Yvgenie (41 page)

‘
Because his family found out who my real father is, and his father was sending people to kill us!
’

‘
Kill you, for the god's sake.
Why
?
''

She got a breath, wiped beneath her eye with the back of her hand.
‘
If anybody who knew you had ever seen me, they'd have known who my father is. But no one ever did,
e
xcept the servants. And Yvgenie. He came and he was going o marry me because I was rich.
’
Another pass of the finger beneath the lashes, in a face pale and angry. Justifiably angry, he thought, finding nothing to say for himself.
‘
I was very rich. My uncles said I was going to marry someone
c
lose to the tsar and bring the whole family to Kiev. I thought I might have to marry Yvgenie's father. But the Yurishevs weren't noble enough. So he married somebody else and I ended up betrothed to his son.
’
Breath came easier for her now. Thank the god. He wanted to stop her but he wanted to know, too; and he listened, while she looked at the fire and not at him.

‘
Yvgenie came to the house. He wasn't the oldest son. I wasn't that important. But he was the nicest person I'd ever met.
’

‘
Did you love him?''

A long, difficult pause.
‘
I don't know. I tried to. I was going to marry him. I didn't think I was going to like him but I did. We slipped away and talked behind the stairs.
’
A rapid flutter of the eyes in the firelight, the spill of a tear that ran gold down her cheek.
‘
Before they caught us. —I thought we were going to be happy. I really did. I thought I was going
to
leave the house
and go to Kiev and not have to live shut
in
and scared of wizards. But somebody—maybe one of the
s
ervants, maybe just someone who'd heard rumors—waited
a
ll this time and came to Yvgenie's father and told him I was
a—
’

She stopped and leaned her mouth on the heel of her hand.

The silence went on painfully long. He said, desper
ately,
‘
So Yvgenie came to warn you?
’

A nod.
‘
His father was furious. He said I had to be
one
of the wizards who killed the Yurishevs. Most of all he did want any link with my family and he sent soldiers to kill
us.
But Yvgenie—Yvgenie
rode ahead of them all the way from
Kiev. He got through the gates at night—the guards k
new
who he was; they wouldn't give him any trouble. And
he
warned my family and he took me on his horse and said
he
couldn't go home again. He said he'd take me somewh
ere
safe. My family—I don't know where they are now.
’

One could call the boy a fool. But not a scoundrel.
He
said, past a knot in his throat,
‘
Where
was
he taking you
’

‘
To the river. He said he'd rather be a f-fisherman
than
his father's son.
’

‘
God.
’
He looked at the little knife in his hands, tu
rned
it and flung it into the ground next the fire.
‘
Damn!
’

‘
So I have
to
find him.''

‘
I
have to find him.'' He thought of the mouse, and Che
r
nevog, and a very desperate and maybe dying boy.
‘
Hell and damnation! Sasha! Wake up!
’

But Sasha did not stir.

We had to stop and rest. Bielitsa 's f
ailing, and I know he’s
borrowing from her and from Patches, but I can't say no
.
He's so pale now it scares me, and I try to wish him well, I try to wish both of us well, but it's like pulling a weight uphill
.
I think I could do what he does and I don't even want to think about that. I know now what uncle was saying about moth
er
fighting on slanted ground. And Yvgenie's getting more an
d
more confused. He used to have just dark spots, but now there'
s no dark, it's things that can
't
fit together, scary thing
,
about thorns, that I don't know why they should be scary, but I feel it when I try to listen, and I don't think he or Ka
vi
either knows which is which anymore. In the dark, the same way the dark is when you can see ghosts Kavi can talk to me, but only for a moment or two because after that we don
’t know
what we
're doing. I know I'm being a fool. I think we
bo
th know it. I'm scared and I'm so tired I can hardly think
r
ight, and the awful thing, I think from time to time this
could
be what being in love is, but then
I
keep remembering what uncle said about rusalki. It feels so real, it feels so good, and I know we're hurting ourse
lves, it hurts even when it's so
good. We've got to do something different soon but I'm s
c
ared of every wish that leads away from what we have and I'm scared even of wishing one of us well because if I do it with Yvgenie that's one wish; and if I do it without, that's another, and I don't know what's safe or what's right—

H
e was cold now in a way no fire could warm. He sat in
f
ront of it, held out his hands to it, but it had no life to give him. The dark behind him grew far more than the light that
d
anced in front of him. Ilyana dipped her quill in the inkpot beside her and wrote something with a fierce concentration, ignoring Bielitsa's complaints—the horses, like him, had to stay. Her magic held them. Attraction did.

‘
Ilyana,
’
he began.

‘
Hush,'' Ilyana said fiercely, without looking up: his next breath stopped in his throat, while the quill continued its furious course.

