Page 102 of The Wolf and the Woodsman

I follow a trail of blood through the empty Woodsman barracks, down the corridors of the palace, and out into the courtyard, still arranged for Nándor’s coronation. Pale flower petals have peeled off the dais, floating through the air like listless snow. The tapestry is still draped over the burnished throne, its tassels fluttering in the wind, and the cape of white feathers is abandoned on the cobblestones, as sleek and flat as a spill of water frozen over. Nándor is limping down the makeshift aisle, blood splattering with each heavy-footed step. I hear him whisper something to himself, too low to make out, and then his back straightens, as if his spine has been fused with steel. His gait grows steadier as Godfather Life heals him.

Breath held, I nock my arrow and draw the bow string. I have to land a killing blow.

Before I can loose my arrow, Nándor turns. His face is cracked like a porcelain bowl, torn up by a terrible snarl.

“I thought I killed you, wolf-girl,” he says.

I am standing precisely where my father stood that first day in Király Szek, boots slippery with pig’s blood. “I thought I killed you once too. You aren’t the only one who can survive certain death. I suppose I am as blessed as you are.”

His eyes have turned that eerie sheen of white again, and for a moment it stuns me. I don’t think he ever managed to exorcise his death. Ever since that day on the ice, I think he has grown up beside his own ghost. Why would he need to bleed like Gáspár when he has already made the greatest sacrifice of all?

Nándor gives a laugh, but it comes out short and choked. “You can’t really think you can kill me now. Whatever gods or demons that answer your prayers—well, they are no match for mine.”

I don’t know if he means the Yehuli god or Isten or both. I swallow around the name of God in my mouth, tasting its syllables like sweet juice on my tongue.

“No,” I say. “I think I can kill you without their help.”

In the instant that I let my arrow fly, Nándor whispers another prayer, and I’m blasted back across the courtyard. My head hits the stone so hard that I feel my molars loosen and taste blood along the line of my gum. My arrow spirals off somewhere in the distance, and my bow clatters to the ground, far out of reach.

Nándor kneels over me, straddling my chest. I reach up with one hand but he’s faster and stronger and his hand closes over my throat first. I gasp, lips parting as I strain for breath, and then he sticks his hand into my open mouth, tugging one of my loose molars free with two fingers.

I scream, the sound muffled by his tight grip on my throat. His hand is bloody up to the wrist. He examines my tooth, pearl-bright between his finger and thumb, with an almost innocent curiosity. Maybe he’s thinking precisely what his own father thought—that there’s power in that tooth, like the power the king sought in every wolf-girl’s fingernails. For a moment I remember my mother, fox-red hair flashing as the Woodsmen crowded her into the mouth of the forest. Even after everything, I will die here in the capital just like she did, torn to tiny pieces. Nándor tosses the tooth away, and it skitters across the cobblestones.

“I will enjoy killing you, wolf-girl,” he says. “This time, I’ll make sure it sticks.”

He reaches into my mouth to pull another tooth. The pain comes in one sharp burst, blooming like a rose. Blood streams from my mouth, dark spots clustering in the center of my vision. I can still feel the name of God there, bearing down against my tongue. Nándor might be stronger than me, purer than me, but that’s something he can’t ever know.

Nándor holds another one of my teeth up to the light, smiling and smiling. He doesn’t notice that my right hand with its four fingers has started inching across the cobblestones, toward where his palm is pressed flat to the ground. He doesn’t notice my slow, tremulous movements, doesn’t notice my finger tracing the Yehuli word for dead on the back of his hand in blood.

A shimmering heat branches from my fingertips and crawls up his wrist, through his arm, over the curve of his shoulder. It sears right through the white silk of his dolman, and peels back his skin as if it were pale fruit. Nándor screams and topples off me, clutching his arm to his chest. The whole length of it is black with burned flesh, flaking like the curled edges of parchment set alight.

“Witch!” he gasps, staggering back. Whole hunks of muscle and sinew are falling away, leaving open long stretches of charred bone.

I can’t move from the ground, and I can hardly breathe for the blood in my mouth. Even the Yehuli magic, with all its knowledge and certainty that cleared a swath through the blackness of my mind, seems unreachable and distant now. Winking away like a dying star. Before Nándor can lurch toward me again, his name rings out through the air.

“Nándor!”

He turns, swaying on his feet. Gáspár strides across the courtyard, still in his Woodsman garb. Relief floods me like a rush of clear spring water, and I nearly surrender to the darkness entirely, so woozy with the joy of seeing him alive. He’s unhurt—but unarmed. There’s no ax glinting at his hip.

“Brother,” says Nándor. A half-smile quakes onto his face, eyes too bright again. “If you’re here to rescue your pagan concubine, I’m afraid you’ve come wholly unprepared for this battle.”

“Leave her be,” Gáspár says. His gaze flickers to me briefly, just one caught-breath moment that loops between us like black thread. “You’re going to lose, Nándor. Most of your Woodsmen have already been slain, and it will take weeks for the rest of the army to make its way here from Akosvár. If you surrender now, and call off the rest of your Woodsmen, I will spare your life.”

Nándor laughs and it’s an awful sound, like water breaking over rocks. “I don’t need your mercy, brother. You’re unarmed.”

Gáspár doesn’t reply. Instead, he walks over to the statue of Saint István, with its blank marble stare, still wreathed in white flowers. Gáspár draws the sword out of Saint István’s hand—the real sword, rust-flecked—and holds it up, a silvery bolt against the cloud-dark sky.

“Megvilágit,” he says, his voice as clear as a bell. And then a flame bursts across the blade.

“You dare wield the sword of a saint?” Nándor snarls.

“I wield the sword of a king—my sword by right,” Gáspár says. “I am the only true-born son of Bárány János and heir to the throne of Régország.”

Nándor’s colorless lips curl. “You’ve never managed to best me before.”

“I’ve never really tried,” says Gáspár, and for the briefest moment I see his lips twitch too. “This time, I won’t show you any restraint.”

Nándor growls out a prayer, and a sword glimmers to life in his good hand, coin-shiny and as bright as gold. When their blades meet, flame against steel, it is with a gonging sound that echoes somewhere deep in my chest. Their battle dance is almost too fast for my eyes to follow, and nothing like their previous dalliance, with wooden swords. All the playful cunning has drained from Nándor’s gaze.