“Yes.”

Sasha took this in. “If she goes into the darkness again—will you swear not to abandon her?”

If the demon was surprised, he gave no sign. His face remote, he said, “I will not abandon her. But one day she will go where even I cannot follow. I am immortal.”

“Then—if she asks—if there is a man who can warm her, and pray for her, and give her children—then let her go. Do not keep her in the dark.”

“You ought to make up your mind,” said Morozko. “Swear not to abandon her or give her up to a living man? Which shall it be?”

His tone was cutting. Sasha’s hand strayed to his sword. But he did not grasp it. “I don’t know,” he said. “I never protected her before; I do not know why I should be able to now.”

The demon said nothing.

Sasha said, “A convent would have broken her.” Reluctantly he added, “Even a marriage, no matter how kindly the man, how fair the house.”

Still Morozko did not speak.

“But I am afraid for her soul,” said Sasha, voice rising despite himself. “I am afraid for her alone in dark places, and I am afraid for her with you at her side. It is sin. And you are a fairy tale, a nightmare; you have no soul at all.”

“Perhaps not,” agreed the winter-king, but still the slender fingers tangled with Vasya’s hair.

Sasha ground his teeth. He wanted to demand promises, pledges, confessions, if only to delay the realization that there were some things he couldn’t change. But he bit back the words. He knew they wouldn’t do any good. She had survived the frost and the flame, had found a harbor, however brief. Perhaps that was all anyone could ask, in the world’s savage turning.

He stepped back. “I will pray for you both,” he said, voice clipped.

“We are going soon.”

21.

Enemy at the Gate

IT WAS EARLY EVENING, BRIGHT and still, the gray shadows long and softening to violet, by the time they made their way down the parched bank of the Moskva and found a ferry to take them across.

The ferryman only had eyes for the monks. Vasya kept her head down. With her cropped hair, her rough clothes, her gawkiness, she passed for a horse-boy. At first it was easy to forget where she was, as she busied herself getting the horses to stand quiet in the rocking boat. But she found her heart beating faster and faster and faster as they approached the far side of the river.

In her mind’s eye, the Moskva was sheeted with ice, red with firelight. Men and women seethed around a hastily built pyre.

Perhaps even now they were floating over the very spot where the last ashes of her would have sunk into the indifferent water.

She barely made it to the side of the boat, and then she was heaving into the river. The ferryman laughed. “Poor country boy, never been on a boat before?” Father Sergei, with kindly hands, held her head as she retched. “Look at the shore,” he said, “see how still it is? Here is some clean water, drink. That’s better.”

It was the icy touch on the back of her neck, cold, invisible fingers, that drew her back to herself. You are not alone, he said, in a voice no one but she could hear. Remember.

She sat up, grim-faced, and wiped her mouth. “I’m all right, Father,” she said to Sergei.

The boat ground against a dock. Vasya took hold of the pack-horse’s halter, led him ashore. The rope slid against her sweating hands. People were pushing to get into the city before the gates were shut for the night. It was not difficult to fall a little behind the three monks. Morozko’s cold presence paced invisibly beside her. Waiting.

Would anyone recognize her—the witch they thought they’d burned? There were people in front and behind; people all around.

She was afraid. The air smelled of dust and rotten fish, and sickness.

Sweat trickled between her breasts.

She kept her head down, trying to look insignificant, trying to control her racing heart. The stink of the city was calling up memories faster than she could push them back: of fire, of terror, of hands tearing at her clothes. She prayed no one would wonder why she wore a thick shirt and jacket in the heat. She had never in her life felt so hideously vulnerable.

The three monks were stopped at the gate. The gate-guards held sachets of dried herbs to mouth and nose as they prodded carts and asked questions of travelers. The river darted points of light into their eyes.

“Say your name and your business, strangers,” said the captain of the guard.

“I am no stranger. I am Brother Aleksandr,” said Sasha. “I have returned to Dmitrii Ivanovich, accompanying the holy father Sergei Radonezhsky.”

The captain scowled. “The Grand Prince ordered you brought to him when you arrived.”

Vasya bit her lip. Smoothly, Sasha said, “I will go to the Grand Prince, in due course. But the holy father must go first to the monastery, to rest and say prayers of thanks for his safe arrival.”

Vasya’s hands were slippery on the lead-rope of the horse.

“The holy father may go where he chooses,” said the captain flatly.

“But to the Grand Prince you will go, according to orders. I will have

men escort you. The Grand Prince has taken advice, and he does not trust you.”

“Who has advised him?” Sasha demanded.

“The wonder-worker,” said the gate-guard, and a little emotion entered his flat voice. “Father Konstantin Nikonovich.”

The Bear knows we are coming now, Morozko had said to Sergei and Sasha, as they made their way along the Moskva toward the city in the sweltering afternoon. It is possible you will be delayed at the gate. If so—

Vasya could scarcely breathe around the panic in her throat. But she managed to mutter to the pack-horse at her side: “Rear!”

The creature broke into a frenzy of heavy-limbed bucking. Next moment, Sasha’s battle-trained Tuman reared up as well, lashing out with her fore-hooves. Rodion’s horse too began capering heavily, right at the gate, and then Sergei raised his voice, rich and full despite his age, to say, “Come, Brother, let us all pray—” just as Tuman kicked one of the guards. When the confusion was at its height, Vasya slipped through the gate, Morozko in her wake.

Forget. Just like that other night on this same river. Forget that they could see her. Of course, the guards might not have seen her even without magic, so effectively had the three monks drawn all eyes.

She waited in the shadow of the gate. Waited for Sasha to come through with Sergei, so that she could follow them, invisibly, to the Grand Prince’s palace, be let in with them, unseen, then go and steal the bridle.

“Am I an utter fool, brother?” asked a familiar voice. Somewhere in its light tones was the clashing of armies, the screaming of men.

The Bear stood in the shadow of the gate and seemed to have grown since the last time she saw him, as though nourished by the miasma of fear and sickness swirling about Moscow. “The city is mine,” he said. “What do you expect to do, coming here like a ghost in the company of a pack of monks? Betray me to the new religion? See me exorcised? No, I am stronger. You won’t have a pleasant prison of

forgetfulness this time; it will be chains and long darkness. After I kill her and make her my servant in front of you.”

Morozko didn’t speak. He had a knife of ice, though the blade dripped water when it moved. His eyes met hers once, wordless.

She ran.