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“I know.” Tyreste was still mulling the possibilities. Asterin and Sesto must have been traveling for weeks in the current weather. Had they even found a guide willing to provide an escort through the less-traveled paths, with the Compass Road closed north of Wulfsgate? And he’d brought Sesto, the second-best scribe working for their little group of translators, which meant there was no one translating at all until they returned.
“Well.” Olov pushed himself away from the tree with a forlorn glance at his pipe. “I’ve said what I needed. He’ll return to the tavern at dawn, and you can decide whether his trip was wasted or well spent. If nothing else, there’s never harm in reminiscing with an old friend, is there?” He tapped the debris off of his pipe and tucked it back into his vest. “You can help Evert with the still. The backup hasn’t stopped putting out that putrid swill, and we can’t afford to be down a single vat when the weather is acting up... and with the Cider Festival just around the corner. Guardians know the Cross has nothing better to do in the cold than drink themselves silly.” He wiped his mouth. “Don’t forget to lock the doors during the service pause. You always forget.”
Tyreste watched his father shimmy back down the hill. Olov was slower than he’d used to be, and for the first time, Tyr saw the signs of aging. The extra second his father afforded himself when standing. The minor hitch in his left leg. How lately he’d spent more time in the office than in the tavern room.
But Tyreste’s mother seemed to love her husband more with every passing year. Theirs was a true love, the rare kind. Like Asterin and Rhiain’s. Tyr had never hoped for anything so meaningful for himself, until...
He bunched his face, blinked hard, and shook his head, clearing it.
Work.
He needed to work.
Only in purposeful action could he dull the abhorrent misery.
Tyreste brainstormed fresh ways to attack the problem of the still as he jogged down the hill toward his family’s tavern.
How would a stronger person handle knowing the exact day they were going to die? Would they live their life differently? What choices would fire their days and haunt their nights if they knew they were not long for the world?
Anastazja pondered those questions every day. While she bathed, while she rode her mare, Enzi, while she moved through the village of Witchwood Cross with her basket and her favorite disguise... Even when she was flying and her troubles seemed small, the void beckoned.
Blissfully oblivious was how she’d have described the first ten years of her life, before she’d been confronted with the terrible fate awaiting her. She’d given no care to the food she ate or the clothes she wore. She’d been perilous with her words, careless with her choices, and more than a little petulant to the people she loved. Her curated world of snow and crackling fires had been free of consequence, of pain.
And then Magda had crashed into their lives. She of implausible beauty and no family name. With magic that was too helpful, too convenient. Suspiciously soon after, Ana’s mother was dead, and Magda the cunning woman became Magda the adviser to Anastazja’s grieving father, the steward of Witchwood Cross. It shouldn’t have been surprising when he’d married her, but it was. Anastazja had hoped her sweet, lonely father would remarry and find happiness again, but not like that.
Not to a koldyna, who had everyone fooled except Anastazja.
Anastazja had seen Magda for what she was the moment she’d shown up at Fanghelm Keep, feigning a beggar, her eyes glistening with yearning malevolence.
The Wynters, like all Vjestik, hailed from witches, but Magda was no mere witch. She communed with the demon world, a place most didn’t even believe existed. But no one at Fanghelm saw this side of her, except Ana. Even Anastazja’s twin brother, Nikolaj, didn’t believe Magda was that powerful—or that dangerous.
It was dusk when Ana reached the towering gates of Fanghelm Keep, which meant everyone would be gathered for supper in the dining hall. They’d be wondering where she was, but they wouldn’t hold the meal up for her. They would havebeforeMagda, but...
Anastazja often thought of her life as before Magda and after Magda. Blissful ignorance shattering into painful clarity.
She quietly slipped into the central hall and shimmied out of her boots to avoid the clicking drawing attention to her entrance. Pausing, she listened, but heard no one nearby. If she had the backbone to slink down the corridor toward the dining hall, she’d be able to hear if everyone was accounted for at supper, but there was nothing she craved more than the fleeting peace of solitude.
Anastazja skittered across the stones in her stockings. She caught a slick spot and slid to the wall next to the inner staircase, then righted herself and darted into the narrow passage to climb to the third floor, where the family apartments were housed.
When she reached the top, she verified she was still alone. The hall was completely vacant to the left and the right. Not even the staff were milling about, which was uncommon but fortuitous. There wasn’t a single one she trusted not to report her actions to Magda, except her vedhma, Ludya, but she wasn’t expecting a visit from Ludya until tomorrow.
Ana closed her eyes and allowed herself a deep breath before starting toward her apartments. Glances back confirmed she hadn’t been followed, and her anxiety melted away, offering space for grief to return.
She turned the handle of her door, but it was already open. Someone was inside. It was probably an attendant, or maybe Ludya had come unannounced to deliver more grimizhna tea.
But that was not what her instincts were telling her.
Anastazja debated backing away and returning down the staircase to join her family after all. Magda would be there, but she’d rather face the koldyna when there were others around.
Except she was certain it was Magda inside her room.
“Are you evaluating whether to converse with me or run from me? No, don’t answer. I can practicallyfeelyour insipid thoughts from here.”
Anastazja violently shivered at the funereal intonation of the crone’s voice. Around others, Magda affected the soft, unassuming lilt of the jewel who had entranced the steward of Witchwood Cross. When it was only the two of them, she dropped the pretense and revealed her true self.
If only others could see her as Anastazja could.
Ana held her head high and entered. There was nothing to fear except giving power to fear. Magda wasn’t going to kill her. There were still six months before her death as foretold by the koldyna, and until then, the evil bitch still needed her.
