Page 34 of The Wolf and the Woodsman

But I can’t explain it. Perhaps I am a witch after all. Gáspár presses the flat of his gloved hand to the trunk, like he’s feeling for a coded message on the bark, something etched and eternal.

The ground trembles under our feet. The tree starts to shake, too, scattering dead needles into the snow. Our horses rear, whinnying, and the reins of my white mare slip from my fingers.

As our horses gallop away, the trees around us stir like restless giants, uprooting themselves from the earth. With each tree that twists itself free, the ice splits open, revealing dirt beneath, the bruised memory of spring. The wrenching sound is so terrible that it drowns out the wind, and as the trees move, the lattice of their branches obscures even the slenderest piece of dusky sky.

A fat pine tree lumbers toward us, gruesome with knots and lichen. I leap out of the way, skidding on my knees in the snow. When I look up, Gáspár is holding out his hand. I take it, and he hauls me to my feet. The moment I’m upright, he lets my fingers fall from his grasp and without another breath we start to run.

I sprint as fast as I can, my hair and my white cloak streaming out behind me. Through the tangle of branches, I can just barely see the blur of Gáspár’s black suba. As I run, I look back over my shoulders, trying to dodge the trees that hurtle past, or risk being crushed in a snarl of roots and filthy snow.

We burst through the tree line, my heart clanging like a blacksmith’s anvil. The pine forest gives way to an open plain, miles of icy flatland skimming all the way to the horizon. I realize only then that the ground is no longer trembling; there’s no whip of branches around my face or roots flinging out to snatch at my ankles. The trees have stopped at the edge of the valley, needles rustling as they hunker down again, planting themselves back into the earth.

I turn to Gáspár, clutching the stitch in my side. “Why did they stop?”

“I don’t know.” His chest is heaving beneath his dolman. “They were chasing us.”

My throat is too tight to reply. I know now, without a prickle of doubt, that when King Tódor conquered the Far North he only managed to restrain its ancient magic, not snuff it out entirely. The Holy Order of Woodsmen will have many more years of bitter work to do, if they aim to erase Kaleva’s magic for good.

“At least we haven’t been trampled to death,” I say when I find my voice again, letting out a tremulous laugh. “I was hoping for a nobler demise.”

As soon as the words fall from my lips, the ice splits with a sound like nearing thunder.

I stare down in horror at the seismic crack, stretching perfectly from one toe of my boot to the other. We’re not standing on solid, snow-dusted earth at all. We’re standing on a frozen lake, blue-black water seething beneath the cloudy mantle of ice.

Slowly, I raise my head to look up at Gáspár. I manage to meet his gaze, as horrified as mine, for only half a second before I am plunged into the freezing water.

Without a beat, the ice closes over my head, knitting itself back together and sealing me under. I’m too shocked to move, too shocked to even feel the cold. Gáspár pounds on the other side, his fists cracking tiny fissures into the ice, but it’s not nearly enough.

Then my lungs begin to strain. The shock that kept the cold at bay is gone, leaving only frigid terror in its wake. I kick wildly to keep myself afloat while I beat my hands against the ice, each impact blunted by the torpid water.

I hear Gáspár screaming, mutedly, from above.

I am going to die, I think, surprised by how calm the thought is when it comes over me. Without noticing, I have stopped my pounding and flailing. My body sinks deeper into the black oblivion, the weight of my sodden clothes pulling me down. Hazily I consider trying to slip off the wolf cloak, but then I think to myself that I’ll want it, wherever it is I am going. As I descend, I am faintly aware of the ice shattering overhead. Light bursts through the fractured surface in bright clear shafts before being obscured again as Gáspár dives into the water.

Roused from my bleary stupor I kick toward him, and his arm loops around my waist. My vision explodes with stars, a thousand hot, painful pinpricks, as he drags me back up to the surface. He grabs the handle of his ax, the blade firmly planted farther down the ice, and uses it as leverage to hurl me out of the water. He pulls himself up after me, and we crawl away from the hole. We don’t get far. After no more than a few moments we both collapse onto our bellies, panting, gasping. Every breath feels like I am swallowing nettles.

It’s a long time before I can speak again, and even after that, I can’t think of what I want to say. The water is freezing onto my skin, my hair, the fibers of my wolf cloak, like dewdrops on grass. I turn over to face Gáspár, my cheek against the ice.

“You only saved me because you couldn’t survive without me,” I choke out, thinking of his clumsiness with the bow and arrow. The humor of it seems so distant now.

Gáspár coughs up water and blinks. “Yes,” he says simply, as if he wants to scowl at me but can’t quite manage it now.

The sun is dipping low on the horizon, light dripping off the edge of the world. I try to keep myself wrapped in my cloak, but it’s soaking wet and colder than my skin itself. The chill has snuck into my marrow, settling against the hollows of my rib cage, too deep to exorcise.

“I want to go home,” I whisper. “To Keszi.”

There’s very little waiting for me in the village, save for Boróka and prickly Virág. But in Keszi there’s a warm bed by the fire, and now it’s so bitterly cold.

“I know,” Gáspár says. His hand slides across the ice and buries itself in my cloak. For a moment I think he’s searching for me, but then he pulls out my knife. His fingers tremble as he rolls down his sleeve, blade glinting against his bronze skin.

“No.” I reach out and grasp his wrist, feeling the raised grid of scars there. “Please . . . don’t.”

I can’t bear to watch him do it, even if it means there’s no guttering warmth. I grip his wrist tightly. It’s like holding on to a rigid piece of winter birchwood, impossibly cold.

“I’m sorry.” Gáspár’s voice drifts toward me, soft as an echo. “If I were a true Woodsman, or a true prince, I could—”

I can’t catch the rest of what he says. Through half-shuttered lashes, I stare at his face, his broken nose and dark eye, the frost pearling in his hair. He’s so beautiful, I realize, and if I had the strength I might have laughed at my belated revelation. I feel oddly peaceful when I look at him, and very tired.

If Gáspár speaks another word, I don’t hear it. A black tide rises and falls, pulling me quietly under.