But even as she thought it, she said, “I can’t. It isn’t over.”

“Your part in this is over. If Dmitrii fights the Tatars, then that is a war of men, and not of chyerti.”

“A war the Bear brought about!”

“A war that might have happened anyway,” retorted Morozko. “A war that’s been threatening for years.”

She put a hand to her cheek, where lay the scar from a stone flung as she was led to her death. “I know,” she said. “But I am Russian, and they are my people.”

“They put you in the fire,” said Morozko. “You owe them nothing. Come with me.”

“But—who will I be, if I go with you?” she demanded. “Just a snow-maiden, the winter-king’s bride, forgotten by the whole world, just like you!”

She saw him flinch at the words. Biting her lips, she asked, in a calmer voice, “Who am I, if I cannot help my people?”

“Your people are more than a single, ill-conceived battle.”

“You freed your brother because you thought I could keep the chyerti from fading out of the world. Perhaps I can. But the other Rus’—the Rus’ of men and women—paid the price, and I am going to make it right again. The Bear’s mischief did not end with Moscow; my task is not over.”

“And if it gets you killed? Do you think I want to bear you away into the dark and then never see you again?”

“I know you don’t.” She dragged in a deep breath. “But I still have to try.”

For her sake, Morozko had made common cause with her brother, asked her sister’s forgiveness, gone into Moscow in summer, bound the Bear. But she had reached the limits of both his strength and his will. He would not fight Dmitrii’s war.

She would, though. Because she wanted to be more than a snow-maiden. She wanted Dmitrii’s faith, and his hand on her head. She wanted a victory, brought about by her courage.

But she also wanted the winter-king. In the smoke and dust and stink of Moscow, he was a breath of pine and cold water and stillness. She could not think for wanting him.

He saw her waver. Their eyes met in the darkness, and he closed the distance between them.

He wasn’t gentle. He was angry, and so was she, baffled and wanting, and their hands were rough on each other’s skin. When she kissed him, he felt like flesh under her hands, drawn sharply into reality by the place and the hour, and by her own passion. The silence stretched out, as their hands said the things they could not, and Vasya almost told him yes then. She almost let him carry her to his white horse, bear her away into the night. She didn’t want to think anymore.

But she must think. Tamara had let her own demon lull her with dreams of love until she’d lost everything that mattered.

She wasn’t Tamara. Vasya yanked away, gasping for breath, and he let her go.