Rosa and the Veil of Gold (26 page)

Ilya joined her and they flopped down on Elizavetta’s bed. Ilya ran the thread through his fingers over and over.

“Why would she do this?” he said at last.

“You really don’t know?”

He turned on his side, confusion and sadness spread across his features. “No, I don’t.”

“She still loves Nikita, Ilya. She never stopped loving him.”

“I don’t expect her to stop loving him. He was her first husband, it’s only natural. But as long as she loves me too…” Then he sighed, rolled onto his back and laid his arm across his eyes.

Rosa watched him as a minute ticked past, wondering all the while about how Anatoly had managed to find a new husband for Elizavetta so conveniently, and how he had convinced the two of them to marry.

“Ilya,” she said gently, lifting his arm and snuggling into his side, “don’t be sad.”

“This isn’t where I expected to find myself. In a half-marriage on a bee farm with a crazy volkhv for a father-in-law. I wanted to do other things. Travel, maybe, see a big city.”

“You may yet. You’re only twenty.”

“It feels as though I’m trapped.”

“Life has unpredictable currents. And strong ones.” She took his hand in hers and stroked his fingers. “Sometimes it’s worth swimming.”

“I loved her, Rosa. I may still love her…or perhaps one day love her again.”

“Did she ever say she loved you?”

“Oh, yes. It was instant. We were married within two months.”

“Anatoly was happy about that?”

Ilya kissed Rosa’s hand and laid it upon his chest. “Anatoly was very happy. He thought it would help her get over Nikita.”

Rosa considered this. It was true: if Elizavetta fell in love again, then Nikita would finally lose his hold over her. But there were few loves more tenacious than first loves.

“You never slept with her? Not even once?”

“On the wedding night, something changed in Elizavetta. She was very moody, crying for no reason. She insisted we just hold each other, nothing more. The following night, too. By the end of the week, when she finally said yes, I was incapable. She was unforgiving, she made jokes…It wasn’t a pleasant time.”

“She was already turning cold towards you?”

“A little. Yes.”

“Did you find it odd?”

He took a deep breath before replying, and Rosa felt his chest lift beneath her cheek. “She’s ill,” he said softly.

Rosa sat up and looked down at him. Her long hair trailed over his face. “Do you feel guilty now?” she asked, smiling.

Ilya shook his head. “No regrets.” His fingers crept up under her blouse, lingering over her soft stomach and moving up to brush her nipple.

Rosa closed her eyes. The first breaking of the taboo was always more satisfying than its inevitable echo, but it usually took seven repeats before the thrill was gone completely.

Ilya rucked up her skirt and closed his hands around her buttocks. “Where’s your underwear?” he asked.

“I left some clothes over at the shed,” she said.

“Don’t let Anatoly find them.”

She amused herself imagining what Anatoly would think if he did. Or how he would react if he walked in right now: his big body all trembling with outrage, his hard hands pressed into her soft shoulders to pull her and Ilya apart. She bent her face to Ilya’s and kissed him deeply, allowing her tongue to slide against his. “Shall we make sure the enchantment has truly been removed from this bed?” she asked.

“I’d like that,” he said.

Rosa found her discarded clothes in the shed and finished dressing herself. Ilya had stayed at the house to take a shower. Rosa already recognised in him the first signs of a man who feels guilt over illicit sex: moodiness, reticence, obsession with scrubbing her scent off his skin. She didn’t mind, she had been through it all before. The worst ones were the men who declared they loved her desperately and had imminent plans to leave their wives. Nobody was forever, not for Rosa.

As she left the shed, she cast her gaze down towards the stream, where the high brick wall gave way to water. Surely Anatoly was more likely to hide her bracelet in the secret grove he used for magic. She could count the trees, perhaps. Or just look for knotholes which might be good for hiding.

Rosa headed for the stream, then inched around the brick wall on the stepping stones. Anatoly’s secret grove waited, beyond the bank and the big spruce tree. She gazed around. There were dozens of trees, disappearing off into the distance where they joined with the woodlands at the entrance to the farm. If she started counting, where would she start? She flapped her arms helplessly. Somewhere in these woods was tree number 549, and somewhere in tree number 549 was her mother’s bracelet, and somewhere in her mother’s bracelet was…Rosa didn’t know, though she hoped that the bracelet would help her grow her magic again, and quickly. Too much time had passed already. She didn’t believe Daniel and Em could last indefinitely without her.

A warm breeze sighed in the branches. Rosa looked up. The sun’s rays dazzled around the treetops, so that when she closed her eyes she could still see their silhouettes outlined in electric green. A plane’s engine droned in the distance, and she wondered where it was going. Where was she going? Once she had found Daniel and brought him safely home? They couldn’t be together, nothing had changed there. She couldn’t stay much longer with Uncle Vasily: they already grew too close. Where could she go next? The questions made her heart feel icy, as thoughts of the future always did. And yet, the future was racing towards her with every heartbeat. With her eyes closed, she could see so clearly into the empty ribs of existence.

