==========
Chattering and giggling like so many cheerful birds, by midday they’d gathered enough flowers for more than a dozen wreaths. Now the girls of Dyrevnya, their village in the midst of Russia’s wilderness, sat in the dappled forest sunlight this warm midsummer’s day, sharing their bread and cheese, weaving their flowers together, gossiping of the village boys and the night of dancing to come.
Marusia studied them—plump Sasha with her long blond braids; slight, dark-eyed Anna, frail as a new fawn; plain, cheerful Sophia who was already betrothed to Semyon the butcher’s son—and felt a hundred years and a thousand versts away from their lightness. All this day, despite the bright sky and the lush greens of the forest about her, despite all the laughter and chatter, she’d felt a strange darkness pressing in on her till she almost could have wept.
She came back to herself with a jolt as the other girls pounced on her, pulling her to her feet, draping the finished garlands over her.
“What are you doing? I’m not in the mood—I don’t want to be kupaljo!”
Maybe nobody really believed in the old ways, not in these so-very-modern days when steam locomotives crossed the country and it was a few years into the bright new century. Maybe nobody off in royal Moscow or Saint Petersburg had ever even heard of the Feast of Kupalo. But out here in the ancient forest, where most folks still found horses more useful for travel, roads were few and villages stood where they’d always stood—well, their local priest might have scolded them for playing these pagan games, but not .all that severely.
The girls were already blindfolding Marusia with her own woolen scarf, the fringes tickling her face, and spinning her around as they sang. They stopped. There was an expectant silence. Dizzy and resigned, Marusia blindly handed out the floral wreaths, one by one, to the silly girls. As if flowers could predict—
A gasp of horror made her toss the scarf aside. Anna, face ashen, stood staring down at the sadly wilted wreath she held, and the terror in her eyes made Marusia exclaim impatiently, “Oh, Anna! How could a bunch of flowers possibly tell your future?”
“My grandmother said her cousin’s wreath fell apart in her hands.” Sasha’s voice was hushed. “And she died the very next year.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Marusia snapped. “Anna, you got the flowers we picked earliest, that’s all. They had more time to wilt.” She glanced about at the already shadowy forest, which was darkening rapidly even though the sky overhead remained stubbornly blue. “It’s growing late. Let me just find my scarf.” Why had she tossed the tiling away so fiercely? “Akh, now I’ve lost it.”
Sophia made a face. “Maybe one of Them stole your scarf,” she teased. “Maybe a leshy took it for his wife.”
“Don’t joke about Them!” Sasha insisted.
“Why not? Have you ever even seen a leshy?”
Marusia bit her lip and kept still. Once, when she’d been gathering firewood, two bright green eyes, fierce with an intelligence very alien to humanity, had stared out at her from the branches of a tree, eyes that just might have belonged to a leshy, one of the mischievous, perilous, nonhu-man lords of the forest. Good Christian folks, modern folks, weren’t supposed to still believe in such pagan things. But here in the middle of that forest, it was difficult not to believe!
The other girls were more than making up for Marusia’s silence. “No, no,” Sophia whispered dramatically, “it wasn’t a leshy who took the scarf. It was an outlaw.”
“Sophia!” begged Anna. “Don’t!”
Ah, here’s the scarf, Marusia thought in triumph, ignoring them, caught on a bush.
“A fierce, lean, mean outlaw,” Sophia continued, “who hates everybody! He has no ears, because the Law cut them off, and he’s carrying a dozen sharp knives, and he’s just looking for a nice, plump girl to eat!”
She pounced on Sasha. But Sasha’s squeal was drowned by Marusia’s startled scream. Instead of the scarf, she’d touched someone’s arm!
“Forgive me,” a man’s cool, low voice murmured before she could run. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“C-come out here where we can see you,” Marusia commanded.
There was a deep chuckle. “I hear and obey.”
The stranger stepped into the open. Marusia heard the other girls gasp, and nearly gasped herself. Oh, he was fair, tall and young, slender and elegant as a lord in his elegant traveling suit. His fine-boned face was as elegant as the rest of him, his hair glinted bright gold even in the twilight dimness, and his eyes were large and so dark a blue they seemed almost black. With a great effort, Marusia tore her gaze away from their amazing depths as bold Sophia asked defiantly, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“Call me… Vasilko.” Marusia wondered at that faintest of hesitations. “And, well now, ladies, what do you think I’m doing here, dressed like this?” His sweep of hand took in the elegant suit and fine leather boots, but his glance remained on Marusia.