He had never thought he would long for Owl or the black Thing that had hissed at him—but no matter it had spat and hissed and bared its teeth every time it got close to him, so long as Babi had been there, they had been safe. And they were not, now. So long as Owl was with them, Chernevog loved—not Owl, precisely: Owl knew nothing about love, but Owl was saner than the wolf, he was sure of that.

Perhaps it was an answer to the wolf Ilyana sought—he saw how frightened
she looked, how desperately she clutched the edge of the book and turned pages—looking for some spell, perhaps, some incantation to banish that drifting shadow from the brush, where it circled their fire.

He rested his elbows on his knees, his locked hands before his lips.

He saw it—passing at the very edge of the firelight, not so terrible as the wolf of his imaginings: thin, rather, lank an
d
furtive—

‘
It's out there,
’
he said. And Ilyana said nothing. He could hear the scratch of the quill above the wind in the leaves.

His father's hounds had killed a servant boy once—torn him in pieces. That night the same dogs had sat at the great fireplace beside his father's chair, great black beasts that feared his father, no less than the servants did—

Wolves in the woods—hunting him down an aisle of thorns.

Hate, and fear, and never help from anyone—until—

Trees moved like living things. Vines writhed like snakes and crept across gray, weathered stone—

A fair-haired little girl walked precariously along a streamside, a little girl who would look up any instant and say, with a glance to fill up all the empty spots—

‘
Who are you?
’

Threatening question. Important question. He had been hiding in the woods. A terrible lady would find him and take him to her house. She had Ilyana's face. Or Ilyana would have hers someday. But for now Ilyana was a little girl who walked balancing on the water's edge—lonely, too, he was sure, though lonely did not always mean harmless.

He was on a porch, at a door of a house he knew, and Ilyana opened it—of course: it was her house the lady had sent him to find and it was Ilyana's father the lady aimed at— a fierce, unforgiving wizard, who lectured him about honesty, and
wanted
things of him the way the lady did—

But he would not,
could
not give himself or his trust to anyone again. The lady held him. The lady made demands on him. He stole the old man's book and searched it for secrets that might free him or save him—before the old man caught him at it.

Ilyana wanted him back, Ilyana or Eveshka or Draga, the images tumbled over and over in his memory—fair-haired
c
hild or girl or woman, all alike. Ilyana wanted him to a meeting, wanted him to face her father,
trust
her father—

He had drowned Ilyana. Or was it Draga? He could not
re
member. The wolf was there again, in the brush—he saw i
t
staring at them.

If Ilyana would scream, if she would move, he might move—if she would say, Yvgenie, help me—he might have
str
ength enough. But nothing moved, except the wind among
th
e leaves. His joints were locked, his jaw would not move
or
let out a sound
—

He could only remember he had killed her, or would kill her, to save himself. He bit his lip until the pain could bring
s
ense back and he could recall the bathhouse, and the way
ba
ck to what he knew. He remembered the hunters, and Ily
a
na, and Vojvoda—

He remembered his mother, and his nurse—a fat, com
f
ortable woman who had told
him about wizards and wolves, a
nd flying houses. But that did not agree with being lost in the woods, or living in that terrible house with Ilyana. His house had had tall pillars. Dogs, not wolves, slept at the
d
oor. And he had never met Ilyana until he had come to her house to be betrothed to her, but he had ridden to Vojvoda,
bec
ause they were hunting her to kill her—for wizardry—and murders—

Both could not be true, god, he could not remember both at once. Draga's wolf circled their fire, while Ilyana wrote by firelight, the way Draga would
…

‘
You take this,
’
her father told her, and put a packet of something in her hand.
‘
Salt and sulfur. You put it in a ring about you and
S
asha, and you stay inside that ring no matter what and don't trust anything you see, no matter if it looks like me, or Yvgenie, or anyone else you know.
’

‘
Why?
’
Nadya asked.

‘
Shapeshifters. Vodyaniye. Trust Babi. And take care of him.
’
With a glance toward Sasha, and to her again:
‘
Tell him where I'm going and tell him—
’
He hesitated, with a
second worried glance and a shake of his head.
‘
You
don’t
have to tell him. He knows things like that. Just take care
of
him. He doesn't remember to do that himself.
’

He's a wizard, Nadya thought. What kind of wizard is
h
e that he needs people to take care of him?

Her father turned his back to her. Her father was
going
after his legitimate daughter and Yvgenie, alone, because somebody, he said, had to look after Sasha till he waked, and because the other horse was too old and too fat, and the black one could not make any speed carrying her. She knew that he was right, and that she was no help but here. But his saying tell Sasha this and tell Sasha that upset her stomach He should tell Sasha when he had found Yvgenie and his daughter and come back—b
ecause she was not through talk
ing to him, please the god. He knew the important things about her. She knew nothing about him.

She thought—I should at least tell him I want him to co
me
back, I should at least hug him goodbye—it's not lucky, him saying those things
…