Rosa snapped her eyes open and headed back towards the wall. She stopped a moment to look at the spruce, the twelve knives
embedded within its trunk. Then she looked down at the muddy ground, and realised she was looking at many sets of footprints. Her own were light. Anatoly’s were heavy, as though he had hit the ground here with great force: running, or jumping? And they were on all sides, facing all directions, multiple sets of them.

A glimmer of recognition in the back of her mind: something she had read in her mother’s notebooks.

Rosa seized a stick and obscured her own footprints, then hurried back to the guesthouse. Careful to keep her muddy feet off the bedspread, she began scanning pages.

Rosa remembered the first time she met Anatoly, how his rapid ease of movement had been at odds with his great hulking body as he’d run from her. Certainly such flexibility and strength was derived from magic, not nature. She returned her attention to the book in front of her. Her own handwriting was scrawled between lines and in margins, notes translating her mother’s neat rows of cipher. Within seconds she had found it.

Twelve knives embedded in a tree, twelve somersaults over the knives, twelve incantations about the rapid transformations witnessed in nature.

A zagovor for shape-shifting.

Rosa understood now the repeated
shift
in Anatoly’s day book. It referred to a physically demanding branch of sorcery that only the strongest volkhv could accomplish: to change himself into another creature.

And then, for Rosa, it all fell into place.

The molten dream had started on land, and Daniel half expected that collision with the water would jolt him out of it, restore him to the sharply-focused reality which he knew, deep down, he should try to hang onto.

But the russalka knew his name. More than that, she knew the truth about his name: that underneath the brittle, mundane outer layer it was a powerful incantation.

He heard a splash far away. He heard a giggle, muffled by the weight of the river. Cold sizzled on his skin and his lungs strained. Then she was there, turning him and tumbling him, catching him in warm arms and pressing her lips to his. He opened his mouth and air poured in, dizzying him. Her lips vanished, her arms too. He fell a long time, bubbles fizzed around him, dark violent currents swam between his legs and over his torso.

Then, suddenly, air. Cold air, and he was being dragged, dripping, onto the bank.

A pale figure, clouded in night shadow, knelt over him, listening to his heart. Her head was turned away.

“I am Lobasta,” she whispered against his heart, and her voice was like a mist which vibrated down through his heart valves, flooding his veins and setting every nerve alight. His body ached. She lifted his shirt, and her feather-light fingertips traced patterns on his stomach. “Oh, Daniel,” she said, turning her head to him. He caught a glimpse of perfect pale features and huge green eyes, then her hair fell to cover her face and she had pressed her lips to his throat. All practicality had long ago fled, and now her kisses
turned his remaining thoughts to streams of honey and he barely noticed as she pulled off his shirt, untied the bear and threw it with a
whump
onto the bank.

The trees bent in a rush of wind, and moonlight fell on them. She seemed almost to be made of moonlight, her luminous paleness flickered with the movement of the branches. A shadow moved nearby, and another woman knelt beside him.

“He’s mine,” Lobasta said.

“I don’t want to keep him,” the other woman said mournfully. “I just want to play.”

“Me too,” said another.

They fluttered around him, touching him and pulling at his clothes.

“You can play,” Lobasta said grudgingly, “but I’m keeping him.”

Their voices were spells, their touches sweet electricity. He realised that he was naked, but couldn’t remember the awkward routine of having his clothes removed. The night air was cold on his skin, but they chased his shivers with their hot mouths and soft caresses. A beautiful face descended, and his mouth was filled with her mouth, her tongue. Her long hair drifted over his face and he couldn’t see anything beyond a cloud of dark mist and moonlight refracted. A firm, wet pressure had captured his cock, and two soft breasts were pressed into his ribs. They were all moaning his name over and over, and he came before he could open his mouth to cry out.

But they didn’t let him go. They reconfigured, kneeling over him to rouse him again with their mouths, parting their pale legs over his face, rolling him to probe every secret inch of his body, and the hot ache rose through him again. And again. Dawn broke, the sun revealed the pale green radiance of their skin and hair, the membranous thinness of their eyelids, the polished softness of their bellies and breasts, and all sense was lost to him in a fusion of aching, ever-renewing desire and searing, thundering fulfilment.

Em waited for dawn. It was the only practical thing to do.

So far as she could determine, Daniel wasn’t in mortal danger from the russalki until they had tired of him. There was no point in
running about in the dark in the woods looking for him, or diving into the lightless river. So she sat by the fire, clutching her knees to her chest, nursing her aching wrist and waiting for daylight.