“Robbers,” gasped Sasha. “They stole your horse or—or maybe your motorcar—” She stumbled over that unfamiliar word and hurried on. “And they stole your goods, too, didn’t they? Oh, are you hurt?”
“Only in my pride,” Vasilko said with a chuckle, as though inviting Marusia to join in some private joke. “But the night will be here shortly. Is your village nearby, ladies?”
Marusia couldn’t find her voice. She stood, staring, as the other girls chattered, almost as one, “Oh, of course! Forgive us. Come, follow us, it’s not far!”
“Lady?”
Vasilko held out his arm to Marusia. After a moment she realized what he wanted. Blushing fiercely, she put her hand on his arm, and they walked on together. He stopped as they reached the old-fashioned wooden palisade surrounding Dyrevnya, and Marusia, noticing for the first time how some of the poles sagged and others were actually broken, felt a new flush of embarrassment, realizing how provincial all this must seem to a nobleman.
Herself included. All at once she could almost have hated Vasilko for being what he was. “The others will see that you’re properly welcomed,” Marusia said shortly. “I—I must go. My parents will be waiting.”
But he caught her hand. “Why this sudden urgency? And what are all those ribbons on the houses? Is today some feast day?”
She felt herself blushing all over again. Now he really would think them all hopelessly provincial! “It—it’s midsummer.”
“Ah, of course. Which makes it a holy saint’s day. How could I have forgotten? And how do you celebrate out here so far from everyone?”
“With prayers and feasting, of course, and after that, song and—”
“And dance?”
“Yes, in the village square, but—”
“You’ll be there, I take it?” At her nod, Vasilko bowed low over her hand, then released it. “Till then, my dear.”
==========
The night air was chill for midsummer eve, and a sudden breeze made Marusia shiver and pull her fringed woolen shawl more tightly about herself and her brightly embroidered sarafan. The dark mood of the day hadn’t left her, not even after the arrival of Vasilko, and now… She glanced nervously about, wishing just for a moment that her parents had come with her. But though they’d dutifully prayed beside her in their home, kneeling before the family shrine, they’d insisted midsummer night was a time for the young to celebrate.
Besides, what was there to fear? Even if the palisade did sag a bit, it still formed a reassuring ring around Dyrevnya, hugging the log houses safe within its circle. Beyond, the forest loomed like some dark, brooding beast, but she was hardly afraid of that! Sophia had been right: If there was anything for a young woman to fear about the forest, it was the purely human menace of the ragged outlaws who preyed on their own kind. They were out there, she was safe in here, and wasting precious dance time! Marusia shook her fringed shawl into more attractive folds and hurried on her way.
The village square was bright with firelight and music. There was Vanya the baker and his fiddle, the twins, Gleb and Bori, playing their flutes with flying fingers, and old Simeon tootling away on the trumpet he’d brought back ages ago from fighting in the Tzar’s wars, and if the music was a little thin and wavery, no one really minded. Marusia let herself be drawn into swirling spirals of dance, young women facing young men, flirting, not quite daring to touch. But all the while she found herself hunting one tall, blue-eyed figure.
And then she froze. He was standing half in shadow, chatting with the men, but where the torchlight struck, it etched the sharp, fine bones of his face and turned his hair to richest gold. Marusia stared, watching him move, transfixed by the careless grace in the turn of a leg, the wave of a hand.
Plump little Sasha giggled. “Isn’t he handsome! He has to be someone fine, some merchant’s son maybe, come all the way from Moscow. I mean, look at the cut of that caftan!”
Marusia was no longer listening. Vasilko had turned her way, and those deep, deep blue eyes were drinking her in. Dazed, Marusia was hardly aware that he was moving smoothly to her side.
“Forgive me.” His soft voice brought little shivers to her spine. “I didn’t mean to gawk at you, Lady Marusia.”
“I’m n-no lady,” she stammered, but he silenced her with a light flip of the hand.
“Lady you are, by grace if not by birth. Come, lovely lady, will you dance with me?”
She would. She did. Lost in wonder, Marusia danced with him till the moon faded, hardly aware of the scandalized whisperings of the elders and her friends’ gigglings, seeing only his face, feeling only the strength of his arms about her.
