The copse was a little higher than the marsh; Vasya slid from Pozhar’s back just in time to catch her brother as he fell. He almost sent her sprawling into the water. It took all her strength to halt him, and lay him on the soft earth. His lips were blue, his hands cold.
She stared at the water in the helm. Make the dead alive. But he isn’t dead. Morozko—Morozko where are you?
Sasha’s eyes looked up, but they did not see her. Perhaps he saw a road beneath a starry sky: a road from which there is no turning back. “Vasya?” he asked. His voice was little more than a breath now.
She had nothing but her two hands: with her fur cloak she wiped the blood and earth from her brother’s face, held his head in her lap.
“I am here,” she said. Tears unbidden spilled from her eyes. “You have won. The army is sure of its victory.”
His eyes brightened. “I am glad,” he said. “I am—”
He turned his head a little; his stare became fixed. Vasya turned to follow his gaze, and there was the death-god, waiting. He was on foot; his horse a faint shape, pale as mist at his back. She looked at him long, and there were no words between them. Once she had begged, once she had railed at him, for coming to claim those she loved. Now she only looked, and saw her glance go through him like a sword.
“Could you have saved his life?” she whispered.
His answer was the merest shake of his head. But he came, still wordless, and knelt beside her. Frowning, he cupped his hands.
Water, clear and clean, gathered in his palms, and he let it trickle out onto her brother’s face. Where the water touched, the cuts, bruises, the grime vanished, as though washed away. Vasya, not speaking either, helped him. They worked slowly and steadily. Vasya pulled aside the stained and broken armor, and Morozko let the water run.
In the end, her brother’s face and torso were clean and unmarked; he looked asleep, peaceful, unwounded.
But he did not stir back to life.
She reached for the helmet.
Morozko’s troubled glance followed the movement. Hope was beating in her throat, a fragile, burning thing. “Can this bring him to life in truth?”
Morozko looked reluctant. “Yes,” he said.
Vasya lifted the helmet, tipped it toward her brother’s lips.
Morozko put out a hand to stay her. “Come with me first.”
She did not know what he meant. But when he offered her his hand, she took it; their fingers met, clasped, and she found herself in the place beyond life: the forest with its road, its net of stars.
Her brother was waiting for her there, upright, a little pale, starlight in his eyes. “Sasha,” she said.
“Little sister,” he said. “I didn’t say goodbye, did I?”
She ran forward and embraced him, but he felt icy cold, distant in her arms. Morozko watched them.
“Sasha,” Vasya said eagerly. “I have something that will bring you back. You can live on, come back to us, to Dmitrii.”
Sasha was looking out into the distance, down the star-strewn road as though with longing. Hastily, she said, “This,” holding out the dented helmet. “Drink it,” she said. “And you will live again.”
“But I am dead,” he said.
She shook her head. “You need not be.”
He was backing up. “I have seen the dead return. I will have no part in it.”
“No!” she said. “It is different this way—it is—it is like Ivan, in the fairy tale.”
But her brother was still shaking his head. “This is not a fairy tale, Vasya. I will not risk my immortal soul, returning to life when I have left it.”
She stared at him. His face was quiet, sad, immovable. “Sasha,”
she whispered. “Sasha, please. You can live again. You can go back to Sergei, and Dmitrii and Olga. Please.”
“No,” he said. “I—I fought. I yielded my life and I was glad to give it. It is for others to make it matter. My death is Dmitrii’s now—and
—and yours. Guard this land. Make it whole.”
She stared at him. She could not believe. Wild thoughts darted through her brain. Perhaps, in the living world, she could force the water between his lips. But then—but then…
It wasn’t her choice. She thought of Olga’s rage when Vasya had decided the same question for her. She remembered Morozko’s words: It is not your choice to make.
Trying to control her voice, she said, “Is this what you want?”
“It is,” said her brother.
“Then—then God be with you,” said Vasya, her voice breaking. “If
—if you see Father and—and Mother—tell them I love them. That I have wandered far, but not forgotten. I—I will pray for you.”
“And I for you,” said her brother, and smiled suddenly. “I will see you again, little sister.”
She nodded but could not speak. She knew her face was crumbling.
But she embraced her brother; she stepped back.
And then Morozko spoke softly, but his words were not for her.
“Come with me,” he said to Sasha. “Do not be afraid.”
36.
The Army of Three
SHE TUMBLED BACK TO HERSELF, bowed over her brother’s unmarked body, sobbing. She did not know how long she wept, while the battle raged nearby. It was a soft hoofbeat that drew her back, and a cold presence behind her.
She turned her head to see the winter-king. He slid from the back of his horse and looked at her.
She had no words for him. Gentle speech or a soft touch would have shattered her, but he offered neither. Vasya shut her brother’s eyes, whispered a prayer over his head. Then she got to her feet, soul full of restless violence. She could not bring her brother back. But the thing he had wanted—the thing he had worked for—that she could do.
“Only for the dead, Morozko?” she said. She reached out a hand, still smeared with her brother’s blood and her own, from where she’d cut it for the Bear.
He hesitated.