She mused while she watched the flames. Daniel was probably not suffering. By now, he would be deep in that trance to which he had almost succumbed the previous day on the boat. The russalki were probably treating him lovingly. It wasn’t as though he was captured by a hungry leshii or a mantis-like wizard who wanted to make candles from his skin. Under other circumstances, she may have even left Daniel to his fate. They were probably going to die anyway, and dying of pleasure was infinitely preferable to dying of hunger, or cold, or from an aching wound which wouldn’t heal. But the bear had disappeared with Daniel, and it was her last hope for a passage home.

With the dawn, Em followed Daniel’s tracks in the muddy bank down to where she had last seen him. Another set of footprints—small bare feet—joined his, then both disappeared into the river. Em peered across to the other bank. She could make out a brown lump which might have been Daniel’s fur cloak.

She was a good swimmer, but didn’t relish jumping into the water and being cold and wet for hours after. More importantly, she had no idea what she’d do if she found the russalki. She needed help, and knew that her last piece of gold ensured she would find it.

Or rather, that help would find her.

The first glimmers of sunlight were streaking up through the woods when she found a glade not far from the river’s edge. The trees around her were huge and ancient, and her smallness seemed intensified by comparison. She clutched her gold ring in her right hand, held it in front of her. This had been her wedding ring. After the divorce, she had switched it from her left hand to her right although not from any emotional attachment: it had cost too much money to relegate it to the back of her drawer. She cleared her throat, working out what to say.

“Ah…” she started, then realised she would have to speak much louder. “I have gold!” she called, and heard her voice echo around the quiet wood, attracting the attention of a nearby blackbird who hopped down to a low branch to stare at her. “I
have gold and I need help. The first person…” That wasn’t the right word, but she wasn’t sure how else to phrase it. “The first…demon or spirit to reach me can have the gold in exchange for protection and assistance.” She fell silent, waiting, realising she had no way to prepare herself for what might happen next.

High in the treetops, a wind swirled. At first it was little more than a tickle, the points of a half-dozen fir trees beginning to circle clockwise. Then, next to them, another group moved counter-clockwise. This time it was a distinct, muscular movement, as though ligaments and joints grew inside the trees and were flexing in preparation for some athletic feat. A blast of cold air shot up beside Em, streaking into the sky and raging in the branches. Within it, veins of pale iridescent purple and green tangled and fought. She shivered and caught her breath. Another on the other side. She stood her ground, eyes ahead, skin prickling with full realisation of her helplessness. A flurry of birds took to the sky, wings frantic. A freezing gust gathered into a column behind her, sending the woods into a frenzy: the howling of gushing air through branches, the creak and pop of twigs, the cold flurry of fallen pine needles in slow whirlwinds. The woods had come alive as unseen spirits fought among themselves to be the first to reach her.

In an instant, it stopped. Stillness, heavier than before. The air around her tightened, froze. The temperature dropped and the sky snapped and popped.

“Where is the gold?”

Em turned. Behind her stood a man, and the shock of his sudden, unperceived presence was equalled only by the shock of his appearance.

He was a head taller than her, with dark curling hair and a strong, almost hooked nose. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, he was intensely attractive, with cool blue eyes and a wide mouth. He was almost naked. A skirt of feathers and furs was wrapped low on his hips, exposing a body as hard and smooth and perfectly proportioned as a sculpture. A double arch of feathers curved above his shoulders.

He stood very still and regarded her, as she regarded him.

“The gold,” he said.

She held out the ring on her opened palm. “Take it,” she said.

“Place it on the ground. It is best if I do not touch you.”

Em did as he asked, and he bent to pick the ring up, revealing a pair of enormous wings—white and spotted black like the wings of a snow owl—which sprouted between his muscular shoulder blades.

He stood and caught her staring at him. “My appearance makes you curious?”

“You must be cold,” she said with a smile, glancing at his bare feet.

“There is nobody colder than me.” He appraised the ring. “Mir gold, it’s very beautiful.”

“It’s yours if you help me.”

“Of course I’ll help you.” He smiled, but the deep arch of his dark brows rendered the smile menacing. He slipped the ring onto his pinky finger. “My name is Morozko.”

“And what are you?”

Morozko shook his head. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

“I’m a Mir woman, Bolotnik was a vodyanoy, Vikhor was a leshii. What are you?”

“I’m Morozko. There’s only one of me.” He flexed and the wings opened. They were easily ten feet across, dazzling as snow, and an icy chill radiated from them, frosting her skin beneath her clothes. He folded them again. “I am the father of frost.”

Em took a deep breath. “Morozko, I thank you for your help. I’m on a journey, but my travelling companion has been stolen by russalki. I think I know where he is. I just have to know how to get him back safely.”