“This is how nobility dances,” he told her, smiling. “Since we are both noble tonight, we can do as we will.”
Only when he drew her aside into shadow and began to lower his fair face to hers did Marusia come back to her senses. “No! I-I mean, you know my name by now, you know all about me, but I don’t know who you are, not really, or where you come from.”
“Why, what do you think I am?”
The mockery hinting in that elegant voice angered her. “Some rich man’s son,” she said, more sharply than she’d intended, “come from a grand estate to play among the peasants. Then you’ll go home, tell everyone how quaint we were, and forget all about us.”
“Forget you? Never. Marusia, ah sweet Marusia, do you believe in first sight, first love?”
“What are you—?”
“I cannot stay. I have… obligations. Will you come with me, Marusia, my Maruiska?”
His eyes were boundlessly blue, deep and dark, fathomless as a forest lake. She was losing herself in those eyes, drowning… drowning forever… Yes, oh yes, I’d go with you to the ends of creation… yes…
“No!” It was a cry of pure panic. It took all her will, but Marusia managed to tear her glance away and snapped, “This is ridiculous! I certainly won’t run off with you, you—stranger!”
“Ah.” If he was disappointed, he didn’t show it. “Then I shall, perhaps, stay just a short while longer to court and win you.”
Mockery was so plain behind the smooth words that Marusia turned and all but fled, not sure if she was angry at him or afraid of herself. By the time she’d reached her home, though, she’d managed to compose herself enough so that when her smiling mother asked how the dancing had gone, Marusia was able to smile and answer, “Well enough.”
But her dreams were dark, troubled things in which Vasilko’s smiling face turned, again and again, to a cold, demonic mask. At last Marusia sat bolt upright, staring into blackness, her inner time sense telling her this was the darkest hour of the night, somewhere after moonset, before sunrise. She should surely try to go back to sleep till morning And yet, and yet…
There is something you must do, something you must see.
No. That was ridiculous. She must still be half-asleep, dreaming.
There is something… something you must see.
She was asleep. This was a dream, and the only way she was going to wake out of it was to follow it along.
Quietly Marusia dressed and slipped out of the house, closing the door behind her, wincing as it creaked on its leather hinges, then stood for a time, shawl wrapped tightly about herself against the cold. All around her, Dyrevnya slept, silent and unreal in the darkness as a village enchanted.
A dream. Surely a dream.
And so, she couldn’t really wonder that despite only the faintest glimmering of starlight, she could see as clearly as though the village was still flooded by moonlight. Lapped round with silence, Marusia waited.
A flicker of motion: Vasilko, moving with silent grace through the night. There was nothing alarming about him, save for that almost unnatural grace, yet Marusia felt her heart all at once pound with nameless fright. She watched in tense, terrified silence as he reached the wooden palisade—and swarmed up and over it as smoothly as a wild thing.
No man could do that.
She should shout, wake her parents, wake somebody. But this was only a dream, and so Marusia found herself instead moving to the palisade’s gate. Misha, whose turn it was to stand guard, was asleep at his post. After all, who would expect danger on such a peaceful night?
I don’t want to go on! It was a childish wail, deep in Marusia’s mind. I want to go home and hide in bed.
Instead, she helplessly slid the gate open just enough to let her slip out into the night and the forest, stumbling along deer trails, blindly following Vasilko.
He was standing in the clearing where they’d first met. Pinned in his arms, as helplessly as a child, was a second man, and Marusia felt a little thrill of horror as her strange, moonlit sight showed her the ugly scar where an ear had been cropped away. Here was the desperate outlaw of Sophia’s story, and yet now she could feel nothing but numb pity for him for his impotent terror. Vasilko bent over him, as tenderly as a lover, bright hair falling forward to hide his face. Marusia saw the captive tense, then struggle wildly, yet Vasilko held him fast.
The struggles faded, stopped altogether. A lifeless body sagged in Vasilko’s arms as he straightened, blood staining his elegant mouth.
Deep blue eyes met hers: eyes warm and sated and thoroughly inhuman. Never taking his glance from her, Vasilko wiped his lips fastidiously with a scrap of cloth and smiled. Deep within her, Marusia shrieked with horror, but she could only stand frozen, staring.
“I see.” Vasilko’s voice was as calm as though they’d been politely conversing all this while. He opened his arms, letting the limp body drop. “I wasn’t quite careful enough, was I?”
