Кэтрин Арден - The Girl in the Tower

Vasya ached in all her joints. She coughed once, a tearing hack, and came painfully to her feet. A nasty sweat slimed her cold skin. “It cannot be them,” she said, trying for courage. “What—what possible reason—”

She trailed off. There were voices among the trees. Her fear was a wild thing’s fear when the dogs are running. She was already wearing every garment she possessed. In a moment, she had bundled the saddlebags onto Solovey’s back, and they were off again.

Another long day, another long ride. Vasya drank a little snowmelt as they went, and gnawed listlessly at half-frozen bread. But swallowing hurt, and her stomach was knotted with fear. Solovey drove himself even harder that day, if it were possible. Vasya rode in a daze. Snow —if only it would snow and cover their tracks.

They stopped at full dark. That night Vasya did not sleep, but crouched beside her tiny fire and shivered and shivered and could not stop. Her cough had settled into her lungs. In her head Morozko’s words fell like footsteps. Do you want to die in some forest hollow?

She would not prove him right. She would not. With that thought ringing in her head, she drifted at last into another uneasy sleep.

During the night, the clouds rolled in, and the longed-for snow fell at last, melting on her hot skin. She was safe. They could not track her now.

AT SUNRISE, VASYA AWOKE with a boiling fever.

Solovey nudged her, huffing. When she tried to rise and saddle him, the earth tilted beneath her. “I cannot,” she told the horse. Her head felt heavy, and she looked at her shaking hands as though they belonged to someone else. “I cannot.”

Solovey nudged her hard in the chest, so that she staggered backward. With ears pinned, the horse said, You must move, Vasya. We cannot stay here.

Vasya stared, her brain thick and slow. In winter, stillness was death. She knew it. She knew it. Why couldn’t she care? She didn’t care. She wanted to lie down again and go to sleep. But she had been foolish enough already; she didn’t want to displease Solovey.

She could not manage the girth with her numb hands, but with an effort she heaved the saddlebags up over the horse’s withers. Slurring, she said, “I am going to walk. I’m too cold; I will—I will fall if I try to ride.”

The clouds rolled in that day, and the sky darkened. Vasya plodded on doggedly, more than half-dreaming. Once she thought she saw her stepmother, watching dead in the undergrowth, and fright jerked her back to herself. Another step. Another. Then her body grew strangely hot, so that she was tempted to take off her clothes, before she remembered that it would kill her.

She fancied that she could hear horses’ hooves, and the calling of men in the distance. Were they still following? She could hardly bring herself to care. Step. Another. Surely she could lie down…just for a moment…

Then she realized with terror that someone walked beside her. Next moment a familiar, cutting voice spoke in her ear. “Well, you lasted a fortnight longer than I thought you would. I congratulate you.”

She turned her head to meet eyes of palest winter-blue. Her head cleared a little, though her lips and tongue were numb. “You were right,” she said bitterly. “I am dying. Have you come for me?”

Morozko made a derisive noise and picked her up. His hands burned hot—not cold—even through her furs.

“No,” Vasya said, pushing. “No. Go away. I am not going to die.”

“Not for lack of trying,” he retorted, but she thought his face had lightened.

Vasya wanted to reply but couldn’t; the world was swooping around her. Pale sky overhead—no—green boughs. They had ducked into the shelter of a large spruce—much like the tree of her first night. The spruce’s feathered branches twined so close that only the faintest dusting of snow had crept down to tint the iron-hard earth.

Morozko put her down, leaning on the trunk, and set to making a fire. Vasya watched him with dazed eyes, still not cold.

He did not go about building a fire the usual way. Instead he went to one of the spruce’s greater limbs and laid a hand upon it. The branch cracked and fell away. He pulled the pieces apart with hard fingers until he had a bristling heap.

“You can’t light a fire under the trees,” said Vasya wisely, slurring her words around numb lips. “The snow above you will melt and put it out.”

He shot her a sardonic look, but said nothing.

She did not see what he did, whether it was with his hands or his eyes or none of these. But suddenly there was a fire where before there had not been, snapping and glimmering on the bare earth.

Vasya was vaguely disquieted, seeing the heat-shimmer rise. The warmth, she knew, would draw her from her cocoon of cold-induced indifference. Part of her wanted to stay where she was. Not fighting. Not caring. Not feeling the cold. A slow darkness gathered over her sight, and she thought she just might go to sleep…

But he stalked over to her, bent, and took her by the shoulders. His hands were gentler than his voice. “Vasya,” he said. “Look at me.”

She looked, but darkness was pulling her away.

His face hardened. “No,” he breathed into her ear. “Don’t you dare.”

“I thought I was supposed to travel alone,” she murmured. “I thought— Why are you here?”

He picked her up again; her head lolled against his arm. He did not reply but carried her nearer the fire. His own mare poked her head into the shelter beneath the spruce-boughs, with Solovey beside her, blowing anxiously. “Go away,” he told them.

He stripped off Vasya’s cloak and knelt with her beside the flames.

She licked cracked lips, tasting blood. “Am I going to die?”

“Do you think you are?” A cold hand at her neck; her breath whined in her throat, but he only lifted the silver chain and drew out the sapphire pendant.

“Of course not,” she replied with a flash of irritation. “I’m just so cold—”

“Very well, then you won’t,” he said, as though it was obvious, but again she thought that something lightened in his expression.

“How—” but then she swallowed and fell silent, for the sapphire had begun to glow. Blue light gleamed eerily over his face, and the light stirred fearful memory: the jewel burning cold while a laughing shadow crept nearer. Vasya shrank from him.

His arms tightened. “Gently, Vasya.”

His voice halted her. She had never heard that note in it before, of uncalculated tenderness.

“Gently,” he said again. “I will not hurt you.”

He said it like a promise. She looked up at him, wide-eyed, shivering, and then she forgot fear, for with the sapphire’s glow came warmth—agonizing warmth, living warmth—and in that moment she realized just how cold she had been. The stone burned hotter and hotter, until she bit her lips to keep from crying out. Then the breath rushed out of her, and a stinking sweat ran down her ribs. Her fever had broken.

Morozko laid the necklace down on her filthy shirt and settled with her onto the snow-tinted earth. The coolness of the winter night hung around his body, but his skin was warm. He wrapped them both in his blue cloak. Vasya sneezed when the fur tickled her nose.

Warmth poured from the necklace and began coiling through all her limbs. The sweat ran down her face. In silence, he took up her left hand and then her right, tracing the fingers one by one. Agony flared once more, up her arms this time, but it was a grateful agony, breaking through the numbness. Her hands prickled painfully back to life.

“Be still,” he said, catching both her hands in one of his. “Softly. Softly.” His other hand drew lines of fiery pain on her nose and ears and cheeks and lips. She shuddered but held still for it. He had healed the incipient frostbite.