Still, there was some comfort in just being here with them, close enough to hear their voices and the shifting of their bodies. And to know I was not alone in being scared to confront parts of myself I’d kept buried all along.

“Quit ‘Tsarushka’-ing me,” Mikhail said in exasperation.

“Your Highness, then,” Vanya said pleasantly. “If I may be so bold, here is how I see it: if you can’t accept who you are and who you love, you will live and die alone. Resenting yourself.”

Despite our precautions, the next morning I found footprints in the soil around our camp. Slim, high-arched feet with delicate toes, as if a woman had circled around us while we slept. Near where the boys had rested, the footprints were the most numerous, and there was more than one pair. I got the shivers just looking at them.

“Damn mavki,” Mikhail muttered, blotting out the footprints beneath his boot heel.

Scanning the foggy forest, I thought I saw staring faces. Upon closer inspection, they proved to be only the trunks of moss-speckled aspens.

I rubbed my arms, unsettled. I hadn’t noticed it the night before, but we had set up camp near an alder grove. Bad luck.

“I don’t like this,” I said. “There’s something wrong here.”

“I never would have guessed,” Vanya said dryly, retrieving his mink fur hat from the forest floor. After one day on the road, his thick burgundy hair was matted in the shape of his ushanka. He ran his hands through his unkempt curls, grimacing. “Ugh. It always gets like this before it rains.”

“I know how that feels.” I rubbed my own hair, which was well on its way to becoming a tangled disaster.

We hurriedly ate breakfast and continued on our way. Even as we left the alder grove behind us, the food settled in my stomach like mortar.

We spent the first hour in silence punctuated only by birdsong, the rustling of leaves, and the gurgle of a nearby stream. A carpet of golden larch needles crunched beneath our horses’ hooves, adding to the forest’s symphony. Slowly, my unease faded.

I enjoyed watching the two boys ride. Vanya rode with an innate, relaxed grace, and never had to give more than a gentle tug on the reins or a single tap of his heel. On the other hand, Mikhail’s pose was far more refined, his back as straight as a rifle barrel, his gaze always ahead. He handled the reins firmly, shifting his weight and testing his stallion’s flank to maneuver the animal completely. I envied him for his ease and control—each time my horse stumbled or broke into a trot, I felt like I was going to be thrown off.

Vanya fell into place beside me. We rode so close, he could have reached over and touched me if he’d wanted to, tracing his hand over my thigh or arm. I wished he would. I wondered if Mikhail felt the same way about Vanya, but the prospect didn’t bother me any more than the confession I had overheard the night before. It just seemed like a part of the natural order, no different than the laws of gravity that kept us tethered to the soil.