At last Marusia could speak. “You aren’t human. Vampyr.”
“If you wish. Oh, this shell is—or was—human. I, of course, am not. Come, my dear, why the look of horror? I’ve done your little village a service, rid it of this vermin.” A boot delicately spurned the corpse. Vasilko smiled lazily. “What, no gratitude?”
“You brought me here.”
A bonelessly graceful shrug. “Not by design. I would have had you as my prey this night at the dance, but you resisted me so strongly I was intrigued. And so I stared too long into your eyes and mind, and in the staring quite accidentally bound us together. Interesting, isn’t it? And possibly useful to us both. You’ll always be aware of me. And you have night-sight now, don’t you? Not that it matters. My dear, I’ve found rich hunting here, and I will not let you interfere.”
“You can’t—”
“Can’t I? Listen to me, child.” He glanced down at his late prey with a frown of distaste, spurned the body with an elegant foot. “Not here. Come.”
He strolled away, and Marusia, helpless to resist, followed. “I was a nobleman, yes,” Vasilko continued lazily, “but one thoroughly bored with my lot, ever seeking a goal, a purpose in being. And so I traveled far, spoke with many strange folk. It was during those travels that I became the guest of an ancient count—or rather, one for whom all time had stopped. I shall not name him here; I suspect the outside world will someday know that name quite well if, indeed, it does not already do so.”
Vasilko paused, the tips of his sharp teeth glinting as he smiled. “Ah, the long hours we spent comparing our nations’ histories! He was a fascinating being, that one, the greatest hero of his people as well as their greatest Dark-ness, and it was he who taught me… many things. Including, little provincial child, the love of power on a grander stage.”
“Wh-what do you mean?”
His glance was contemptuous. “Word of the outside world must have penetrated even this backwoods site. What, do none of the Tzar’s tax collectors wend their way here?”
“Sometimes, yes, but—”
“Do none of them gossip of the royal court, of our guttering Nicholas and his Alexandra? Don’t you know of their sad little Tzarevitch? Poor little Aleksei, the crown prince for whom even the slightest cut means such a terrible loss of blood?”
“Th-they have someone to treat him. That’s what people whisper. The Tzarina’s councilor. A—a powerful magician.”
“Who, that self-named Rasputin? A loud-mouthed, ambitious, filthy charlatan! I could cure that child.”
“Y-you’d kill him, you mean. You’d kill the Tzarevitch.”
“Why, no, dear Marusia.” Vasilko’s smile was radiant. “Translate him, rather. Translate the heir to the throne into someone… better. Someone strong and lacking in the foolish weaknesses of his parents. Someone quite fitting to rule in these new, darker, much more interesting days.”
“And what would you be? Ruler of the ruler?”
“Why not? Don’t glower at me, girl. Think. There’s unrest out there in the civilized realm, a foolish tzar on the throne, a sickly heir—if not me, someone else will rule. I, at least, will keep the throne in Romanov hands. Someone else—bah, who knows? Come, child, you may be a peasant, but I doubt you’re stupid. Why should I not protect our land from foreign rule? Why, for that matter, should I not bring Rus out of its stagnation? Make it a true power in the world game?”
“No!” Marusia clung frantically to what she knew. Her village in peril, and the Tzarevitch—Vasilko was right, she wasn’t stupid, and she could see nothing in his eyes but a cold and total self-interest that probably had been there even when he was—when he was still human. “No! I will not let you!”
The deep blue stare seemed suddenly to pierce her skull, no longer warm or at all gentle. Marusia staggered and fell, unable to scream or breath or think, engulfed in cold blue fire, in chill, chill Power far beyond anything she could ever understand. Dimly she heard Vasilko’s words:
“You amuse me, child, with your little human will and your little human courage. I plan to stay here for a time and gather strength for my, shall we say, mission. But you shall not be my prey, not yet. Not till I am finished with your village. Live, Marusia. Live with the knowledge I have enslaved you. You will remember who and what I am—but you will be able to tell not one human soul about me! Now, go!”
==========
Marusia woke with a start of sheer horror—in her own bed. For a long time, she simply looked up at the painted wooden ceiling of the closet bed, too shaken with relief to move.
A dream. It really was only a dream.
But when she at last mustered the strength to climb out of bed, Marusia realized she was still fully clad.
