Hearing the drone of an engine, I looked up. Three dirigibles passed overhead in an arrow-shaped formation. The emblems painted on their rudders glowered down at me like a pair of eyes—green circles bisected by the Fraktsiya’s broken chain.

“We can’t be far now,” Vanya said. “They’re going in for a landing at the city’s airbase.”

I watched as the airships diminished into shapeless blots, thinking of how I used to watch the passing dirigibles with anticipation back in the wilds. Back then, I hadn’t associated the vessels with the fact that they were weapons of war. I’d simply felt such awe at being so close to other living people, when in reality I hadn’t been close at all.

A chill crept down my spine at the thought of fifty more years of hunting deer, hewing wood, hunger, fear of bears and wolves, endless winters trapped inside, and oh the silence. Now that I actually knew how much humans spoke to each other, I couldn’t stand the idea of the heavy silence that would confront me when Galina and I returned home. As much as I loved my parents, I didn’t think I was ready anymore to spend the rest of my life in the wilderness.

Long after we continued on our way, the thought weighed heavily on my mind. To even think about the future felt like tempting fate, but I couldn’t stop returning to it. If this ordeal had taught me anything, it was that even a single person could have a profound impact on those around her. I didn’t need to have powers or wear a crown to make a difference in the world, and the most vicious of monsters were built from the same flesh and blood as everyone else.

As the sun began to set, we reached the top of a grassy knoll crested by overgrown tombstones. The fortress was close enough now that, though it still towered in the distance, I could make out its individual domes and towers and see the winding steps cut into the cliff’s sheer face.

You’d better be waiting, Koschei, I thought, gritting my teeth. You said I had potential. You called me a threat. I’ll show you just how much of one I am now.

40

Pine needles and pinecone husks crunched beneath our feet as we followed a steep path formed by the daily migration of mavki or wildlife. Nestled on the peak above, the castle emerged from the evening fog before being swallowed up once more.

“There has to be a way to get up there,” Vanya said, staring up at the castle, which rested upon high limestone walls built flush with the cliffside. “A mountain route.”

I turned, sensing movement in the corner of my eye. A mavka emerged from the bramble like a feral goddess. Twigs and leaves bristled from her copper hair, her luminous hazel eyes studying us with solemn curiosity. There was something in the way she looked at us, and how she crossed her hands over her bare body as if in shyness or modesty, that made me wonder if her transformation had occurred more recently than the two forest spirits I had encountered before her.