I had hunted before, had tracked deer and wild boars. Even though the two men were soldiers, they were unarmed when I had found them and could still be unarmed. I didn’t need to fight them. If I could find them and catch them off guard, it might be possible to rescue Galina without spilling blood.

We neared the river. The rusalki were nowhere in sight, but I searched the restless waters anyway for a glimpse of their pale limbs or algae-red hair—the intrusion of humans into my wilderness had forced me to confront the reality that I was human too, and that there were more differences between me and the resurrected dead than I wanted to acknowledge.

“I want to see him,” Mikhail said as we crossed the bridge. He too eyed the water uneasily.

“Who?” I asked, glancing up.

“Aleksey.”

I hesitated. “Mikhail, he isn’t coming back.”

He nodded, his jaw set firmly. “I know.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Toma. At the very least, I need to say farewell.”

Reluctantly, I guided him along the overgrown path until the sunken cobblestones dissolved into grass and raw earth, and then from there took the deer trail that Galina and I had followed the day before. It was easy enough to find my way—when I had dragged Mikhail to safety, his tarp-wrapped body had cut a divot through the soil.

The forest was unnaturally quiet, with the birdsong absent and even the crunch of dead leaves strangely muted. When we entered the clearing, I felt the weight of the bogatyr’s death pressing down on me, as though it were a massive object plummeting with great velocity. I drew in a deep breath of the early-morning air, crisp and scented of damp laurel. Dug my nails into my palms.

My dread only grew as we stepped over the rubble. The storm had filled in the bullet holes and lashed the shreds of balloon canvas from the trees, but had only managed to cast the bogatyr facedown on his stomach instead of washing him away entirely.

No. The dead bogatyr’s coat lay on the ground several paces from his body, as if he’d hastily thrown it aside. And his arms were spread, his upturned palms bloodied as if...as if he’d been feeding.

A shiver racked my body.

“Aleksey,” Mikhail murmured, taking a step forward before I seized his forearm. He turned to me, grief and confusion darkening his gaze.

“Wait.” I edged closer, plucking a branch from among the rubble. I gently poked Aleksey’s arm.

Even the corpses of deer stiffened within hours, the blood settling in their limbs. But when I nudged the bogatyr’s body, his arm moved freely, scraping limply across the soil. His wrists and elbows had been cut at the joints, the tendons severed. It was not the blood of any victim that stained his wrists, but his own.

Revulsion and anger flared in Mikhail’s gaze as he spun around to face me. “Did you do this?”

I shook my head. “It must have been the soldiers.”