Sleepwalking. She must have been sleepwalking. Anything else was just too unthinkable. Struggling not to think, Marusia went through the morning as normally as she could, desperately pretending to her parents and herself that the only thing wrong with her was weariness from all the dancing.
But her mother took her aside. “Marusia, Maruiska, I think I know what’s bothering you.”
“You—can’t!”
“My dear, I know who you were dancing with. That young stranger may be handsome, but—he is who he is. Be wary.”
“Wh-what—?”
“There never can be anything honorable between a man of his rank and a woman of ours.”
“Oh, that!” Marusia could have laughed in relief. “Is that all? Mother, believe me, I don’t intend to have anything to do with him!”
Yet when Marusia went to fetch water from the communal well, bucket in hand, there he was, blatant as a trumpet call, perched on the lip of the well, flirting lightly with the women, jesting with the warily respectful men, his manner so charming and urbane that she wanted to scream.
There, her mind crowed, he can’t be Vampyr, all the stories swear that evil things can’t bear the daylight.
Or maybe it was the sunlight that was fatal. For one terrified moment, Marusia saw herself pushing him boldly into that sunlight to see if he’d burn to ash. She even took a step forward. But then Vasilko glanced up from his jesting, his stare transfixing her. The deep blue eyes were all at once empty and cruel as endless night, and in that terrible moment, Marusia could no longer deny the truth. “You see?” that cold stare told her. “There are benefits to our linking. Thanks to it, I can walk in daylight, even as you. I can do as I will, and you can say nothing to stop me.”
Marusia bolted for home, nearly colliding with her mother.
“Why, Marusia, what is it?”
“Mother, I…” But nothing more would come. No matter how frantically she struggled, she couldn’t even mention Vasilko’s name, as though a cold, dark fog was shrouding her mind, drowning her thoughts. “It was nothing,” Marusia murmured helplessly.
“Are you feeling ill, dear?” Her mother felt her brow with a gentle hand. “You don’t seem fevered. Tsk, too much excitement last night, I think.”
“Oh, yes,” Marusia agreed with weary humor.
The rest of the day was a slow, endless nightmare. As Vasilko had promised, Marusia soon found she could tell the truth about him to no one, not priest, not friends. She could not even find the words for prayer. Head aching from the struggle, sick with the weight of horror, she could do nothing but wait, dreading the night, dreading the hunt to come.
With the night, Marusia found herself once more outside the village, helplessly following Vasilko, numb with dread because she’d found the palisade’s gate already ajar: This time the prey wasn’t going to be some nameless outlaw but someone from Dyrevnya.
She saw who struggled feebly in Vasilko’s arms, and looked frantically about for a rock, a log, anything she could use as a weapon—nothing! But Vasilko was already lowering his head to feed—
“No! D-damn you, no!” Still shrieking, Marusia hurled herself at him.
“Enough.” Vasilko’s voice was harsh and thick with hunger. He pulled her from him without effort, holding her dangling from his half-raised hand, and Marusia froze, stunned at his strength. “You shall not attack me again,” Vasilko whispered. “You cannot attack me again, I so command!” For a long moment he held her at arm’s length, her feet barely brushing the ground, and Marusia held her breath, terrified by the nearness of death.
Then, casually as a man brushing away a fly, Vasilko hurled her away. “Live for now. Sleep,” he ordered brusquely.
And Marusia, lying crumpled on the ground, helplessly slept.
==========
She woke once more in her own bed, with no memory at all of how she’d gotten there. She woke feeling a thousand years old, and dragged herself out of the house before her parents could ask her questions Marusia literally couldn’t answer.
And so she was one of the first to see a crowd entering the village. Anna’s father was in their midst, his face gaunt and white with shock. In his arms sagged his daughter’s lifeless body, bloody and torn, eyes still wide and glazed with horror.
Anna, oh God, Anna. The light Kupalo games, the wilted wreath… It really did foretell your death.
Screaming, Anna’s mother rushed forward to embrace her daughter’s body, only to be pulled away by Misha. “No,” Marusia heard him murmur, “don’t. She must have gone out to—to meet someone.”
“She wouldn’t! She was a good girl!”
“She was out there,” Misha continued reluctantly. “And… wolves must have…”
Of course, Marusia thought numbly. How clever of Vasilko to rend his prey so that it seemed only an animal kill.
“No, that’s impossible!” Anna’s mother sobbed. “Wolves have never attacked anyone, not in the summer!”
