“It is too late,” she said. “Sasha would never leave Dmitrii now. And I—I too am pledged.”

“Pledged to your pride,” retorted Morozko. “You want the obedience of chyerti and the admiration of princes, so you are taking this mad risk alongside Dmitrii. But you have never seen a battle.”

“No, I haven’t,” she said, her voice gone as cold as his. She had dropped her hands, but she did not step back. “Though yes, I want Dmitrii’s admiration. I want a victory. I even want power, over princes and chyerti. I am allowed to want things, winter-king.”

They were near enough to breathe the other’s breath. “Vasya,” he said, low. “Think beyond this one battle. The world is safer if the Bear is in his clearing, and you must live; you cannot—”

She cut him off. “I already have. And I swore your brother wouldn’t have to go back. We understand each other, he and I. Sometimes it frightens me.”

“I am not surprised,” he said. “Spirit of sea and fire that you are; he is the worst parts of your own nature writ large.” His hands were on her shoulders now. “Vasya, he is a danger to you.”

“Then keep me safe.” She raised her eyes to his. “Pull me back, when he drags me too far down. There is a balance to be struck here too, Morozko, between him and you, between men and chyerti. I was born to be in between—do you think I don’t know it?”

His eyes were sad. “Yes,” he said. “I know.” He looked up at the Bear again, and this time the two brothers were silent, measuring each other. “It is your choice and not mine, Vasilisa Petrovna.”

Vasya heard the Bear exhale and realized that he really had been afraid.

She let her head fall forward an instant to the wool and fur of Morozko’s shoulder, felt his hands slide around her back and hold her there briefly, suspended between day and night, between order and chaos. Take me somewhere quiet, she wanted to say. I cannot bear the noise and the stink of men anymore.

But the time for that was past; she had chosen her course. She lifted her head and stepped back.

Morozko reached into his sleeve and drew out something small and shining.

“I brought this for you,” he said.

It was a green jewel on a cord, rougher than the formal perfection of the sapphire necklace she’d once worn. She did not touch it, but stared, wary. “Why?”

“I went far away,” said Morozko. “That is why I did not come to you, even dreaming, even when you plucked the Bear from his prison. I went south, through the snows of my own kingdom; I took the road to the sea. There, I called Chernomor, the sea-king, out of the water, who has not been seen for many lives of men.”

“Why did you go?”

Morozko hesitated. “I told him what he never knew, that the witch of the wood had borne him children.”