Witch.

Holy father.

Bring wood.

She wasn’t really listening. Her senses were numb. They had not harmed her sister, they had not harmed Marya. Her horse was dead. She cared not what they did with her. She did not care for anything.

She felt the change in the air, when she was thrust from the beating, insistent torchlight into the darkness of a candlelit chapel. She tumbled to the floor not far from the iconostasis, jarring her torn mouth.

There she lay, breathing the smell of dusty wood, passive with shock. Then she thought that she might try to rise at least, stand with a little courage. A little pride. Solovey would have. Solovey…

She dragged herself to her feet.

And found herself alone, and face-to-face, with Konstantin Nikonovich. The priest had his back to the door, half the length of the nave between them. He was watching her.

“You killed my horse,” she whispered, and he smiled, just a little.

SHE HAD A CUT ACROSS her nose; one eye was swelling shut. In the half-light of the chapel, her bruised face looked more unearthly than ever, and more vulnerable. The old desire flared, and the accompanying self-hatred.

But—why should he be ashamed? God cared not for men and women. All that mattered was his own will, and she was in his power. The thought heated his blood, as much as the worship of the crowd outside. His eyes swept her body again.

“You have been condemned to die,” he told her. “For your sins. You have been granted these few moments to pray.”

Her face did not change. Perhaps she had not heard. He spoke louder. “It is the law of God, and the will of the people, whom you have wronged!”

Her face was salt-white, so that each faint freckle stood out on her nose like spots of blood. “Kill me then,” she said. “Have the courage to do it yourself, not leave it to a mob and call it justice.”

“Do you deny then that the fire was of your making?” Lightly, he stepped toward her. Free, he told himself. Free at last of her power over him.

Her expression didn’t change. She didn’t speak. She didn’t move even when he curled his fingers behind the bone of her jaw and lifted her face to his. “You cannot deny it,” he said. “Because it is true.”

She didn’t flinch when he pressed his thumb into the bruises blossoming flowerlike along her mouth. She barely seemed to see him.

She really was ugly. Big eyes, wide mouth, the jutting bones. But he could not look away. He wouldn’t ever be able to look away, not until those eyes closed in death. Perhaps even beyond she would haunt him.

“You took all that mattered from me,” he said. “You cursed me with demons. You deserve death.”

She made no reply. Tears ran unheeded down her face.

In sudden rage, he caught her shoulders, drove her against the iconostasis, so that all the saints shook, and pinned her there. The breath left her body, any vestige of color left her face. His hand closed on her throat, pale and vulnerable, and he found himself breathing fast. “Look at me, damn you.”