But I have never been one of them, not wholly. It’s this thought that guides my hand to the turul’s breast. It gives a trill, a peculiarly small sound, and its chest swells, feathers shifting like a quiver of dancing flames. If anyone is to kill the turul, perhaps it ought to be me, because of my tainted blood and my treacheries, not in spite of them.
Blood leaks down my fingers, sudden as spring. The turul wilts into my outstretched arms. From far, far below, someone screams.
I want to cling to the tree until my body freezes there, like a gruesome mortal lichen. Something in me has snapped; I can feel it. In my mind I can see Virág’s hut, where I first heard the story of the turul, just the smudged shape of it. And then the image curdles and blackens, as if someone has taken a match to parchment.
But my journey isn’t over. With trembling fingers, I pry loose a thread from my dress and use it to wrap the turul’s claws—scrolled tightly, stiffening in death—and then string it around my neck. It hangs down my chest like a gory talisman.
I can’t see the ground from here, only the fretwork of branches, needles bristling in the wind. Tears rim my lashes, blurring my vision. Saltwater tracks across my cheeks. All I can do is take one trembling step at a time, bracing my boot against the frost-limned branches. Another gust of wind howls past me, nearly snatching the turul away and up into the sky. I clutch it to my breast, a sob coiling in my throat.
Down, down, down. The moments trickle past me like water. Even my journey through Ezer Szem didn’t feel so long, my shoulders tensed with the knowledge of my destiny, with the knowledge that each step brought me nearer to death. Now my fate stretches out in front of me like a road in the dark, no pools of torchlight, no signal fires. I don’t know what waits for me at the end of this climb, if what I have done is enough.
Pine needles plaster to the blood on my face. The ground and the sky are both the same color, pure white, and I can’t tell if I’m getting nearer. I can feel the trunk begin to thicken, its knots growing fat with moss. My feet make their landing on a thin, willowy branch and it snaps, sending me careening through the fronds of pine, my vision smearing brown and green and white, until I manage to catch myself again. My heart is pounding a ragged melody.
And then, finally, black shapes in the distance. The silvery veil of Katalin’s hair, the brown hood of Szabín’s cloak. Tuula’s skirts pooling around her, a bright spot in the snow. The bear. I can just glimpse Gáspár, standing, shifting, and my whole body slackens with relief. Seeing him sharpens my focus, whetting my intent. I hold tight to the trunk and lower myself to the next tier of branches, snow shaking out under my feet.
Something else: more black smudges ghosting over the lake. I hear the heavy galloping of their horses, the rattling of chains, and my boots slide off the branch beneath me. Pine needles snatch at me as I fall, swiping across my cheek, catching on the fur wolf cloak. I scarcely have time to panic before the ground flies up at me.
When I land, pain echoing through my elbows and knees, I am staring at the black suba of a Woodsman.
There are twelve of them and twelve horses, and ropes and chains and a team of oxen dragging a wooden cart with a cage. The Woodsman before me bends down, and I recognize the mangle of his nose. Lajos. He takes the turul, where it is half-crushed under my chest, easily snapping the thread that tethers it to me. I make a low sound of protest, but the words get caught in my throat, blood pooling under my tongue.
Bierdna honks pitifully as the Woodsmen throw chains over her huge shoulders. Two of them close on Katalin, axes drawn. I search for Gáspár, stomach reeling with horror, and find him being ushered toward the cart, wrists bound behind his back.
Just like that, our days of searching, our nights spent huddled in the cold, Zsigmond and Yehuli Street vanishing behind me—it all turns to ash in my mouth. Lajos dusts the snow off the turul’s red feathers, then wraps it in burlap and stows it away.
Blood is dripping into my eyes. Some branch must have thrashed my forehead on the way down. Another Woodsman lifts me from the ground and coils rope around my wrists, my whole body throbbing with the ache of the climb and the fall.
“What does Nándor want with the turul?” I manage, blood slurring the words.
“Nándor?” Lajos gives a gruff shake of his head. “We’re here on the king’s orders, wolf-girl.”
I’m not sure whether to laugh or to weep. Through the bars of the cage, I see Gáspár lurch to his feet, reaching for me. And then the edges of my vision swell with blackness, and in another moment, I can see nothing more.