Not wolves, Marusia corrected savagely. Only one wolf.
Suddenly Vasilko was rushing forward to join them, his face so horrified, his voice so solicitous that Marusia felt her stomach heave. She hurried blindly away, ending up huddled against a wooden wall, retching dryly, choking on sobs. Oh God, oh God, what was she going to do? She couldn’t let him go unpunished, she couldn’t let him kill anyone else!
I can’t attack him myself, I can’t tell anybody else about him—
No… what had he said, really? “You will be able to tell not one human soul about me!”
Human. Marusia straightened, remembering fierce green eyes, grimly wondering.
That day she managed to steal away from the others amid all the grief and confusion and wandered deep within the forest, farther than she’d ever gone alone before, for once unafraid of bears or outlaws; mortal perils right now were too trivial for notice. At last she stood in a small clearing, huge oaks towering over her, and listened to the forest slowly accepting her human presence with renewed rustlings and chirpings. Marusia took a deep breath and called out, “Leshy! My lord leshy!”
The forest fell silent for a startled moment. Then the normal stirrings started up again. There was nothing else.
This is ridiculous. No one heard me. There’s no one to hear me and if the priest should learn…
But what else was left for her to do? Marusia called again, “My lord leshy, please! I must speak with you!” What did the old stories all say? That leshiye adored games and gambling? “I have a bargain to make with you!”
“Human child. Silly child.”
Had she actually heard that, or had it been only the whisper of leaves in wind?
There was no wind. “My—my lord leshy—?”
“Silly child, human child, woman-human-child.”
This time the wind-whisper had come from somewhere behind her. Marusia whirled, fighting down a shriek, fighting down the urge to cross herself. “Oh, please, I haven’t come here to play!”
“Play, not-play,” mocked the wind. “Here, not-here.”
The whisper was all around her, making the leaves tremble without wind. Marusia swallowed dryly, suddenly very much aware of the forest as one vast, indifferent, powerful thing.
A living thing. “Your life is being challenged!” she called out.
Utter silence followed her words. Then, very softly, very coldly, the wind-whisper asked, “What challenge? From humankind?”
“From—from Unlife,” Marusia gasped, stumbling over the words in her haste to get them out. “Please, you must have sensed him—it—the—the Vampyr.”
All at once the forest seemed to press in about her, alien, hating. “Unlife,” the soft voice hissed. “Yes.”
“I’m not… uh… that one’s friend!” Marusia protested. “All I want to do is stop him!”
“Go to your humans.”
“I can’t! There’s a spell on me, I can’t tell anyone human! But you have the forest’s Power, you can help me. Can’t you?”
There was a long, long pause. Marusia waited, feeling her heart pounding painfully. And then she saw a flicker of motion, something that might have been fur, horns, leaf-green skin. “What will you give me?” the leshy asked, so close to her now she fought not to flinch. “What in exchange?”
“Uh, this brooch.” It was Marusia’s finest treasure, the only gold she owned. But to her disappointment, the leshy only laughed, a whispery, mocking sound.
“What have I to do with human trinkets? Come, you are asking no small thing! You would have my aid, the forest’s Power, Power from the Very Beginning of Things! Would you try to buy that with silly gold?”
Marusia flushed. “No. Forgive me.”
Leaves shook. “Enough, enough!” the leshy snapped. “Hurry! What would you offer in exchange?”
All at once Marusia was aware of the wild, sharp, not-quite-animal scent of the leshy, primal and terrifying and bewilderingly intriguing. Marusia felt a sudden warmth in her breasts, her belly and, horrified at her body’s confusing reaction, fought down the cowardly urge to hug her arms protectively about herself. Oh, he couldn’t be hinting—it was impossible! Even if he was human, she couldn’t—how could she ever hope to make a good marriage if her reputation were lost?
But Anna hadn’t had a chance to choose. Anna’s life had been brutally raped away against her will. Marusia thought of those ravaged, terror-stricken eyes and nearly sobbed aloud. Oh, God, how could she be worrying about anything as—trivial as her reputation now? If Vasilko wasn’t stopped here, now, others would die, bold Sophia, or plump little Sasha, or—
“All right,” Marusia said softly. “You know what I offer.”
