Mistress of the Solstice (30 page)

“Whose orders?”

“Your father’s.”

“She is my handwoman,” I said,
angry. “What business does my father have to give her
orders to hide things from me?”

Raven flew over to a stone ledge to face me.

“What did you and your father do last
night?” he asked.

“We—we looked in the Mirror to
find out more about the boy. Just like you
suggested.” I felt something stir at the back of my
mind, but I dismissed it. What did last night have to do with it?

“And then?”

“My father left and I went to
sleep.” I felt treacherous color creep up to my
cheeks. My dreams. Surely, Raven couldn’t know them,
could he?

“Where did he go?”

I opened my mouth and stopped.
Your father will set things
right
, he had said. He also said he knew who else
was helping the boy, besides the Gray Wolf.

I knew my father all too well.

“What did my father
do?” I demanded.
What has
he done?

“He found the one to blame.”

“Who?”

“No,” Praskovia said.
“Stop it. You mustn’t know, Mistress.
Please.”

Chills crept up my spine.

“You will do that,
Praskovia?” Raven said. “You will
choose Kashchey over your own fa—”

“Stop it, I said!” Praskovia
exclaimed. It was a command. But, more than that, it was a plea.

“Your own…father?” I whispered.

Praskovia was suddenly busy, walking over to my trunk
and reaching in to rummage inside.

“Come, Mistress,” she said.
“It’s a big day. You must be
ready.”

“But—”

“It’s her choice,
Marya,” Raven said. “You
can’t interfere.”

“It seems that I can, since my father is
involved.” I pushed Praskovia aside and strode out
of the room.

The servants’ frightened glances led me away from my
father’s chambers, which were empty, down the narrow
stairway to the side of the castle, and eventually, after much
searching, down another flight of spiral staircase that seemed as if it
would never end, into the damp, moldy space underneath the castle.

The dungeons. I had only been there once in my entire life and I
didn’t cherish the experience.

I took a burning torch out of its sconce and followed a winding
passageway toward a flickering light far ahead. The cold dampness
encompassed me with the smell of decay. In the uneven shadows, the
walls seemed to creep with things I didn’t want to
think about.

Down here, I was no longer powerful. I was a
frightened young girl, just like the first time I’d
wandered here, when I was ten and saw things that I had been told to
forget—an order I found impossible to follow.

The stone walls opened into a larger space. A torch flickered in the
corner, throwing uneven light onto a dark cloaked figure—my
father?—and something else…

I edged forward, the torch suddenly heavy in my
weakening hand.

My father turned. “Marya? What are
you—”

I looked past him at the old man sprawled on the wall. His arms and
legs, spread wide apart, were pinned to the stone by crude iron
daggers, surrounded by black splotches of dried blood. His long white
hair and thin straight beard were disheveled, his bare chest splayed
with blood that almost hid the gashes beneath. His face was so pale it
seemed more gray than the stone behind him. Yet his eyes, blue like
waters in a summer lake, shone brighter than jewels on his drawn face.
The man’s body was broken, but his spirit was still
intact.

“Release him, Father,” I
whispered.

“Who told you?” my father demanded.
“It’s Praskovia,
isn’t it? I’ll have that
woman—”

“You will not, Father,” I said.
“You will release this man and let my servants see to
his wounds. And, you will leave Praskovia alone. She told me nothing. I
was looking for you and I found you here, that’s
all.”

“This man helped the boy get to your
tower. He told the boy about your traps. He also told the boy that we
cannot harm him if he asks for your hand. He gave our enemy
weapons
against
us!”

I shook my head. “Torturing this man
won’t undo what he’s done. Release him,
Father. Do it
now
.”

“You can’t give me orders,
Marya.”

“Today,” I said,
“is the Summer Solstice. The day of Kupalo. This is
the only day of the year I can give you orders, Father. And you must
follow them if you want to see the Solstice through. Today is
my
day and you know
it.”

I turned and saw frightened faces peering out from
behind the bend of the stone wall. Praskovia and her maids—Lubava and
Nastya, I believe. Pavel, the stable man. Some more people I barely
knew.

“Release this
man,” I said into space. “Take him
to the servants’ quarters. Dress his wounds. See to his
needs. Today he is mine. Tomorrow my father and I will decide his
fate.”

I felt my father’s gaze burn the back of my neck, but I
ignored it as I strode through the crowd hastily parting before me, and
made my way back upstairs.

