Page 75 of The Wolf and the Woodsman

“The king swore,” I say, going on despite the trembling in my voice, “he swore that no harm would come to Keszi!”

“I don’t make bargains with wolf-girls,” says Lajos. He kicks his horse so that it shoulders roughly past me. “I just follow the king’s orders.”

Looking at Katalin now, she hardly seems real. I have been so worried about Nándor’s treachery that I have forgotten that the king is a tyrant in his own way. After so many sleepless nights, my belly churning with fear over what would become of the Yehuli, I have nearly let Keszi slip from my mind. Guilt and horror twine in me at once, a fiery string of pain.

I turn to Katalin. “Get down from the horse.”

Katalin’s gaze shifts uncertainly between Lajos and me. She’s not worried about provoking Lajos, of course—she’s more concerned with snubbing me and making sure I know it. But she puts one leg over her horse’s saddle and then slides off it, boots hitting the ground with a muted thud.

“You don’t give anyone orders, wolf-girl,” Lajos spits, leaping from his mount in one furious motion, his hand on his ax. “I don’t care what sort of bargain you have with the king—you can serve him just as well when I’ve cut your demon tongue out of your mouth.”

But the bargain is broken already and the air is cold and clear. All my fear shudders out of me, leaving only anger in its place. “I welcome you to try.”

And then Lajos swings. It’s a warning strike, halfhearted, but I reach out for his blade with my right hand, as soon as its movement slows enough that I won’t lose the rest of my fingers doing it. In my grasp the metal peels with rust, flaking away in long strips like iron tongues, until the whole blade has crumbled right down to its shiny hilt. Lajos takes a step back, eyes widening.

“How did you do that?” Katalin demands.

“The king will punish you!” Lajos cries out as the crowd startles like spooked chickens. “You’ve attacked one of his loyal Woodsmen!”

“You attacked me,” I remind him hotly. Perhaps I have lost all my good sense, broken the promises I made to myself to stay quiet and cowed. But the king broke his end of our oath first.

I jump as the gate of the barbican grinds open, expecting Nándor or worse. But it’s Gáspár. I hate how relief stills in me when I see him, the way the warmth of a fire can make you feel sated and sleepy as it settles into your marrow. There are two Woodsmen with him, Miklós and Ferenc, but my gaze trains on him and him alone, remembering how he looked in the chapel’s puddled candlelight. Remembering how he told me he kneeled.

Gáspár takes in the scene and my trembling hands and draws a breath. “What are you doing?”

“What am I doing?” I look between him and Lajos, gaping. “Your father broke his bargain. He promised that if I served him, Keszi would be safe from harm, and now he’s brought another wolf-girl anyway!”

I see a shadow go across his face, but I can’t guess at its meaning. Gáspár turns to Lajos. “When did the king order you to go to Keszi?”

“Just after Saint István’s feast,” he mumbles. “After the wolf-girl—”

I don’t hear the rest of it. Blood pulses in my ears, loud as nearing thunder. The king didn’t even blink before turning on me. He must have known all his promises were lies even as they left his lips, and I am the guileless idiot who believed them. I had felt giddy with power after bargaining for my life, not realizing that as I preened and gloated, the king was fitting me with chains.

While I am marveling at my own miserable stupidity, Lajos grabs Katalin by the arm. In my meanest, most secret imaginings, I sometimes dreamed that she would be taken by the Woodsmen and torn apart by monsters on her way through Ezer Szem, or even better, falling under the king’s sword. Now my head whirls as I watch Lajos drag her away, sick with horror. I imagine the king tearing off her fingernails, one by one, like plucking the white feathers from a swan.

“Évike.” Gáspár’s voice knifes through the haze. “Don’t do anything reckless.”

I meet his eye, hands shaking. “I want to speak with the king.”

I have no plan as I march to the king’s chambers; it’s only anger buoying me. Gáspár is a pace behind, and his words chase after me like loosed arrows.

“Consider what you want to achieve before you walk into the room,” he says, an edge of pleading to his voice. “There’s no use confronting him with venom and fury—you’ll only get yourself thrown into the dungeons again.”

I whirl on him. “And should I just be like you, instead? Swallowing every cruel word, bowing to the same man who tore your eye out? Letting your bastard brother stomp all over your birthright?”

I’m so enraged that I don’t care how much I hurt him. But Gáspár only looks at me steadily, black eye unflinching.

“You swore an oath to my father too,” he says.

“Yes, and it’s my greatest shame,” I snap, cheeks flushing.

“And don’t you think it shames me equally?” I see his chest swell; for a moment I think he will close the space between us. “But you understood, as I do, that survival is not a battle that you win only once. You must fight it again every day. And so you take your small losses so that you can live to fight tomorrow. You know that my father is a slower, gentler poison.”

His words bite at me like a splinter under my nail. I slow my pace, fury ebbing, despair rising up in its place. “But what should I do, then? Should I keep letting your father slip through my fingers again and again, reassuring myself that at least he is better than his bastard, until one day, without my knowing it, every single girl in Keszi is dead?”

Gáspár draws a breath. “Can Keszi not survive the loss of one girl every few years, as it has for all my father’s reign?”

I consider it, even as my stomach roils. Virág will live another decade at least—she is as hearty as an old tree, which only grows stronger with its years. Another seer would likely be born in the meantime, her white hair a happy omen. And until she grew into her magic Keszi could learn to live without one, even if it meant not knowing when the frost came to kill our crops or when the Woodsmen would arrive at our door.