Morozko listened, blinking slowly. Em found herself wishing he would stand a little further off. “Mir woman,” he said carefully, “this is not your greatest problem.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Continuing your journey, rescuing your companion. They are small problems. You have a far greater one of which you are unaware.”

A twinge of dread touched her heart. “What do you mean?”

He nodded towards her wrist. “That poison is killing you.”

Em turned her wrist over and inched back her sleeve gingerly. The wound was still raw. It ached and seeped, but Em had been
heartened by the fact that it had grown no worse. She had even started to think it would slowly heal by itself. “Really?”

“Who struck you this blow? A swamp spirit?” His lip curled. “They are the foulest of creatures, their poison is as slow and deadly as stagnant slime. You will die from this wound. It will be agonising and unpleasant. Your companion, if rescued, will have to go on alone.”

Em stared at her cut wrist, a rush of surreal dread momentarily taking her breath.

“Unless…” he began.

“Unless what?” she said, returning her attention to him.

“I could freeze it. Frozen poison doesn’t travel.”

She held out her wrist. “Go on.”

“Are you certain?”

“Certain that I don’t want to die from swamp poison? Yes.”

“I must warn you, though, that once I’ve touched you, I will always be able to find you.” His smile softened the portent of the words. “It’s nothing you need to fear, because I have no cruel intent towards you. I am not a flesh-eater like the others. Those who bear my mark…I always own a little piece of them.”

Em offered her wrist again. “At least I’ll be alive for you to find.”

“What is your name?” he asked.

Em hesitated. “Em,” she said.

“I am cold, Em. If you allow me to touch you, you will be cold too. From here on, cold will live inside you.”

Em hesitated, understanding that this decision was not to be made lightly. The alternative was to die slowly of blood poisoning. She nodded. “I want you to freeze it,” she said. “I’m not ready to die yet.”

“Hold very still,” he said.

Em clenched her fist and held her arm perfectly steady. Morozko took a step closer, and she felt the cold exuding from his hard body and shivering across her skin. He reached out, extending his index finger. He touched the very tip of it to the edge of the wound, and Em jumped. Freezing electricity.

“Still,” he said again, soothingly.

She took a breath and focused her mind. It would hurt, but then it would be over. The needlepoint of icy pain returned as he
ran the tip of his finger across the cut. Her body shuddered, her organs shivered inside her, her jaw trembled. The searing cold drew up her wrist, then stopped when he took his hand away. She looked closely at the wound. It was white and sealed over. Frozen.

“Can it thaw?” she said. “In front of a fire?”

“No. Never. It’s for always.”

Em realised that, despite the withdrawal of his icy touch, she was still very cold. “What about the rest of me? If I sit in the sun, will I feel more comfortable?”

“No, but now cold can never hurt you. You can’t die of it, or freeze off your toes. You needn’t fear the cold.” He tilted his head almost imperceptibly. “Nor will you ever feel warm again.”

Despite what he had said, she pulled her cloak around her tighter, as though it could help. “Maybe I will if I get back to Mir. Maybe enchantments can’t cross the veil.”

“I cannot answer with any certainty. Nobody I’ve touched has ever returned to Mir.” He nodded once, his black curls falling forward. “It’s time for me to go.”

“Wait! What about Daniel? The russalki?”

“You already have your gold’s worth of help. I don’t like to interfere with the russalki.”

“How can I help him?”

“Can you swim?”

She nodded.

“You needn’t be afraid of the icy depths of the river now. Just go and take him. They’re weak and stupid.” He extended his wings behind him. They beat slowly, sending a blast of cold air over her. “Goodbye. Until I see you again.” The wings flapped and he extended his arms along them. He coiled into a half-crouching position, then with a grunt launched himself upwards. It was an incredibly athletic movement, muscles and sinews flexing and contracting under his pale skin: a man’s movement, not a bird’s. Then the wings caught the air, they beat and he rose and flew up into the treetops, briefly blocking the sun, disappearing beyond her sight.

Em had the odd, unfamiliar sensation that she had lost something.

She pulled up her sleeve, looked at the wound again, touched it with her finger. Frozen solid. A cold ache drew down inside her, and she longed to sit in the sun and find a little warmth and comfort.

But that was gone forever.

Em returned to the campsite and kicked over the fire. She stripped off her cloak and left it behind. It made no difference to her body temperature, so she may as well be without it weighing her down. It was odd, the coldness inside her. As though she had swallowed a handful of snow, its chill prickles spreading out into her blood. Rather than her body regaining its heat with time, the twitch of cold lingered. She unconsciously pressed her shoulder blades towards each other, and a shiver fluttered through her again. Along with warmth, she had lost stillness.