I shivered. Yes, there had been a Strannik temple, hadn’t there? A towering building of age-silvered wood. But several years before we had left, the temple had burned to the ground. I still remembered the skeletal ruins, the onion dome caved in. The massive wooden idol of the goddess Voserka had been reduced to a charred husk.

I hadn’t known it at the time, but looking back, I realized that the fire had probably been deliberate. A way to tell the Stranniki they weren’t welcome in the village. A way to prevent them from coming back.

“I can’t remember,” I lied, looking at the fog-ensnared hills rising before us. “I just know it was in the mountains.”

We rode on. Although in his descriptions Vanya had made the hamlets sound charming, the villagers we came across were cold and reserved, eying us warily as we drew well water for the horses. A chill dampened the air, turning our breaths into vapor as white and dense as the fog surrounding us. Farmers tending to autumn harvests of apples and wheat glared our way, keeping their hoes and sickles close at hand.

Within the hour, we passed through one village called Dimatsk, and another smaller one named Osoka, where Vanya insisted on taking a detour.

“In the square, there’s a statue of Dinara Tagaeva, the hero of the Siege of Morevgorod,” he said as we rode past the simple wooden houses roofed in tin sheets overgrown with moss. “If you kiss her hand, she blesses you with good luck. Trust me. The last time I did it, I won a hundred grevka at cards two days later.”

“That sounds like a good way to catch a disease,” Mikhail said dryly. “Just go and put your mouth on something that’s touched the mouths of a thousand other people over the years.”

“Don’t tell me you’re scared,” Vanya teased.

He looked unamused. “I don’t believe in luck, especially the kind that comes from praying to idols.”

“What about you, Toma?” Vanya asked, turning to me.

I gave it some thought. Mikhail made it sound bad, but what if the statue truly was lucky? “Well, I guess. I could use some luck after all.”

We arrived at the statue—a woman standing on a marble plinth, sword in hand and chin raised as though to confront an encroaching opponent. Her hand lay outstretched, the knuckles burnished to a soft gold while the rest of her brass form was enveloped in a dark patina.

Vanya jumped from his horse. “Allow me to demonstrate.”

Guiding the horse by its reins, he made a show of kissing the statue’s hand and then turned to us, grinning victoriously. “That’s another two years of good luck for me.”

“More like another two years of brainlessness,” Mikhail said, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, don’t want to lose your first kiss to a statue?” Vanya replied, before turning to me expectantly. “Want to give it a try, Toma?”

“Is it that bad?” I asked, climbing down from my horse. “To lose your first kiss to a statue?”