The moment the words left his mouth, the rigid muscles in his neck and shoulders relaxed, and his hard jawline softened. He exhaled slowly, as if a great burden had been lifted from his back.

I imagined Mikhail as a child, trying to impress his father with a show of his powers or a snippet of new information learned from his tutors. And then what? No reaction, not even a hint of a smile? Or just indifferent silence?

It was all beginning to make sense now. Over the years, Mikhail had built a shell for himself, a barrier to distance himself so that he would never suffer from rejection or want of affection. Always on the inside, and always an outsider.

“Mikhail, I’m so sorry,” I said, pierced by sadness.

“I’ve never told that to anyone,” he said at last, a vague smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “I don’t know why.”

This journey was changing all of us. It was only when Mikhail turned ahead again, his back straight and head held high, that I realized I didn’t just want to save Galina anymore—I wanted to watch Mikhail regain his throne and transform the empire into what it was meant to be all along.

No. I didn’t want to watch. I wanted to be a part of it.

We took shelter in a shallow cave as the sun began to set. The storm had relented after a few hours, dark clouds unfurling to reveal a full moon rising.

I prodded a stick into the depths of the fire we had built at the cave’s entrance, where the smoke could escape and trees provided a natural windbreak. The burning logs crackled, spewing a mist of red and gold sparks into the night sky. I snapped the branch in two and fed it to the flames, rubbing my hands to warm them.

Joining Mikhail on the ground, I pressed my hand against my lower stomach, wincing as a painful cramp stitched my side. Just hunger or gas. If I remained on schedule, it would be another week or so until my bleeding started again. I hoped to be on my way home with Galina by then, or at least somewhere with a supply of clean rags.

A breeze rattled the pine boughs and churned sparks from the fire.

“If it gets any colder, it might not be the monsters that kill us,” Vanya mused, wrapping his arms around himself as he shivered. “It’ll be this damn cold.”

“Don’t be so negative,” I said.

He grinned. “That’s asking too much of me.”

A thin smile touched my lips. I unpinned the amber brooch that fastened my rushnyk around my shoulders and unfolded it. At its full length, the cloth was just barely wide enough to cover all three of us if we sat shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip.

“It’s not much of a blanket, but it’ll keep out the wind,” I said when Mikhail gave it a questioning look as I extended one end in his direction.