“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.”
Midnight’s black horse shied, and gave the Bear a wild-eyed look.
Midnight smoothed a hand through his mane. “Perhaps” was all she said. “But you see, now I have helped you too. You will have the whole spring to do as you please. If you cannot secure your position, then perhaps the chyerti will be right to look instead to the powers of a half-grown girl.”
“Where will I find her?”
“Summer, of course. Beside the water.” Midnight looked down on him, from her horse’s back. “We will be watching.”
“I have time then,” said the Bear, and looked again up at the wild stars.
9.
To Travel by Midnight
VASYA WOKE TO A DARKNESS so deep, she thought she had been struck blind. She lifted her head. Nothing. Her body had chilled and stiffened; moving sent a cascade of pain through neck and back. She wondered vaguely why she was not dead, wondered also why she was lying on bracken instead of snow. It was quiet, except for the faint creaking of branches overhead. Gingerly, she put a trembling hand to her eyes. One was swollen shut. The other seemed all right, except the lashes were gummed together. Gingerly, she pried it open.
It was still dark, but now she could see. A faint sickle moon cast wavering light over a strange forest. Snow lay only in patches; mist veiled the trees, luminous in the moonlight. Vasya smelled cold, wet earth. She stumbled to her feet, turning in a circle. Darkness all around. She tried to remember the last hours, but there was only a vague memory of terror and flight. What had she done? Where was she?
“Well,” said a voice, “you are not dead after all.”
The voice had come from above. Vasya wrenched instinctively back, even as she searched for the speaker, her good eye watering.
Finally, on a limb overhead, she caught sight of star-pale hair and bright eyes. As her own eyes adjusted, Vasya began vaguely to make
out the shape of the midnight-demon, perched on the branch of an oak-tree and leaning against the trunk.
A deeper patch of black stirred in the shadows below the tree.
Vasya, squinting, could just make out a marvelous black horse, grazing by moonlight. He lifted his head to look at her. Vasya’s heart thumped once, loud in her ears, and memory came rushing back: blood sticky on her hands, Father Konstantin’s face, fire…
