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But I could be here with her in her final hours.
“No,” Yana said. “I see your thoughts. Just sit with me.”
I settled against her, still holding her hand.
“Tell me about this place,” she whispered, and I obeyed.
“Once upon a time,” I started, and was happy to see a smile tug at her lips. When we were little, we had always started our stories that way.
I told her about the Fee and the Mother Tree. How the Beasts took care of those who had escaped Vostok. The little life we were carving out for ourselves.
I was still talking when the sun was high overhead, and finally I realized that Yana had stopped breathing. She had stopped a long time ago.
There were Beasts around. People. I felt Freya’s hand against my cheek and was astonished to understand it was wet with tears.
They didn’t try to take me away from her. I knew the Beasts were working, but Freya knelt down on Yana’s other side. She helped me straighten her out, pulling leaves from her hair and rebraiding it.
Everything felt like a distant dream. The Beasts had dug her a grave here, in this peaceful place beneath the oak tree. Torr picked her up, and gently lowered her in.
I climbed in too, arranging her just so. I tied the blue ribbon around her braid and laid it across her chest. Somehow I’d always thought that someone else would see the flame of her hair and appreciate it like I did, the sheer beauty of it and everything she was.
Freya draped a clean cloth over her, covering the blood-soaked skirts, but we threw away the hated veil. She would be buried with her face showing.
When we climbed out, the Beasts began to fill it in. They smoothed the dirt and piled leaves on top.
Ash took my hand, leading me away. I felt still and silent inside.
Beneath it was something black and monstrous and furious, but the ice had not melted yet.
I was only vaguely aware of being seated by the fire, a fur cloak draped around me. Freya pushed a cup of tea into my hand, and I didn't remember drinking it.
Those dark thoughts grew louder, screaming at me.
Father Borodin had stolen that fire. He had stolen the life and honor and self-respect of his own daughter.
He was far more monstrous than I could ever hope to be. No claws or fangs would ever turn me into the creature of rot and horror that he was on the inside.
Time lost all meaning. When the sun sunk low in the sky, painting the clouds a bloody red, I finally looked up.
“Bring me a deer,” I said, my voice hollow. “A fresh one.”
It was Draven who touched my back, then vanished. Freya, Aldis, and Mercy remained around the fire with me, and I finally met their gazes. I was not the only one whose eyes were red and swollen. Trickles still seeped down Mercy’s cheeks.
I could have done more. I should have done more. But instead of dwelling on my mistakes, I needed to look to the future.
The time to allow the rot of Vostok to permeate the Wood was over.
That which they feared would come for them.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The sun had fully fallen.I stared at my sisters across the flames.
Their Beasts were hulking shadows behind them, all teeth and claws, ready to defend their mates to the death.
I wished we could have done more. I wished I had gone back earlier.
But there was no undoing that mistake. All I could do was take it from here.
