Konstantin said, in a blood-filled whisper, “I never understood what?”

“That I do keep faith, in my own fashion,” said the Bear. A twist of his lips. “I did love your hands.”

The artist’s hand, with its expressive fingers and cruel, tapering nails, was limp as a dead bird in the chyert’s grip. In Konstantin’s eyes, already milky, fixed on the Bear, was an expression of puzzlement. “You are a devil,” he said again, gasping for air as the blood left his body. “I don’t—aren’t you vanquished?”

“I am vanquished, man of God.”

Konstantin stared, but Vasya could not tell what he was looking at. Perhaps he was seeing the face above him: a creature he loved and reviled as he loved and reviled himself.

Perhaps he was only seeing a starlit wood, and a road that had no turning.

Perhaps there was peace for him, there at the end.

Perhaps there was only silence.

The Bear lowered Konstantin’s head to the mud, the hair golden no more, but dark with blood and water. Vasya realized she had her hand pressed to her mouth. The wicked were not supposed to mourn, or to regret, or to have seen their silent God at last, in the steadfastness of another’s faith.

Slowly, the Bear unclenched his hand from the priest’s, slowly he stood. The golden rope seemed to weigh him down, shining its sickly gleam. Still wrapped in golden cord, the Bear’s hands closed tightly about the winter-king’s. “Brother, lead the priest gently,” he said. “He is yours now, and not mine.” His eyes went back to the crumpled form in the mud.

“Neither of ours, in the end,” said Morozko. Vasya found her hands moving to cross herself, almost without being aware of it.

Konstantin’s open eyes were full of rainwater, spilling over, sliding down his temples like tears. “Your victory,” the Bear said to Vasya and bowed, sweeping a gesture over the field of the dead. His voice was colder than she’d ever heard Morozko’s. “I wish you joy of it.”

She said nothing.

“You have seen our end in that man’s prayers,” said the Bear. His chin jerked toward Sergei. “Brother, you and I will stay locked in our endless war, even as we fade into ash and frost, and the world is changed. There is no hope now for the chyerti.”

“We are going to share this world,” Vasya said. “There will be room for all of us: men and devils and bells too.”

The Bear only laughed softly at her. “Shall we go, my twin?”

Morozko, without a word, swept out a hand, caught the gold binding the other’s wrists. An icy wind leaped up and the two faded into the darkness.

THE WATER WAS SLUICING down Dmitrii’s hair, his bloody sword-arm. He crossed the dooryard with a heavy step, pushing his rain-drenched hair out of his eyes. “I am glad you are not dead,” he said to Vasya. “Cousin.”