Hands trembling so badly she could hardly untie laces, she stripped, blushing feverishly, and lay down on a bed of moss, cool and plush beneath bare skin, closing her eyes because she just couldn’t bear to watch, praying that what-ever happened would be quick and not too painful. She felt warm breath on her cheek and bit back a sob. Surprisingly gentle hands (not human hands! she realized with a new thrill of panic) touched her body, here, and here, and Marusia almost opened her eyes in surprise, because in that caress was nothing brutal, only… reverence. To the leshy, she realized suddenly, what she was offering was something wonderful. Something holy. Despite herself, Marusia felt fire start up within her in response, a new, amazing fire she’d never known before, surging through every vein, destroying fear. All at once she stopped being merely Marusia, stopped being something small and merely human. She was the forest, leaf and twig and tree, she was everything within it, she was wild green birth and growth and Life, and Marusia opened herself to all of it, crying out in wild, wild joy…
==========
Shivering, Marusia woke to find herself alone amid twilight, and snatched up her clothing. Catching the faint chatter of rushing water, she hunted out a stream, wincing at her body’s soreness, and scrubbed herself as clean as she could, trying not to think about… down there, teeth chattering as loudly as the water, then practically threw on her clothes, welcoming the warmth. Somewhat to her relief, she could remember only the vaguest details of… that; she was still human. Odd, she felt no shame, either. What had happened had had nothing of human shame about it.
But where was the leshy? Marusia stiffened. Everyone knew the leshiye were tricksters. Maybe all this had been only a prank pulled on the gullible human! Maybe he was off somewhere laughing at her right now!
“My lord leshy!” she shouted in sudden fury.
“No need to shout.” Though she saw nothing, Marusia sensed that the being stood beside her, hidden in shadow. The faintest tinge of respect colored the whispery voice. “You have kept your bargain, little human-girl, brave Forest Friend. I keep mine.”
A small stone vial was pushed into her hand, words murmured in her ear. Marusia gave a fierce shout of a laugh. “Oh, what lovely, lovely irony!”
The leshy’s chuckle answered, filling the forest about her, then fading away. Alone, Marusia went in search of Vasilko., the spell he’d cast pulling her back to the clearing where he’d killed the outlaw and poor Anna.
He was there. And it was plump Sasha who hung, half fainting, in his arms.
“Vasilko,” Marusia said, and he stared, nostrils flaring.
“So,” he said with distaste. “You have coupled with Other.”
“With Life, Vasilko. Even as you have with Death.” Marusia’s hand tightened about the vial. “And Life will destroy you.”
“You can’t attack me, child. Or had you forgotten? Go away, little fool. Go wail your ruined reputation.”
Scornfully he lowered his head to Sasha’s neck.
“No,” Marusia said quietly. “I’m not attacking you, Vasilko. I’m offering you Life.”
She darted forward and hurled the contents of the vial right into Vasilko’s face. He stared at her for the barest instant, eyes wide with sheer, disbelieving horror. And then he began to scream, shriek after shriek of agony ripping the night. As Marusia watched, numb with shock and the breaking of the spell binding her, she saw that which had been so fine and handsome fall into a lifeless heap, so many shards of bone caught in rags.
Marusia glanced down at the empty vial. The vial that had contained no poison, no acid, nothing but the forest’s own Power condensed into the purest Water of Life. Life had indeed destroyed Unlife.
“There’s unrest out there in the civilized realm, a foolish tsar, a sickly heir—if not me, someone else will rule. I, at least, will keep the throne in Romanov hands.”
Had she done the right thing? Had she stopped a lesser evil only to make room for a greater one?
Just then, Sasha began to stir, moaning, and Marusia bent to comfort her, pushing her doubts back into the corners of her mind. At least Sasha was safe. Dyrevnya was safe.
For now.
“Marusia—?” Sasha blinked, looking around, then sat up with alarm. “What am I doing out here? I was dreaming about Vasilko, that he was a—a—demon.” Her voice trembled with terror. “I was dreaming, wasn’t I? Dreaming and walking in my sleep.” Sasha’s eyes pleaded with Marusia. “It was only a dream, wasn’t it?”
Time enough to tell her the truth when they were both back safely in Dyrevnya. “Yes,” Marusia soothed. “It was only a dream. Come, let’s go home.”
But when she looked back once into the forest, still wondering, she caught the quickest flash of bright green eyes and heard the faintest echo of a chuckle whisper through the leaves. The land would survive. Come what may, Rus would survive.