The sound seemed to strike Morozko like fists, as though they would break him into snowflakes and send him whirling away. He shook; he did not answer.
“What is happening?” Vasya asked.
The talisman is destroyed, he might have told her. And frost-demons are not meant to love. But he did not say that. “Dawn,” Morozko managed. “I cannot exist anymore under the sun, in Moscow, not after midwinter, when the bells are ringing. Vasya, Tamara—”
The bell rang again, his voice died away.
“No. You cannot fade; you are immortal.” Vasya reached for him, caught his shoulders between her hands. On swift impulse, she reached up and kissed him. “Live,” she said. “You said you loved me. Live.”
She had surprised him. He stared into her eyes, old as winter, young as new-fallen snow, and then suddenly he bent his head and kissed her back. Color came into his face and color washed his eyes until they were the blue of the noonday sky. “I cannot live,” he murmured into her ear. “One cannot be alive and be immortal. But when the wind blows, and storm hangs heavy upon the world, when men die, I will be there. It is enough.”
“That is not enough,” she said.
He said nothing. He was not a man: only a creature of cold rain and black trees and blue frost, growing fainter and fainter in her arms. But he bent his head and kissed her once more, as though the sweetness of it struck a spark of something long since gone dim. But even as he did, he faded.
She tried to call him back. But day was breaking, and a finger of light crept through the clouds to illuminate the char and reek of the half-burnt city.
Then Vasya stood alone.
27.
The Day of Forgiveness
Sasha felt, disbelieving, the wind rise, saw the flames retreat and retreat again. Saw the snow blow up from nowhere and begin to fall. All around Dmitrii’s dooryard, voices were raised in thanksgiving.
Marya sat on Solovey’s withers, both small fists tight in the horse’s mane. Solovey snorted and shook his head.
Marya twisted to look up at her uncle. The sky was a deep and living gold, as the light of the great fire was smothered by the snow.
“Did Vasya make the storm?” Marya asked Sasha, softly.
Sasha opened his mouth to reply, realized that he did not know, and fell silent. “Come, Masha,” he said only. “I will take you home.”
They rode back to Olga’s palace through the deserted streets, with the muck of people’s flight slowly covered by fast-falling snow. Marya put out her tongue to taste the whirling snowflakes, and laughed in wonder. They could barely see their hands in front of their faces. Sasha, navigating the streets from memory, was glad to turn in to Olga’s gate, into the meager shelter of the half-deserted dooryard. The gate sagged open and many of the slaves had fled.
The dooryard was deserted, but Sasha heard the faint sound of chanting from the chapel. Well they might give thanks for deliverance. Sasha was about to dismount in the dooryard, but Solovey raised his head and pawed the slush.
The gate hung askew, its guards fled before the fire. A slender figure, alone, swaying, walked through it.
Solovey gave his deep, ringing neigh and jolted into motion. “Aunt Vasya!” Marya cried. “Aunt Vasya!”
Next moment, the great horse was nuzzling carefully over Vasya’s fire-smelling hair. Marya slid down Solovey’s shoulder and tumbled splashing into her aunt’s arms.
Vasya caught Marya, though her face went dead white when she did so, and lowered the child to the ground. “You’re all right,” Vasya whispered to her, holding her tight. Masha was weeping passionately. “You’re all right.”
Sasha slid from the stallion’s back and looked his sister over. The end of Vasya’s plait was singed, her face burned, her eyelashes gone. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she held herself stiffly. “What happened, Vasya?”
“Winter is over,” she said. “And we are all alive.”
She smiled at her brother, and began, in her turn, to cry.
VASYA WOULD NOT GO into the palace, would not leave Solovey. “Olga bade me go, and rightly,” she said. “She will not wish to see me again.”
And so Sasha reluctantly left his sister in the dooryard while he took Marya to find her mother. Olga had not fled the fire. Nor was she abed. She was in the chapel, praying with Varvara and her remaining women. They made a shivering, kneeling flock near the iconostasis.
But the second Marya’s foot stirred the threshold, Olga raised her head. She was pale as death. Varvara caught her, helped her rise, staggering. “Masha!” Olga whispered.