 

Ivan

A
s the thicket concealing Baba Yaga’s lair fell further
behind, the walking became easier. Sticky branches no longer grabbed at
Ivan’s legs in an attempt to slow him down. Hazel
leaves didn’t try to slap him in the face. Instead, the
welcoming shapes of slender birches rose ahead, letting glimpses of
sunlight through their airy crowns.

It was unusual for Wolf to trot behind Ivan instead of leading the way.
As they walked, Ivan threw quick glances over his shoulder at the gray
shape. He itched to ask a question, but he knew better.

As the trees became scarcer, Wolf finally came up by
Ivan’s side. “You have a question,
boy?”

“Yes.”

“Then ask. I can stand no more of your
fidgeting.”

Ivan turned to face the beast. “What did you do to
make Baba Yaga so angry with you? Why did she curse you out of your
speech?”

There was a pause. For a while Ivan thought he wasn’t
going to get an answer. Then, for a while longer he thought of worse
things that could happen if he went too far with Wolf.

When Wolf finally spoke, his answer came as a dart out of nowhere. Ivan
almost jumped at the sound of Wolf’s familiar voice.

“There was a girl. Yaga’s ward. Her
kin.”

In the in silence that followed Ivan had time to give up on the rest of
the story. Then Wolf spoke again.

“Elena. She was the most beautiful woman in the
world.”

“And?” Ivan prompted.

Wolf growled. “If you’re going to
interrupt, boy, why don’t you do the talking?”

“Sorry. I won’t interrupt you
again.”

They covered a lot of distance before the story continued.

“Yaga never said where Elena came from. The girl might
have been her own daughter, for all I know. Or, perhaps Yaga and her
sisters brewed the girl up in one of those giant kettles they use for
their unspeakable herb stews. Whatever the origin, Yaga
couldn’t keep the girl with her. The old
woman’s a loner. There’s no room for
two in her chicken-legged hut. Besides, the forest thicket is hardly a
place for a healthy young girl.”

How could they
brew
someone in a
kettle? And who were Yaga’s sisters? Ivan bit back the
questions.

“So,” Wolf went on,
“she released Elena into my care. She trusted me back
then. And I, I took Elena to the only man I could trust to raise her
among humans. A herb man, who already had another daughter to make
Elena a perfect younger sister.”

Realization dawned. “Gleb,” Ivan
whispered.

“Yes, Gleb. Gleb and his daughter,
Praskovia.”

Ivan tried to remember everything he knew about Gleb.
There wasn’t much to recall; the old herb man had
spoken a lot, but told nothing about himself, only about Kashchey and
Marya. Wolf had called Gleb
his
herb man.
He’d spoken of Gleb giving up, so that Wolf had to find
another herb man, Nikifor. Another herb man with a sad Solstice story.
Perhaps Gleb, like Nikifor, had lost a daughter in a Solstice
sacrifice?

The guessing must have shown on Ivan’s face.

“Don’t think you’re
that smart, boy. You think you know everything now, but you
don’t. Elena left Gleb of her own free will. She met a
man she loved, and Gleb, as a good father, saw nothing wrong in
blessing her marriage.”

“Then—” Ivan asked carefully,
“what did happen to Elena?”

“Let’s just say that whatever
happened, Baba Yaga blamed me for her fate.”

“You?”

Wolf shook his head. “If I hadn’t
given Elena to Gleb, if I had interfered when she was leaving
Gleb’s house to make her own home, if I had intervened
at some point before it was too late, I could have saved her. Perhaps.
I was right there, you know. But I didn’t. So, when the
curse Yaga put on me almost turned me into an ordinary beast, I felt I
deserved it.” He fell silent and trotted ahead.

Ivan didn’t dare to ask any more. But
after a
verst
a or two
Wolf spoke again.

“You asked me once, why do I want to bring down
Kashchey and see the prophecy come true. I guess now that
we’re about to fulfill it, you deserve to know the
truth. Of course, you’ll probably die and
I’ll blame myself for your death, as well as the deaths
of all those others who failed before you. Perhaps Yaga is right. There
is no undoing what has been done. But, as far as I reckon,
it’s well worth it to try to prevent such a thing from
happening again.”

Ivan stared, his skin tingling with the guess he didn’t
want to venture. “It was Kashchey who married
Elena?”

“No. Kashchey wasn’t the one who
married her. But he was the one who killed her.”