Croatia who made the single most gorgeous edition of The Bear and the Nightingale I’ve ever seen.

To the folks at Del Rey and Ballantine who have made for my books and for me the very best publishing home a writer could have over the last few years: Thanks to Scott Shannon, Tricia Narwani, Keith Clayton, Jess Bonet, Melissa Sanford, David Moench, Anne Speyer, and Erin Kane.

To Jennifer Hershey, my brilliant editor. Thanks for keeping me going when I didn’t think I could do it; thanks for four years’ worth of good ideas, thanks for sticking with me through all those most questionable drafts. This series wouldn’t exist without you.

To my housemates at Slimhouse: RJ and Pollaidh (girl, you’re an honorary member), Garrett, Camila and Blue, you guys are the best family I could ask for. Having you in my life, rattling around the kitchen, telling bad jokes, making me try yet another terrible beer, and giving me a hard time about the boxes of books under my bed, has kept me sane and happy. Love you all.

To the Johnsons: Peter, Carol Anne, Harrison, and Gracie, thanks for your hospitality and your enthusiasm. To Abhay Morrissey, for taking me flying, literally, when I needed a break. To the Roxendals: Björn, Kim, Josh, David, Eliza, Dana, Mariel, Joel, Hugo, and all of you, thanks for letting me spend all those months on my couch, scribbling. To Allie Brudney, for being amazing, for coming out to every event you can, because college besties are forever. To Jenny Lyons and the rest of the staff of Vermont Book Shop, thanks for your unfailing support. To the folks at Stone Leaf Tea House, thanks for all those winter evenings I spent hanging out in your space, working on my book.

To my family: Mike Buls and Beth Fowler, John Burdine and Sterling Burdine, and Elizabeth Burdine. I love you all. Thanks for everything.

To Evan Johnson, who makes me eat and sleep when all I want to do is write, my running buddy and my adventure buddy, my partner and my best friend. I love you.

Finally, thanks to everyone—far more people than I can name, the booksellers and the book readers who read my book, told a friend, reviewed it somewhere. Thanks to everyone who has gone with Vasya on her journey.

I hope you’ll come with me on the next one.

KATHERINE ARDEN is the author of the national bestseller The Bear and the Nightingale and The Girl in the Tower . Born in Austin, Texas, Arden has studied Russian in Moscow, taught at a school in the French Alps, and worked on a farm in Hawaii. She currently lives in Vermont.

katherinearden.com

Facebook.com/​katherineardenauthor

Twitter: @arden_katherine

Instagram: @arden_katherine

The Winter of the Witch is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2019 by Katherine Arden

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

NAMES: Arden, Katherine, author.

TITLE: The winter of the witch: a novel / Katherine Arden.

DESCRIPTION: First Edition. | New York: Del Rey, 2019. | Series: Winternight trilogy; 3

IDENTIFIERS: LCCN 2018038385 | ISBN 9781101885994 (hardback) | ebook ISBN 9781101886007

SUBJECTS: | BISAC: FICTION / Literary. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction. CLASSIFICATION: LCC PS3601.R42 W56 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2018038385

randomhousebooks.com

Book design by Barbara M. Bachman, adapted for ebook

Cover design: David G. Stevenson

Cover illustration: © Robert Hunt

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