The windows had been boarded shut. It was so dim that all I could see of the dying soldiers on either side of me was the gleam of their slitted eyes and the saliva coating their parched, searching tongues. As they stirred, chains rattled—each had a wrist or ankle shackled to bolts in the floor, as much a sign of their encroaching fates as the shadow of death that roosted on their ashen features.

A blond soldier sat beside one of the beds, a bowl of water resting in his lap. As we neared, I watched as he gently sponged down the dying patient’s unbandaged arm. In areas, the skin had blackened, and several of the fingers were missing.

Frostbite, I thought.

Slowly, the soldier looked up. He was a strikingly handsome man, although his features were whetted by a cruel edge. His dark-gold hair was brushed back and trimmed at the sides, but a few long strands had spilled over his brow, framing leonine eyes that pierced me to the core.

“Sir, forgive me,” the Strannik said, lowering his gaze respectfully. “This girl came to me on the platform. She was looking to see if her brother is among the dying. He’s a soldier from Kupalo.”

“Is that so?” His voice was low and languid. He turned his attention back to the wounded soldier, his fingers trained over the bloody water’s surface, sponge forgotten.

“I’ll have her leave.”

“No, she may continue her search,” the blond soldier said aloofly.

Whoever this was, he must have been a high-ranking official to command such respect. The leader of a troop perhaps. I edged closer, peering into the faces of the wounded. All strangers to me, of course, but in another life, they might have been friends or family.

“Would you like to know something?” the blond man said as I passed his bedside.

I looked over. “Pardon me?”

He dipped the sponge back into the bowl, watching the blood muddy the water. “When something dies, it creates an echo. In exceptional cases, a rather loud one. Sometimes, that is loud enough for something to hear it. For something to answer.”

“What do you mean?” I whispered.

“I think you know.” He turned slightly in his chair, raising his chin. A vague smile passed over his mouth, his lips so full that they were almost pretty. “I think you have heard it.”

An inexplicable shiver passed through me as I met his gaze. His eyes were as bright as a lynx’s, a rare amber flecked with green striations.

“Do you see him?” the man asked, turning his attention back to the wounded.

I moistened my lips. “Who?”

“Your brother.” He began to unroll the gauze from the boy’s shoulder, revealing even more devastation.

“Not yet.”

He gave a dismissive flick of his hand. “Then you may keep searching.”

“Thank you, sir,” I mumbled.

With the Strannik guard trailing behind me, I entered the next car and the one after that. I froze in the third car beside the cot of a boy with half his face encased in bandages. Dark hair peeked out from under the layers of linen, and in the side of his face that was still exposed, I caught a glimpse of what I would’ve liked to pretend was a part of myself—the bold, furrowed brows, maybe, or the restless line of his mouth.