35.

The Starlit Road

VASYA COULD FEEL EVERY STRIKE of Pozhar’s hooves, as though she were the one mortally wounded. The mare twisted and turned, avoiding armies and chyerti both; once she jumped clean over a dead horse. All the while, Vasya gripped her brother, gripped the helmet with its strange burden. And she prayed.

At last they broke clear of the battle, and left the omnipresent roar behind them, concealing themselves in the trees that lined the river. They found a space of quiet in a little copse. They were not terribly far from the battle; the roaring seemed to shred the earth and sky. Vasya thought she could hear the Bear laughing.

The copse was a little higher than the marsh; Vasya slid from Pozhar’s back just in time to catch her brother as he fell. He almost sent her sprawling into the water. It took all her strength to halt him, and lay him on the soft earth. His lips were blue, his hands cold.

She stared at the water in the helm. Make the dead alive. But he isn’t dead. Morozko—Morozko where are you?

Sasha’s eyes looked up, but they did not see her. Perhaps he saw a road beneath a starry sky: a road from which there is no turning back. “Vasya?” he asked. His voice was little more than a breath now.

She had nothing but her two hands: with her fur cloak she wiped the blood and earth from her brother’s face, held his head in her lap.

“I am here,” she said. Tears unbidden spilled from her eyes. “You have won. The army is sure of its victory.”

His eyes brightened. “I am glad,” he said. “I am—”

He turned his head a little; his stare became fixed. Vasya turned to follow his gaze, and there was the death-god, waiting. He was on foot; his horse a faint shape, pale as mist at his back. She looked at him long, and there were no words between them. Once she had begged, once she had railed at him, for coming to claim those she loved. Now she only looked, and saw her glance go through him like a sword.

“Could you have saved his life?” she whispered.

His answer was the merest shake of his head. But he came, still wordless, and knelt beside her. Frowning, he cupped his hands. Water, clear and clean, gathered in his palms, and he let it trickle out onto her brother’s face. Where the water touched, the cuts, bruises, the grime vanished, as though washed away. Vasya, not speaking either, helped him. They worked slowly and steadily. Vasya pulled aside the stained and broken armor, and Morozko let the water run. In the end, her brother’s face and torso were clean and unmarked; he looked asleep, peaceful, unwounded.

But he did not stir back to life.

She reached for the helmet.

Morozko’s troubled glance followed the movement. Hope was beating in her throat, a fragile, burning thing. “Can this bring him to life in truth?”