The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3)(10)

She dragged herself to her feet.

And found herself alone, and face-to-face, with Konstantin Nikonovich. The priest had his back to the door, half the length of the nave between them. He was watching her.

“You killed my horse,” she whispered, and he smiled, just a little.



* * *





SHE HAD A CUT ACROSS her nose; one eye was swelling shut. In the half-light of the chapel, her bruised face looked more unearthly than ever, and more vulnerable. The old desire flared, and the accompanying self-hatred.

But—why should he be ashamed? God cared not for men and women. All that mattered was his own will, and she was in his power. The thought heated his blood, as much as the worship of the crowd outside. His eyes swept her body again.

“You have been condemned to die,” he told her. “For your sins. You have been granted these few moments to pray.”

Her face did not change. Perhaps she had not heard. He spoke louder. “It is the law of God, and the will of the people, whom you have wronged!”

    Her face was salt-white, so that each faint freckle stood out on her nose like spots of blood. “Kill me then,” she said. “Have the courage to do it yourself, not leave it to a mob and call it justice.”

“Do you deny then that the fire was of your making?” Lightly, he stepped toward her. Free, he told himself. Free at last of her power over him.

Her expression didn’t change. She didn’t speak. She didn’t move even when he curled his fingers behind the bone of her jaw and lifted her face to his. “You cannot deny it,” he said. “Because it is true.”

She didn’t flinch when he pressed his thumb into the bruises blossoming flowerlike along her mouth. She barely seemed to see him.

She really was ugly. Big eyes, wide mouth, the jutting bones. But he could not look away. He wouldn’t ever be able to look away, not until those eyes closed in death. Perhaps even beyond she would haunt him.

“You took all that mattered from me,” he said. “You cursed me with demons. You deserve death.”

She made no reply. Tears ran unheeded down her face.

In sudden rage, he caught her shoulders, drove her against the iconostasis, so that all the saints shook, and pinned her there. The breath left her body, any vestige of color left her face. His hand closed on her throat, pale and vulnerable, and he found himself breathing fast. “Look at me, damn you.”

Slowly, her eyes focused on his face.

“Beg for your life,” he said. “Beg, and perhaps I will grant it you.”

She shook her head slowly, her eyes dazed and wandering.

He felt a surge of hatred; he bent his lips to her ear and whispered in a voice even he hardly recognized, “You will die in the fire, Vasilisa Petrovna. And you will scream for me, before the end.” He kissed her once, hard as a blow, holding her jaw in a vise-grip and tasting the blood on her split lip.

She bit him, bloodying his mouth in turn. He recoiled, and then they were staring at each other, with the hatred of each mirrored in the other’s eyes.

“God go with you,” she whispered, in bitter mockery.

“Go to the devil,” he said, and left her.



* * *





SILENCE FELL IN THE DUSTY CHAPEL, after Konstantin left. Perhaps they were building a pyre, perhaps they were readying something worse. Perhaps her brother would come at last, and this nightmare would be over. Vasya didn’t care. What had she to fear, in dying? Perhaps, beyond life, she would find her father again, her mother, her beloved nurse Dunya.

Solovey.

But then she thought of fire, of whips and knives and fists. She was not dead yet; she was terrified. Perhaps she could just—step away—walk into the gray forest beyond life and be gone. Death was someone she knew.

“Morozko,” Vasya whispered, and then his older name, the name of the death-god, “Karachun.”

No answer. Winter was over; he had faded away from the world of men. Shivering, she sank to the floor, leaned against the iconostasis. Outside people shouted, laughed, swore. But in that chapel, there was only the silence of the saints in the icon-screen, staring steadily down. Vasya could not bring herself to pray. Instead she tipped her aching head back and shut her eyes, measuring out her life in heartbeats.

She could not have slept, not there. Yet somehow the world faded away and she found herself walking once more in the black forest beneath a starry sky. She knew a dim, shocked relief. It was over. God had heard her plea; this was what she longed for. She stumbled forward, calling.

“Father,” she cried. “Mother. Dunya. Solovey. Solovey!” Surely he would be here. Surely he had waited for her. If he could.

Morozko would know. But Morozko wasn’t there; only silence met her cry. She struggled on, scrabbling, but her limbs were so heavy, and her ribs hurt worse and worse with every breath.

“Vasya.” He called her name twice before she heard. “Vasya.”

She tripped and fell before she could turn, found herself kneeling in the snow without the strength to rise. The sky was a river of stars, but she didn’t look up. The death-god was the only thing she could see. He was little more than a confluence of light and dark, wispy as cloud across the moon. But she knew his eyes. He was waiting for her, in the gray forest. She was not alone.