The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3)(24)

Olga’s narrowed eyes followed him as he swept back and forth. “Sasha, you cannot leave. Not when there is such wickedness loose. Marya has the same gifts as Vasya, and this priest who tried to kill our sister knows it.”

Sasha paused in his pacing. “You will have men. I have spoken to Dmitrii and Vladimir about it. Vladimir is calling up men from Serpukhov. Marya will be safe in the terem.”

“As safe as Vasya was?”

“She left.”

Olga sat very still, said nothing.

Sasha went to kneel at her side. “Olya, I must. Father Sergei is the holiest man in Rus’. If there is a demon loose, then Sergei will know what to do. I do not.”

Still his sister said nothing.

Lower, Sasha said, “Dmitrii has asked it of me. As the price of his trust.”

His sister’s hands closed on her needles, crumpling the stockings. “We are your family, vows or no, and we need you here.”

Sasha bit his lip. “All of Rus’ is at stake, Olya.”

“So you care more for children unknown than for mine?” The strains of the past days were catching both of them.

“That is why I became a monk,” he retorted. “That I might care for all the world together and not be tied to a little corner of it. What has it all been for, if I cannot protect all of Rus’ instead of just a patchwork of fiefdoms, a few people among the many?”

“You are as bad as Vasya was,” Olga said. “Thinking that you can just shake off your family like a horse slipping its traces. Look where it got her. You are not responsible for Rus’. But you can help keep your niece and nephew safe. Do not go.”

    “It is your husband’s task—” began Sasha.

“He will be here a day or a week, then gone again, on the prince’s work. Just as always,” said Olga furiously, with a catch in her voice. “I cannot tell him about Marya; what do you think he would do with a daughter so afflicted? Arrange at once, with generosity and foresight, to have her sent to a nunnery. Brother, please.”

Olga ran her household with a steady grip, but the last days had shown her limits; when the world moved outside her walls, there was very little she could do. Now she was reduced to pleading: a princess without power enough to keep her family safe.

“Olya,” Sasha said. “Your husband will see that there are men at your gate; you will be safe. I cannot—I cannot refuse the Grand Prince. I’ll come back as soon as I can, with Father Sergei. He will know what to do. About the demon—and Konstantin Nikonovich.”

While he spoke, she controlled her rage; she was the immaculate Princess of Serpukhov once more. “Go then,” she said with disgust. “I do not need you.”

He went to the door, hesitated at the threshold. “God be with you,” he said.

She made no reply, though as he went out into the dripping gray of early spring, he heard her breath catch once, as if she fought to control her weeping.



* * *





IT WAS NIGHT AGAIN in Moscow, and nothing moved but beggars, trying to keep warm in the spring damp, and the faint house-spirits, walking, stirring, whispering. For there was change in the air, in the water beneath the ice, in the damp wind. Chyerti murmured rumors to one another, much as folk did in the city all around.

The Bear walked softly through the streets, a cold rain on his face, and the lesser chyerti shrank away. He did not heed them. He reveled in the sounds and the scents, the moving air, the fruit of his cleverness taking shape. The news of the Tatar army had been a lucky stroke, and he meant to use it to full advantage.

He must succeed. He must. Better to unmake the world—better to be unmade himself—than go back to the grim clearing at the edge of winter, dreaming the years away. But it would not come to that. His brother was far away, and so deeply imprisoned that he would never come out again.

    The Bear smiled at the indifferent stars. Come spring, come summer, and let me make an end to this place, let me silence the bells. Each time they rang the monastic hours of worship, he flinched a little. But men were men, whatever gods they followed—hadn’t he tempted a servant of the newer God into his service?

Hoofbeats sounded in the darkness ahead, and a woman on a black horse rode out of the shadows.

The Bear greeted her with a lifted head, looking unsurprised. “News, Polunochnitsa?” he said, a hint of arid humor in his voice.

“She did not die in my realm,” said the midnight-demon, her voice quite expressionless.

The Bear’s eye sharpened. “Did you help her?”

“No.”

“Yet you watched her. Why?”

The midnight-demon shrugged. “We are all watching. All the chyerti. She has refused both of you, Morozko and Medved, and so made herself a power in her own right in your great war. The chyerti are choosing sides once more.”

The Bear laughed, but the gray eye was intent. “Choose her over me? She is a child.”

“She defeated you before.”

“With my brother’s help and her father’s sacrifice.”

“She has passed three fires, and she is not a child anymore.”

“Why tell me?”

Midnight shrugged again. “Because I have not chosen a side either, Medved.”

The Bear, smiling, said, “You will regret your indecision, before the end.”